'I cannot take your key,' I protested.

'Why not?'

I searched for an excuse. 'I have no place, to keep it,' I said, 'where it would not be discovered.'

'Then keep it here,' he said, solving the problem easily. Leaning forward so that his arm brushed mine, he reached past me and slid the key into one of the empty nesting holes. 'It is in the box with the cracked ledge, you see? You shall have no trouble finding it again, when you need it.' He straightened, but did not draw away. The air grew thick between us. 'Which leaves but the matter of your forfeit,' he said, in a low and languid voice.

'My forfeit?'

'For stealing one of my pigeons,' he reminded me. 'I do not steal this bird, my lord,' I said evenly, 'and 'twas my understanding that the dovecote belonged to my uncle.'

'Your uncle makes use of it, to be sure, but it was built by my ancestors, and it lies on my land. My ownership is indisputable.'

I tried to voice a protest, but he merely pressed closer, shaking his head. ' "Tis no use denying the crime,' he told me, 'with the evidence there in your hands. 'Tis plainly theft, and I have the right to exact a penalty.'

He held me still beneath his kiss with his free hand, his fingers sliding beneath the weight of my hair, supporting the curve of my jawline and the backward arch of my neck. When he lifted his head, my heart was racing in tempo with that of the bird that I still held to my breast. I had half a mind to select a dozen more pigeons, if he could promise the same penalty for each of them, but I dared not tell him so.

He read my thoughts, anyway. 'Would you wish another bird?' he asked me, grinning.

'I cannot kill the one I have,' I said, shaking my head. 'My uncle sent me here as punishment. He knew I could not do it.'

The grin vanished. 'And what have you done to deserve punishment?'

'I defended his wife,' I replied bluntly. 'He did not care for my interference.'

'A grievous offense, indeed,' Richard said, in a satirical tone. He looked at me, his expression serious. 'Your soft heart does you justice, Mariana. There is no shame in hesitating to kill something. We'll let this fellow live, then, shall we?' Gently, he detached the placid bird from my grasp and replaced it in its nesting hole. 'Here, you may take these, in its place.' He handed me the birds that he had killed earlier.

I looked down at the stiff and lifeless bodies, reluctant even to hold them. 'But what of your dinner?' I asked him. Richard de Mornay smiled mirthlessly. 'My heart is harder than yours. I have no difficulty taking life.' He closed my fingers round the dead pigeons. 'Take these to your uncle,' he said. 'I have more than I need.'

I would have left him, then, but rather than step aside to let me pass, he caught my face again with both hands and kissed me a second time. It was a long, breathless minute before I was released, my ragged breathing nearly drowning the cacophony of contentedly cooing birds.

'After all,' he excused himself, his own voice not quite steady, 'you are availing yourself of two more of my best birds.'

The warbling birds grew louder still, the circle of light at our feet growing suddenly, blindingly, bright, and then there was only silence, and sunlight, and I found myself standing alone beside the low, crumbling wall, with bruised and broken flowers waving at my feet.

*-*-*-*

By walking directly across the fields and making a wide arc around the stables, I could approach the west side of Crofton Hall without being observed, finding myself at last in a rutted, little-used laneway, deep with shade, that closely hugged the towering stone walls. It was a simple matter to locate the section of wall that hid the courtyard. Shorter than its neighboring sections, it had no roof, and the ivy had grown clean over the top of the wall—a solid curtain of massed green leaves and twisted stems, impenetrable, that hung heavily to the ground beneath.

In spite of the ivy, I found the door on my first try. It was a low door, set flush with the wall, old oak weathered to the same dun colour as the stones that surrounded it. The grasping ivy came clear with a tearing sound as I worked my hands around the edges of the door, searching for the handle and lock.

Having located it, I felt in my pocket for the little key and held my breath in anticipation. The key fitted smoothly into the lock ... but it would not turn. Decades, perhaps centuries, of neglect and dampness had rusted the lock into immobility.

I let the ivy fall again, obscuring the door, and releasing my disappointment in a small sigh I turned back, retracing my steps across the empty fields. I had not really expected the key to still work, I reminded myself. And I wasn't even sure what opening the door would have accomplished, at any rate. At least now I knew what the key was for, and why it had been left in the dovecote for me to find.

It gave me a queer feeling to come out of the hollow and see the tumbled, L-shaped wail that was all that was left of the dovecote, when in my mind's eye I could still see clearly the squat, square building standing there. The queer feeling was replaced by a sinking sense of dismay as I drew closer to the garden.

It was blooming wildly and more colorfully than ever. Scarlet flax burst forth in loose sprays of vivid flowers, while campion and phlox crowded in among the pinks, and tall spiky blades of larkspur joined the dwindling, nodding heads of monkshood. Even the rose, the lovely, old country climbing rose that Iain had planted along the one wall, was thriving and covered with fat round buds. But the perfect beauty of the little plot had been spoiled. My own feet had cut a swath through the center of the garden, from edge to wall, and the flowers there were crushed and trampled beyond repair.