Loyalty of a household was only bought with fear. He had never known it to be otherwise. And yet he had seen Gwenllian’s men look to her with pride and admiration, and no such terror. She might be thinking of King Edward, or of Ranulf himself, or perhaps she was only thinking of her own experience.

But they were here at Morency, where talk of love and loyalty was no easy thing. Too close was the memory of Aymer, who had wanted loyalty from all his household, and love from none of them. None except Ranulf himself, and there he had not been disappointed. Not until the moment of his death.

Now she was answering Hugh that yes, she would visit her chamber to bathe herself, be they pleased to bring hot water, and then come to supper. The steward looked utterly delighted at this, which could only mean that he had spared no expense in heeding Ranulf’s instruction to make the place fit for a lady. He wanted to laugh that there had been no need, that such effort to delight a lady’s refined senses were wasted on a woman who had spent her life being as like a man as she could manage.

But the easy mockery left him when she looked at him, an unheard question on her lips, and he could only think of her in her bath. The image came to his mind as if he had seen it a thousand times, how the firelight would warm the white skin of her breasts, water in little streams along the slight curves of her naked body.

“My lord will want hot water in his chamber as well,” she said to Hugh, who beckoned a servant.

Her eyes came back to his with an alluring sweep of lashes and he remembered the feel of her tightening around him, hot and greedy, her ripe mouth gasping out his name, the sweet sound of her panting, demanding more. Now the taste of her filled his mouth.

She must have seen his thoughts, for her eyes slid from his and a flush spread on her cheeks. Her modesty now brought to mind her abandon of their nights and his hunger for her grew. It amazed him now, that he had ever thought she was a heavenly messenger, fever or no. No angel of God could incite such lust.

He watched her turn away and follow a servant up the stairs to the keep. He could not think why it should look so strange to see her walking alone to her chamber, until he caught sight of her young squire Davydd. The boy was hovering near the stairs, uncertain. He clearly did not know what to do with himself if he could not serve his mistress. Ranulf wondered if she stood in her lady’s chamber now, missing the company of her cousins.

“With me, boy,” he said brusquely.

CHAPTER 13

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