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movement of his hand.
    Haven peered at it for a long moment, uncertain and yet...
    Other images assailed her in that moment, unbidden images of darkness and violence. Of fire and smoke and brutal, slashing steel. Shattering screams and the metallic scent of spilling blood. She drew in her breath, quickly glancing away from the bewitching sparkle of the dagger's tip in Kenrick's hand.
    "You were there when Greycliff was attacked," he said, not a question at all but a statement of fact. "Tell me what you saw, Haven. You are the only living witness to the attack on Elspeth and her family. I must know what happened that night--everything. Who was there, what they did--anything you can recall, you must tell me."
    In silence, she stared out the window across from the bed. She heard the impatient hiss of breath Kenrick exhaled, but she could not heed it.
    "Who stabbed you with this blade, Haven?"
    The images continued to fly at her--disjointed, unclear. "I don't..." She shook her head, closing her eyes against the onslaught of memory. "I am not sure what I saw. Nothing is clear."
    "By the blood of Christ--you must think!"
    "Kenrick," said his sister, rising to cut him off when he seemed intent on pressing further. "Enough, please. Let her rest a while."
    "My friends are dead, Ariana. I do not take that lightly. As it stands, this woman is the only person who can tell me what might have transpired the night of the raid on their home. I need those answers." He fixed Haven with a piercing stare. "I will have them."
    "But I have told you all I know," she protested, frustration rising in her breast. "I cannot remember what occurred. You know all that I do, I swear it."
    "Indeed." He cursed under his breath then strode around the bed and toward the chamber door. "I trust your memory will improve along with your shoulder," he said, pausing with his hand on the latch. "Until then, you'll be staying under my watch while you recuperate."
    Lady Ariana turned a sympathetic look on her. Instead of comfort, it brought a pang of alarm. Haven's memory might be sketchy, but she knew a threat when she heard one.
    "Under your watch?" she challenged, anger flaring now.
    "Aye," he replied easily. "Here at Clairmont."
    He said it as though the matter required no further explanation. As though he would invite no questioning, nor permit her any other choice but to abide his own will.
    Such domineering nerve--such arrogance!
    Haven moved to push herself up on the mattress, but was felled by a jolt of debilitating pain. It robbed her of breath, stilling her instantly, even if it did not cool the outrage that was blooming hot in her belly. Lady Ariana eased her back down, concern soft in her gentle eyes.
    Where he stood across the room, Kenrick said nothing. He merely watched her with that judicious, unsettling gaze that seemed wont to turn her inside out. Pride rankled inside her, inflamed by the understanding that she was well and truly at his mercy--at least for now. Had she an ounce of strength, she swore she would have flown at him like a tempest. That maddening look of his said he sensed as much, and it worried him not in the least.
    To her dismay, her voice, when she finally found it again, was weak with the slow ebbing of her pain. "Well, then. Do you mean to hold me here as your guest, sirrah, or your prisoner?"
    "That, my lady, shall be up to you."
    He turned away without another word, quitting the chamber and leaving Haven to simmer, made helpless by her lingering fatigue.
    Pray, not for long , she thought, more certain than ever that her survival hinged on her escape from this place.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 5
     
    "Did the woman confirm your suspicions about the attack at Greycliff?"
    Kenrick glanced up from a journal that lay open on his desk. His brother-by-marriage, Braedon le Chasseur, reclined in a chair situated near the solar's cavernous fireplace, his sea-gray eyes shadowed by dark brows and a fall of overlong raven