He had thought himself as equally reviled as the man he had killed, but it seemed not so. There was no predicting what fantasies the common people would conjure. No doubt they had decided Aymer’s sins greater than his own, or certainly more personal to them. Perhaps they were like everyone else and cared more about his reputation as a swordsman.

Win and be loved. It was the only kind of love he had known.

It was not something he cared to think on for long.

With only one silent servant to wait on him, he was quick to wash himself. Steam still rose from the water when he reached for the towel, anxious to be done. It was too quiet here, alone. The walls were too close and the surrounding stone too heavy to bear for long.

He dressed himself in blue and gold samite, buckled a jewel-studded belt over the tunic, and found himself eager to be in the full and raucous hall.

The last light of the day filtered in through the high mullioned windows, lending a glow to the vaulted oak ceiling. The dais was decorated with banners bearing the cross and starburst of the Morency arms, a canopy of red silk spread over the high table. Never in his memory had he seen more than two trestle tables for the people below the dais. But now there were five of them, and many people stood, the hall full to bursting. There were minstrels in the gallery, and more servants than ever he had seen at Morency before this day.

When Aymer was alive, tenants and townspeople would find any excuse to avoid the place. But Hugh Wisbech had done good work these last few years, in making the castle a more appealing place. No matter what the steward said, Ranulf knew he himself could not be the sole cause of such gaiety. It was word that the castle had a new lady that had brought so many here.

Even as he thought it, she appeared. Her hair was caught up in a golden net and she wore a rose-colored dress, a delicate blushing color he could never have imagined would become her so well. Anyone looking at her would see only an elegant lady.

But he saw how her hands worried at the cloth, how her eyes darted about the hall as she fidgeted. All her easy confidence that had so irritated him as they hiked through the muddy woods was gone. How well he knew that suppressed panic, the obvious wish to be free of a suffocating trap. How well he could see, now, that glimmer of himself in her.