King Henry was returned, and with him his queen. For four years he had occupied his French lands, not once setting foot in his island kingdom. But now he was everywhere, traveling across England at a furious pace, setting aright wrongs, and—it was said—increasingly disillusioned with his old friend, Thomas Becket.

The archbishop, a favorite to whom the king had entrusted the education of his heir, was not behaving. At least, not how Henry wished Thomas to behave.

As for Queen Eleanor, she was also making her presence felt. In this moment. Inside these walls.

“What does that harlot want?”

Lothaire stiffened. He had heard footsteps, but since they did not scrape or land heavily, he thought they belonged to a servant come to prepare the hall for the nooning meal. When his mother wished to be stealthy, she made the effort to lift and softly place her feet.

Setting his teeth, he turned.

She stood before the dais upon which the lord’s table was raised. Wisps of silver hair visible beneath her veil, face loose and heavily lined, she arched eyebrows above eyes so lightly lidded they seemed unusually large.

Having wed a man six years younger than she and birthed Lothaire just past the age of thirty, Raisa Soames could more easily be his grandmother. Though fifty and nine, she looked older. But then, she had always appeared aged beyond her years. For that and her temperament, it was told her now departed husband had often strayed from the marriage bed.

“My son,” she said with an imperious lift of her chin, “I asked a question.”

And he would answer when he answered. They were years beyond her ability to dominate him, but ever she tried to take back ground lost a decade past after his betrothal to Lady Laura Middleton was broken.

Resenting that even a glancing thought for that young lady yet felt like a blade between the ribs, he rolled the missive and slid it beneath his belt.

His mother stared at what he refused her greedy eyes, the color blooming in her cheeks proving blood yet coursed beneath her skin.

“I am summoned to court, Mother.”

She drew a sharp breath. “For?”

“What we knew would call me to Eleanor’s side if I failed to find a bride with a sizable enough dowry to make Lexeter whole.”

She hastened onto the dais and would have dropped to her knees had he not caught her arm. As he pulled her up beside him, she gripped his tunic so fiercely her nails scraped his chest through the material. “You have not searched far enough!” Saliva sprayed his face. “Now see, our future is in the hands of that French harlot.”

She was not entirely wrong. Since the annulment of his unfortunate marriage to Lady Beata Fauvel a year past, he could have searched harder, but the thought of awakening beside another woman he wanted only for her wealth had put him off the hunt. Too, when he was not working the land to turn it profitable, he pursued his only other passion—becoming worthy to don a Wulfrith dagger.

Of that his mother remained unaware, though not for lack of trying to discover where twice now he had gone for three and four weeks—Wulfen Castle where he suffered humiliation after humiliation, ofttimes at the hands of mere squires. And where he was to have traveled a sennight hence.

Much to Abel Wulfrith’s displeasure, Lothaire had slammed his pride to the ground and accepted the man’s offer to train him into one of England’s most formidable warriors. Lothaire had known it was but a taunt, but he had dared. And Sir Abel’s brother, Everard, had said if the offer was made it must be fulfilled.

Despite the pain and shame endured, Lothaire had discovered a liking for the two brothers, and even the eldest, Baron Wulfrith. More surprising, Sir Abel had become easier in his pupil’s company during the second training. They could never be friends, Lothaire having no use for such, but there was something appealing about spending time with men his own age who shared similar interests.

Now he must send word he would not avail himself of next month’s training. More unfortunate, even if he returned from court with a wife, it would be months before he could journey to Wulfen Castle since he must wait until next Sir Abel relieved one of his brothers of the task of training up England’s worthiest knights.

“I shall accompany you,” his mother broke into his thoughts. “King Henry’s harlot will know exactly what you require in a wife—virtuous, wealthy, pretty, but not too pretty.”

“I go alone.” Lothaire unhooked his mother’s hands from his tunic.

“But my son—!”

“You shall remain here.” Ensuring she had her balance, he stepped back. “If the queen provides a wife, you will relinquish the title of Lady of Lexeter without protest, else I will see you removed to your dower property.” Which he should have done years ago.

Light leapt in her eyes, but naught resembling the sparkle of stars on a moonless night. This was fire. And here came the threat that was the greatest control she had over him.

“Sebille will go with me. You know she will.”

His older sister whom their parents had once called their miracle for the Lord’s healing of an affliction in her infancy. Though Lothaire could have secured a marriage for Sebille, Raisa Soames had deemed a landless knight unworthy of her daughter and persuaded the young woman that her place was at her mother’s side.

“For years, Sebille’s devotion to you and your poor health has stayed my hand,” he said, “most notably when I did not send you away after you risked all of Lexeter by hiring men to murder Lady Beata and Baron Marshal.”

Her eyes burned brighter. Would she now deny the wrongdoing as she had not a year past after he and his men intercepted the assassins shortly before Lady Beata’s husband challenged those who trespassed on his lands? Lothaire had sensed she wanted to deny it, but she had gone silent, and he had been glad lest she demand proof it was of her doing. That he could not have provided, not only because it was his sister who secretly alerted him to their mother’s plans but because the assassins had escaped High Castle’s prison before they could be made to talk.

Lothaire narrowed his eyes. “It will end differently if you threaten my wife, Mother.”

“Foolish boy! Ever you do not see the Delilah who would make of you a Samson, who would steal your strength and leave you weak as a woman.”

Many times he had heard this. Indeed, one of his first acts of rebellion against her tyranny had been to grow his hair. She had hated it, though it had been only long enough to catch back at the nape when he was first betrothed. After Lady Laura’s betrayal, he had meant to cut it so he might more easily forget their hands in each other’s hair, but that would have pleased his mother. Upon learning the cause for the broken betrothal and seeing her son’s misery, over and again she had cursed Lady Laura for cutting her Samson’s hair.

“Nor do you see the Jezebel!” She jabbed a finger at him. “She who would make an Ahab of you, provoking the Lord and bringing ill upon your house. But I see her. And would not have you suffer again as that wicked—”

“Enough!” Lothaire stepped from the dais and tossed over his shoulder, “You may wish me still a boy, but I have not been since—”

“Since that harlot made a cuckold of you, just as over and again your father made a mockery of our wedding vows.”

He did not break stride.

“You still think on her. I know you do.”

He halted. Though she spoke of Laura, neither had his first wife, Lady Edeva, been pure.

Do I hate my mother? he wondered. He did not, but she gave him little cause to love her.

He turned. “That would please you, aye? For me to more greatly regret not heeding your advice than that she lay with another.”

“You should have listened to me! How many times did I warn—?”

“I did listen. You said she would make a fitting wife.”

“Until time and again she called you back to her, like a siren seeking to drag you down into the dark. Into sin!”

It was as Raisa Soames wished to believe, though he knew her objections thereafter were rooted in jealousy. She had never fully recovered from the wasting sickness that prevented her from accompanying him to Owen for his second visit with his betrothed. Hence, four more times he had visited Laura unchaperoned, and each time was sweeter than the last.

But not the very last when he learned the truth of her—she who had assured him she would mature…would not disappoint…that much could happen in a year. Much had happened, though not as expected. Even now, ten years gone, he could see her standing before the pond. Alone, but not entirely alone.

Of the ride home to Lexeter, he recalled little. Nearly all was a blur, though less so his stop at the village of Thistle Cross to seek solace at the church whose priest had once ministered inside the castle walls.

A year after his lord’s disappearance, Father Atticus had displeased Lady Raisa. Like others in his lord’s service, he had been cast out. But rather than leave Lexeter, he had withdrawn to the nearest village and ministered alongside its aging priest. When the latter passed, Atticus had assumed the other man’s duties, returning to the castle only when called upon on the rare occasion Lady Raisa hosted other nobles and the presence of a man of God was required.

On that day of Laura’s betrayal, Lothaire had hated himself for the tears shed over the faithless woman, and Atticus had consoled him by listening and praying with him—as had become habit over the years since.

“Ah, but ever I am to blame,” Lady Raisa returned her son to her presence.

“Leave it be, Mother,” he said and strode to the stairs off which stepped Martin, his mother’s physician of too many years to number. A coincidence? Possible. Had he been listening in on the exchange between mother and son? More possible. If not that Lady Raisa was so dependent on the man, he would have been replaced years ago.

“My lord,” the physician acknowledged him.

Lothaire inclined his head and continued past. As he ascended the stairs, he glanced over his shoulder. Martin had hold of his mother’s arm and guided her toward the kitchen.

Moments later, Lothaire closed himself in the solar. When his breathing calmed, he read the queen’s missive again. He did not like the wording. It begged a question. Did she or did she not have a wife for him? She said she did, and yet in closing she wavered.

We shall expect you within a fortnight, Lord Soames. Do you present well, we believe you will gain the hand of the lady who shall bring to her marriage the relief many a lord seeks to save his lands. Do not disappoint us.