Adeliza de Montfort had clung to life as long as she could, teaching her son everything he needed to know about running his manor. His father’s old sergeant at arms, Fulk, had continued his lessons in the art of warfare. And Elf. His baby sister had been the joy of his life. She was sweet-natured and extremely intuitive. At the end of the day when he would sit exhausted before the fire in the hall, she would crawl into his lap and stroke his face with her fat baby hand, chattering away in her infant babble at him. How he loved her!

But then last autumn their mother had sickened. By now he was a man, and he had Ashlin under his control. Adeliza de Montfort knew it, and while she worried about the fate of her daughter, she could no longer hold on to her empty place in life. They had found her in her bed one morning, a smile upon her face. By chance a passing friar had taken shelter at Ashlin the night before. He blessed Adeliza de Montfort’s soul, and helped to bury her before going his way. The next house in which he sheltered, two days later, was that of Hugh de Warenne. Baron Hugh was most interested to learn that Richard de Montfort and his sister were now alone in the world.

Hugh de Warenne had quickly approached Richard de Montfort, and proposed a marriage between the two families. The young lord of Ashlin agreed to consider Baron Hugh’s proposal. He was invited to visit the de Warenne manor, and leaving Elf in the charge of her old nurse, Ida, he went. One look at Isleen de Warenne, and he was lost. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, with long silken hair the color of purest gold, and limpid blue eyes. But it was not merely her perfect beauty. There was something about Isleen that aroused savage lust in him. She had a way of moving, of speaking, none of it too obviously suggestive, that made him desire her so much he would have gone to hell and back to possess her.