This time, no one moved or spoke for what felt like an hour. It was as though none of them could believe what they had heard. Simon found he could only observe tiny details: the crackling of the fire, the snow melting from Lady Anne’s cloak and forming a small puddle on the cobbled floor. He looked about him. The small barn was untidy. Despite all his attempts to make it more homely, it still looked what it was—no more than a glorified cowshed. There were maps and plans lying scattered across the wooden table where he and his captains had plotted the following day’s attack earlier that evening. There was a carafe of red wine—bad wine that tasted of vinegar—staining the surface of the parchment. His trestle bed was tumbled and disordered in testament to the fact that he had been unable to sleep. It was no place for a lady. Yet this lady had forced her way into his company and dared to broach the one subject that drove his rage and his anguish.

‘What are you saying?’ His voice sounded strange even to his own ears. He cleared his throat. ‘That my brother is alive? I regret that I cannot merely take your word for it, my lady.’

Lady Anne drew a step nearer to him. She put out a hand and touched his sleeve. He wondered whether she could read in his face the desperate fear and the spark of hope that he felt inside. Her voice was soft.

‘Take this, my lord, as a pledge that I tell you the truth.’

Simon looked down. She was holding a ring of gold with the arms of his family cut deep in the metal. It was true that Henry had not been wearing the signet ring when his body was sent back, but Simon had assumed that Malvoisier had added looting the dead to his other sins. Now he was not so sure. Hope and dread warred within him. He found that his hand was shaking so much he dropped the ring on to the table, where it spun away in a glitter of gold, momentarily dazzling him. He heard the guards shuffle with superstitious discomfort. Standish was looking strained, incredulous.

‘Forgive me, my lady, but it is easy to take a ring from a dead man.’ His voice was rough. ‘It proves nothing.’

The tension in the room tightened further.

‘You do not trust me,’ Anne said bluntly.

Their eyes met. ‘No,’ Simon said. ‘I do not. I trust no one.’ The anger seethed in him. He wanted to believe her; his heart ached to believe her, but that was the very weakness his enemies were trying to exploit. Suddenly his ungovernable rage swelled up. He swept the maps and plans from the table in one violent movement and turned on her.

‘Does Malvoisier take me for a fool to send you here on the night before battle to pretend that my brother is alive? He does it deliberately, in the hope that I will call off the attack! Dead or alive, he seeks to use my brother as a bargaining tool!’

‘General Malvoisier knows nothing of this,’ Anne said. She sounded calm, but she was very pale now. ‘Only your brother and a handful of my most trusted servants were party to the plan. I have come to ask that you call off the assault on Grafton, my lord. Your brother is alive; if you attack the Manor, you will surely kill him in the process.’

Simon stared at her, as though by searching her face he could read whether she told the truth. Her gaze was steady and unflinching. She looked as candid and honest as she had when she had accepted his proposal that hot summer evening in the gardens at Grafton. But that had been a long time ago and looks could be terribly deceptive.

He made a slight gesture. ‘Why come now? I thought my brother dead these two weeks past. Why wait so long?’

‘It was impossible to arrange safe passage out of Grafton sooner,’ Anne said. ‘General Malvoisier—’ She broke off, then added carefully, ‘The Manor is closely guarded.’

Simon knew that was true. He had been studying Grafton’s defences for all the months of the siege and knew there were few weaknesses. The Manor was small, but it was battlemented like a castle and ringed with a moat and low-lying marshy ground. There were snipers on the battlements and the house was garrisoned with a whole regiment of foot soldiers. He also knew that, despite Malvoisier’s reputation for drunkenness, his men were well drilled, and frightened into obedience. No, escape from Grafton was well nigh impossible.

‘Sir Henry said that you would not believe me, my lord,’ Anne said. She quoted wryly, ‘He said, “Tell that stiff-necked fool brother of mine that he must listen to you, Anne, for all our sakes.”’

Simon heard one of the guards give a guffaw, quickly silenced. It did indeed sound like the sort of comment that Henry would make. He was irreverent and light-hearted even in the face of danger, but his flippancy hid a cool head and quick mind. On the other hand, Anne had known Henry when they were both young. She would remember enough about his brother to deceive him if she were so minded.

‘If Henry has truly sent you,’ Simon said, ‘I will wager that he gave you some other proof to satisfy me.’

Anne’s tone was dry. ‘If you are minded not to trust me, my lord, then no proof on earth will persuade you, other than seeing your brother with your own eyes. And that I cannot arrange.’ She paused. ‘He did mention to me an anecdote that might convince you. It was not something that I had heard before, for all that we spent some of our childhood together.’ She paused, as though the thought was a painful reminder of a past that could not be recaptured. Then she cleared her throat and resumed.

‘Apparently there was an occasion on which you lost Henry in the woods when he was a child of eight. He told me that you preferred to dally with the milkmaid than act as nurse to your young brother that day…’

Simon froze. It was true, but he had long forgotten the incident. He had been eighteen and had much preferred to take his pleasure with a willing maid that summer afternoon so long ago. He had left Henry to fend for himself in the woods for a little while and had been mortified on his return to find that his brother had completely vanished. Now that Anne had reminded him, he could recall the desperation of the hasty search, the fear that had gripped his heart before he had found his little brother hiding in a forester’s hut. That fear had been a faint echo of the anguish he had felt when he had been told that Henry was dead. He had always tried to look after his brother.

He saw Guy Standish’s face split into a broad, incredulous grin before the captain regained control of his expression. This story would be around the barracks before an hour had passed and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He laughed reluctantly and the tension in the room eased.

‘Damn him,’ he said. ‘Henry swore he would never tell anyone about that. I made him promise on a dozen oaths.’

‘Sir Henry swears that he has kept his word until now,’ Anne said, ‘but desperate times require desperate measures.’

‘They do indeed.’ Simon looked at her. ‘Which is why you are here.’ His tone hardened. ‘You wish to bargain for Grafton’s safety with my brother’s life.’

Anne made a slight gesture with her hands. ‘I would do anything to keep my people safe, Lord Greville.’

Simon nodded, though he did not answer at once. He had seen for himself just how much the people of Grafton loved their lady—and the devotion she had for them.

He turned back to his men. ‘Layton, Carter, get back to your posts. Guy—’ Standish bowed, the smile still lurking about his mouth ‘—be so good as to fetch a flagon of wine for us. The good stuff…’ Simon gestured towards the table ‘…not this poor excuse for a drink.’ He turned to Anne. ‘You will join me in a glass of wine, madam?’

Anne shook her head. ‘I cannot tarry, my lord. I came only to give you the news that Sir Henry was still alive and to extract your promise that you will call off the attack on the house.’

Simon moved to bar her exit. His men had gone out into the snow, leaving them alone in the firelit shadows of the barn.