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a shudder. Why had he come in the middling of night? And what was she to do?
    He strode so suddenly around the end of the bed that there was no time for her to close her eyes. Wearing a mantle as red as new-spilled blood, a tunic as black as a moonless night, he slowly smiled.
    “Lady Beatrix awakens.” He angled his head, causing his dark hair to skim his shoulder. “Or mayhap she has been awake some time now.”
    Waiting for him to leave, devising a way to deter him if he tried to do to her what his brother had done. But the only thing near enough with which to defend herself was the pewter goblet on the bedside table.
    “I am Michael D’Arci of Castle Soaring. You know the name, my lady?”
    Too well as well he knew.
    “Have you no tongue?”
    Aye, but the bridge between it and her mind was in poor disrepair. If a reply was forthcoming, it would surely come too late.
    He pressed hands to the mattress, leaned forward, and narrowed his lids over pale gray eyes so like his brother’s and yet somehow different. “Mayhap you are simply frightened?”
    As he wished her to be.
    “Or perhaps you are as witless as I have been told.”
    Anger built the bridge to her tongue. “I am not witless!”
    “Ah, she speaks. What else does she do?” He bent so near she could almost taste the wine on his breath. Though he did not appear unsteady, she sensed he had imbibed heavily, a dangerous thing for an angry man to do—especially dangerous for her.
    His eyebrows rose. “She assists her sister in escaping the king’s edict”—
    Had Gaenor escaped? Though Beatrix had asked after her sister when Lavonne last visited her chamber, the man who was to have been Gaenor’s husband had not answered.
    —“puts daggers to men as easily as to a trencher of meat, and survives a fall that should have seen her dead.”
    A tremble, as much born of anger as fear, moved through Beatrix. Struggling to keep her breath even, she reminded herself of the goblet. If he tried to defile her, she would bring it down upon his head. If she could get it to hand. If she could harm another.
    “You wish to know the reason I tended your injury?” Michael D’Arci continued. “Why I did not allow you to die as is your due?”
    She did not need to be told. Her words might be slow to form, but she knew he sought revenge.
    “Justice,” he said.
    Revenge by a lesser name was still revenge, especially where unwarranted.
    “Though you may be clever, I vow you will be judged and found wanting.”
    In the past, she had been called clever. Would she ever be again—lacking D’Arci’s taint of sarcasm?
    When she gave no reply, he said, “Could you, you would kill again, hmm?”
    Again, her tongue loosened. “Most assuredly I would defend my person against any who seeks to violate me.” Was that her voice? Strong and even without break or searching? Whence did it come?
    “You speak of ravishment?” D’Arci bit.
    Though she longed to look away, she kept her gaze on his face, noting his full mouth, straight nose, broad cheekbones, and heavily lashed gray eyes—so like his brother’s she strained to hold back the panic that would have her scurry for cover.
    Of a sudden, he cursed, his unholy use of the Lord’s name making her flinch. “Is that what you will tell the sheriff? That you murdered my brother because he ravished you?”
    Beatrix blinked. Though ravishment had surely been Simon D’Arci’s intent, it seemed the Wulfrith dagger had stopped him. Determined to correct Michael D’Arci—to assure him she was fairly certain his brother had failed to commit the heinous act—she searched for words. However, his darkening face once more caused her tongue to tangle. Could the devil assume human form, he would surely be pleased to do so in the image of Michael D’Arci.
    But for all of her fear, hope slipped in. Of that day at the ravine, he surely knew only what Baron Lavonne had shared. What if she told him the truth, even if most of the truth she