"So that he could marry my mother, do you think?" Hugh forced himself to keep his voice utterly calm and detached. But an unfamiliar surge of emotion flooded his veins. Mayhap his father had intended to claim him.
"Aye." Alice's eyes were warm and gentle. "I believe that is very likely the case, my lord."
Hugh looked at her and knew that she understood everything. He did not have to try to explain what her news meant to him. As usual, Alice comprehended his meaning without his having to find the words.
"And Katherine retaliated by poisoning my parents." Hugh released the edges of the parchment and watched as it slowly rerolled itself. "She murdered them."
"So it would seem."
"It is as though the history of my life was just rewritten," he whispered.
" 'Tis a great sin that the truth was hidden all these years."
"When I think of how I was taught from the cradle to hate all things Rivenhall—" Hugh broke off, unable to finish the sentence.
I will not forget, Grandfather.
Hugh felt as though the mighty stone pillars upon which his entire existence was founded had suddenly shifted beneath him.
His father had returned from France with the intention of wedding the mother of his babe. He had not seduced and then abandoned young Margaret of Scarcliffe.
"Just as Sir Vincent was taught to hate you," Alice said quietly, breaking into Hugh's reverie.
"Aye. It would seem that both families and these lands have paid a heavy price because of her crime." Hugh met Alice's eyes and forced himself to contemplate the present situation with some degree of logic. "But why did Katherine wait until today to try to poison me? Why did she not use her foul brew when I first arrived to claim Scarcliffe?"
Alice's brows came together in a frown of concentration. "I am not entirely certain. There are many questions that remain unanswered in this matter."
" 'Twould have been much easier to murder me weeks ago." Hugh tapped the rolled-up parchment against the desktop. "The household was very disorganized. There would have been numerous opportunities for a poisoner and no one about who possessed the skill to save me. Why wait?"
Alice pursed her lips. "Mayhap she took some satisfaction in the feud itself. As long as it persisted she could sip from the cup of discord and strife that she had created."
"Aye."
"Katherine may have been angered by the visit of Sir Vincent and his family yesterday. Everyone saw you and Vincent ride together through the village."
"Of course." Hugh wondered why that had not occurred to him immediately. He did not seem to be thinking clearly at all at the moment. The news of his past was having an unsettling effect on his powers of reason. "She would likely have viewed it as the first step toward ending the hostility between Scarcliffe and Rivenhall."
"Aye." Alice drummed her fingers on her knee.
"What troubles you?"
"I still cannot comprehend why she fed poison to the monk. It makes no sense."
"We shall likely never know unless we find her." Hugh got to his feet with sudden decision. "And I intend to do just that." He started around the edge of his desk.
"Where are you going, my lord?"
"To speak with Dunstan. I want Scarcliffe searched from border to border. The poisoner cannot have gotten far on foot. If we move quickly she will be found before the storm breaks."
A crack of thunder and a flash of lightning put an end to that plan even before Hugh had finished speaking.
"Too late, my lord."
"Damn it to the pit." Hugh went to the window.
The wind and rain struck with great force, whipping the black walls of Scarcliffe Keep and the cliffs behind it with blinding intensity. The torches would be useless in such a gale. Hugh seethed with a savage frustration as he closed the shutters.
"Never fear," Alice said. "You will find her in the morning."
"Aye," Hugh vowed. "I will find her."
He turned to see Alice watching him closely. Her gaze was shadowed with grave concern. Concern for him. This was the way she looked when she was anxious about someone who was important to her, he thought. Someone whom she loved.
His wife.
He was briefly enthralled by the simple fact that she was sitting right here in his study. Her skirts pooled gracefully around her feet. The glow of the brazier heightened the dark flames in her hair. Hair the color of a sunset just before it is enveloped by the night.
His wife.
Today she had saved his life and provided him with the truth about his own past.
She had given him so much.
Another rush of emotion cascaded through Hugh. The force of it was more powerful than the wild winds that scoured Scarcliffe this night.
He could not name the feeling that welled up inside him but it filled him with a deep longing. He suddenly wished with all his soul that he had a new list of fine compliments handy. He needed Julian's elegant words. He wanted to say something memorable, something a poet would say. Something as beautiful as Alice herself.
"Thank you," he said.
Hours later in the warmth of his great bed, Hugh leaned over Alice and drove himself into her softness one last time. He felt the delicate shivers first. Her soft, clinging warmth tightened around him. Then he heard her breathless cry of release.
For an instant he knew a dazed feeling of awe and gratitude. He was not alone in the storm. Alice was with him. He could touch her, feel her, hold on to her. She was a part of him.
The shatteringly intense awareness passed as quickly as it had come upon him. Once again he was lost in the sweet, radiant glow of Alice's passion. It swept him up and carried him aloft. He surrendered to the wild winds with a hoarse, muffled shout of satisfaction and wonder.
Here in the darkness with Alice he did not have to control the storm. Instead, he rode it with the freedom of a great hawk to a place where the past no longer cast shadows.
When it was over he lay quietly for a long time, luxuriating in the pleasure of having Alice next to him.
"Hugh?"
"Aye?"
"You are not asleep."
He smiled into the darkness. "Neither are you, it would seem."
"What deep thoughts keep you awake at this late hour?"
"I was not thinking. I was listening."
"To what?"
"To the night."
Alice was silent for a few seconds. "I hear nothing."
"I know. The winds have quieted and the rain has stopped. The storm is finished."
" 'Tis a strange day." Joan halted at the convent gatehouse. She folded her hands into the sleeves of her habit and gazed pensively into the thick shroud of fog that clung to Scarcliffe. "I shall be glad when it is done."
"You are not the only one who will welcome the end of this matter." Alice tucked her mother's handbook under her arm and adjusted the hood of her mantle. "I confess some small part of me prays that Lord Hugh will not find the healer."
Hugh had left at dawn to hunt for Katherine. He had taken Benedict and virtually every able-bodied man in the keep with him. There had been no word from him since he had departed.
Restless, anxious, and filled with a deep unease, Alice had prowled the halls of Scarcliffe Keep until she could no longer abide her own company. With a view toward occupying herself in a useful endeavor, she had taken her mother's herb handbook and walked into the village.
There had been work enough in the convent infirmary. When she had finished dispensing cough remedies and tonics to ease joint pains, Alice had joined the nuns for midday prayers and a meal.
"I understand," Joan murmured. " 'Twould be easier if Katherine simply vanished but that is not likely."