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back. The frown that crossed his face darkened it further. And as surely as she breathed, she knew he knew it was upon her chamber he looked.
    She turned, retrieved her psalter from the bedside table, and pressed it to her chest. Such relief she had felt upon discovering it the day of her awakening. Telling herself God’s word would sustain her, she opened the psalter and settled down to await Sir Simon’s vengeful kin.
    Hours passed, her supper was delivered, more hours passed, and still he did not come.
    When her lids grew heavy, she slid beneath the bed covers. “Lord,” she whispered, “you allowed me to survive a f-fall I should not have, but surely not for this. Pray, re-reveal to me what you would have me to do.”

    ‘Tis said you are a devil, Michael.
    Not in all things, but some—namely, women. But he had good reason. And now, more so.
    Michael returned to his memory of the lonely youth who had followed him to the roof of their father’s donjon years earlier. He saw the night breeze lift Simon’s fair hair and sweep it across his troubled face.
    Would that I could be like you, Michael.
    Had he known what it was like to be Michael D’Arci, a man unwelcome at most nobles’ tables, he would not have wished it so.
    Drawing breath past the bitterness, Michael opened his fists and began beating a rhythm on the window sill. He loathed waiting on anything or anyone, especially a murderess whose face ought to be set upon an angel.
    No fair maid will ever want me.
    And for that, Simon ought to have been grateful. Still, Michael had been pained by his brother’s plight, especially when he saw moonlight sparkling in the boy’s tears. Tears for fear he might never know a woman.
    Michael looked to the postered bed where Beatrix Wulfrith’s still figure was played by the light of a dimming torch. Though her face was turned to the wall, denying him full view of her beauty, the slender curve of her neck was visible, as was the turn of an ear and the slope of a cheekbone swept by hair of palest gold. Deceptive beauty. No woman was to be underestimated, not even his stepmother who had been as a mother to him.
    I would be a man and mother would have me remain a boy, Simon’s voice found him again.
    The boy’s mother had loved him too well, refusing to see past her own heart to what was best for her son.
    Trying to put away the memory of Simon’s bent head, slumped shoulders, and the sobs jerking the youth’s thin body, Michael returned his focus to the bed, something of a feat considering the amount of wine he had earlier consumed. Too much, as evidenced by his presence in the lady’s chamber when he had vowed he would wait until the morrow. But she had only been two doors down from the chamber he was given, and he had been unable to sleep. To resist the impulse to seek her out, he had donned his mantle and walked the outer walls for an hour, but when he returned to the donjon and drew near her door…
    Would she awaken? It was as he wished, for he had waited too long to delve the guilty eyes of his brother’s murderer. If not for the delay in delivering him tidings of her recovery, she would have been brought before the sheriff by now, but it had taken a sennight for Christian Lavonne’s men to locate Michael in London where he had gone to assist with an outbreak of smallpox. However, Simon would have his justice as Christian had promised—and so, too, would the old baron, Aldous.
    Recalling the two hours spent in the company of Christian’s father, tending the man’s aches and pains that should have ended his suffering long ago, Michael shook his head. For years he had urged Aldous to not dwell on Geoffrey’s death, to accept it and continue as best he could in his ravaged body, but it was as if the old man’s life hinged upon working revenge on the Wulfriths.
    With Simon’s death, Michael now understood Aldous’s pain. Indeed, this day the old baron had wagged a horribly bent finger at his physician and