At The King's Command by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online Page B

large shape fillingthe twilit path. She stood her ground, though instinct warned her to flee. There was danger here, close to her, just a whisper away.
    “My dear slattern,” he said gently, in the voice of a lover, “I have just made you a baroness.”
    His mockery cut at her pride. “And for that you expect gratitude, yes?”
    “’Tis better than hanging as a horse thief.”
    “So is having one’s nostrils slit, but that does not mean I relish the reprieve. Why did you save me? Clearly you like me not.”
    Dark laughter stirred his broad shoulders. He leaned close, his breath warm upon her cheek. “Your powers of observation are keen, my gypsy.”
    “You have not answered my question. You seem to be a man fond of his independence, yet you jumped like a trained spaniel when the king gave his orders. Why, my lord? I sense King Henry has a lance aimed at your heart.”
    His chin came up sharply, and she heard his breath catch. “Do not amuse yourself with idle speculation. My affairs are hardly your concern.”
    Resentment and frustration built inside her. She was supposed to be on her way to a horse fair now, planning her first audience with the king, who would help her win back her birthright. “It is my affair since you just took me as your wife.”
    “In name only,” he snapped. “Or did you truly think I would take this marriage seriously?” With frigid disdain, he glanced at her from head to toe. “That I would honor vows wrung from me at the whim of King Henry?”
    Juliana thanked God he did not mean to treat her as a true wife. She decided in that instant to stay in thetattered, lice-ridden guise of a gypsy wench, for it obviously disgusted him.
    Still, a perverse sense of injured pride darkened her spirits. “I am free to go, yes?” she inquired. She fought an urge to clutch at the neckline of her blouse, to hide from him. “Well?”
    “Not yet. I’ll take you to Wiltshire. Once the king tires of his trick, we’ll get an annulment and you can go back to—to fortune-telling or pocket picking or whatever it is that you do when you’re not off thieving horses.”
    Juliana gritted her teeth. “I happen to do a good number of things. Some of them are quite clever. Tarrying in Wilthouse—”
    “Wiltshire, my tenderling. ’Tis a few days’ ride west of here.”
    She planted her hands on her hips. “Tarrying in Wiltshire was not part of—”
    “Of what?”
    She could not tell anyone, especially this stranger, of her secret schemes. “My plan,” she stated simply.
    He bowed from the waist. “I regret the inconvenience, then. Perhaps you’d be more pleased had I left you swinging from the gibbet.”
    She hated him for being right. Though she did not want to acknowledge the truth, he was as much a victim of the king’s wrath as she.
    A sigh of resignation gusted from her. Darkness now filled the knot garden, and the first stars of evening pricked the sky. “What about tonight?”
    “I managed to dissuade the master of revels from leading the bedding ceremony.”
    “What is the bedding ceremony?”
    “We would have been escorted to bed by a group ofdrunken revelers and…never mind. You may stay alone in my chamber. My squire and I will take the anteroom. Be ready to ride out at first light.” He turned to leave.
    “My lord.” Juliana lightly touched his sleeve. The fine lawn fabric covered a hard, masculine warmth, and the sensation startled her.
    Apparently it startled him, as well. His eyes widened, and a look of revulsion broke over his shadowed face.
    Searingly aware of how long it had been since she had bathed, Juliana snatched her hand away. “I am sorry.”
    “What were you going to say?”
    “I…forget.” But as he showed her to the chamber where she was to sleep, she acknowledged the lie. She was going to thank him for saving her from the noose. For glaring the courtiers into silence when they would have made high sport of her. For speaking his vows loudly over the