“Did you take the blankets off my son?” he asked.
The question came unexpectedly, like a cut from a razor. “I’m sorry?” She didn’t understand.
“I found my son, just now, with no swaddling to warm him and no soiling cloth, either. He was naked and shivering.”
She stared dumbfounded at the warlord. With his face in shadow, she could make out only two features: his rock-hard chin and glowing eyes. He had spoken through his teeth.
The breath in Clarise’s lungs evaporated. “I swear to you, I left him swaddled in clean linens. He was sleeping contentedly.” Her thighs tensed with the urge to flee. “Lord de la Croix,” she gasped, picking up speed as she begged for mercy, “I swear it on my soul I would never hurt this babe. You must believe me! Someone else must have slipped into the nursery intending to harm him.”
A breeze blew softly through the window, and the torchlight brightened, revealing his face—one side like an angel’s, the other slashed from eye to jaw. He searched her face to see if she lied. Then he gave a little nod, as though accepting her word. “I will have your oath, Dame Crucis, that no harm will befall my son when he is with you,” he said, with far less violence. “I am surrounded by those who wish him ill. He is heir to the land that others covet.”
His words made her think of Ferguson. She considered, not for the first time, that the Scot would also want the baby dead, for Simon was the rightful heir to the seat of Helmesly. She looked down at the innocent infant, stricken by the thought of him murdered. Had Ferguson also sent someone to kill the baby?
She rebelled at the thought. “I will protect him with my life,” she heard herself say, and she found that she meant it.
Clarise grew suddenly aware that the Slayer’s thigh was touching her knee. She could feel the heat of him through the linen fabric of her skirts. This was far too intimate. She was boxed in a little room with a warrior who watched her every move. There was every chance that he would realize her deceit if she didn’t guard her words and actions carefully.
“Thank you for bringing Simon to my chamber,” she said, encouraging him to leave. “He will sleep in this room with me if you prefer.”
“I prefer it so,” said the warlord, giving her permission to move the cradle to her chambers.
She adjusted the baby, as though preparing to nurse, but the Slayer didn’t budge. “Since my son is content to be held, you should eat. You must have nourishment to feed him.” He stood up and retrieved a tray from the nearby chest.
Clarise noticed for the first time the aroma of pastry. Her gaze fell greedily to the meat pie in a crusty shell. To the side was a cup of Frumenty pudding. Her stomach gave a hollow rumble.
Hearing it, the Slayer flashed her the same brief smile she’d seen before and placed the tray by her bent legs. “Eat,” he invited, sitting more comfortably at the end of the mattress.
With the smile encouraging her, she attacked the food with gusto. Even while leaning over the now quiet baby, she managed to consume as much as her stomach could contain. She scraped the last bit of pudding from the cup and licked her spoon clean.
The warlord watched her every move with his gray-green eyes. Simon’s little fists clutched the fabric of her bodice, but for his part, the baby seemed content. Clarise eyed the goat’s milk—the only drink upon the tray. She was relieved not to have to ask for it again. But given the warlord’s vigilance, she feared she would have to drink it herself.
“My vassal swears that you are fond of goat’s milk,” he remarked.
“Very fond.” She smothered a burp. “However, I shall have to save it for later. I’m exceedingly full.”
“Wine, then,” he suggested, coming to his feet. “You must have something to drink.”
“I am fine, truly.” She wished he would simply leave the room. The man made her nervous.
“There is wine in the conservatory,” he insisted. “ ’Tis no trouble at all to fetch it.”
She watched with dismay as he left the chamber. Why was the Slayer so solicitous, she wondered, when he’d just questioned her about the care she’d given his son? A rash of goose bumps prickled her skin. Perhaps he meant to drug her with wine, first, and then he would question her.
She seized advantage of his absence to pull the nursing skin from beneath the pillow. She filled the vessel for a second time, having had success with it earlier. Then she put it back beneath the pillow and waited for the Slayer’s return. Her pulse tapped against her eardrums. She could hear no evidence of a guard standing outside the nursery door. What has become of Sir Gregory? she wondered.
At last she heard the unmistakable tread of the warlord. He stepped through the doorway, bearing an earthenware bottle and a silver goblet.
“Forgive me, lord,” she hastened to say, “but I was so thirsty I drank the milk after all. I’ve no need of wine, now.”
He halted in his tracks, his black brows sinking slowly over the ridge of his nose. Clarise cringed at her unfortunate timing. With torchlight licking over him, the man looked huge, dangerous, and angry. She was insane to think she could manipulate him.
“You will share it with me,” he insisted on a growl.
Simon responded to his father’s threat with a shriek. Clarise nearly smiled at the baby. “I have to feed your son,” she informed him, seizing the excuse.
He stalked to the high bed. “Then we will speak whilst you nurse him,” he insisted.
Her full stomach began to churn. Her deception would be put to the test again.
She laid the baby deliberately in the shadows and turned her back on the seneschal to loosen her bodice as before. Reclining by Simon, she pretended to latch him to a breast. Instead, she pulled the nursing skin from its hiding place and stuck the tip into Simon’s mouth, counting on the shadows to hide it. The baby latched on as eagerly as before.
Scarcely breathing, Clarise eyed the Slayer’s shadow, cast by torchlight onto the bed curtain before her. She saw him raise an arm, saw the wine’s reflection sparkle as he filled his goblet. Stoneware clinked against the floor. Then he propped a shoulder on the bedpost.
“Tell me something, Dame Crucis,” he murmured in a voice buttressed by determination. “Was your husband recently killed by Ferguson, as you led me to believe, or was he slain in a different skirmish? Or could it be you lied on both accounts?”
The cool inquiry turned her cold, then hot. Mercy, but it hadn’t taken them long to notice the discrepancy. She cursed herself for not sticking to her original story. Now he would question her until she broke down and told the truth. Her disguise was a flimsy one indeed.
“I never had a husband,” she admitted, seeing that option as the best solution to her needs.
“Ah.” He sounded happy to hear it. “Then what brings you here?” he finally asked.
Panic fluttered up and down her spine. “I told you, I could stay at Glenmyre no longer.”
“Why?” he asked predictably.
“I was ashamed,” she said, making up her answers as she went along. Luckily, this little bit seemed to fit.
“Ashamed to bear a child out of wedlock?” he asked mildly.
“Aye.”
“What line of work did you do before?” This was asked in almost pleasant tones.
Clarise relaxed a bit. The warlord was certainly more sociable than she’d imagined him to be. “Well, I was, er, a reading tutor,” she replied. She winced the moment the words were out, for she’d never heard of a woman performing such work.
“Is that why you speak French so well?”
“I studied French at a convent.” ’Twas logical, she told herself.
“Which one?”
“St. Giles,” she said firmly. She’d made the name up.
“I’ve never heard of St. Giles, though my mother is the Abbess of St. Cecily.”
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, refusing to mire her any deeper. His mother was a nun? Nay, she must have misheard him.