Here in the darkness with Alice he did not have to control the storm. Instead, he rode it with the freedom of a great hawk to a place where the past no longer cast shadows.

When it was over he lay quietly for a long time, luxuriating in the pleasure of having Alice next to him.

"Hugh?"

"Aye?"

"You are not asleep."

He smiled into the darkness. "Neither are you, it would seem."

"What deep thoughts keep you awake at this late hour?"

"I was not thinking. I was listening."

"To what?"

"To the night."

Alice was silent for a few seconds. "I hear nothing."

"I know. The winds have quieted and the rain has stopped. The storm is finished."

" 'Tis a strange day." Joan halted at the convent gatehouse. She folded her hands into the sleeves of her habit and gazed pensively into the thick shroud of fog that clung to Scarcliffe. "I shall be glad when it is done."

"You are not the only one who will welcome the end of this matter." Alice tucked her mother's handbook under her arm and adjusted the hood of her mantle. "I confess some small part of me prays that Lord Hugh will not find the healer."

Hugh had left at dawn to hunt for Katherine. He had taken Benedict and virtually every able-bodied man in the keep with him. There had been no word from him since he had departed.

Restless, anxious, and filled with a deep unease, Alice had prowled the halls of Scarcliffe Keep until she could no longer abide her own company. With a view toward occupying herself in a useful endeavor, she had taken her mother's herb handbook and walked into the village.

There had been work enough in the convent infirmary. When she had finished dispensing cough remedies and tonics to ease joint pains, Alice had joined the nuns for midday prayers and a meal.

"I understand," Joan murmured. " 'Twould be easier if Katherine simply vanished but that is not likely."

"True enough. My lord will search for her to the very gates of hell if necessary." Alice eyed the mist. "I can only hope that when he finds her, he will also find peace."

Joan gave her a gentle, knowing look. "None of us can find true peace in the past, Alice. We must all search for it in the present."

Alice tightened her grasp on her mother's handbook. "You are very wise, madam."

Joan smiled wistfully. " 'Tis a lesson I had to learn the hard way, just as everyone must do."

For the first time Alice wondered what had led Joan to enter the religious life. Someday she would inquire, she told herself. Not today, of course. It was too soon for such intimacies. But there would be ample opportunity for such conversations in the future. Something told her that her growing friendship with the prioress would be important to both of them. In spite of the bleak day, Alice felt a genuine warmth flower inside her. Her future was here at Scarcliffe. It would be a good life.

"Good day, madam." Alice started toward the gate.

"Good day, my lady."

Alice lifted a hand in farewell and walked through the stone gates.

The fog had grown so thick that she could barely make out the wagon ruts in the street. She knew the mist must have seriously frustrated Hugh's search. She also knew that he would not readily abandon his quest. He would comb Scarcliffe and the surrounding lands with the relentless determination that was so much a part of him.

She could not blame him, Alice thought. He was, after all, hunting for the person who had, in all likelihood, murdered his parents. Alice knew that so far as Hugh was concerned, the fact that Katherine had apparently tried to poison him also paled into insignificance compared to her crimes of thirty years earlier.

Katherine had taken both mother and father from him. She had deprived him of the lands that should have been his rightful inheritance. She had consigned him to the care of an embittered old man who had viewed him as little more than an instrument of vengeance.

Alice shuddered to think what would have happened to Hugh had fate not led him to the household of Erasmus of Thornewood. Someday, she told herself, she would very much like to thank that shadowy figure who had single-handedly kept Hugh from being consumed by the fierce storms that forged so much of his nature.

Alice could not blame Hugh for his determination to find his quarry, but now that she was alone again, her sense of unease returned. There was something that did not feel right about the situation. Too many things remained unexplained. Too many questions were still unanswered.

Why murder the monk?

She pondered the question for the hundredth time that day as she went past the last of the village cottages. The fog had silenced everything. The men were not at work in the fields. The women were not in their gardens. The children were warming themselves by the hearth fires. Alice had the road to Scarcliffe Keep to herself.

The monk. Somehow there had to be a link between Calvert and the poisoning of Hugh's parents.

A dark, hooded figure materialized out of the fog directly in Alice's path. She froze. Fear washed over her in a thundering wave.

"About time you showed up." The man reached out to seize her. "We was beginning to wonder if you intended to dawdle in the convent until Vespers."

Alice opened her mouth to scream but it was too late. A rough hand was instantly clamped over her mouth.

She dropped her mother's book and kicked out frantically. Her legs tangled in the folds of her gown but she managed to strike her attacker's shin with the toe of her soft boot.

"Damn you," the man muttered. "I knew this wouldn't be so easy. Not a word out o' ye." He jerked the hood of her cloak lower over her face, effectively blinding her.

Alice struggled fiercely in his grasp. She flailed blindly, seeking a target, any target, as her assailant hoisted her off her feet. Then she heard muffled footfalls on the road and knew that the man who held her prisoner was not alone.

"Don't let her yell, Fulton, whatever ye do," the other man snarled. "We're not far from the village. Someone will surely hear her if she gets to screeching."

Alice redoubled her efforts to yell for help. She managed to sink her teeth into Fulton's palm.

"Damnation." Fulton gasped. "The vixen bit me."

"Stop her mouth with some cloth."

Alice fought back in wild panic as a length of foul cloth was drawn taut across her mouth and tied behind her head.

"Be quick about it, Fulton. We must get off this road. If Sir Hugh and his men blunder into us in this fog, we'll be dead before we know what happened."

"Sir Hugh would not dare touch us so long as we hold his wife prisoner," Fulton protested. But there was an anxious ring of uncertainty in his voice.

"I would not count on surviving such a meeting, if I were you," the other man muttered.

"But Sir Eduard says that Hugh the Relentless is uncommonly fond of his new bride."

Sir Eduard. Alice was so startled that she went still for a moment. Were these men speaking of Eduard of Lockton? Impossible. Eduard would not risk Hugh's wrath in this fashion. Hugh himself had been arrogantly certain of his own dominance over the unpleasant Eduard.

"Sir Hugh may be fond of the wench," the other man said, "but Erasmus of Thornewood did not cause the words Bringer of Storms to be inscribed on the dark knight's sword for naught. Hurry. We must move quickly or all is lost."

Alice knew that she had walked straight into a trap.

Alice blinked several times when the hood was finally pulled back from her face. She saw at once that she was inside one of the caves of Scarcliffe. Torch light cast unnerving shadows on the damp stone walls. Water dripped somewhere in the distance.

Fulton untied the cloth that had stopped her mouth. Alice grimaced and wiped her lips with the sleeve of her cloak.