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is ill or injured. I am a healer.” She offered her arm. “Here, Lady Joanna, walk with me. We shall see what can be done for your pain.”
     
    “You are a healer? Nay, you are a lady.” Joanna slipped her arm through Maris’s, and allowed the taller woman to help her along.
     
    “I am a great heiress, but I am also a healer. Now, tell me as we walk, what causes your pain? Have you had it long?”
     
    Joanna gave a short, bitter laugh. “I’ve had pain since I wed my husband one year past.”
     
    The sound of heavy footsteps echoed in the corridor behind them, coming quickly and purposefully. Joanna started and sprang away from Maris, who looked at her in surprise. “What—”
     
    “Joanna!” The voice was not the one she’d feared to hear, but ’twas familiar to her.
     
    She turned to see Bernard striding toward them, and her heart leaped even as her glance darted around to see that no one else was there.
     
    “Lady Joanna,” Bernard said as he approached. “I wish to have a word with you.” He glanced at Maris, who appeared to be watching with very sharp eyes, and added, “if you would excuse us, my lady. I wish to speak with Jo-Lady Joanna.” His gaze raked over Joanna, touching her from head to toe as though to assure himself that she was all right.
     
    She raised her face high to look up at him, for her head reached only to the top of his broad chest. “Lord Bernard…I did not know you to be such a fine singer.”
     
    She noticed that his eyes were dark, shadowed by the flickering torch light, and his mouth set in a firm line that echoed the straightness of his neat moustache.
     
    “Many thanks, my lady,” he replied, a startled look passing over his face. “But I would wish—”
     
    “Did you not hear Lord Bernard as he sang such beautiful ballads this eve?” Joanna turned casually to Maris. “I vow, there’s never been a minstrel with such a rich voice.”
     
    “Aye, ’tis so,” Maris replied, her gaze moving from one to the other. “Lord Bernard, Lady Joanna is in some pain, and I was just about to—”
     
    “You are hurt? I thought the veil was to hide something.” His face darkened further as he tore the flimsy covering from her head, even as Joanna tried to duck aside.
     
    “Mary, Mother of God….” Maris breathed.
     
    Bernard’s hand fell to his sword even as he reached gently to touch the tender swelling on the side of her face. “He does not deserve to live….” he ground out. “I’ll kill the bastard, by God!”
     
    “Bernard, nay!” Despite her soreness, Joanna grasped his arm, clutching hard ridges of muscle. “Nay, you cannot—do you not be a fool. I am his wife. He can do with me what he will.” She looked up at him and saw a frightening rage in his eyes. “I belong to him.”
     
    Maris stepped forward, brushing one of Joanna’s thick braids back from her temple to look more closely at the bruising all along her face. “He deserves to die, he who would do this. Come, Joanna, I’ll tend you in my chamber.” When Bernard would speak, she looked up at him, “Nay, Bernard—you cannot attend her. You know that. Your task is to ensure that her husband does not return, looking for her, until midnight at the least. Start a fight with him if you must, but keep him away. Now go, you.”
     
    “’Tis a good thing you do not wish to wed, Lady Maris—for I know of few men who would have a termagent such as you,” Bernard muttered.
     
    Joanna drew back, insulted for her new friend and shocked that he would utter such words, but Maris merely laughed. “’Tis my own secret—and now yours—that that is the way I wish it to be. Now make haste!”
     
    But Bernard ignored her command, and instead took Joanna’s hand in his large fingers. He raised it to his lips, brushing his mouth over her palm and the sensitive inside of her wrist. Prickles of warmth skittered up her spine, and she breathed a faint gasp at the unexpected pleasure. The soft