Heart of a Knight by Barbara Samuel Read Free Book Online Page B

take supper with me, Lord Thomas."
    So small, she was, and elegant, and rare. He felt like a beast next to her, hulking and clumsy. "Aye, if it please ye, my lady."
    A wisp of puzzlement touched her brow, then it was gone. "It pleases me. Perhaps you might play chess with me when we are finished?"
    Heat touched the edges of his ears. Thomas fastened his oversized hands behind his back. "If I can remember me how to play," he said, and forced himself to add a wry grin to lighten the words.
    "I will teach you what you have forgot." Her lips curled teasingly, and again he had the sense that she meant that faint ribaldry.
    Lady or not, she was still a woman. The knowledge eased him, and he reached for her hand to plant a kiss to the silklike flesh. For one moment only did he linger, a heartbeat longer than was seemly. When he straightened, he caught a slight widening in her eyes. He grinned boldly. "I'll be looking forward to it, then."
    Her smile flashed once more, an almost secretive edge to it that intrigued him. She rose. "As will I, sir." Then she was away, her women hurrying behind her. Only the girl—Isobel?—lingered, and Thomas shifted uncomfortably as she eyed him thoroughly, and gave him a slow, very knowing smile.
    Nurse called her sharply, and she turned and ran nimbly toward the steps, hair and skirts flying.
    Alice spoke beside him. "She wants reigning, that child. If her maidenhead remains, 'tis only because fortune has smiled upon her."
    Thomas privately agreed, but conscious of the measuring eyes in the hall, he simply nodded to let her know he recognized the warning.
    A burly guardsman nearby snorted. "A husband to beat her is what she needs."
    Alice laughed. It was a rare enough sound, robust and earthy, and men never heard it without turning to seek the source of it. It did not fail now. The guard blinked, and Thomas recognized dawning awareness in his beefy face.
    Thomas squeezed her shoulder and left her to work her wiles on the stunned male. He wanted to sluice away the worst of the day's grime from his face and hands before he shared an evening with the dazzling Lady Elizabeth.
    Lyssa had not yet decided what to do about a woman to attend her. Nurse tsked and fussed, but Lyssa sent her off to keep an eye on Isobel, who was restive and quarrelsome. It was sure she would try to make some trouble tonight. "Do not let her come down without her head covered," Lyssa said. "Braid that hair if you might, and I'll not see that red gown of hers again."
    Nurse made a sour face. "Twould be my pleasure to burn it, my lady, but she won't allow it."
    "Perhaps I might arrange an accident," Lyssa said, and smiled. Isobel had outgrown the gown two years before, but she liked it all the more now.
    The bodice fit too tightly, and a good deal of bosom spilled into the low square of the neckline. Isobel adored the attention it drew to her—and she cared little whether it was the meanest villein or the most toothless old man who was inflamed. A troublesome child.
    Nurse lingered. "Won't ye let me pretty you up tonight, my Lyssa?" She touched her cheek. "You've a nice pink look to your cheeks, and our knight in the hall is quite dazzled. 'Twould do you good to be the one they stare at now and again."
    Lyssa brushed the hand away, not unkindly, and kissed her cheek. "I've no love of their pawing and grunting."
    "Ah, my sweet, you—"
    Gently, Lyssa pushed her. They had traveled this ground many a time, and Lyssa had no wish to hear it again. "Go. Tend my troublesome stepdaughter and see that she does not create a riot in my hall before supper."
    Alone, Lyssa flung open the trunk that held her gowns. Most she had not seen in the better part of a year, and many were made of fabrics she'd woven herself. She took deep pleasure in fingering them, remembering a day weaving these threads, or spinning those. Some she had forgotten completely.
    But as she tried to select one from the collection, none seemed right. A vision of Isobel in