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      To Maggie Price and Nancy Berland, two superb authors, wonderful critique partners and the kind of friends who make this business of writing such a joy – it wouldn’t be half so much fun without our Wednesday-night sessions!

      Chapter One

      Wyndham Castle Cumbria, Northern England

       The Year of Our Lord 1188

      “I tell you, Ian, the lad’s besotted with that—that slut. You must do something!”

      Ian de Burgh, earl of Margill, baron St. Briac, lord of Wyndham, Glenwaite and other holdings in northern England and Normandy, paused in the act of donning his shirt and glanced at the woman who paced in front of the huge hearth.

      “You look much like a peahen who’s been chased around the bailey by a playful cat, Lady Mother.” Affectionate irreverence laced his low north-country drawl. “Your feathers are all aruffle.”

      Instinctively Lady Elizabeth lifted a hand to smooth her silvered hair under its gossamer silk veil. Her huge brown eyes took on the look of a wounded doe’s, and the frown marring her delicate features lightened to a winsome expression, one Ian knew full well. It had often reduced his father, a warrior feared throughout England and Normandy, to helpless resignation. In Ian’s youth, that same expression had sent him scurrying on many an errand for his beautiful, gentle stepmother.

      His grin softened to a smile of genuine warmth as he took in her woe-filled countenance. He jerked his chin at his squire, and the brawny youth went to shoo away the clutch of servants who had attended their lord while he soaked away the dirt of travel. As the squire cleared the room, Ian went forward to take his mother’s hand.

      “Come, Lady Mother, surely ‘tis not so serious as you seem to think.”

      “It is,” she insisted, clutching at his fingers. “You cannot know, Ian. You’ve been gone for nigh on a year. First to Ireland, then to France, in this damnable war.”

      She stopped as her eyes caught sight of a wound exposed by the open ties of his linen shirt. Tugging at Ian’s arm to bring him down to her eye level, she examined the red, raw cut that traced his collarbone.

      “Who stitched this?”

      “The churgeon, after the battle at Châteauroux.”

      Ian suppressed a wince as she probed the tender flesh with one finger, clucking under her breath. A glancing blow from a sword had slipped under his mailed coif and sliced through the padded leather gambeson he wore beneath. The wound was not deep, but long and ragged.

      “Well, ‘twill leave an ugly scar, but ‘tis healing cleanly, so I won’t resew it.”

      She sighed, and Ian saw again the concern that had bracketed her forehead ever since she’d come to his chamber to give him the blue wool surcoat lined with vair that she’d lovingly fashioned for him in his absence.

      “Don’t fash yourself, Lady Mother,” he said. “Will’s but seventeen, after all, and won his spurs only six months ago. He’s just feeling his manhood, paying court to his first ladylove.”

      Lady Elizabeth shook her head. “You’ve not seen him since his knighting. I tell you, Ian, Will’s smitten with that bitch.”

      Ian’s brows rose at the uncharacteristic harshness of his stepmother’s words. Known as much for her gentleness as for her charity to the poor, Lady Elizabeth rarely spoke ill of anyone, much less a woman she’d never met.

      “So Will’s smitten,” Ian replied with a slight shrug. “It won’t harm him to gain a little experience with such women before he takes his wife.”

      The hurt flooding Lady Elizabeth’s brown eyes made Ian realize his mistake at once.

      “William’s not like you, my son,” she said, with only the faintest hint of reproach. “He has not the sophistication for the games played by the women of the king’s court. Nor the endurance to enter into them so enthusiastically.”

      Ian bit back a smile. When he attended his younger brother’s investiture some six months before, he’d discovered that the handsome, irrepressible young knight had already gained a formidable reputation for endurance among the ladies. But Ian knew better than to share that information with Will’s doting mother.

      “You worry needlessly, my lady. Will is young enough yet to enjoy his new status as knight, and man enough to know his responsibilities to his betrothed. He but dallies with this woman.”

      Elizabeth sighed.