Margaret Moore by A Rogues Embrace Read Free Book Online Page B

hand on his arm. “Come and join hands with Sir Richard.”
    “Majesty, if you please,” she said as the king brought her to stand beside him, “Mr. Harding has brought the marriage settlement. Sir Richard should sign it first.”
    Richard glared and the king frowned. “Marriage settlement?”
    “Yes, Majesty,” she said with more of a simper than Richard would have believed her capable of.
    Mr. Harding stepped forward and held a rolled parchment out to Richard, who snatched it from the man’s slender, yet surprisingly strong, fingers. He tore off the ribbon and discovered two long, closely written documents that apparently utilized every legal term imaginable.
    “Sir Richard has but to sign the two copies, and then we can be wed,” Mistress Longbourne explained as if the proffered legal document were nothing at all important or binding.
    “Fetch pen and ink for Sir Richard,” Charles genially commanded one of the liveried servants standing nearby.
    “Sire, it will take me at least an hour to read it—and more than that to comprehend it, I don’t doubt,” Richard protested.
    “You do not read well?” Mistress Longbourne inquired gravely as she turned to look at him. “That must be a severe handicap for one of your profession, although it may explain some of your work.”
    “While your Mr. Harding was studying the law, I was with the king in Europe,” Richard growled.
    “Yes, yes, so you were,” Charles said. “Just sign the thing and then we can begin the celebrations. We are in a mood to dance.”
    “Majesty, I cannot put to my name to a legal document without knowing its contents.”
    The king’s brow lowered ominously and thegleam of meiriment left his eyes. “What can it possibly say that would be important enough to disrupt our plans?”
    “My father taught me never to sign a document without reading it first,” he replied, not adding that it was the only valuable lesson his father had ever taught him.
    Charles smiled placatingly. “That is wise, of course, yet surely there is nothing out of the ordinary here. Come, man, and sign, so that I can proceed to make you Earl of Dovercourt.”
    Richard stared, while Mistress Longbourne and others in the huge assembly room gasped.
    “Indeed, it is true. When you wed Mistress Longbourne, we shall make you Earl of Dovercourt. Sadly, there is no estate to go with the title, but we are certain you will think of a way to amend that.”
    Mistress Longbourne darted a suspicious look at both the king and her intended husband.
    “Majesty, perhaps …” she began hesitantly as a servant returned with a quill and pot of ink.
    Richard snatched the quill from the servant. “As much as we both might wish for a delay,” he whispered harshly to her, “it is rather late for changing your mind.” He raised his voice. “Foz, please be so good as to make a back.”
    His friend obligingly bent over. Richard laid the document on Foz’s back and with a theatrical flourish, signed one copy, then theother. He briskly handed one to Mr. Harding and the other to his friend. “Lord Cheddersby, I hope you will be so good as to study this for me at your leisure and tell me what it says in simple English.”
    While Foz was not particularly clever about most things, or creative in the least, he was well able to read and summarize other men’s work, thanks to a most exacting tutor.
    “I shall be delighted!” he eagerly agreed. Then he frowned. “Not immediately, I trust?”
    “The sooner the better.”
    “But—”
    “After the marriage ceremony will do,” Richard amended.
    Lord Cheddersby nodded.
    “Maybe Sir Richard
should
read it first,” Elissa ventured, her misgivings increased by the king’s remark regarding an estate for her bridegroom.
    How was he to obtain one if the king did not give it to him? By somehow usurping her son’s once he was her husband?
    “Let us proceed!” the king declared. “Sir Richard Blythe, do you take her? Of course you do.