Dragonblade Trilogy - 02 - Island of Glass by Kathryn Le Veque Read Free Book Online

was surprised at how venomous he had felt at
the thought of someone other than himself laying a hand on her. Of course, it
was perfectly all right for him to physically restrain her, even lay on her if
necessary in order to control her, but in his mind he was apparently the only
one allowed to do so. He realized he would have killed Everett had the man’s
intentions been anything other than chivalrous. He looked down at the
frightened woman as his anger cooled, feeling like an idiot.
    “He should have spanked you,” he
muttered.
    “What was that?”
    “I said that he should have
spanked you,” he repeated, loudly. “No, you are not evil or subversive in the
conventional sense, but I have never in my life seen such a headstrong female.
A good spanking would do you a world of good.”
    Her expression hardened. A hand
drifted up to her shoulder, fingering the material of her gown. “If you are
thinking of beating obedience into me, do not bother.” She yanked the top of
her sleeve down, exposing a good portion of the top of her left shoulder blade.
“The monks of St. Wenburgh already tried.”
    Kenneth could see the montage of
faded scars on her back. Someone had obviously taken a branch to her.  He’d
seen flogging many a time; he’d delivered more than his share. As a child, he’d
been the recipient of one or two rounds. It was a painful, ugly act. He didn’t
know why he was suddenly coming to regret being so harsh with her.
    “How old were you?” his voice was
husky.
    She pulled her garment back up on
to her shoulder, torn between embarrassment and indifference. “I was nine years
of age the first time.”
    “The first time? There were
more?”
    “Three.”
    For the first time since they’d
met, his icy façade faltered. He exhaled slowly as he reclaimed his crouched
position. He’d never before seen such stubbornness, yet he found himself
admiring her for her determination.
    “And still you dream,” he
murmured. “Will nothing short of death convince you to change your path?”
    A smile spread across her lips.
“Have you never had anything that meant so much to you that you would brave
fire and brimstone to attain it? We are mere mortals, Sir Kenneth. Our lives
are finite. All we have are our dreams before our lives are quickly ended. If I
must endure tribulation in the pursuit of my dream, it is of little
consequence.  I could never live with myself had I not tried.”
    He understood, somewhat. But the
concepts of dreams did not come easily to him. He’d never been allowed to have
them. “Whatever you feel you must pursue and however you feel you must achieve
it, you must understand that your ideas are unconventional.”
    “I understand that. But
unconventional does not necessarily mean wrong.”
    “Agreed. But it has taken many
hundreds of years to achieve the civility and society that we have now.
Unconventional ideas threaten the order of our world.”
    She thought a moment, seeing an
open door for debate. “But did we not achieve such civility by pursuing
thoughts and dreams that, perhaps at one time, would seem unconventional? Did
we not learn by trying and by making mistakes?”
    He could see where she was
leading. “Aye.”
    “But still we forged on, with
bizarre notions and half-witted schemes that, perhaps when the time was right,
blossomed into fruition.” She smiled at him, sensing that he was open to her
logic. “All I ask is to be a part of that discovery process, to advance our
ideals of religion and the heights of our knowledge. I know that going to
Glastonbury to find the chalice of Christ must seem strange, but perhaps
believing in a man who preached the love of his enemy seemed strange a thousand
years ago to those people who eventually formed the basis of Christianity. But
it doesn’t seem strange now.”
    Kenneth didn’t care that he was
actually listening to what she had to say. She was passionate and articulate,
and made a great deal of sense. But his inner demons