A Kingdom of Dreams

She shook her head, the wistful yearning in her soft voice banishing his smile. "Nay. I wanted only to be loved by those whom I love; to be looked upon and not found wanting by those who know me."

"And that's all you wanted?"

She nodded, her beautiful profile solemn. "And so I invented a kingdom of dreams where I could accomplish great and daring deeds to make it happen."

Not far away, on the hill nearest the castle, the figure of a man was momentarily illuminated by a shaft of moonlight emerging from the clouds. At any other time, that brief glimpse would have caused Royce to dispatch men to investigate. Now, however, sated with lovemaking, knowing more of it was yet to come with the winsome beauty beside him, his brain paid no heed to what his eyes had noted. It was a night filled with warmth and rare confidences, far too soft and lovely a night to contemplate the unlikely threat of silent danger lurking so close to his own demesne.

Royce frowned, thinking of Je

She tore her gaze from his and seemed to become absorbed in the view again. "Actually," she replied in a carefully emotionless voice, "they think me some sort of-of changeling."

"Why would they think anything so absurd?" he demanded, dumbfounded.

To his surprise she leapt to their defense: "What else could they possibly think, given the things my stepbrother convinced them I've done?"

"What sort of things?"

She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself again, looking much as he had seen her when he first came out onto the parapet. "Unspeakable things," she whispered.

Royce watched her, silently insisting on an explanation, and she drew an unsteady breath and reluctantly complied: "There were many things, but most of all there was Rebecca's drowning. Becky and I were distant cousins and the best of friends. We were both thirteen," she added with a sad little smile. "Her father-Garrick Carmichael-was a widower and she his only child. He doted on her, as nearly all of us did. She was so sweet, you see, and so incredibly fair-fairer even than Bre

"The day before she drowned, we'd been at a fair, and we quarreled because I told her one of the jugglers had been looking at her in an unseemly way. My stepbrothers, Alexander and Malcolm, overheard us -as did several people-and Alexander accused me of being jealous because I'd had eyes for the juggler, which was silly in the extreme. Becky was so angry, embarrassed, I mean, that when we parted, she told me not to bother coming to the river in the morning because she no longer needed my assistance. I knew she didn't really mean it, and she couldn't swim at all well yet, and so naturally, I went there the next morning."

Je

Royce lifted his hand, then dropped it, sensing that she was fighting for control and would not welcome any gesture of comfort that might make her lose it. "It was an accident," he said gently.

She drew a long steadying breath. "Not according to Alexander. He must have been nearby, because he told everyone he heard Becky scream my name, which was true. But then he told them we were quarreling, and that I pushed her in."

"How did he explain your own wet clothing?" Royce said tersely.

"He said," Je

"Easy in what way?"

Her slim shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. "A few more evil lies and twisted truths-a crofter's cottage that suddenly caught fire the night after I challenged with the weight of a sack of grain he brought to the keep. Things such as that."

Slowly she raised tear-brightened blue eyes to his and to Royce's surprise she tried to smile. "Do you see my hair?" she asked. Royce glanced needlessly at the golden red tresses he'd admired for weeks and nodded.

In a suffocated voice, Je

The painful, unfamiliar constriction in Royce's chest made his hand tremble as he started to lift it to lay against her cheek, but she pulled back, and although her huge eyes were shining with unshed tears, she did not break down and weep. Now, at last, he understood why this lovely young girl had not wept since her capture, not even during the sound thrashing he'd given her. Je

For lack of knowing what else to do, Royce went into the bedchamber, poured wine from a flagon into a goblet, and brought it out to her. "Drink this," he said flatly.

With relief, he saw that she'd already gotten control of her sorrow, and a winsome smile touched her soft lips at his unintentionally abrupt tone. "It seems to me, milord," she replied, "that you are forever putting spirits into my hand."

"Usually for my own nefarious reasons," he admitted drolly, and she chuckled.

Taking a sip, she put the goblet aside, then she crossed her arms on the low wall, gazing out into the distance again as she leaned against it. Royce studied her in silence, unable to get her revelations out of his mind, feeling the need to say something encouraging about her plight. "I doubt you'd have liked having the responsibility for your clan, in any case."

She shook her head and quietly said, "I would have loved it. There were so many things I saw that might have been done differently-things a woman would notice that a man does not. Things I learned from Mother Abbess, too. There are new looms-yours are much better than ours-new ways of growing crops-hundreds of other things to be done differently and better."