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“Lady Alice is no anxious maiden to be awed by your reputation. She will no doubt try to bargain as though she were a London shopkeeper.”
    “It should prove an interesting experience.”
    “Do not forget that last night she appeared more than willing to trade her soul for whatever it is she expects to have from you.”
    “Aye.” Hugh almost smiled. “Mayhap her soul is just what I shall require.”
    ‘Try not to barter away your own in the deal,” Dunstan advised dryly.
    “You are assuming that I have one to lose.”
    B enedict’s twisted leg prevented him from actually storming through the door of Alice’s study chamber. Nevertheless, he managed to convey his anger and outrage with a flushed face and fierce green eyes.
    “Alice, this is madness.” He came to a halt in front of her desk and tucked his staff under one arm. “Surely you cannot mean to bargain with Hugh the Relentless.”
    “His name is Hugh of Scarcliffe now,” Alice said.
    “From what I have heard,
Relentless
suits him all too well. What do you think you are doing? He is a most dangerous man from all accounts.”
    “But an honest one apparently. Tis said that if he strikes a bargain, he will keep it.”
    “I vow that any bargain made with Sir Hugh will be on his terms,” Benedict retorted. “Alice, he is said to be very clever and keen on plotting stratagems.”
    “So? I am rather clever myself.”
    “I know you think that you can manage him as you do our uncle. But men such as Hugh are not easily managed by anyone, especially not by a woman.”
    Alice put down her quill pen and contemplated her brother. Benedict was sixteen years old and she had had the sole responsibility for him since their parents had died. She was well aware that she had failed in her duty by him. She intended to do what she could to make up for the fact that she had allowed his inheritance to slip into Ralf’s hands.
    Her mother, Helen, had died three years earlier. Her father, Sir Bernard, had been murdered by a street thief outside a London brothel two years past.
    Ralf had followed fast on the heels of the news of Bernard’s death. Alice had soon found herself deeply embroiled in a hopeless legal battle to hold on to the small manor that was to have been Benedict’s inheritance. Shehad done her best to retain control of the tiny fief, but on that score Ralf, for all his ox-brained wit, had outmaneuvered her.
    After nearly two full years of argument and persuasion he had convinced Fulbert of Middleton, Alice’s liege lord as well as Ralf s, that a trained knight ought to control the manor. Ralf had claimed that, as a woman, Alice was incapable of managing the estates properly and that, with his ruined leg, Benedict could not be trained as a knight. Fulbert had concluded, after much prompting by Ralf, that he needed a proper fighting man in charge of the tiny manor that had belonged to Lord Bernard.
    To Alice’s rage and disgust, Fulbert had given her father’s manor to Ralf. Ralf had, in turn, given the lands to his eldest son, Lloyd.
    Alice and Benedict had been obliged to move to Lingwood shortly thereafter. Once safely in possession of the fief, Lloyd had married the daughter of a neighboring knight. Six months ago they had had a son.
    Alice was practical-minded enough to realize that no matter how well she argued her brother’s claims in the courts, she would likely never regain possession of Benedict’s inheritance. The knowledge that she had failed to fulfill her responsibility to Benedict was a source of deep pain for her. She rarely failed at a task, especially not one as important as this had been.
    Determined to make up for the disaster in the only way possible, Alice had set out to give Benedict the best possible chance for advancement in the world. She had determined to send him to the great centers of learning in Paris and Bologna, where he would be trained in the law.
    Nothing could make up for his lost lands, but Alice intended to do her