A candle illumined the Slayer’s face as he crouched to place the tray upon the floor. He had brought her a crust of bread, a wedge of cheese, and the goat’s milk. Saliva rushed into Clarise’s mouth, despite her anxiety. She prayed Dame Maeve had let the milk boil long enough.
Glancing at the Slayer, she found him staring at her. The shock of seeing both sides of his face left her speechless. A scar creased his left cheek, running from eye to jaw. The seam was smooth, telling her the wound was an old one and well tended. Yet it marred the perfect symmetry of his face. Some might say it made him ugly.
As though privy to her thoughts, a scowl pressed down on his forehead, carving menace into his features. Clarise looked away and murmured her thanks. Simon wailed.
“Supper is being prepared,” growled the mercenary. He straightened and stepped away to where the ring of light reached only to his shoulders. “You will eat again straightways. Please do hurry,” he urged. “My son is crazed with hunger.”
Clarise grabbed a chunk of bread and stuffed it in her mouth. The lord’s courtesy abated her terror just enough that she could feel how hungry she was. He stepped away from the alcove, leaving her in semiseclusion, but he didn’t leave the nursery. She heard him pause before the window, dominated by the dark of night.
She was truly in a quandary, now. She had managed to dump the sour milk outside the window, but she could scarcely refill the nursing skin with the Slayer in the same room. How, she wondered, would she get the fresh milk down the baby’s throat?
The seconds stretched by. The warlord remained by the window, presumably to give her privacy.
Simon sobbed until his tears dampened her bodice. With a feeling that none of this could be real, Clarise dipped a finger in the milk and offered it to the baby. He nuzzled the offering, then screamed when little came of his exertions.
“How goes it?” the Slayer demanded over Simon’s piercing note.
She heard him take a step toward the alcove, and she tensed with alarm. With no alternative, she tugged at the laces on her bodice. “All will be fine,” she assured him. For authenticity’s sake, she pushed the material apart and offered a breast to the inconsolable baby.
Simon fastened on so fiercely that she had to swallow a cry of pain. By some miracle, his enthusiasm silenced him. It felt strange indeed to have a baby tugging at her breast. He didn’t seem to mind that he was getting nothing from his efforts. To be held, to be pacified was enough for now.
Grateful for the momentary respite, Clarise let out a pent-up breath. Exhaustion swamped her. She sat more heavily on the three-legged stool and lifted the mug to taste the formula herself. She was pleased to note that it had been boiled for some time.
The crush of rushes under the sole of a boot had her pricking her ears. Clarise dragged her eyelids upward. The warlord stood an arm’s span away, his gray-green gaze on the pendant that lay between her naked breasts.
Chapter Three
The Slayer had joined her in the little alcove. Clarise gasped with surprise and promptly sucked milk down her lungs. She succumbed to a fit of coughing. With the flagon in one hand and the baby in the other, she stared helplessly up at the warlord, her eyes stinging.
“Will you be all right?” he asked as she wheezed for breath.
She swallowed hard. Nay, she would not be all right. She would be flayed for a fraud and a liar. He would see straight through her flimsy disguise to the ugly truth that brought her here.
He stood so close that the candle’s flame was doubly reflected in his eyes. His eyes saw everything. Clarise’s blood ran cold as she waited for judgment to come crashing down.
“He seems content,” he said, focusing again on the locket.
The words flowed over her, diluting her terror. God have mercy, had she actually deceived him? One knot at a time, her muscles relaxed.
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.