Servanne spent a restless night rolling and tossing from one side of the big bed to the other. The sense of foreboding she had felt with her first glimpse of the sinister towers and spires of Bloodmoor Keep, had grown in intensity with every passing minute. The Dragon had neither said nor done anything outright to persuade her he was living a lie. To be sure, standing the two brothers side by side, one would have to choose the Dragon over the Wolf as being better suited to bear the De Gournay crest and shield, and yet … something told her it was not so. Something told her the Wolf was the legitimate son of Robert Wardieu, the legitimate heir to Bloodmoor Keep.
But if that was true, it meant the man under whose protection she now resided was a murderer. It meant he was a cheat and an impostor, and had schemed to bring about his own father’s death.
“This Lincoln Wolf has you bewitched, child,” Biddy had said in the small hours of the morning, aghast at the story she had finally coaxed from Servanne’s tongue. “Just because he bedded you and put a hunger in your loins, do not be convinced he speaks only the truth! I warned you. By the heart of St. Agnes, I warned you where your curiosity would lead, but did you listen? Did you heed me? Did you even give half a care for this poor heart who loves you so well?”
Biddy had dissolved into a wailing flood of tears, and Servanne had offered what comfort she could, but both had known it was to no avail, and after a few moments of incoherent snifflings, Biddy had resorted to more worldly logic.
“Look around you, my lady: Are these the trappings of a dishonest man? The baron is the king’s champion, and a friend to Prince John. He is as prominent a figure as William the Marshal, or Salisbury, and could undoubtedly be vouchsafed by both as being who he says he is! As for the other … he is nought but an outlaw and rogue knight who kidnaps helpless women and takes his amusement in filling their heads with notions of grand intrigues. If he truly was Lucien Wardieu, why has he waited all this time to make his claim? Why does he wait, even now? And why, by all the mercy that flows from heaven above, would he have given you to a man he claims has defiled the family name with acts of murder and treason?”
“I do not know,” Servanne had answered truthfully. “He mentioned some other danger—”
“Some other danger?” Biddy shrilled. “Some other excuse, more’s the truth. I may not approve wholeheartedly of some of the goings-on we have witnessed since our arrival—the great hall is a nest of pestilence and shall require tending to at once!—but I have also seen nothing to implicate the baron in anything more devious than buying himself a bride of some means. And if you would condemn him for that, you would have to condemn every other lord, baron, and earl in the kingdom … yea, even the king himself, who has no more love or affection for the Princess Berengaria than he would a common pine knot. But he will marry her because of the political union she represents, and because Queen Eleanor has said he must marry for the sake of peace in the kingdom.”
“There is no kingdom at stake in my marriage,” Servanne had argued quietly, and Biddy, who had expended most of her breath and logic on her last speech, recognized the stubborn set to her ward’s jaw and clasped her hands over her bosom in a gesture of despair.
“Surely … you do not intend to reject the baron’s suit? You do not intend to refuse the marriage?”
Servanne had not answered then, nor, after a night of sleepless agony, could she have answered the question now. She had relived, in her mind, every word, every gesture, every memory made by the Black Wolf of Lincoln. His hands had been there to taunt her body through flushes of heat and cold; his lips had been almost real enough to cause shivered recollections from her throat, to her toes, to the very core of her womanhood. He had bewitched her, there was no use denying it, but was his ability to render her senseless with ecstasy the only reason she wanted to believe his claim?