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“Nay, Jemma, leave her,” he said firmly. “I suggest you retreat to your bedchamber as well.”

“Nay, I willna. I willna allow ye to conspire to kill Aloria!” she spat, taking a swing at Kieran’s face.

He ducked her fist, snatching her arm. “Do as I say.”

“Nay.” she screamed, all feet and fists. “I wunna let ye take her.”

Kieran grabbed her, but not before she made good contact with his left cheekbone. He hauled her up against him, kicking and screaming and fighting him every step of the way as he took her into her bedchamber. When he exited the room and tried to close the door, she attempted to break free and he was forced to push her back, hard, so that he could close the door completely and bolt it from the outside.

William could now do as he intended. He had Aloria roughly by her arm, and guided her out of the room and into the corridor. The knights could still hear Jemma and Jordan screaming and cursing like wild fiends until Paris closed the antechamber door and they were all alone in the dim hall.

“Where to, William?” Paris asked.

“The cellar.”

Aloria, her face white and wet with tears, turned around to look at him. “I beg of you, my lord, do not do this horrible deed. I am no spy; I swear it on the blessed Virgin. I care not that you are married to the earl’s intended. I only want to live here and serve your wife. She has been most kind to me.”

William ignored her pleas, but Paris looked at her. “You are a clever one to make both ladies defend you so.”

“I am not clever!” she cried out. “I am a simple woman, nothing more. I can only swear to you on the Bible of our Lord that I will not reveal your secret, nor could the devil himself wring it from me. You must believe me, my lord, please.”

He ignored her again, but he had heard her words and they cast a shadow of doubt in his mind. What if she was telling the truth and he executed an innocent woman? His wife was an excellent judge of human character, and she believed Aloria to be innocent. What if she was innocent? Good God, as much as he hated premeditated murder, he was about to commit it and he wasn’t convinced anymore that he should.

Kieran and Paris flanked him and the prisoner as they made their way to the lower levels of Northwood and into the ‘cellar,’ an underwhelming term for a vast, cavernous labyrinth of dungeons.

The small party moved into a seldom used offshoot of the stuffy first level, to the very last room at the end of the dim narrow hall. It was completely silent, void of any occupants. A most appropriate place to commit an execution.

“I shall do it,” Kieran said gravely. “ ’Tis not fitting for you to do this, William.”

“If anyone will do it, ’twill be me,” Paris said. “As his second, it is my duty to….”

William roughly shoved Aloria into the dank, musty room. “Shut up, both of you. This is my duty, as it was my secret she discovered. My main concern now is what to tell the queen. If you wish to help, then think of a plausible excuse. Now get out of here and let me accomplish this task alone.”

Paris and Kieran looked long and hard at him but obeyed. When they were gone, William followed Aloria into the room and closed the heavy door behind him.

Aloria was curled up in a ball at the far wall. In the light of the dim torch, he could see her head buried between her knees and her whole body shaking.

“What in the world ever possessed you to become a spy for the king?” he demanded after a moment. “Why, woman? I am trying to understand this.”

Her head came up. “I told you, my lord, I am not a spy. It was an accident, all of it. I would not lower myself to the ranks of the cowardly for a simple reward or bauble in return for my services. If I was to become such a wretched creature, I would choose to be a whore, for at least I would be receiving a certain amount of pleasure for my efforts.” Her eyes were wide, beseeching him for mercy. “My lord, your wife was kind to me. Kinder than anyone has ever been in my entire life. I would not do something as despicable as spy on her, and though you are planning to kill me for such a crime, God knows of my innocence.”

Doubts were filling him. To hear her speak, to understand her reasoning, he was now beginning to see for himself that she was an intelligent, well-bred woman. His only contact with her until this point had been a turbulent one, but now that he had spoken with her, he found himself beginning to believe her.

Her only crime, if he were to be reasonable, was to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and hear a bit of confidential information. If she had been a spy, she would not have tripped over her own feet in her haste to retreat.

So many lives depended on what this stranger knew. Mayhap he should discuss this with the earl; after all, he was directly affected, as well. William was not the sort to act in haste, but he realized now that was exactly what he had done.

“Aloria,” he said in a low voice. “Look me in the eyes and swear to me on everything that is holy that you are not a spy, and I will take that into consideration.”

She didn’t hesitate. “I am not, nor have I ever been, a spy.”

“But you realize that you carry knowledge only a select few, very trusted people know.”

“And I also know that you are more angry at me for having that knowledge than you actually believe that I am a spy,” she replied. “My lord, I care not that you have married Lady Jordan. Why would I?”

“Because you are a vassal of the king, and any loyal vassal would reveal a deception of this magnitude.”

“Aye, but you are a vassal, as well,” she countered. “And there is a good reason why you have not revealed your secret to our king, matters which I neither care about nor concern me. Who am I to question the motives of the illustrious Wolf?”