He looked away to locate Simon. Approaching the cradle, he studied the rise and fall of his baby’s back. Clarise had found just enough time to feed him before Nell’s arrival with the gowns.
“So peaceful,” he remarked in an envious tone. He lifted his gaze and caught her curious regard. “I came to apologize,” he admitted unexpectedly.
She cut him short. “Lord Christian, you have been most generous with me. Please, don’t . . .” apologize! She felt her neck grow warm with shame. All she had done was further deceive him.
He stepped to the window where a family of pigeons roosted on a jutting ledge. A green-necked pigeon hobbled along the corbel. “You must think me little better than Monteign,” he added, frowning at the bird.
It took her a moment to realize he was talking about the caress he’d placed on her breast. It was hardly the same as forcing a woman against her will. In stammering words she told him so.
He glanced at her and looked away again. “I see no difference,” he said, unforgiving of his own actions. She wondered briefly if that was the cause of his previous anger. “There is something else I want you to know.”
Her eyes were drawn briefly to his scar as he clenched his jaw. “What is it?” she asked, watching him closely.
“I didn’t kill my wife.”
The statement was so stark that she froze in the face of it.
“I know what my servants have told you,” he continued, breaking away to pace the length of the chamber. Darkness seemed to settle over him, though perhaps it was just a cloud blotting the sunlight. “They told you that I cut her open while she still breathed. Is that not so?” He paused and looked at her. The crease between his eyebrows had taken up permanent residence.
Clarise said the only words that came to mind. “Why are you telling me this?” She was baffled by the man’s intentions.
“You said you were trying to understand me.”
So she had. And she was beginning to do just that. He was a lonely man, indeed, if her opinion meant that much. The hunger that had been in his eyes before returned as he approached her, stopping just an arm’s reach away.
“I didn’t kill her,” he repeated, his searching gaze begging her to believe him. “She stoped breathing, and then I cut Simon free.”
Clarise swallowed heavily at the vision his words created. “I believe you,” she said, quite sure he wasn’t lying. After all, why would he kill the woman who gave him and his son legitimacy?
“Nor did I mean to kill Monteign,” he added, almost as if he were seeking absolution for all his sins. “I told you that he ambushed us as we came to Glenmyre to strike a peaceable agreement.”
She looked at his face, at the hope shining in his eyes. “And the minstrel?” she prompted. “Was that also an accident?”
“Yes!” he said, with controlled intensity.
She shook her head and looked away. “You ask much of me, lord, if you wish me to believe you blameless in all this.” Especially considering he’d admitted to killing his own father, she added silently.
“I never said that I was blameless,” he added, more subdued.
Clarise glanced back at him. There was something about the Slayer that she couldn’t put her finger on. Something eluded her still.
“Why did you come here for protection?” he asked her suddenly. “Why not Monteign’s ally, Ferguson?”
She flinched at the mention of Ferguson’s name. “Ferguson was not an ally,” she replied as neutrally as possible. “Monteign feared him, just as he feared you.”
“But Monteign was willing to ally himself with Ferguson. He would have seen his own son wed to Ferguson’s stepdaughter.” His gaze narrowed as he added, “You said you knew nothing of it the other night,” he accused.
She wondered if he could see the pulse hammering at the base of her neck. “I will tell you what I know,” she promised. “The betrothal had been arranged years ago by Monteign and Ferguson’s predecessor, Edward DuBoise. Ferguson found it convenient to acknowledge it, as it would gain him an ally and a surer foothold in the region. Thanks to your . . . intervention, the wedding never took place.”
He frowned at her, perhaps astute enough to hear the bitterness behind her words. His gaze followed the sweeping sleeves of her gown. “You look lovely in that. Like a true lady.” His voice took on a regretful timbre. “But such is your birthright. Your nobility cannot be taken away from you no matter what . . .” He trailed off.
No matter what anyone does to me, she finished his sentence silently. For him, a bastard, such issues of birthright and nobility were clearly often on his mind.
He moved awkwardly to the window, giving her the chance to breathe again. She marveled at his change in attitude toward her. Whereas before he was watchful and wary, he was now incredibly forthcoming, even friendly with her. Any moment now she expected him to offer her a place as his mistress. She hoped he would not be furious when she refused him.
“My wife wore naught but gray.”
Clarise searched her mind for an appropriate response to the unexpected admission. “The servants speak highly of her,” she replied, clasping her hands before her.
The mercenary gazed out at the flower-dotted meadow. “She was a saint,” he quietly divulged. “She wanted to be a nun, but as her father’s only child, ’twas up to her to produce an heir.”
Clarise heard more in his words than what he was actually saying. “Such is the lot of a noblewoman,” she pointed out, implying that nobility didn’t come without a price.
She ran a gaze over the warlord’s powerful back and long legs. His virility struck her anew as he planted his feet apart and squared his shoulders. Genrose must have been terrified to wed him. Clarise felt suddenly sorry for Simon’s mother, as well as the warrior. Their joining must have been painful for them both.
With his next sentence the Slayer confirmed her conclusions. “She was afraid of me,” he admitted. He turned around, leaning a shoulder against the shutters. “She allowed me my husbandly right just once. That was the night that Simon was conceived.”
Clarise’s eyebrows rose toward her hairline. In her mind’s eye she pictured the mercenary taking his marital rights with the pristine Genrose. He would have waited patiently for the daughter of a nobleman to be ready and then . . . but instead, she saw herself, lying flat on her back as his dark head came down, his mouth licking fire at her breasts, his thighs spreading hers. Her knees went weak to the point that she feared they would give out completely. “Why you?” she asked, shifting the focus of their conversation slightly. “Her father might have wed her to someone else.” As soon as she said it, she realized it was a mistake.
“Someone with better lineage, you mean,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “You wonder how a bastard like me came to marry a baron’s daughter.”
The savagery in his tone did not frighten her as much as it had before. “The thought did cross my mind,” she admitted frankly.
He eased his backside onto the window ledge. “The Baron of Helmesly had no sons, as I said. Yet he balked at the idea of leaving his lands to the Church, since he disliked the Abbot of Rievaulx so intensely. I was already safeguarding his lands as his master-at-arms. ’Twas a logical step to consider me for his daughter. He reasoned, should anything happen to him, that it would take a strong arm to protect the baronetcy for his grandson and heir.”
Clarise inclined her head. “That is sound reasoning,” she agreed. She touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip. “However, there is a rumor,” she dared to add, “that you had the baron killed while he was away on pilgrimage.” She watched the Slayer’s reaction carefully.
The look in his eyes became downright frosty. “I have no ambition to be Baron of Helmesly,” he informed her. “That right belongs to my son.”