At the Queen's Summons by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online Page A

“You look as pretty as an okasa blossom.”
    She touched her hair. Its shape felt different—softer, balanced, light as the breeze. She would have to go out to Hart Street Well and look at her reflection.
    â€œYou said when you met Aidan, he was not the O Donoghue Mór,” she said, thinking that the queen must enjoy having the power to summon handsome men to her side.
    â€œHis father, Ronan, was. Aidan became Lord Castleross after Ronan died.”
    â€œAnd how did his father die?”
    Iago went to the half door of the kitchen and held the lower part open. “Ask Aidan. It is not my place to say.”
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    â€œIago said you killed your father.”
    Aidan shot to his feet as if Pippa had touched a brand to his backside. “He said what?”
    Hiding her apprehension, she strolled into the great hall of Lumley House and moved through gloomy evening shadows on the flagged floor. An ominous rumbling of thunder sounded in the distance. Aidan’s fists were clenched, his face stark and taut. Instinct told her to flee, but she forced herself to stay.
    â€œYou heard me, my lord. If you’re going to keep me, I want to make sure. Is it true? Did you kill your father?”
    He grabbed an iron poker. A single Gaelic word burst from him as he stabbed at the fat log smoldering in the grate.
    Pippa took a deep breath for courage. “It was Iago who—”
    â€œIago said nothing of the sort.”
    She emerged from the shadows and joined him by the hearth, praying he would deny her suggestion. “Did you, my lord?” she whispered.
    He moved so swiftly, it took her breath away. One moment the iron poker clattered to the floor; the next he had his great hands clamped around her shoulders, her back against a stone pillar and his furious face pushed close to hers. Though she still stood cloaked in shadow, she could see the flames from the hearth fire reflected in his eyes.
    â€œYes, damn your meddling self. I killed my father.”
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    â€œWhat?” She trembled in his grip.
    Aidan thrust away from her, turning back to face the fire.“Isn’t that what you expected to hear?” He clenched his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. Sharp fragments of that last, explosive argument came back to slice fresh wounds into his soul.
    He spun around to face Pippa, intending to carry her bodily out of the hall, out of Lumley House, out of his life. She stepped from the gloom and into the light. Aidan stopped dead in his tracks.
    â€œWhat in God’s name did Iago do to you?” he asked. As if to echo his words, thunder muttered outside the hall.
    Her hand wavered a little as she brought it up to touch her hair, which now curled softly around her glowing face. “The best he could?” she attempted. Then she dropped her air of trembling uncertainty. “You are trying to change the subject. Are you or are you not a father-murderer?”
    He planted his hands on his hips. “That depends on whom you ask.”
    She mimicked his aggressive stance, looking for all the world like a fierce pixie. “I’m asking you.”
    â€œAnd I’ve answered you.”
    â€œBut it was the wrong answer,” she said, so vehemently that he expected her to stomp her foot. Something—the washing, the grooming—had made her glow as if a host of fairies had showered her with a magical mist. “I demand an explanation.”
    â€œI feel no need to explain myself to a stranger,” he said, dismayed by the intensity of his attraction to her.
    â€œWe are not strangers, Your Loftiness,” she said with heavy irony. “Wasn’t it just this morning that you undressed me and then dressed me like the most intimate of handmaids?”
    He winced at the reminder. Beneath her elfin daintiness lay a soft, womanly body that he craved with apower that was both undeniable and inappropriate. Shed of her beggar’s garb, she had become the