Knights by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

define.
    “As long as you are my wife, Gloriana,” he said, “you will obey me.”
    She was tired, and Kenbrook’s homecoming, however enlightening, had been a bitter disappointment. All her pretty dreams were melting away, like spring snow, and she had exhausted her store of restraint by holding her tongue in the great hall. “If you are not bound by our sacred vows, my lord,” Gloriana replied, “neither am I.”
    “Exactly what do you mean by that?”
    “I think you know,” she said.
    “Mariette.” The name was followed by a weighted sigh.
    “Your mistress,” Gloriana said, in a tone of tremulous triumph. What she felt, of course, was something quite different.
    “Mariette is not my mistress,” Kenbrook hissed, resting his hands on his lean hips now. The light of the torches glimmered in his hair and in the beginnings of a golden beard. “I assure you, my association with the mademoiselle has been of the purest nature.”
    Gloriana fought back the sudden tears burning behind her eyes and aching in her throat. If she wept before this man now, she would never forgive herself. “You might have given me a chance to please you,” she said, “before you brought her here to take my place.”
    “You do not understand—”
    “I’m afraid I do,” Gloriana went on. “Now, I should like to retire to my chambers and rest. This has been a most trying day.”
    “Yes,” Kenbrook agreed, after a long and rather thunderous silence, thrusting a hand through his hair. “Yes, you’re right, it has. We’ll speak tomorrow.”
    Gloriana bit her lower lip and nodded. There were things she wanted to say to her husband, questions she wanted to ask, but this was not the time. She must rest, bring her emotions under control, sort through the shards of her hopes and try to reassemble them into something new.
    “In Elaina’s solar, after mass,” he elaborated, and she thought she heard a note of sorrow in his voice. Laughter echoed from the great hall, and the sound was harsh and somehow foreign.
    Hadleigh Castle had been Gloriana’s home since she was twelve years old, and she’d been happy there. She had never doubted, until her husband returned to claim her, that she belonged within those ancient, sturdy walls. Now she wondered if there was any place for her in all the world and looked forward to the morrow, not with anticipation, but with disquiet.
    Gloriana’s handmaiden, Judith, had already come and gone when she reached her bedchamber. A tallow had been lit, though it was not completely dark outside, this being a summer’s night, and the covers were turned back on the bed. A basin of fresh water waited on a crude washstand beneath an ornate crucifix that had been Edwenna’s most treasured possession.
    Gloriana longed now for her foster mother’s counsel and consolation, as she had many other times since the fever had taken that good woman, as well as her husband, to realms unknown. Friar Cradoc believed that Edwenna and Cyrus were together in heaven, for they had both been devout and paradise was the eventual destination of all who kept the commandments of the Church—after a short visit to purgatory, perhaps,where penance could be served and the last stains of sin might be eradicated.
    Gently, Gloriana touched the pierced feet of the small wooden Christ. She hated to think of sweet Edwenna or of Cyrus, for that matter, spending so much as a moment in purgatory, a terrible place almost as frightening as hell itself. Gloriana had not known her foster father well, for he had been away so much, but Edwenna had been unfailingly kind and devoted herself to the avoidance of sin. Surely even a jealous and wrathful God would not wish to punish such a woman.
    Bowing her head, Gloriana murmured a quick but heartfelt prayer for the souls of Edwenna and Cyrus, then splashed her face at the basin and pulled her woolen gown off over her head. After folding the garment carefully and placing it in the proper chest, she