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

but I cannot.” He held up the apple, brushed
    her cheek with the rosy smooth skin, and pressed the fruit into her fingers,
    setting her away from him. “Accept this, and I know I’ve shared a sweet with
    a gracious lady.”
    A shadow of pique crossed her features. But she stepped back, taking a
    bite with a crunch of white teeth. “The Princess Melanthe,” she said airily.
    “You know her?”
    “I know her,” he said.
    “Ah. Then you know to accept no apples of love from that one. She
    poisoned her own husband.”
    Ruck stiffened. “Madam—it were better that thou speak truth on thy
    tongue.”
    “Oh, I speak true enough.” She licked a drop of juice from the apple.
    “Ask it of anyone. She was put to trial for the deed.”
    He scowled at her for a moment, and then held out his hand to Pierre for
    his tunic. His squire caught the mantle as Ruck shrugged it off and pulled
    the green wool over his head. A few more gentlewomen hovered outside.
    “She is a sorceress,” his blonde temptress said, and looked to the
    others. “Is she not?”
    “That gyrfalcon,” another offered. “The bird is her familiar. Never has
    she flown it in the light of day.”
    “She bewitched the magistrate to release her—”
    “She took her own brother for a lover—”
    “Yea, and murdered him with that very dagger at her waist; whilst he was
    a guest in her husband’s house.”
    “And now on her way to gorge on his birthright! But no Christian knight
    will escort her hence, for fear of his soul.”
    “Nay,” Ruck objected, “she is a princess.”
    “A witch! Sir Jean will say you!” Feminine hands urged a knight forward
    from where he’d been lingering at the edge of the group, trying to woo one
    of the gentlewomen.
    Pierre helped Ruck into his surcoat, smoothing down the cloth-of-silver.
    Ruck stood facing the other man, his jaw rigid. “Have a care,” he said. “The
    chatter of the women is naught. On behalf of my sworn lady, sir, I will not
    take thy words so lightly.”
    “You have sworn to her?” the blonde asked, stepping back.
    “Yea. I am her man.”
    “For the tourney,” the other knight said. “My lord the duke will abide no
    more.” He gave Ruck a shrewd grin. “It was a bold stroke you took. He’s
    angry now, but he’ll value you to show him at his finest on the morrow.”
    “I am her man,” Ruck repeated.
    Sir Jean looked at him. “Nay, you don’t mean to be serious in this?”
    Ruck stared back, eyes level, showing nothing. “I am sworn to her. I am
    honored with her gift. I fight for the Princess Melanthe.”
    The spectators began to depart, withdrawing with sidelong glances and
    murmurs among them. Ruck threw his mantle round his shoulders and stabbed
    the pin of his silver brooch through the cloth. When he looked up, he and
    Pierre were alone in the buttery.
    The mute squire elevated his eyebrows expressively. He dug in his apron
    and held out a leather-bagged amulet.
    “She is not a witch,” Ruck snapped.
    Pierre crossed himself and mimicked a priest blessing the charm.
    “Curse thee!
She is my lady
!”
    Pierre ducked and genuflected. With a roll of his eyes and a shake of his
    head, he tucked his saint’s tooth away.
Chapter Two
    Ť ^ ť
    “Tell me,” Melanthe said lightly in Italian. “I can see thou art full of
    thine own shrewdness.”
    Allegreto Navona rested against the curve of the spiraling stairwell, his
    arms crossed, grinning down at her from two steps above. The last thin light
    fell between them from an arrowslit. “The green man is invincible, my lady,”
    he whispered, leaning as near as he dared while she had Gryngolet on her
    fist. “Your fine Duke of Lancaster will have his tail feathers plucked
    tomorrow.”
    “Will he? After they have sent half their knighthood against my
    poor—champion?” She made a short laugh. “So I suppose I must title him.”
    “Nay, you miscalculate your knight, lady. They have another name for him
    here. They call him after some barbarian tale from the north—
Berserka,
or