“Hugh,” he said, before the man was out the door.

The steward looked back, brows raised in expectation of his next command.

“Thank you. For arranging a fine welcome.” He looked away from the steward, who was so immensely pleased that he looked fit to burst with it. “Full deserving is Lady Morency of the honor you have shown her.”

Hugh lowered his head and gave a nod. “In faith, she is worthy of it.” For another moment of silence, the steward stood hesitating at the door. Finally, he looked at Ranulf directly. “For the love we bear you, we do honor to her. But is the return of their lord that moves your people to merriment. Sorely have we missed you, my lord.”

Finding no ready answer to this improbable declaration, he nodded. What good would it do to ask how it was that these who so loved and missed him also cringed and trembled in fear of his wrath? It was hope and not devotion that flung flower petals from the highest tower. But in Hugh there was only an earnest belief, that such hope was warranted.

He looked up at the steward, a man near his own age, and remembered when they were boys. The memory stole over him suddenly and completely, more like a haunting than merely remembering: he was newly come to Morency, and it was one of the first times he witnessed Aymer’s rage. It had been directed at Hugh’s father, steward before him. Ranulf had not understood why there was anger and shouting, but a terrible air of foreboding hung in the hall. He had hidden, his fear at the sudden burst of malice driving him to conceal himself behind a thick wall hanging where the scrawny, scared boy named Hugh stood still as a mouse and stared at him with silent, wide eyes.

How that boy could have grown into the man who so clearly loved this place was a mystery to Ranulf.

“I mean for it to be different, Hugh.” He looked at the steward until he knew the man took his meaning. “It can be different.”

Hugh nodded and looked at him steadily. “Aye, my lord. It can.”

At a nod of dismissal from his lord, the steward bowed and left.

Ranulf was left alone to bathe and think. When he had written of coming here with a Lady Morency, he had made clear that he would stay this time. He had not imagined it might be news to cause celebration. Aymer had been feared and loathed, a danger to any who crossed his path. Ranulf had been called dishonorable and debased, to slay a helpless man – a great lord who called him son – where he lay in his bed.