An Honorable Rogue by Carol Townend Read Free Book Online

swung Rozenn's hand to and fro and would not release her.
    'Hmm?' Alis looked up. her blue eyes shifting from Ben to Rozenn and back again. 'Oh. You want to talk to Madame Kerber?' The girl had the gall to sound surprised, but she stood up, made a play of smoothing down her gown and reached for the ladder.
    Rozenn tapped her foot until Alis had made it to ground level and the door of the stables had clanged shut behind her. The shadows deepened.
    Ben eased his grip on her hand and raised it to his lips. 'I missed you this morning, ma belle.'
    Rozenn snatched back her hand.
    He recaptured it with a grin. 'You wanted me?'
    'Yes! I...I mean, no. I wanted to speak to you.' Rozenn said, tripping over herself before she saw the laughter spring into his eyes. 'Oh, you wretch, Ben, you are incorrigible.'
    He gave her one of his disarming smiles, but his eyes were serious. 'You are all right? Is something amiss?'
    Rozenn shook her head. 'Countess Muriel sent me to fetch you, she'd like you to play for us in the solar. Immediately. Your usual fee, she said.'
    In the solar, Rozenn stood with her back to the south-facing window seat. Here, where the light was strongest. Countess Muriel and the rest of the ladies murmured softly one to another as they sat round the table, working on the vast wall-hanging for the Hall. Some of the figures Rose had sketched on to the canvas had been smudged the previous evening when careless hands had rolled it away for the night. Rose had been re-drawing them, and her fingers were black with charcoal. Absently, she wiped them on her skirts.
    She did not look at Lady Alis, but out of the corner of her eye she noticed Ben dragging a stool to one side of the great fireplace. He set about tuning his lute. The lute had once belonged to Ben's father, and it had been made to a Moorish pattern. It had a round body like the shell of a turtle, and the wood gleamed with a rich patina that owed much to years of loving use. The pegbox curved back on itself to resemble a leopard's head. She watched Ben's long fingers caress the leopard's head as he plucked each string and adjusted the pegs.
    The fire crackled. It was warm outside the castle, but the fire that burned in the wide fireplace was a necessity. It would take more than a few days' sun to heat the keep's thick granite walls.
    Catching Rozenn's glance, Ben threw her a grin, but Rozenn was nursing her anger with him and she hunched her shoulder and looked out of the window.
    The Isle du Chateau sat at the junction of the Isole and the Elle, like a boat anchored midstream. It was at this point that the two rivers became the La'ita before rolling on to the sea. Rozenn screwed her eyes up against a dazzle of sun, but she could still make out the marshes on the left bank. And on the right bank, just behind the port, the steep escarpment rose dramatically. She ran her eyes over the familiar jumble of houses running up from the port to Hauteville. the quarter where she had lived since her marriage to Per. Quimperle. It was all the world she had ever known.
    Was she wise to consider leaving? With Per dead and Adam gone and Ben hardly ever about, there was little reason to stay. Also, whenever the Countess tried to persuade her to move back into the Chateau where she had been brought up, she felt hemmed in and restless. In short, she didn't feel like herself. Quimperle, much as she loved it, no longer felt like home.
    As far as Rose was concerned. Sir Richard's proposal could not have come at a better moment. She thought about her adopted mother, Ivona, and chewed her bottom lip. Soon she must tell Ivona about Adam's wish that they should travel to England. Ivona would hate the idea and Rozenn was dreading discussing it, dreading the inevitable questions that would follow. But why do you want to leave, Rozenn? Why not wait for Sir Richard to join you here? She was also dreading the moment when she informed Countess Muriel of her departure. She frowned. The thought of