Danger’s Promise

by Marliss Moon

  “Blood of the Saints, wench!” he shouted. “Cease this infernal sniveling and think of something else. My son is starving. Will you listen to his cries!”

  “M’lord, I’ve done naught else for the last ten hours,” whimpered the servant in Anglicized Norman. “He ne wille take the milk. I’ve tried it for days, now. Please ask nay more of me.”

  “You will scrub the garderobes for the rest of your life if you fail to make him drink!”

  Clarise pitied the poor woman, but at the same time the distress in the Slayer’s tone was palpable. No father, good or evil, would want his son to die.

  Sir Roger chose that moment to propel her through the open door. “Lord Christian,” he called over the din. “Your troubles are over, sire. This is the nurse you bade me find. Clare Crucis.”

  Clarise skidded to a halt before the most enormous creature she had ever seen. Her first instinct was to draw back, and she trod Sir Roger’s toe as he barred the exit. The nursery seemed exceedingly small, or maybe its proportions had shrunk in the presence of the giant.

  So this was the man she was to kill!

  The Slayer stood before the open window. Half his body was illumined by the lingering glow of sunlight; the other half concealed in shadow. He was long of limb, broad in the shoulders, packed with muscle. His hair defined the color black as it hung in waves to his shoulders. Midnight eyebrows scowled over a long, straight nose.

  He was younger than she’d imagined. The clean lines of his face—the half she could see—were shockingly handsome. The soft light revealed unblemished skin, tanned to the color of a nutmeg. The lines of his cheek and jaw were forceful. His eyelashes were absurdly long.

  On the other side of his face, a glittering eye pierced the gloom. Green. His eyes were a light gray-green. They seemed to burn the air from her lungs as he stared at her. She read intelligence in their depths, followed by a sensual consideration that made her skin grow tight.

  She would have known this man had they met as strangers on the open road. What man but the Slayer could be so utterly dark? His alert stance betrayed a lifetime of training. His body was honed and powerful. He was still wearing his chain mail, as though loath to shed the mantle of war. She hoped the powder in her pendant was enough to kill him.

  “Of the cross?” he drawled, his voice blessedly quieter than it had been seconds before. His tone was touched with humor, an attractive sound coming from a man who would order her execution if he learned who she was.

  After a moment’s incomprehension, she realized he made reference to the surname she’d invented, Crucis, yet she failed to see the humor in it.

  The warlord flashed his vassal a smile. With teeth gleaming white, his smile was like a jag of lightning in a sullen sky. It took Clarise’s breath away.

  Unaware of her amazement, he added, “You have done well in your search, Sir Roger. This damsel even bears my name.” His cool gaze ran over her, and she felt a tingling of awareness.

  “Christian de la Croix, madam,” he introduced himself. He sketched a bow—more for mockery than courtesy. But it gave her the time she needed to understand his amusement. The name she’d given herself was the same as his, but in Latin. She couldn’t believe she’d overlooked that detail.

  A fluke, she told herself, sinking to a curtsy. She knew an overriding need to remove herself from his scrutiny, to run as far and as fast as possible. Surely he could see the guilt on her face! The pendant burned like the flames of hell against her chest.

  The baby’s cries told her what to do next. His wails were raw and desperate. She turned to comfort him and encountered the weeping maidservant.

  “You may go,” Clarise murmured. The girl snatched up her skirts and ran, nearly toppling Sir Roger as she launched herself through the door.

  With a trembling in the pit of her belly, Clarise reached into the cradle and lifted the baby. She settled him in her arms and thrust her awareness of the Slayer aside. This child was her alibi, her reason for being. If she convinced the men she was caring for the baby, she would avert suspicion long enough to do what was necessary.

  The shrieking subsided. Clarise found herself the focus of a bottomless, gray gaze. A tiny, heart-shaped face was framed in a cowl of thick blankets. He doesn’t look like the spawn of the devil was her first thought.

  She noticed suddenly that he was bundled so tightly perspiration drenched his swaddling. Oh, poor mite, she thought, clicking her tongue at the incompetence of others. She eased the material from around his limbs and freed his hot head. With that, the infant grew peaceful. A tender wind blew across Clarise’s heart. The babe felt natural in her arms, a precious burden. She turned toward the window, needing to see the baby better.

  Though barely days old, from what she understood, he was cast in the image of his father. She could now see that he boasted a head of black hair. His little mouth trembled with the memory of distress, but he made no sound.

  Tenderness gave way to uncertainty. Thus far, she had only thought of herself and her own safety. This child’s very life rested in her hands! What if she failed in her attempts to feed him? What if she left him orphaned with no one to ensure his survival?

  Hiding her concerns, Clarise ducked her head and kissed the baby’s cheek. She felt the wetness of his tears on her mouth. Unthinking, she pulled the kerchief from her own head and dabbed at the silken cheek. From behind, she heard a sharp intake of breath, and she turned.

  Christian couldn’t help but stare. Clare Crucis had wrought the miracle of Simon’s silence. She had burst into the room like a sunbeam, dispelling his fear that his son might die. As she moved toward the window, she’d removed her head covering, and he could see that her hair was the color of a flame, her eyes like honey. He could not prevent himself from hissing in a breath of appreciation. She glanced at him warily, then lowered her eyes again to study his infant son.

  Christian feasted his gaze on her lovely profile—sculpted cheekbones, a delicate nose, lips so soft as to make a man weep. Yet her expression of tenderness was the quality that arrested him most.

  “What is his name?” she asked, her accent nearly continental. He could only assume she had served a Norman family since birth.

  “Simon.” He had to clear his throat. “Go on, feed him,” he urged. “He is half starved.” The baby gave a start at the sound of his voice. To Christian’s amazement, the nurse took note of this and frowned.

  “The child must nurse in private, my lord. Kindly leave us and be assured that he will hunger no more.”

  Christian felt his jaw slacken. He glanced at Sir Roger to see if he had heard the woman right. His vassal merely grinned.

  By God’s right eye, the woman had just dismissed him from the room! He could think of no one—man or woman—who had dared such a thing before.

  The novelty of it aroused him instantly.

  Clarise was forced to mask her desperation. Hadn’t the warriors heard her? They behaved as if they were pegged to the stone floor, doomed to grow shadows on the wall. She stepped closer to reason with the pair.

  The Slayer stood a full head higher than his vassal. His scowl alone would frighten the fleas off a hound, but she could not afford to be intimidated. If the men did not leave, her masquerade would end ere it began.

  “Am I not to be given privacy?” she asked, her tone implying she would leave her post, if such were true.

  Sir Roger shook his curly head. “My lord, we must talk,” he announced, backing out the door.

  This announcement dragged the Slayer’s gaze from Clarise to the empty portal. But Saintonge was gone. The Slayer held his ground.

  Clarise regarded him with acute awareness. The sky outside the window had deepened to azure. She could see nothing of his features now. As the baby threatened to sob again, she clutched him more tightly and prayed the Slayer would leave.

  “Feed my son,” he said peremptorily.

  Panic bloomed in her breast. “I . . . I require privacy,” she stammered. What pu
rpose could the warlord have other than to watch her bare her breasts? She gave a thought to Ferguson’s treatment of female servants, and her blood abruptly thinned.

  The floor was turning liquid under her feet. She cast about for a place to sit. But it was too late. She felt herself falling.

  She never saw the Slayer move. But in the next second he was holding her upright. Strong arms banded around her, pinning both her and the baby to his chest. She struggled instinctively, panicked by the thought of being at his mercy. He dragged her toward an alcove and deposited her on a stool, where she shrank away, clutching Simon for protection.

  “You are ill,” the warrior announced. He loomed over her, an unformed shadow.

  “Nay!” Clarise protested strongly. A vision of Horatio’s festered face sprang to mind. “ ’Tis merely that I haven’t eaten in a while.”

  Silence followed her answer. “I will see that you get some food at once,” he offered unexpectedly.

  She opened her mouth to thank him, but he was already striding away, his boots ringing on the stone floor. Clarise waited until he was gone, and then she dashed to the cradle to seek the nursing skin that the servant must have used. She would need it as much as that woman had in order to feed little Simon.

  She could see nothing in the blackened chamber. Cursing at the lack of tapers, she felt inside the cradle and along the floor. At last she found what she was looking for, but the bladder was full of milk, and the milk smelled rancid.

  By the time the Slayer returned, Simon was livid with rage. Nothing short of a full stomach would satisfy him. Clarise sat on the stool, her back against the wall, her heart hammering her throat. She was certain her hours were numbered. The Slayer would kill her for failing to comfort his son.

  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.

  The silence in the chamber grew oppressive. He longed to hear her honeyed voice again. Seldom did he come across a soul willing to converse with him. “Why did you journey south?” he prompted. “Why did you come to Helmesly?” It was a two-day walk from Glenmyre, perhaps farther. The road offered untold perils.

  “I could stay no longer.” He was relieved to hear resignation in her tone and not weeping. “ ’Twas logical that I come to Helmesly, as you are now the ruler of Glenmyre. I came to . . . to serve you as I can.”

  Her observation caused him to remember the fateful day he rode upon Glenmyre. Monteign’s forces had spilled over a hill without warning. There was no time for words, no time for explaining. Monteign thought he was defending himself from attack. He fought like a lion, ignoring the banner of peace that Christian’s flagman had frantically waved. Despite effort to subdue Monteign without undue bloodshed, the lord of Glenmyre had died and his soldiers had laid down their arms in surrender.