Holding Court by K.C. Held Read Free Book Online

here”—he motions to the guy with the sword—“to get King Henry.”
    “I’m on it,” Drew says. He slides the sword into the scabbard at his waist and takes off down the hallway.
    “Okay, tell me again about the girl you saw.” Grayson says. “Are you sure she was dead?”
    “I’m sure. She was very, very dead.”
    “What did she look like?”
    “She was young, maybe a few years older than me. I think she had brown or black hair and dark eyes. And, oh my God, she was dead, Grayson. She was just staring at me and I—”
    He puts both hands on my shoulders, “It’s okay, Jules. It’s going to be okay. Take a deep breath.”
    I nod and clamp my knees together so they’ll stop shaking.
    “I’m going to go check the passageway, okay?”
    “No! There was someone else in there. I could hear them breathing. What if it was whoever killed that girl? And they’re crouched in there, waiting for someone to—”
    “Okay, we’ll wait for reinforcements. How’s your arm. Is it still bleeding?”
    “I think it’s okay. I’m sorry about your shirt.”
    “Let’s take a look,” he says and reaches for my hand.
    I’ve only imagined Grayson Chandler holding my hand about fifty million times and now that the moment is here…it is both everything and nothing like I’d imagined. His hand feels warm and sure, and I have a couple of seconds to focus on the sensations it’s sending throughout my body before they’re eclipsed by pain and I try not to wince as he gently pulls back the sleeve of my nun costume.
    “That’s quite a scrape. You’ve got a nasty cut as well. It’s still bleeding a bit. I’m going to hold your arm up and put some pressure on the cut, okay?” He pulls the sleeve back down and lifts my arm over my head, squeezing it gently.
    “Thanks. You’re good at the whole first-aid thing.” And the being-gorgeous thing.
    “Lifeguard training. I was planning to get a job at the community pool this summer until I found out Tudor Times was hiring. No contest, right?”
    I’m thinking I’d very much like to see a contest between bathing suit–wearing Grayson and tights-wearing Grayson.
    “Um, Jules? If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here, anyway?”
    I gesture at the nun getup with my free hand. “Oh, you know, the usual.” I flash back to the girl in the passageway and make this crazy strangled laughing sound.
    “The usual?” Grayson looks more than a little concerned.
    I take a deep breath and try to tamp down the hysteria. “How did I end up stumbling over a dead body in a secret passageway while dressed as a nun? Um, it’s a long story. The short version is, I was just hired as the new Maid of Kent.”
    “Oh. Whew. For a second there I was worried you’d actually taken vows or something.”
    “Vows?”
    “To become a nun.” He grins at me, and I wish he would look at me like that every single day for the rest of my life. “You’re taking over for Angelique? I didn’t know she was quitting.”
    “She, uh, has a conflict of interest.”
    “How come you’re not working in your mom’s shop?”
    “My mom’s doing some appraisal work in Europe this summer, so her assistant’s running the shop. And I, uh, make her assistant nervous.”
    “Gotcha. Well, her loss is Tudor Times’s gain. Although I’m not sure you’re having such a great first day.”
    We both look over at the suit of armor.
    “So, um, you’re a knight, huh?” I say, not wanting to think about what lies beyond the secret entrance.
    “I wish. I’m what’s known around here as a ‘squight.’ Technically I’m a squire who’s training to be a knight, but even though I know all the routines by heart I can’t be a knight until I turn eighteen. Which means I only get to joust and battle bad guys when I’m done cleaning up horse poop. It’s all very glamorous.”
    “It has to be more glamorous than being a nun. So what do full-fledged knights get to do?”
    He reels off a quote from The