The intolerable burden lifted from Alice's soul. She gave Benedict a shaky smile. "Thank you for telling me that, brother. It eases my heart more than you can possibly know."

Benedict flushed. "I know how much you care for him. Sir Dunstan says that a man of Lord Hugh's nature does not allow himself to indulge in soft emotions. Sir Dunstan told me that Lord Hugh scoffs at love and would never give his heart to a woman. But I thought you should know that he at least trusts you. Sir Dunstan says that it is most unusual for my lord to trust anyone."

" 'Tis a start, is it not?" Alice whirled and hurried up the stairs.

She clutched Katherine's note and the ring very tightly as she swept down the corridor at the top of the staircase. She came to a halt in front of Hugh's door and knocked sharply.

"Enter." Hugh's voice held a bone-chilling edge.

Alice drew a breath and opened the door.

Hugh was seated at his desk. There was a map spread out in front of him. He looked up when Alice entered the chamber. When he saw her he surged to his feet. His palms flattened on the desk. His eyes were savage.

"Where in the name of the devil have you been, madam?"

"The convent." Alice studied him closely. "You appear to have recovered from your ordeal, sir. How do you feel?"

"I have regained my appetite," Hugh said. "And I seem to have acquired a taste for vengeance."

"You are not the only one who craves that particular dish, my lord." Alice tossed the parchment and ring onto the desk. "Today it appears as though you were the victim of a woman whose hunger for vengeance is even greater than your own."

Chapter 19

"The healer was the poisoner?" Hugh looked up from the short letter Katherine had left on her bed. He was stunned by what Alice had told him. But he could not deny the evidence she had brought back from the convent.

"Judging by that ring and the words of the note, I suspect she was the woman who was betrothed to your father." Alice sank down onto a stool. "I would hazard a guess that when Sir Matthew returned from France he sent word to her that he intended to break the betrothal."

"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.