Horror followed in the wake of amazement. Why would the nun want such a man to raise her child? And yet this tale explained why the Slayer was a man of contradictions, a fascinating blend of good and evil. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why give you up to him?”
His jaw muscles bulged. “She thought he would change for the better once he knew me.” A frosty look entered his eyes, and she knew he was reliving painful memories.
It took little insight to realize the Wolf had mistreated his son. Clarise felt for the boy he was then. Every child deserved a father like her own, a man who had doted on his daughters and adored his wife. “I’m so sorry for you,” she told him, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes. She blinked them back, surprised by the depth of her empathy.
The Slayer gave her a searching look. “You need not pity me,” he said, straightening his spine. “I had the benefit of a good education, and my father, despite his failings, made me strong. Without his training I would not have become a master-at-arms here.” He gave her a grimace that was meant to pass as a smile, then he applied himself to finishing his letter.
With her heart pounding, Clarise realized the time had come to tell the truth. Surely this man was capable of mercy, for that was a virtue his mother would have taught him. She would begin by telling him how her own father had been slain, and then he would know that she had no allegiance to Ferguson. Other than her lies, she had nothing to be ashamed of. She’d refused to poison the Slayer, and she had brought Simon from the brink of starvation. The Slayer’s punishment, if any, was bound to be light, she reasoned.
The warrior’s tongue appeared at the edge of his lip. Seeing it, Clarise’s stomach performed a cartwheel. She remembered the banked desire smoldering in his eyes. What would it be like to be kissed by him? she wondered, distracted from her resolution.
He glanced up in time to catch her considering look. It was too late to disguise the direction of her gaze. A smile kicked up the edges of his mouth. “Did I swear you would be safe with me?” he inquired, his eyes sparkling.
Her voice deserted her, and she gave a jerky nod.
“Pity.” He looked down again, melting wax to form a seal.
The lightness of his tone was unexpected. Clarise gave a laugh that was half relief, half amusement. Suddenly she was not afraid to tell him anything—even that she’d substituted goat’s milk for the precious breast milk she was unable to give.
With a shy smile he looked up at her. “I like you, lady,” he admitted, astonishing her with his honesty.
Flustered and beset with guilt, she could say nothing by way of reply. She realized, suddenly, that Simon was stirring. From the bundle at her hip rose a garbled cry. It wasn’t like any other cry she’d heard from him before. Clarise plucked the blanket off the baby, giving him air.
Simon did not look happy. With concern knifing through her, she touched her fingers to his cheek.
“What is it?” the Slayer demanded, noting her expression. He rose to his feet and peered down into the sling at his son.
It was worse than she feared. Simon’s skin was burning to the touch, his face beet-red with fever. “God’s mercy,” she whispered. “He has taken ill!”
She looked up in time to see the warlord’s Adam’s apple rise and fall. He put his hands out. “Let me have him,” he demanded.
Keeping the full nursing bladder out of sight, she wedged her hands beneath the baby and passed him carefully to his father. Simon’s eyes were opened but glazed. Again, he issued a cry that sent anxiety twisting through Clarise’s heart. “What can we do?” she begged, raising an uneasy gaze to the Slayer’s face.
Only once before had she seen such a stricken look on a man. Her father had worn that look the moment he realized he’d been poisoned.
“From the cold,” the Slayer rasped, staring down at his son. “The other night, when I found him naked . . . he was so cold.”
“Yet he has thrived since then,” she pointed out, touching Simon’s burning cheek.
“Someone in this castle is responsible,” the warlord growled. He sounded capable of killing with his bare hands. He glanced up at her then, his eyes now an icy gray. “You have reason to avenge me,” he accused.
She threw her arms around her body, feeling suddenly defenseless. How could he think she would harm Simon—or any baby? My God, she had just been on the verge of telling him who she was! If he reacted so rashly to Simon’s illness, what would he have done had she confessed her true identity?
“I did not do this,” she said succinctly. She looked the Slayer squarely in the eyes. “Now, what can we do for him? Can we send for a physic?”
He dismissed her suggestion with a shake of his head. “I trust no one in these parts,” he said shortly.
“Not even a wise woman from the village? A midwife mayhap?”
At the mention of the midwife, his eyes flared with outrage. “The midwife gets her herbs from the abbey. The scourge may spread from there to here. Nay!” he thundered. “I will care for him here. I will bring his cradle to my room and watch over him. You will stay with me until he is well again.”
The underlying threat was plain. Until the baby recovered, she would remain suspect in the Slayer’s eyes. Inwardly she cringed. This was the side of him that terrified his servants and made him a lonely man.
“Of course I will,” she retorted, defying his temper as her own anger flared. “But we must have medicine to save him. The illness has to be purged from his body. We cannot save him alone.”
“What do you suggest we do?” he snarled.
Beneath the blustering tone, she heard a thread of desperation and she answered more reasonably. “I will ask Nell or Sarah what they know of healing. Those two are loyal to Simon; I know it.”
“Go fetch them, then.” He skewered her with a warning look. “But you’d best come back,” he threatened.
She whirled on him, her entire body trembling with distress. “I happen to love your son,” she countered, her voice breaking on the final word. With that, she raced through the door to find help. For love alone she would do all that she could to ensure that the baby lived. Only then might she herself be saved.
Christian was used to sleepless nights. More times than he could count, he’d stood watch beneath the heavens and not succumbed to drowsiness. The Wolf had molded him into a disciplined soldier. Like a smithy, he had hammered his son into an instrument that felt neither pain nor deprivation. The Wolf had taught him that mercy to the enemy could be fatal, that might prevailed, and morality was the great tormenter of souls.
In one hideous night’s work Christian had implemented every tool of war that the Wolf had taught him. He had killed his father in his very own bedchamber. He had slaughtered the Wolf’s men who came after him. He had set fire to Wendesby, and the smoke had killed both women and children. At the time he’d felt no remorse, only blinding fury. That was the night he had learned the Wolf was his father—a vicious, war-loving Dane.
Remorse had found him before the dawn. Fury faded in a matter of hours. Now the screams of innocents haunted him nightly. His soul bled with remorse for the slaughter committed by his hand. And sleep was no longer a refuge for him, but a place of anguish.
His envious gaze fell to the sleeping nurse. Lady Clare suffered no affliction like his. After hours of silent vigil, she had wilted onto the floor beside the baby’s box, her head resting on an out-flung arm. Her body was curved around Simon’s cradle as though protecting him, even in her sleep.
Christian gazed at her in the light of the sputtering tallow lamps, and his bitterness softened at the miracle of what he saw. This woman was no enemy. She could not have been the one to steal the covers off his son. In the past twelve hours she, Nell, and Sarah had devoted themselves to Simon’s welfare. Fear was not their motivation, but rather love.