A very big and powerful warrior-man. She grew suddenly aware of his hard, honed body hovering over her.

“Very clear, my lord,” she whispered, her voice deserting her.

“In exchange for your service to my son, you will enjoy my protection,” he added. “You will sleep on this feathered bed, eat in my hall, and wear the gowns that I give you. Do you question this arrangement?”

“Nay.” She could hardly see past him for the breadth of his shoulders. His arms bulged on either side of her. His neck was thick and corded with muscle. Ferguson wouldn’t stand a chance against him, came the errant thought.

He flashed her his unexpected smile. “Good,” he said, looking suddenly more intent. His gaze shifted to her mouth.

It was then Clarise remembered that her bodice was unlaced. So did he. His gaze traveled lower, where the tight material thrust her full breasts upward. The breath wedged deep in her throat. He did not bother this time to keep his gaze on the pendant. In reaction to his hot stare, her nipples crowned. She couldn’t help it.

“By God, you would tempt a man to madness,” he muttered.

The words sobered her instantly. Did he think she was tempting him? She lifted hands to his shoulder and pushed with agitation, but he didn’t budge.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, taking note of her reaction. The baby curled his fists in her hair and screamed. “Ah, Simon wants you to himself,” he concluded, seeing her wince.

To her melting relief, he lifted himself a fraction higher. Then, just as she expected him to step off the bed, he dipped his head. Clarise’s eyes flew wide. In a gesture as shocking as it was unexpected, he rasped his tongue over her nipple.

Once.

Lightning shot up her spine. She gasped, drawing back into the mattress. The Slayer straightened from the bed. He looked as dazed by his temerity as she was. Dull red color crept toward his cheekbones. “We will speak again,” he warned, falling back on bluster. “And I will have honest answers from you next time.”

With a scowl gathering on his forehead, he retrieved the goblet and pitcher and exited the chamber.

Clarise watched the open doorway in the event that the Slayer returned. To pacify the unhappy baby, she retrieved the nursing skin, which was thankfully unharmed, and stuck it in his mouth. The pendant swayed momentarily against her arm, reminding her again of the nightmare she’d awakened from. She realized with astonishment that she could never bring herself to poison the Slayer.

The man was too decent, too clever, too virile to be dispatched at an early age. He’d had the opportunity to take her by force, and he’d restrained himself. Ferguson would never have let such an opportunity pass. She could not kill the Slayer—not even to save the lives of those she loved.

Dazed by the revelation, Clarise watched little Simon suckling happily, unknowing of all the evil in the world. She’d gotten herself deep into a cover that served no purpose at all but to give her shelter and food. Yet she couldn’t leave now, not when the baby needed her. There had to be another way!

She would try to contact Alec one more time. Alec owed her a boon for abandoning her at the altar. As soon as she got word to him, Alec would raise an army on her behalf and challenge Ferguson’s right to Heathersgill. Alec would be her champion yet. She had not given up on him.

It was well past dawn when Clarise awoke. She had missed the morning meal. She had slept until the sun rose high enough to leap the outer wall and pierce the crack between the bed drapes. She opened one eye and groaned. Alas, it was not a dream.

She was dwelling in the castle of the Slayer. The welfare of the future baron rested on her narrow shoulders. She had her work cut out for her, given the number of times Simon had awakened for a feeding.

And if that were not enough, her virtue was also at stake. The memory of the Slayer’s caress made her groan again. He’d made it shockingly clear that he desired her. And though she knew in her heart that she could never poison him, she had no intention of becoming the Slayer’s lover. The mere thought made her break out in a sudden sweat. She kicked off the covers to relieve the heat.

There was no denying reality. She had wedged herself into a situation from which there was little chance of escaping unscathed, unless she dared admit who she was. To do that was sheer foolery. Given the antipathy between the Slayer and the Scot, she would quickly become the Slayer’s hostage. He would think he had the upper hand until he learned that Ferguson wouldn’t pay a shilling for her return. Ferguson would then do what he’d threatened in the first place—hang her mother and sisters in the courtyard.

Since forcing her mother into marriage a year ago, the Scot had taken all that he wanted from Jeanette, and then cast her aside. The marriage had given him the legitimacy he needed to rule Heathersgill without the peasants’ revolting. Now that he’d established his foothold, Jeanette and her daughters were dispensable.

With her eyes still closed, Clarise drew her strength from the knowledge of their desperate plight. Jeanette was likely in her rose garden this morning, where she drifted like a wraith among the bloodred blooms. Since her beloved Edward’s death, she’d been mad with grief, scarcely sparing a thought for her three daughters.

Merry, of course, would be hiding in the woods outside the castle walls, where she would not fall prey to Ferguson’s men-at-arms. In the forest she sought poisonous herbs for her herbal. Clarise was not the only one who plotted Ferguson’s demise, but the wily Scot had all his food tasted before a morsel ever passed his lips. Merry had only succeeded in poisoning a number of men-at-arms.

Kyndra, who was six, was the only daughter who seemed oblivious to the changes in their lives since Ferguson first killed their father. Covered in filth and grime, Kyndra would be playing in the buttery with the servants’ children.

Clarise drew a deep breath and let it out again. Somehow, some way, she would find a means to save them all. But she would not sell her soul to the devil to do it. She would not poison the Slayer of Helmesly.

Nor could she tell him who she was. As long as the warrior believed she nursed his son, she was safe. She would stick to her flimsy disguise and pray that he would question her no further. Simon seemed content to drink the goat’s milk, and all she had to do was ensure a steady supply for him while endeavoring to reach Alec.

Clarise whipped back the bed curtain and put her feet to the floor. The sight of a tray inside her door gave her pause. It was laden with cheese and bread and—God be praised—milk for Simon. She rubbed a grain of sleep from one eye. The necessity of finding the source of the goat’s milk could be put off for a little while. First she would tend to the matter of reaching Alec.

The baby awoke at the sounds of her stirring. She fed him the milk until he burped with repletion. Then she changed his soiling cloth, adjusted his swaddling, and viewed her own reflection in a square of hammered steel.

Dark circles rimmed her eyes. Her hair was a tangled mess and her gown wrinkled from wearing it to bed. While her vanity protested, she knew she would be safer this way. She looked the part of a harried nurse, not a tempting female. The Slayer would look elsewhere to assuage his amorous needs.

Thrusting aside the memory of his tongue at her breast, she left the room with his baby in her arms and hailed the first person to cross her path. “Good morrow,” she called to a girl staggering under a load of clean linens.

Rays of sunlight poured through the crossloops, splashing warmth onto the folded sheets. Blue eyes set in a pretty face peered around the pile. “Ye art the new nurse!” the girl exclaimed in the English tongue.

“Dame Crucis,” Clarise supplied. “You may call me Clare.” Instantly she saw the resemblance between this girl and the one who’d tended Simon earlier.

“I am Nell,” the girl said eagerly. “Me sister Sarah gives thanks that ye haffe come.” Her gaze fell to Simon. “Sarah raised all eight of us when oure mum and da died. But not e’en Sarah knew how to comfort the wee master. ’Tis a miracle ye haffe wrought. Ye saved me sister from a fate most dire.”

The word dire hung in the air between them. Clarise glanced down the deserted hallway and stepped closer to the girl. “What happens when the Slayer is angry?” she whispered, recalling the sharpness in the warlord’s eyes. “Does he . . . maim his servants?”

The color drained from Nell’s round cheeks. “Sarah tol’ me ne’er to speak on it!” she whispered back. “Pardon, madam. Dame Maeve wille be sore vexed with me, do I tarry longer.” She slipped past Clarise with her teetering load.

Struck by the girl’s palpable fear, Clarise nearly forgot her purpose in questioning her. “Just a moment,” she called out, halting the maid at the stairs. “Can you tell me the way to the chapel? I missed matins this morning.”

Nell cast her gaze to the floor. “The chapel is in the forebuilding, but it hast ne been used since Our Ladyship wed the lord,” she admitted, clearly crushed by that circumstance.

Clarise kept her disappointment guarded. “You mean, there’s no priest here?” She required a priest to convey her message to Alec. Merry’s blood! Her spirits took an abrupt downward turn.

The girl sadly shook her head.

“Well, how do you confess?”

Nell brightened. “The Abbot of Revesby visits Rievaulx once a week. We confess to him.”

“The Abbot of Revesby comes to Rievaulx? But there’s already an abbot at Rievaulx.”

“Aye, but he ne speaketh English like the Abbot of Revesby doth.”

Clarise had doubts about enlisting an abbot’s help. “Is this Abbot of Revesby a kindly man?” she asked, recalling the malignant glimmer in the Abbot of Rievaulx’s black eyes.

“A truly holy man, he be. He hath many differences with the Abbot of Rievaulx,” Nell added, seeing her wary expression. “Would ye like to come with us on Friday? Most folk walken to Abbingdon to hear his words.”

So there was a way to contact Alec, but it would take some time. “I would like to come with you,” Clarise replied, though she had doubts that the Slayer would let her go. Hadn’t she sworn to keep vigilant watch over Simon?

Thanking the laundry maid, Clarise bid her good day and followed a wing of the castle toward the east tower. With no luck in enlisting the aid of a priest, she tackled the next most pressing need: finding the source of the milk Simon drank. She couldn’t ask for a mug every time the baby hungered.

The more Clarise wandered, the more the size of Helmesly impressed itself on her mind. It had been built to house the king and all his men, should the baron be blessed by King Stephen’s presence. Yet as she peered into the guest chambers, she found them all wanting. The beds had been stripped of their drapes. The embroidered cushions had been plucked from the chairs. The chests were gutted. The torch holders were devoid of torches. Had the goods been sold to pay for weapons? she wondered.

She found herself comparing Helmesly with her own ravaged home. Ferguson had set fire to the hall one day while brawling with his second-in-command. The roof now had holes that the rain poured through, a circumstance that pained her heart whenever she thought of it.

In her father’s day Heathersgill had been a lovely stronghold, built at the highest point of the Cleveland Hills, making sieges almost impossible. The only way to take the keep was by trickery. And that was how Ferguson had come to claim it for himself.

If her father could see what had become of their home, she thought, her heart compressed with grief. If he saw his lovely wife, wasted to a skeleton, her hair cut to jagged lengths, his ghost would haunt the wall walks.

If something should ever happen to me, he’d often told Clarise, protect your mother and sisters as best you can. He’d raised her much like a son, which explained why he had laid such a burden at her feet. And he could never have predicted that his death would come so soon, while Clarise was yet a maid with no husband to call upon for military might. Nonetheless, she felt that she had failed him. Oh, she’d failed him.

If there had been any way to stop Ferguson from overtaking the keep, she would have done it. But with a false smile and a humble request for shelter, the Scot had wormed his way into the gates. No one had suspected his intent to poison the lord, then sever Edward’s head from his body. Ferguson had raped Clarise’s mother, then laid claim to the castle himself. No one could have stopped him. Still, Clarise blamed herself for the ruination of her family and her home.