Page 5

Wharton’s indignation subsided, and Edlyn sighed in relief. “Besides,” she added, “if I try to keep the nuns out, they’ll be suspicious. Now let’s remove the armor—”

“The coif first,” the warrior said. “Remove it.”

His lips tightened as Wharton eased off the chain-mail headgear. Each movement pained him, Edlyn realized, and the links caught in his lank blond hair and tugged at his scalp. Wharton muttered apologies as he worked, but the warrior uttered no reproach to his servant. He simply lay still and panted softly, and when he could he said, “Now my face. Wash it.” Wharton took up the wet cloth again, but the warrior said, “Nay. Her.”

Startled, Edlyn found herself the recipient of a scowl from Wharton and a damp washing cloth.

She didn’t understand it. The two men had been so protective of the warrior’s identity, and now the warrior took the chance she would identify him by demanding she clean his face.

And the possibility existed she would recognize him. When she had been the countess of Jagger, legions of knights and noblemen had visited, seeking favors and offering support. They’d all vanished when Robin had been killed, of course.

She held the cloth and looked down at the filth-encrusted face of the warrior. Had he perhaps recognized her?

“What are you waiting for?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. She just bent her head and smoothed the cloth over his forehead.

A broad forehead, fair but marked with the creases of experience. Then the area around his eyes, where she saw wrinkles that came from squinting against the sun. Too, she saw hazel eyes that watched her closely.

She hesitated, her hand poised above him. What did he behold in her face that so interested him?

Wharton snatched the cloth from her and rinsed the grime and blood from it, then shoved it back into her fingers.

The dark smudges had successfully camouflaged the warrior’s features, changing the shape by creating false shadows. His cheekbones, she discovered as she washed, were high and sharp and matched his outthrust chin. Before a series of breaks had mutilated his nose, it had been a blade of bone. His lips, even when not swollen and bruised, were generous, the type a young girl would dream of kissing.

Her hand began to shake as she stared.

A young girl might well see this man through an infatuated gaze. She might fall headlong in love with him and imagine in him every virtue. And if that young girl had to go off to be married to a man old enough to be her grandfather, she would carry his image before her like a shining icon. For years she would think he, and only he, was the man who could excite her passions.

She would have been wrong. Wrong about so many things. And now that young girl had grown up, and now she would pay the price for her foolishness.

Aye, she recognized him. How could she not? Not even the ravages of time and distance could disguise this man’s masculine beauty.

Thrusting the cloth at Wharton, Edlyn wiped her palms across her skirt as if to wipe away the stain of touching him. “Hugh,” she said in a cold, clear voice. “You are Hugh de Florisoun.”

2

“And you are Edlyn, duchess of Cleere.”

Dear God, Hugh remembered.

Hastily, she stood up and moved away from him. “I was the duchess of Cleere. I am not any longer.”

He waited for her to identify herself and, when she didn’t, said, “Your duke died.”

“He was an old man.”

“And you remarried?”

She didn’t answer; she only turned her face away from the eyes that observed her too closely. Years ago, she would have given anything for Hugh to look at her that way, or in any way.

Now it was too late.

Her disquietude only seemed to amuse him, for he mocked, “You are still Edlyn, I hope.”

“You may call me Edlyn,” she answered.

“Lady Edlyn?”