Fire Song by Catherine Coulter

management of his keep and lands. The vast number of people who spent their lives at Wolffeton were his responsibility and his alone.
    He thought again of Blanche de Cormont. He had returned to Cornwall a month before to find her wringing her hands when she saw him, tears shining in her eyes. He had not recognized her until she had reminded him that she was half-sister to his first wife. Soft-spoken, shy Blanche, a widow now and with no kin to take her in, none save him. She had come to Wolffeton some three months before his return home. Blount hadn’t known what to do with her, so she had remained, awaiting Graelam’s return. She was not old, perhaps twenty-eight, but there were faint lines of sadness etched about her mouth, and her brown eyes, when they rested upon him, were liquid with gratitude. Her two children, a boy and a girl, she had told him, her soft mouth trembling, were being raised by her cousin Robert, in Normandy. She, their mother, had not been welcome, particularly, she had added sadly, touching her hand to her rich raven hair, by Robert’s young wife, Elise, a woman jealous of her husband’s affections.
    Well, Graelam had thought then as well as now, there was no harm in her residing at Wolffeton. She waited on him, served his dinner herself, and mended his clothing. It was odd, though, he thought, that thecastle servants did not seem to like her. Why, he could not guess. She seemed unobtrusive enough to him.
    Graelam’s thoughts turned to the Duke of Cornwall’s impending visit. King Edward’s uncle had always seemed like a second father to Graelam, indeed, more of a father than his own had been. Though the bond between them was deep and affectionate, Graelam devoutly prayed that the duke was not coming as his overlord to request his services. A year of his life spent in the Holy Land fighting the heathen Saracens was enough for any man.
    With these thoughts, he turned Demon away from the cliff and rode northward back toward Wolffeton.
    At the sound of approaching hoofbeats, Blanche de Cormont pulled the leather hide from the window opening in her small chamber and watched Graelam gallop into the inner bailey of Wolffeton, his powerful body gracefully at ease in the saddle. She felt a surge of excitement at the sight of him, and her fingers twisted at the thought of running them through his thick black hair. How alike and yet different he was from her husband, Raoul, curse that bastard’s black heart. She hoped he was rotting in hell. Like Raoul, Graelam expected her to serve him as unquestioningly as any servant, but unlike Raoul, he was a virile, handsome devil whose bed every young serving wench at Wolffeton had shared willingly. And, of course, Graelam hadn’t once raised his hand against her. But then, she thought cynically, she was not yet his wife. A wife, she knew from painful experience, was like any other of a man’s possessions. As long as she kept to her place and was exacting in pleasing her husband, she was treated as well as his hunting dogs or his destrier.
    Blanche gnawed on her lower lip, wondering howmuch longer she should pretend the shy, self-effacing widow’s role she had instinctively assumed when Graelam returned to Wolffeton. Her first husband, Raoul, had painfully taught her that her high spirits, her occasionally stinging tongue, and her pride were not acceptable in a wife. And her stubbornness. She supposed she was being stubborn where Graelam was concerned, but she wanted him and fully intended to have him. A widow and a poor relation had no real place, her children no real home or future. Perhaps, she thought, it was time to give Graelam some encouragement, perhaps even slip into his bed, if she could find it empty one night!
    She would wed Graelam and then bring her children to Cornwall. She missed them, particularly her son, Evian, a bright lad of eight years, but her decision to come to Cornwall was all for his sake. He would become Graelam’s heir, for Blanche