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A sigh broke from Dominic, a sound akin to the willow leaves stirring overhead.

“When my parents learned I was with child,” she went on, “they were shocked. My family was well known in the county. They had hoped to marry me to one of their wealthy clients and thereby expand my father’s influence in the cloth trade. No man would want me pregnant with another’s babe.”

“Your dragon of a husband married you.”

“Ryle was an associate of my father’s and many years older than I,” Gisela bit out, unable to tamp down her loathing. “He had no children. His previous wife had died. He offered to accept my babe as his own, in exchange for my help running his business. My father had taught me to manage the accounts. Ryle wished me to do the same for him.”

Dominic stood silent for a long moment, a tall, brooding presence in the darkening shadows. The wind, whispering through the leaves again, sounded like the hushed gossip of finger-pointing old crones. “I had no choice, Dominic,” she said, speaking the words she had silently told herself a hundred times over. “My parents wanted to avoid a scandal. To leave and try to begin a trade on my own, with no money and a babe to feed and clothe, was foolish. Ryle was a rich merchant. He promised to care for me and my child.”

“I understand, Gisela.” Dominic’s voice sounded flat and as emotionless as a barren winter day.

“Really?” she whispered, the torment of her choices turning her voice to pure pain. “I felt naught for him. He was a stranger to me in all ways. I stood beside him during our nuptials, but felt only… emptiness.” Because I loved you. Every part of me longed to be with you.

“’Twas not so unpleasant the first few months,” she went on, “or those after Ewan was born. Ryle traveled a great deal, sometimes to the continent to visit the Fairs of Champagne and purchase cloth, or other parts of England to meet fellow merchants. I looked after his manor home and the accounts, while raising Ewan.”

“An ideal situation, to outsiders.”

Nay, my love, for each day, I craved you. I begged that, by some divine miracle, you would survive the horrors of battle and return to England, to be with me.

“Ideal until the profits did not match his reckless spending,” Gisela said with a shiver. “When Geoffrey de Lanceau settled at Branton Keep, and his cloth industry thrived, Ryle lost clients. De Lanceau became rich, while Ryle struggled to keep customers.”

“Ah,” Dominic murmured.

“Ryle grew angry. He began to drink, his one goblet of wine in the evening becoming five or six. When I begged him to stop, he hit me, hard enough to send me sprawling on the floor.”

She forced words through chattering teeth. “I told him I would leave. He said if I dared to run away, no matter where I went, he would find me. He would hurt my parents, until they told him where I could be found.”

“Gisela!”

“Then, after raising his fist to hit me again, he wept and apologized. He said he loved me, and promised to be a better man.”

Dominic shook his head.

“I tried to keep him content. I asked the servants to cook his favorite meals. I kept up with the accounts. Then, one evening, I… I made a mistake.”

“What do you mean, ‘a mistake’?”

“In the ledger, I… incorrectly subtracted a sum. I swear, I did not mean to. Ewan was teething and restless in the nights, and I had not slept well. I miscalculated. Ryle found the mistake. Drunk and angry, he accused me of trying to cheat him. He said I planned to steal the money to run away, to be with another man.” To be with you, Dominic. Because you gave me your son. Because you loved me in ways Ryle could not.

“Gisela, ’twas not your fault.”

She shrugged off the soothing reassurance of Dominic’s words. “I am to blame. I should have checked my sums.”

“He should never have taken out his anger on you.”

Gisela tried very hard not to cry. How she yearned to accept the concern in Dominic’s gaze, to melt against him. Yet, how could she turn to him when in all likelihood, he would destroy her dream of a new life? As de Lanceau’s spy, Dominic had no choice but to tell his lord what she had done—and see her punished.

“Did Ewan see Ryle attack you?” Dominic asked softly.

“Nay. He was asleep upstairs. Oblivious. For that, I am forever grateful. For him to have witnessed Ryle’s fury…” She rubbed her chilled arms, her breast hurting anew with the remembered pain. Again, she smelled wine on Ryle’s breath as he loomed over her, his handsome, sweaty face twisted with malice.

“Speak true, Gisela. You intended to deceive me.” His breath roared from him, as hot as fire, scalding her with the force of his rage. “Admit it!”

“Nay! Ryle, I am sorry,” she cried. “I am sorry.”

She stepped back, anxious to stay out of range of his swinging fist. His lips curled away from his teeth, stained red from his drink. His eyes cinched into slits.

She knew that look. She woke in a cold sweat from dark dreams because of it. Fear turned her innards to water.