"Aye, his ballads have become quite tame of late, have they not? One might even say they are rather dull."

"Do you think so?" Gareth looked thoughtful.

Clare hid a smile. "All those sweet little songs about the pretty roses opening their petals to receive the morning dew have begun to bore me. I find they lack the excitement of his earlier ballads."

"Excitement?"

"Aye, there is no danger, no fear of discovery, no thrilling action, no spice in Dalian's new poems."

"Madam, are you teasing me?"

"Mayhap."

"Be warned, I have frequently been told that I do not respond well to jests."

"Nonsense. I have heard you laugh, my lord. I would think you could learn to find amusement in Dalian's more adventurous songs about illicit love and cuckolded lords."

Gareth came to a halt. He grasped her chin and looked down at her with gleaming eyes. "Understand me well, Clare. I will never laugh at the notion of my wife lying in the arms of another man. I am far more likely to exact the devil's own payment for such a betrayal."

"As if I would even think of betraying you," she retorted. "I am a woman of honor, sir."

"Aye," Gareth said softly. "You are. And I am grateful for it."

She warmed beneath his gaze. He trusted her, she thought. It was a good start.

"While we are on the subject," she said gruffly, "I want to make it clear that I would not take a husband's betrayal any better than you would take that of a wife."

He smiled his rare smile. "You do not care for the thought of me in another woman's bed?"

"Nay, my lord, I do not." She felt flustered but determined. "I have my pride, too, sir."

"Pride. Is that why you object to the notion of me bedding another woman? Because it would wound your pride?"

Clare glowered at him. She was certainly not going to confess her love at this point. The Hellhound would take full advantage of such an admission. It would leave her even more vulnerable to him than she already was.

"What other reason could there be except pride, my lord?" she asked innocently. "In that regard I am no different than yourself. Surely it is pride that makes you feel so strongly about the matter of being cuckolded?"

"Aye." Gareth's eyes narrowed a little as he watched her. "A man's pride is a serious business."

"So is a woman's."

"Well, then, young Dalian must continue to sing of roses in the rain and other such dull matters."

Gareth bent his head and brushed his mouth lightly across Clare's.

"Gareth?"

"Come. It grows late and I have many things to see to today." He grabbed her hand and swept her along the clifftops toward the village.

Ten minutes later Clare and Gareth reached the convent wall that marked the heart of the village. A cart piled high with thatching reeds clattered past. The thatcher nodded politely at Clare and Gareth.

A shepherd did the same as he drove a flock down the center of the street.

Everyone turned to look as the lord and lady of Desire walked hand in hand through the small community.

Clare knew that most of the stares were for Gareth. She herself was too familiar a sight to draw such curious gazes. But Gareth was still new, a strange and largely unknown quantity to the people of the manor. They were only too well aware that their fate was in his hands.

"I must deliver the herbal cream to Beatrice," Clare said as she and Gareth reached the recluse's cell.

"I'll only be a moment."

Gareth stopped and glanced at the window of the cell. "The curtain is drawn. Mayhap she is still asleep."

"Not likely." Clare chuckled. "Beatrice is always up and about very early. She usually opens her curtain first thing so as not to miss any news."

Clare went to the window. It was unlocked and ajar, as though Beatrice had recently been peering out into the street. "Beatrice?"

There was no response.

"Beatrice?" Clare hesitated and then reached through the narrow opening to push the heavy wool curtain aside. "Are you ill? Do you need help?"

Only silence came from the darkened interior. Clare gazed into the small front chamber of the little house. At first she could see nothing at all. The curtain on the other window was also drawn shut, leaving the chamber drenched in shadow.

Then Clare's eyes adjusted to the gloom. The first thing she noticed was Beatrice's slippered feet on the floor.

"Beatrice." Clare gripped the stone sill and tried to get a better look at the prone figure inside.

Gareth frowned. He walked closer to the window. "What's wrong?"

"I do not know." Clare looked at him. "She is lying on the floor. She's not moving. Gareth, I think she may be badly hurt."

Gareth studied the interior of the anchorite's cell. "The door is locked. I can see the key hanging on the wall."

"How will we get insider Clare asked.

"Send someone for John Blacksmith. Be quick about it, Clare."

Clare did not need further urging.

A short while later the blacksmith jammed a forge tool between the stone wall and the crack of the recluse's door. Then he and Gareth put their shoulders to the heavy wood.

The door popped off its hinges on the third attempt.

Gareth went first into the small cell. He took one look at the body on the floor and shook his head.

"She is dead. And not from any natural cause."

13

"Murdered." Clare stared at Gareth in shocked disbelief.

"I do not believe it." Margaret, who had been summoned immediately, looked stunned. "Tis not possible. We have never had a murder here in the convent during the fifteen years I have been in charge."

Clare shook her head slowly. "There has not been a murder anywhere on Desire in my lifetime."

"This was most definitely murder." Gareth looked down at the open, sightless eyes of the recluse. He had seen enough of violent death in his time to recognize it.

"Are you certain?" Margaret frowned. "Mayhap she fell ill in the middle of the night, attempted to call for assistance and did not make it to the door."

Gareth crouched beside the body. He touched one of the dead woman's fingers and found it limp. The stiffness that followed death had already passed. "She died during the night, but not from illness." He studied ,the folds of Beatrice's head covering. "Was she accustomed to sleeping in her wimple?"

"I do not know," Margaret said. "It would appear so. Mayhap it was an act of piety."

"More like simple vanity," Clare said quietly. "Beatrice was very concerned about the sagging line of her chin. She did not want anyone to see it."

"She loved to gossip and she was overly fond of Clare's perfumes and herbal creams," Margaret said. "Small failings, when all is said and done. Would that we all limited our sins to such minor transgressions."

Gareth raised one eyebrow. "Aye."

"She is in her night robe," Clare said thoughtfully. "Yet she is wearing her shoes as well as her wimple."

Margaret peered anxiously at Gareth. "Are you absolutely certain this is not the result of some grave illness, my lord?"

"It was murder." Gareth pointed to the wimple. The fine linen had been crushed and badly wrinkled in the region around Beatrice's throat. "Do you see those marks?"

Margaret leaned closer. "Aye."

Gareth started to lift the hem of the wimple.

Margaret put out a hand as though to stop him. "What are you doing, my lord?"

"I want to see her neck." Gareth peeled back the white linen.

The dark, ugly bruises on Beatrice's throat were obvious for all to see.

"Saint Hermione defend her," Clare whispered.

"God rest her soul," Margaret breathed.

Clare looked at Gareth. "You have seen such marks before?"

"Aye." Gareth lowered the wimple. "The recluse was strangled."