Rhuddlan by Nancy Gebel Read Free Book Online Page A

goes…”
    Gwalaes dropped her arms and wrinkled her
nose. “I’ve given up on Robert. He talks too much.”
    “Alan’s quieter,” Eleanor said
innocently.
    “Not as handsome but at
least he speaks to me,” Gwalaes grinned. “But, Eleanor, let me come
to Chester so I can look after you. It’s what my mother wanted, remember? She told
me to take care of you. After all, I’m your elder by two months.”
She watched Eleanor’s face intently, saw her expression soften at
the suggestion that at least one mother’s dying wish would be
fulfilled and pressed her advantage in a casual voice. “Surely
there must have been something pleasing about the earl…”
    “There was,” Eleanor agreed shyly. “He has
the most beautiful blue eyes.”
     
    Hugh stepped outside, alone, for a breath of
fresh air. The hall, crammed with trestle tables and benches to
accommodate his extensive bodyguard as well as the dozen-odd
residents of Oakby, had grown stifling hot and loud by the time
supper had ended. The temperature took a decided drop on the other
side of the massive door and the noise abated abruptly. Hugh
breathed deeply. The chill of the damp April air cooled his
face.
    He glanced uninterestedly down into the
little ward below. It was empty and unkempt; symptomatic, he
thought, of the master of Oakby. Sir Thomas was a spare man, like
his son, of medium height. His hair, which must have shimmered
golden in his youth as Robert’s, had thinned and dulled with age,
as had the zeal and fire which had driven him to fight on the side
of Empress Maud. It was almost as if having achieved the prize to
which all knights aspired—land—he was content to sit back and
permit the world to go on without him. He had paid the shield tax
to the king instead of personally serving in the garrison until
Robert had been old enough to perform this duty in his place. He
rarely left Oakby, preferring to pass the time discussing the
status of his estate or playing chess with his steward or reading
in the alcove adjacent to his bedchamber, but all the while looking
forward to the day his son might return for a visit.
    Robert had told Hugh this enroute to Oakby,
laughingly, as if it were a joke. Hugh did not have the feeling
that Robert cared very much for his father; he simply exploited Sir
Thomas’ infatuation. It made, Hugh thought, the older man appear
faintly ridiculous.
    Hugh’s estimation of Thomas Bolsover was
reinforced at supper. Sir Thomas hung obviously on Robert’s every
word, encouraged his stories and laughed louder than anyone at his
jokes. He poured Robert’s wine himself and offered him the tastiest
bits of meat from his own plate. Whenever Robert leaned over to
speak to Hugh, Sir Thomas’ lips pursed together in annoyance until
he was able to gain his son’s attention again. And when supper
ended, Sir Thomas swept Robert away for a private discussion with
barely a word of apology to his guest. Hugh had been angered by
such rudeness but Robert’s exaggerated wink as his father had
dragged him away had mollified him tremendously.
    That was when he had gone outside for a
breath of air. He’d meant to stroll the perimeter of the grounds
until Robert joined him, as he was certain would happen, but the
ward was small and he suspected that the shadows along the wall
were clumps of animal waste no one had bothered to rake up.
    He heard loud, sudden footsteps behind him,
recognized them immediately and didn’t bother turning around. “My
lord,” a voice said at his ear. “Could I talk to you?”
    “What is it, Roger?”
    “How long do you mean for us to remain here,
my lord?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “But surely, my lord, you can’t mean to stay
more than one or two nights,” Haworth protested. “There’s no
room—”
    “I have business here, Roger,” Hugh
interrupted. “If it takes one, two or ten nights, that’s how long
we will remain.”
    “Business with Robert Bolsover?” Haworth
asked cuttingly.
    Hugh