another for nigh on twelve years without someone uncovering the ruse? What about friends and family? What about the servant who used to carry ale to the table and serve it to Lucien Wardieu? Surely someone would have noticed a change in his appearance?
The Wolf laughed softly, reading her thoughts as clearly as if they had been spelled out letter by letter across her face.
“My mother died within a few hours of my birth. Etienne’s dam went mad and threw herself from a castle tower, screaming—so they say—that the Devil had cursed her. As to the rest—aunts, uncles, cousins—there were none. Or at least none who were close enough or cared enough to visit overlong at Bloodmoor Keep. Surely, as its intended chatelaine, you must have been forewarned of the horrors and spectres who roam the corridors and passageways? The walls that sweat blood? The footsteps in empty rooms? Stories all very carefully nurtured to keep the curious away.”
Servanne studied him for another full minute without so much as a hair moving against the mist. “Why did he want to kill you?”
“Greed, among other things. Had I died a natural death, Etienne would have inherited some of the estates, to be sure, but not Bloodmoor, and never the title of Baron de Gournay. Those would have gone to a distant cousin—another clumsy fellow whose ‘accidental’ death occurred within a few months of the baron’s heroic return from the Crusades.”
“He could not have managed such an elaborate scheme alone,” she said slowly.
“No,” he agreed quietly. “He could not. He would have needed someone’s help to arrange the warrants for Robert Wardieu’s arrest; he would have needed guarantees those charges could be rescinded again at the appropriate time.”
“Prince John?” she gasped. “Are you suggesting Prince John was involved?”
“He shares a similar hunger for power and wealth, not to mention an ambitious jealousy for his brother’s possessions. No doubt he demanded and received a huge payment for his services and seal, but I imagine Etienne thought the loss of a few properties a small price to pay. Especially since he has managed, by one means or another, to gain most of them back.” The Wolf’s eyes narrowed. “The acreage around Lincolnwoods is the last demesne of any importance to be reclaimed.”
Servanne stiffened at this. The Lincolnwoods acreage was part of her dower lands, to be deeded to her new husband upon their marriage.
“Are you … do you dare to imply that Sir Hubert was a part of it?”
The Wolf regarded her with a calmness that did not reveal whether or not he had noticed she had moved a healthy pace away from him. “Sir Hubert acquired the estates innocently enough, in lieu of a debt owed him by the regent.”
Servanne released her pent-up breath, but her head was spinning. It was too much to absorb, and there were too many twists and turns to try to unravel.
“Why should I believe you?” she asked, her fingers trembling visibly where they clutched the folds of her cloak. “Why, indeed, should I believe anything you tell me?”
“It is your prerogative, madam, to believe me or not. You wanted answers to your questions: I gave them.”
“I wanted the truth.”
“You wanted proof of the truth,” he corrected her gently. “And that I cannot give you until I am inside the walls of Bloodmoor Keep.”
Servanne’s teeth bit sharply into the flesh of her lower lip. “If … if what you say is true, why do you not just step forward and declare yourself to be the real Lucien Wardieu? For that matter, who do you declare yourself to be? Surely Queen Eleanor would not employ among her retainers a rogue known only as the Black Wolf!”
A grim smile touched the saturnine features. “Actually, the queen did have a hand in coining the name.”
“She believes your claim?”
The Wolf plucked another leaf and began destroying it in a similar fashion to the first. “In truth, I … thought it best not to burden her with all the sordid details of my past. Not just yet. She needed someone who knew the area—”
“She sanctioned a troop of her own men to sneak about the forests, thieving and murdering in the name of justice?”
The Wolf stared long and hard. He was not a man to tolerate continued skepticism, especially from a woman who was obviously accustomed to wielding her disdain like a sword to cut lesser beings to their knees before her. Moreover, he had already revealed far too much. Any further “truths”