Was he looking at the pendant to avoid looking at her breasts? She glanced down to see how suspect the hollow ball appeared.

“ ’Tis unusual for a servant to wear jewelry,” he said, causing her heart to pound. “Is it gold?”

“Oh, nay,” she replied, hastily covering the locket with the fabric of her gown. “My mother gave it to me. ’Tis naught but bronze.”

“Your mother?” he repeated. “And who was she?”

Did his narrowed gaze betray suspicion? “Jeannie Crucis,” Clarise supplied. “She was a peasant.”

“Why is it you speak like a noblewoman?” he demanded.

She struggled to subdue her galloping heart. “My ancestors were Saxon nobles,” she told him, grasping at straws. “When the Normans seized our home, our family served them, learning their language.”

“You practiced speaking like a lady?”

There was genuine skepticism in his voice this time. “I’m a freed serf,” she insisted. But she knew that he did not believe her tale. She would stick to it as long as she had to, and then she would be gone. If she lived that long, the man before her would be dead.

“Whence do you hail?” he asked, giving her no time to think.

“From Glenmyre,” she answered, wishing he would cease his interrogation.

Glenmyre. The name rolling off the woman’s tongue sent Christian’s spirits plummeting. He turned away as shards of darkness wormed their way beneath his skin.

He resumed his place by the window, letting the night air take the edge off his self-incrimination. Genrose, his saintly wife, had died for his ambitions. Nineteen peasant women wept for the loss of their husbands. Glenmyre’s fields would go to seed without hands to farm it. He was a plague to them all. A Slayer who butchered the lambs.

Behind him, Clare Crucis shifted. Simon emitted a wail, one that was immediately muffled. The baby’s grunt of pleasure was followed by little sucking noises, sounds that tempted Christian to thank God out loud. Here, at last, was something good. He had been certain God would take his son from him. He’d expected it.

But an angel interceded on Simon’s behalf. Hope pulsed anew in his breast—not for himself, but for Simon’s future, Simon’s soul. Unless there was more to this angel than met the eye.

“Did your husband die defending Glenmyre from my attack?” he inquired. Silence exploded in the tiny chamber, and he feared he had his answer. The woman had a motive for vengeance.

“He . . . he died in a skirmish,” she finally answered.

Christian searched his mind. There had been several skirmishes at Glenmyre, but no loss of life until just recently. “He must have been in Ferguson’s slaughter, then,” he surmised, realizing the full extent of Clare’s suffering. Here was a widow of one of the slain peasants. “I am sorry I wasn’t there to prevent it,” he added awkwardly. “I was called away for the birth of my son.”

Clarise gnawed the inside of her lip. She’d told Sir Roger that her husband was not one of those unfortunate peasants. Should she correct the warlord’s assumption? Now that she considered it, it made sense to say her husband had been killed in Ferguson’s attack, for then it followed to reason that she would turn to the Slayer—her overlord—for protection and sustenance.

Christian waited for the woman to answer him. Perhaps she was too bereaved to speak. He pictured her bowed over his baby, overwhelmed by her recent loss. Guilt cut deeply into him. “The Scot has no respect for human life,” he growled. The words offered only hollow comfort. It was his fault the peasants were slain, but there was nothing he could do to bring her husband back.

The silence in the chamber grew oppressive. He longed to hear her honeyed voice again. Seldom did he come across a soul willing to converse with him. “Why did you journey south?” he prompted. “Why did you come to Helmesly?” It was a two-day walk from Glenmyre, perhaps farther. The road offered untold perils.

“I could stay no longer.” He was relieved to hear resignation in her tone and not weeping. “ ’Twas logical that I come to Helmesly, as you are now the ruler of Glenmyre. I came to . . . to serve you as I can.”

Her observation caused him to remember the fateful day he rode upon Glenmyre. Monteign’s forces had spilled over a hill without warning. There was no time for words, no time for explaining. Monteign thought he was defending himself from attack. He fought like a lion, ignoring the banner of peace that Christian’s flagman had frantically waved. Despite effort to subdue Monteign without undue bloodshed, the lord of Glenmyre had died and his soldiers had laid down their arms in surrender.

Ignorant of the warlord’s weighty thoughts, Clarise struggled to keep her eyes open. She sensed that the Slayer had finished questioning her. Miraculously she’d survived the initial round. With wildflowers sweetening the evening air and the rhythmic tugging at her breast, she was lulled into a false sense of security. Any moment now she might fall asleep.

Through the bloom of light at her feet, the warlord’s rasping voice reached her again. “I am sorry for the death of your lord, Monteign.”

She could not credit the quiet apology. She must have misheard him.

“I’d heard rumors of an alliance between Monteign and Ferguson. I only meant to question him about the matter.”

“An alliance?” Reality jarred Clarise to wakefulness. Her heart lurched against her breastbone.

“ ’Twas a marriage, between Monteign’s only son and Ferguson’s stepdaughter.”

Her stomach slowly twisted. Her scalp tingled. He couldn’t have guessed who she was already!

“I was told to confront Monteign and put an offer to him that was better than Ferguson’s. The sight of our soldiers must have confused him. He ambushed us as we came over the hill. We had no choice but to fight. He ignored our signal for a truce.”

Stunned, Clarise digested this new information. She’d always assumed that the Slayer had seized Glenmyre by force. This was the first she’d heard of an attempt at negotiations, but perhaps he was lying to her. Men’s recollections of battle were inevitably skewed.

“Tell me,” he added, sounding reflective. “What was Monteign like? What kind of lord was he?”

The question left her reeling. Did the Slayer feel remorse for his sins?

She summoned a picture of Alec’s father. “He was a father to his people,” she replied. “He was fair, yet stern with them. He was stubborn, too, and loyal to his friends.”

“And was he friends with Ferguson?”

She swallowed against the dryness in her throat. “I . . . I don’t know. I was only a servant. However, I . . .” Did she dare say more, to admit to any kind of knowledge? “I rather think he feared Ferguson more than anything.”

All at once it was quiet on the other side of the partition, and the quiet was profound.

“Dame Crucis, would you like fresh clothing?”

The question was the last thing Clarise expected. She was certain he had guessed who she was and was preparing to kill her.

Clothing? She looked down at her worn smock. “Please,” she replied, dazed that he would even concern himself.

She heard him move to the door. Straining to see beyond the alcove, she perceived the outline of his powerful frame.

“I expect you to sup with me once you’ve refreshed yourself. Bring my son with you.”

With that peremptory order, the shadow melted into the darkness, and Clarise was left alone with the baby. She pondered the words she’d shared with his father. No matter how she turned them over in her mind, she was left with one burning impression: The Slayer wasn’t the barbaric warrior she’d believed. His intelligence made him a double-edged sword. And something else . . . he seemed to actually have compassion and remorse—rare qualities indeed for a man of such fearsome repute.

How was she to poison such a man without losing her own life, or worse yet, her soul to eternal hellfire?

Christian shifted his legs under the table and encountered the wolfhound bellycrawling beneath it. The dog did not belong on the dais, but the presence at his feet was comforting. Since no one but the dog dared get so close, he let the interloper stay.

The discordant twangs bouncing off the ceiling drew his disbelieving gaze. Christian stared at the multicolored tunic of the minstrel and admitted he had erred. Three days ago he’d believed the presence of a minstrel would lighten the spirits of the servants. But the notes tumbling from the boy’s instrument were more of an irritant than entertainment. Christian tried to shut his ears to the noise. Now he knew why the hound hid beneath the table.

Shifting his attention to Peter, he wondered perversely what the page would drop tonight. Peter lived in terror of the seneschal’s temper, and his fear put him in peril of dropping the water bowl. Even now candlelight shivered on the water’s surface. If he dropped the bowl, the Slayer would yell. ’Twas a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Christian growled and glanced toward the gallery. No sign of the new nurse yet. Perhaps the servants had whispered his sins in her ears, and she cowered in her chamber, loathing the prospect of his company. What of it? Everyone feared him. It was inevitable that she would come to fear him, also.

Still, he thought, peering into the ale that was the color of her eyes, he hoped she wouldn’t. Her unflinching attitude was a novelty to him. It had been so long since anyone besides Sir Roger had told him what to do. Kindly leave us.

Could the woman really be a freed serf? She sounded like a bloody queen.

Now she was late for supper, exacerbating his desire to look at her again. He entertained himself by wondering which of her many attributes appealed most to him. Was it her eyes or her mouth? Her habit of chewing on her bottom lip had caused immediate stirrings in his loins. And those breasts! Ah, how he marveled at those full pale globes. He found himself irrationally jealous of his son, who got to suck on them.

Where was the wench? For that matter, where was his master-at-arms? Christian sat alone, insulated from his serfs by the rift that widened to unbreachable proportions after his lady’s passing. Genrose had visited the peasants’ cottages and tended to their needs. He could not compete with the devotion they were used to. He could not begin to emulate it.

He swirled his drink, feeling guilty for something that had been beyond his powers, irritable for the caterwauling coming from the minstrel’s lute. Several soldiers at the boards grumbled over supper’s delay.

At last Sir Roger sidled along the dais to take his seat beside the empty lady’s chair. He greeted Christian with his usual aplomb and held out his goblet to be filled.

Christian waited for what he thought was a reasonable span of time. “You wished to tell me something of the nurse, Saintonge?” he inquired casually.

Sir Roger sent a meaningful glance toward the musician. “How long are we going to put up with this?” he asked, ignoring his liege’s opening.

Christian didn’t want to discuss the minstrel. “Dismiss him tomorrow,” he said curtly. “What was it you were going to say about the nurse?” he asked, betraying his impatience.

“A veritable pearl in an oyster, eh, my lord?” Sir Roger stalled.

Christian checked his reply. With his wife not in the ground a week, it didn’t seem appropriate to comment one way or the other. But if Clare were a pearl, then Genrose might have been a slab of marble. He squashed the unkind thought.

“Did she tell where she is from?” Sir Roger added, his eyebrows nudging upward.

“Glenmyre,” Christian assented with a grunt.

“Yet you trust her with your son.” The knight watched his lord’s expression. “Her husband was killed in a skirmish, you know.”

Christian nodded his head. “He was one of the peasants Ferguson killed.”

Sir Roger gave him a funny look. “Nay, I asked her if that were so, and she denied it,” he retorted unexpectedly.

The noise from the lute faded into the background. Christian frowned and searched his memory. “She led me to believe such was just the case. That is why she came here, because she couldn’t bear to remain at Glenmyre any longer.”

Sir Roger’s gray eyes narrowed. “I’d say we have a slight discrepancy,” he said lightly. “What more did she tell you?”

“In her own words, she said she came to serve me, as I am now the ruler of Glenmyre.”

“Serve you?” the knight repeated, a hint of ribaldry in his eyes.

Christian ignored it, though in his mind’s eye he imagined her serving him in exactly the same way. “Is she suspect?” he asked his vassal. Sir Roger had a gift for sensing danger. If the woman were a spy, his man would soon know it.