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Caryn left the stable and crossed the bailey to the keep. Along with Leo, she had tended the fawn and the kittens, though the kittens had grown big enough to mouse on their own and the fawn had adopted Leo, following the little boy about whenever he went into the stables.

Caryn spent a good deal of time with them. Combined with her duties as chatelaine, it took her mind off the troubles they faced in the village—and the heartbreak she suffered whenever she thought of Ral.

It gave her a chance to forget her foolish dreams.

She was working to do that now as she walked to a storeroom just inside the keep, intending to check on supplies. She opened the door to one of the rooms, then halted as she stepped inside.

“Ancil—what do you in here?”

The jester whirled in her direction. “Lady Caryn!” His hat was gone, his hair, long and golden, hung unbound past his shoulders. One small ear protruded from the side of his head—but the other one lay neatly in place. It was delicate and shell-like and perfectly fit his oval face.

“Sweet Mary! Ancil—you are a woman!” Startled green eyes met hers. The girl made a sound in her throat and sank down in obeisance.

“I beg of you, lady Caryn, you must keep my secret.” The jester’s voice was no longer male but decidedly feminine and sweetly lilting. “’Tis a matter of life and death.”

“How did you do that to your ears?” Caryn asked, her gaze still fixed on the uncommon sight of one ear sticking out while the other one did not.

“What? Oh, ’tis merely a hunk of clay.” She pulled the clay free, letting the ear fall back in its natural position. “Please, my lady, I beg you not to tell.”

She was lovely, Caryn saw, soft and pleasing to the eye. Older than she, mayhap as much as two and twenty.

“Surely the others know your secret, those you travel with on the road.”

“My friends do, but no others. I pray you will not tell Lord Ral.”

A dozen thoughts buzzed through Caryn’s mind. “Does Richard know?”

She shook her head, making her long hair shimmer. Her lips turned down, betraying a moment of sadness. “At times he looks at me oddly and I think that he suspects. I would tell him if I could.”

“Then why don’t you?”

She chewed her bottom lip, torn by indecision, then she sighed and came up from the floor. “My name is not Ancil. ’Tis Lady Ambra. I am the daughter of Edward of York.”

“I have heard of him. I thought your father was dead.”

“That is true, my lady. Before I ran away, I lived at Morion, with my mother’s brother, Charles.”

“Why did you leave?”

“I was betrothed to Lord Beltar the Fierce. He is rich and powerful, while my mother’s brother is poor. Beltar was willing to marry me, though I had only a very small dowery, and my uncle liked the idea of having a wealthy relation. ”

Caryn thought for a moment. In the back of her mind she remembered something of Beltar… something she had heard.

“Aye, now I recall. Lord Beltar claimed you were carried away from your home against your will. He offers a reward for your return.” Sweet Mother Mary, more trouble for Ral should Beltar find her here.

“He is ugly and mean. Once he tried to force himself on me. I vow it made me sick.” She stiffened her spine. “I will not wed him. I swear I will not marry until I can marry for love.”

Caryn’s insides twisted. “’Tis a difficult notion in such times, but a noble one all the same.”

“Then you will keep my secret?”

Caryn thought of what Ral would do if he found out. “Aye, but do you not miss your home? Are you happy to be traveling as a man?”

“I was happy for a time.”

“And now?”

“Now I have met someone.…”

Richard. “I will help you, Lady Ambra. Mayhap you will be the one woman who is lucky enough to find love.”

***

Caryn shifted in her chair before the fire pit, where she sat with needle in hand.

The delicate embroidery edged the sleeves of a while silk chainse.

She pulled the length of thread through the fabric, wondering if Ral would notice her careful work and thinking how the small task helped to ease her troubled mind.

In the past she had loathed such duties, now she found the work oddly soothing.

“Why do you not go to him? ’Tis obvious that is what you want.”

She glanced up to find Odo beside her, his blue eyes probing, his question stirring unwanted thoughts.

“’Tis not a matter of what I want but of what he wants.” Caryn watched as the lean Norman knight sat down on a stout wooden bench. Flames from the hearth deepened the highlights in his bright red hair. “For now ’tis me he wants. Who will he want on the morrow or mayhap next week?”

“What happens on the morrow is of no importance. He desires you, as you do him. That is all that matters.”

“If you think that, then you know naught of what is important.”

Odo scoffed. “’Tis almost as if you grieve for him.”

Caryn’s eyes searched his face. His orange-red brows drew together as he worked to understand. “Have you never loved, Odo?”

“Nay. Love is for fools.”

“You had a family once. Did you not love your father and mother, your brothers and sisters?”

His tone grew rough. “Aye, I loved them.”

“And when they died, did you not know pain and grief?”

“Aye, like no other I have known.”

“’Tis that same pain when you lose the one that you have given your heart.”

Frustration knotted his brow. “But you have not lost him. You have only to cross the room and—”

“You will never understand.” She rose from her chair and set aside her embroidery. She saw that Odo stared at her still, trying to make sense of what she said. “’Tis as simple as this, Odo,” she said with sadness. “To love someone without pain, they must love you in return.”

Odo watched her walk away, moving slowly, with little of the spirit that had enlivened her before.

Though she held her head high, she seemed weighed down with despair.

He glanced at Ral, saw his gray eyes locked on her small retreating figure.

There was darkness in his gaze, too, and uncertainty, and something else he could not name.

It had been there since the night he had gone to his leman.

Odo didn’t know what his friend was feeling, but he knew Ral also was in pain.

Odo shoved himself to his feet. He cared little what happened to Caryn for she was naught but a woman, and a Saxon into the bargain, but he worried for his friend.

“You look at her as I have never seen you look at a woman.” He approached Ral on the dais. “’Tis obvious that you want her. Why do you not just take her?”

Ral jerked his gaze from where Caryn had disappeared up the stairs. His chest ached just to think of her, yet he could not seem to stop. “’Tis only bitter memories the joining brings. There is very little pleasure.”

“Because she has not yet learned that she must share you? In time she will accept that you’ve the need for other women, the same as any other man.”

Ral eyed him darkly. “Do I? Why is it I find no other woman pleasing? Why is it I desire her, yet with this wall between us I find no pleasure in the taking?” A weary sound seeped from inside him. “Why is it my wife’s pain feels like my own?”

“I cannot answer that. I can only tell you that—”

“Can you tell me why I should continue to deny my feelings when there isn’t a man in the keep who cannot see?”

“Do not be a fool. If you give her your heart—”

“What will happen? What terrible misfortune will befall me? I wonder that it could be any worse than that which has befallen me already.” Ral gripped the arms of his chair and came to his feet.

“I know that you speak what you believe, but only time will tell which of us is the fool in truth.” Without a backward glance, he strode away from Odo, leaving his friend to ponder his words.

“God’s blood,” Ral muttered darkly, tired to his bones of every man jack in the castle giving him advice he did not need.

He took the stairs two at a time then strode with purpose down the hall. Of all the admonitions he had received, one thing was crystal clear: He wanted Caryn and he had come to believe she still wanted him.

He had seen her watching him this eve as she had on a dozen occasions. He had felt her eyes on his body, seen the heat that rose into her cheeks, the way she unconsciously wet her lips. He had seen that look on a woman’s face—God’s blood, he wasn’t a fool.

Caryn was a creature of passion. She might not admit her desire for him, but he believed it was still somewhere inside her. If she wanted him enough, mayhap she would eventually forgive him. Mayhap she would regain the affection she once held for him. Mayhap she could learn to feel even more.

Ral continued along the corridor past the solar. When he reached the door to his chamber, he knocked then lifted the latch without waiting for permission to go in.

“My lord?” Caryn stood before a flickering candle, wearing only her thin camise, her hair unbound and shimmering like dark auburn flame around her shoulders. Shadows danced on the rough gray walls behind her, reminding him of the shadows from the past that he had come to conquer.

“’Tis time we settled this trouble between us. ’Tis time once more you warmed my bed.”

She stiffened, and he cursed his choice of words, yet his mind was made up, his goal set. He would not falter until the deed was done.

“Does it matter that I do not want you?”

“I do not believe that, else I would not be here.”

“I gave in before. This time I will fight you.”

He fixed her with a long, determined stare. “You are my wife. Should you try to resist me, I will strip you and tie you to the bed.”

Fire glinted for a moment in the depths of her dark brown eyes, then it was gone. “As you wish, my lord. After all, as you have said, I am your wife, lawfully and truly wedded.”

“That is so, and I am your lord as well as your husband.” He walked toward her, taking in her soft curves and rounded, upthrusting breasts. He paused at the foot of the bed. “Come here, Caryn.”