Lady Fortune by Anne Stuart Read Free Book Online Page B

but the lad had the rare gift of silence, for which Hugh was eternally grateful on such a momentous day. He was in no mood for prattlers, and his new fosterling showed a surprising sensitivity when it came to his lord’s needs.
    He could see the party approaching in the distance, moving slowly enough. His grandfather had chosen wisely when he picked the site for Fortham Castle —it gave a commanding view of the countryside approaches to the castle, and the back abutted the churning sea. No one could sneak up on the household without at least half the garrison being made aware. These were relatively peaceful times, but one could never take such things for granted.
    He squinted down at the approaching party—some twenty strong on horseback, plus a horse-drawn litter that could only contain his new stepdaughter. Thinking about her brought him back to the distracting thought of his lady wife, another thorn in his side.
    He must have been half mad to contract such a marriage. Isabeau was penniless, past her youth, and barren—marriage to her brought him nothing, not even the king’s grace, and he could have lived well without it. His people wondered at his accepting such a match, but they didn’t know the half of it. It had been a match of his own making.
    He’d first seen Isabeau some fifteen years ago, and he’d never forgotten her. Her young daughter had been by her side, her belly was swollen with one of her many fruitless pregnancies, she was pale and frightened-looking, and he’d taken one look into her wide brown eyes and fallen…
    He didn’t care to think about what he’d tumbled into. Infatuation. Lust. One of his odd fits of compassion. They’d barely exchanged a dozen words, and yet he’d dreamed about her for weeks afterwards. When he married his father’s choice for him, he’d sometimes seen Isabeau in his little wife’s pale face.
    She’d died after less than a year of marriage, carried off by an ague. His second marriage, to a buxom, fruitful woman of hearty appetites and sturdy form, hadn’t lasted much longer, though this time it was a fall from a spirited horse that had killed her. A horse he’d forbidden her to ride, but Heloise had done so anyway, and died because of it, taking her unborn child with her.
    He had been a widower since, ignoring his duty for the last ten years, content to live in this household of men, content with the easy pleasure offered by the serving women.
    But all that had changed when he’d heard that Isabeau of Peckham was now a widow.
    She could have grown old before her time, or sadly fat, or querulous. It didn’t matter. He still dreamed of her. Castle Fortham needed a mistress; he needed a wife. He had married twice for the sake of an heir, for the sake of his duty, and both times the match had ended in early death, with no heir.
    This time he would choose for himself.
    He was a strong, fearless man, capable of facing an army without flinching, implacable in combat, fierce in battle, totally without hesitation when it came to danger. Courage was synonymous with Hugh of Fortham’s name.
    But the thought of finally speaking with Isabeau of Peckham terrified him.
    He’d been on these very battlements, watching for her arrival, in a fever of anticipation, not three months earlier. He’d planned how he would treat her with loving concern, tender forbearance for her age and infirmity. He expected a semi-invalid, sweet and long-suffering and infinitely gentle.
    He was struck speechless when he first saw her and had rarely managed to get words past his mouth in the ensuing occasions when they came together.
    She looked younger than she had fifteen years ago; he knew her to be a few years past thirty. Only her first pregnancy had yielded a living offspring, and Julianna was already widowed herself, which made Isabeau five years younger than himself. He hadn’t known she would still be so beautiful.
    Her face was a perfect oval beneath her veil of golden hair; her eyes