Hugh smiled slightly, but it was a smile that held no small amount of sadness. "Your generosity overwhelms me, Guy. Would that I could accept it. But mayhap 'tis just as you said. Claire died here, and 'twas here that Thomas and your lady Elaine were slain most cruelly." He hesitated. "I fear I could never forget the evil that was done here."

Guy was silent for a moment. "Then you are with me?" he said finally. "I need you now more than ever, Hugh. But only if you are willing."

There was no further need for talk. Guy turned and strode into the circle of stampeding horses and fully armed men. He paused only for one last glance at Ramsay Keep.

His eyes squeezed shut. Elaine, he thought desperately. So sweet. So gentle and tender... Elaine! He screamed her name in silent anguish. Pain ripped through him like a sword from throat to groin. He saw her as she had once been, golden and gloriously beautiful, her spun-gold hair spinning about her, laughing in that lilting musical voice of hers. He had always teased her that she had been crafted by the angels in heaven... and it was there she now dwelled.

It was terrible, my lord . .. horrible!

The words Gerda sobbed out upon his arrival back at Sedgewick took the form of vivid, horrible images in his mind's eye.

Richard and his men came in the name of peace. Then they raped and killed and butchered... They spared no one, not women, not children. They showed no mercy, my lord. No mercy at all!

The vision in his mind shifted and twisted, like a windswept fog... He saw Elaine as she must have died, lying bruised and violated in a crimson pool of blood.

He felt he'd been catapulted once again into the wild foray of battle, seized by a red mist of rage deeper than anything he could ever remember. His head, his blood pounded with the heat of his wrath.

His eyes opened. His wide unblinking gaze took in the final resting place of his wife and the many others who littered the grassy hillside.

"Your death will be avenged, my love," he murmured aloud. "This I promise. This I vow, by all the saints."

Hugh nudged his destrier beside him. "It does not end here, does it?" he said quietly.

Guy's silver eyes glittered like steel. His face had taken on an expression which would have frightened many a brave man. Guy de Marche was not a man given lightly to revenge; he fought when the need arose, to protect and defend, but he was not a cruel man. Yet Hugh did not pretend to misunderstand the bent of Guy's mind at this moment, the raging storm roiling within him, swirling and growing stronger by the second.

"Nay." Guy stared straight ahead. Never had a single word sounded so ominous and deadly. "It only begins."

He wheeled his mount to face his men-at-arms. "We ride for Ashbury!" he shouted. Sunlight glinted against the steel of his sword as he ripped it from his scabbard and held it high above his head. A raucous cheer went up from the men. With the thunder of hooves shaking the earth, they raced madly after the Earl of Sedgewick.

Thus began his quest for vengeance.



The great hall at Ashbury Keep boiled with life like stew in a kettle, but the ladies' bower was calm and peaceful. Several serving girls sat beneath the window, winding wool into long skeins. Another sat spooling thread onto bobbins. The rhythmic clack of the loom in the corner filled the air, a soothing backdrop to the talk and laughter exchanged between the servants. Another woman, daintily blond and beauteous, smiled and nodded and occasionally joined in the chatter.

From her place near the doorway, Kathryn of Ashbury fixed brilliant green eyes upon her sister, her expression disturbed. How, she wondered silently, would Elizabeth take the news? Would she cry? Pretend she understood and then run into her room and weep silently into her pillow? A feeling of guilt wound through Kathryn. Either way, she wasn't sure she could stand it.

Elizabeth was happy here, happy and content. The bower was a place of privacy, where Elizabeth was able to relax and be herself; she was neither timid nor fearful, or plagued by the memories of a past that seemed to never drift out of reach.

A pang swept through Kathryn. In the four years that had transpired since their parents' death, she had done her best to shield Elizabeth from further hurt. And now, all was well. All was quiet and serene and settled in Elizabeth's small world. But with what she was about to tell her...

She stepped into the bower. "Leave us, please," she said briefly to the three serving girls. Two scrambled to their feet immediately. But Helga, the eldest of the three, complied with far less haste.

Kathryn watched as Helga slowly pushed aside her distaff, praying for a patience she had never been blessed with. The girl then began neatly piling the skeins next to her. Kathryn pressed her lips together; she knew better than to believe the girl wished to make herself useful, for she was well acquainted with her laziness. More than likely, Helga's supposed tidiness was meant to irritate.

It was all Kathryn could do to hold her tongue. Helga's grandfather had been the smithy at Ashbury even before Kathryn's father Sir Damien had been lord of the manor. The old man had passed on several years ago, and Helga, whose parents were also dead, had been brought into the keep to serve as ladies' maid. But she had done precious little in the way of serving the two ladies of the household; Kathryn and Elizabeth saw to the upkeep of their clothing and chambers, and Kathryn had quickly learned she could not speak freely before Helga. She suspected her of carrying tales to her uncle Richard—as if her uncle were not already eager enough to see his niece take the bite of the lash or the cuff of his hand.

Yet Kathryn could not dismiss the girl either, though Richard had turned matters of the household over to her. To do so would be tantamount to admitting defeat. Her uncle would glory in knowing he had provoked and bested her; Kathryn refused to give him the satisfaction.

But it also appeared Helga was not above using her womanly attributes to advance her position. The girl openly returned the admiring gazes of her uncle's knights; she laughed when a male hand trespassed boldly beneath her skirts. And of late, Helga hinted that she had oft shared Richard's bed. Kathryn had long since ceased to be shocked. Richard's wife had died in childbed long ago. Since that time, countless serving wenches had warmed his bed. If Helga were the latest, Kathryn feared the girl's insolence would know no bounds.

Helga continued with the task. The bodice of her rough woolen gown gaped open but the girl paid no heed. Kathryn lost her temper at last. "Make haste, girl," she snapped. "There are no knights here to ogle your charms and I would speak with my sister."

The girl withdrew at last, but not without bestowing on her mistress a triumphant smile. Kathryn ignored it, closed the heavy wooden door, and prepared to face her sister.

Elizabeth had pushed aside the loom. Kathryn turned and beheld her sister gazing at her with a slight smile curling her lovely mouth. Her sheer veil only enhanced the shining glory of her hair. Like the finest beams of the sun, the shimmering strands sparkled like a pale golden waterfall down her back. Her face was small and heart-shaped, her eyes the color of the sky on a warm spring day.

Seeing her sister thus, Kathryn felt a painful squeeze of her heart. Elizabeth deserved so much more than what she had—spending her days cloistered in this bower for fear of the outside world, a world filled with men who knew nothing but war and lust. If only their parents had lived, her sister would have wanted for nothing! There would have been a husband, and children Elizabeth could love and cherish.