For My Lady's Heart by Laura Kinsale Read Free Book Online Page A

favor.”
    The green knight lifted chagrined eyes to Melanthe. Holding Gryngolet on
    her wrist, ignoring Lancaster, she gave her new champion a small smile and
    dropped a mocking bow of courtesy. “I look forward to such spectacle. Go now
    and refresh thyself, Green Sire. Attend me in chamber when dinner is done.”
    “May God reward you, lady,” he murmured mechanically, and stood. With an
    easy move that belied the weight of his armor, he remounted, reining the
    horse around and spurring it to a gallop. He parted the men-at-arms at the
    door, vanishing out of the hall with an echo of hooves and bells.

    Of course she didn’t remember him.
    Ruck tore the loaf of white bread and shed more crumbs onto his bare
    chest, causing mute Pierre to gesture and dust him urgently, but there was
    no time to sit down for a meal as his broken-backed squire wished. His
    lady—his liege lady, the cherished queen of his heart—commanded him
    immediately after the dinner; and by the time he’d stabled Hawk, secured his
    mount’s armor and his own, harried Pierre, and sufficiently bullied and
    bribed the fourth chamberlain for a bath in the midst of a banquet, he could
    hear the higher note of the trumpets that signified the lord’s retirement
    from the hall.
    A light-headed sickness hung in his throat. The dry bread seemed to choke
    him. It was almost too fantastical to believe that it was her; that she was
    here. He had never expected it. He hardly knew how to fathom the fact, or
    what he had just done for her.
    Christ—Lancaster’s face—but Ruck could not bear to think of it.
    “Hie!” He knocked Pierre’s hand aside as the squire tried to wipe the
    shaving soap from him. The barber had been impossible to obtain at such a
    time. “My hose.” He grabbed the towel, cleaned his jaw himself, and finished
    off the bread before Pierre had the green hose ready for him.
    He didn’t think she remembered him. He couldn’t settle it in his mind. By
    her young courtier in the yellow-and-blue motley, she had sent him a command
    to challenge for her. She had looked upon him in the hall with that cool
    authority ... as if she knew his vow to her service—as if she expected it.
    He had a wild thought that she had known all there was to know of him since
    that day he had first seen her, that his every move for ten and three years
    had somehow been open to her. Those eyes of hers, ‘fore God!
    She was here. And in faith, it felt more like a blow to his belly than a
    boon.
    His breath frosted in the cold as he bit into an apple. Holding the fruit
    between his teeth, he pulled the green hose over his linen. A few gentlemen
    began to wander out of the great hall to relieve themselves, passing the
    open door of the buttery where the servants had grudgingly hauled the
    bathtub for Ruck.
    “La la! Seest thou, Christine,” said a feminine voice. “He is not green
    all over!”
    Ruck looked up from belting his hose to find a pair of ladies leaning in
    the door. He didn’t know either of them. He dropped the apple from his mouth
    and caught it in one hand. As he bowed, he grabbed his mantle from Pierre’s
    hands and tossed it around his bare shoulders. “A common man only, madam.”
    The dark-haired one giggled. The other, the one who’d spoken, was blonde
    and comely and she knew it; she moved upon him with a flow of brilliant
    parti-color robes. “Thy form gives thee the lie, sir. Thou art uncommon
    strong and pleasing.” Smiling, she traced him with her forefinger from the
    base of his throat down to his chest. “And uncommon brave, to proclaim such
    a challenge.”
    He lightly clasped her hand and lifted it away from him. “For the honor
    of Her Highness,” he said evenly.
    Her smile deepened. “Such wild courage,” she murmured, lifting her mouth.
    “We have heard much of your ferocity in battle. Stay and tell us more.”
    He looked down at her offered lips, the soft smiling curve. “For God’s
    mercy, you tempt me to dally,