Lord of My Heart by Jo Beverley Page A

such a child, a girl called Frieda, though there was no way to know whether she was his, or Hereward’s, or even Hengar’s.
    Aimery realized he should check on Frieda’s welfare in these uncertain times, but he’d have to do it without meeting Aldreda, for if anyone could recognize him, it was she.
    He smiled. She’d been only sixteen to his fourteen, but she’d seemed a woman grown to him—shapely, full-hipped, and with long chestnut hair. She’d been kind to a nervous boy and delicious in his arms.
    There was a resemblance between Aldreda and the heiress. Perhaps that was why he had been so instantly attracted to her. He pushed the thought away. Madeleine of Baddersley was not for him. Unfortunately.
    Gyrth interrupted his thoughts. “So, does that winsome smile mean you’re going to try to win Baddersley for yourself?”
    “No,” said Aimery shortly. “It’s safe now. Let’s be on our way.”
    They climbed down the far side of the hill, heading for the camp they’d set up for the cottars. People had been quietly slipping into it over the past day. Tonight they would move everyone out.
    “Why don’t you want Baddersley?” Gyrth persisted.
    “Because I’d like to live to see the year out.”
    As they drew close to the camp, Aimery halted. There were no sounds when there should be, for there were children and even babies among those who sought freedom. There was no smell of wood-smoke when they had agreed a fire was safe this deep in the woods. With a hand signal to Gyrth, Aimery moved forward.
    The camp was deserted. The fire was trampled out, though wisps of smoke still rose. Only an overturned pot and a forlorn bundle told of people recently in the area. Aimery and Gyrth walked slowly into the camp, puzzled.
    A rustling sounded nearby. Aimery spun around, knife already in hand. A boy crawled fearfully out of the undergrowth.
    “What happened?” demanded Aimery, still alert for danger.
    “Men came,” said the lad tearfully. “On ‘orses. With dogs. They rounded ’em all up. Then ‘e came.”
    “Who?”
    “The Devil.” The boy shuddered. “ ‘E as ’ow they’d attacked his son. They’re all to be flogged to death. All of ‘em!” He fell to wailing. Aimery gathered him in his arms, knowing the boy’s family had been among the taken.
    A few other people shuffled out of the dense undergrowth, gaunt with horror.
    “But they were pursuing us,” Aimery said.
    A woman came forward, a babe at her scrawny breast. “They were as surprised to find us, Master, as we were to be found. That’s why so many of us had the chance to flee. Curse the Norman bitch!” She spat sharply into the ashes of the fire.
    It took Aimery a moment to register it. “A woman was here?”
    “She came afterward with the Devil, fairly begging him to torture us all. I can’t understand their heathenish tongue, but anyone at Baddersley has cause to learn the word ‘fouettez’. ‘Whip them, whip them,’ she kept saying.”
    “Who was she?” It must have been Dame Celia, he told himself. It must have been.
    “It were the Devil’s niece, Master.”
    Aimery couldn’t believe it. “Chestnut hair, brown eyes?” he queried, praying the woman would say no.
    She nodded.
    He was chilled. What kind of woman was she, to do this? She knew these people were innocent.
    He began to wonder if there was a different pattern to the attack he’d witnessed. Perhaps she made a practice of teasing men. In Odo de Pouissey had she finally met a man without gallantry and almost paid the price?
    Aimery felt some sour sympathy for Odo. Not much, but some.
    “You’re sure it was Lady Madeleine?” he asked again.
    “Clear as day,” the woman said.
    “And she was begging for the people to be whipped.”
    “Fair desperate about it.”
    Hope left him. She was deceitful, lewd, treacherous, cruel. The thought that he’d been drawn to such a creature disgusted him. “She will pay,” he promised the people in front of him.
    The