Roman by Heather Grothaus Read Free Book Online Page B

was little more than a weak wobble. “I am not so selfish, my lord. The man who took Abdal’s place is called Hamid. He has been promised a great deal of gold to assassinate the Christian king for an Englishman named Glayer Felsteppe. I believe you know of him.”
    Roman only stared at her, and she could not tell what he was thinking.
    â€œSpies have been placed in the different kingdoms of the Holy Land. There will be minor attacks in the coming months meant to draw both sides out, and when Baldwin nears the north country before the spring, he will be killed.”
    â€œWhy?” Roman asked.
    â€œBecause,” Isra paused to swallow again, “there have been rumors that the men charged with the betrayal of Chastellet have been wrongly accused. And this Glayer Felsteppe is to receive a very wealthy English estate. In the spring.”
    â€œBaldwin could see him ruined before he gains his title.”
    Isra only blinked.
    â€œWho is Hamid’s English connection in the Holy Land?” Roman pressed.
    â€œI do not know his name. A titled lord. Trusted by Baldwin, but frustrated with his lack of power. Would you be able to find him?”
    Roman shook his head with a grimace. “That could be anyone in the whole of Jerusalem. Even Baldwin’s own family.” Isra could not tell if he was in pain or chagrined by the holes in her information. “It is not my area of expertise. My duties at Chastellet did not involve mingling with the nobility.”
    â€œYou were a soldier, my lord?” Isra said, shocked at this information. “How then did you escape the siege?”
    He met her eyes. “No. I was a craftsman. A stonemason. I built Chastellet.”
    The admiration she already felt for him grew in her chest. This was no pampered lord; no soldier charged with saving his comrades and superiors. Before her was simply a man who had been intent on rescuing his friends. And his reward had been that his freedom and his livelihood were taken away.
    But the admission seemed to have made him uncomfortable, and so Isra did not press him. Indeed, his face now bore deep lines of pain and fatigue, and Isra knew she was the cause of both this day.
    â€œThank you, my lord,” she said. “For saving me. For listening to me.”
    â€œGo to sleep,” he said. “We will talk more on the morrow.”
    â€œWill you stay with me all the night?” she couldn’t help but whisper, and even she heard the fear in her voice.
    â€œYes,” he said. “I, too, might sleep. If the man comes who first questioned you, you must wake me. He—” Roman closed his mouth in a grim line. “Wake me if he comes.”
    â€œAs you wish, my lord,” she said.
    â€œI’m no lord.”
    â€œAs you wish.” Isra closed her eyes and took as deep a breath as her searing lungs would allow. By the time she exhaled, she was asleep.
    She had never felt so safe in all her life.

Chapter 3
    M aisie Lindsey relieved Roman the next morning, although Adrian must not have been completely comfortable with his wife being in the cell with Isra by the conversation Roman heard just beyond the door. But eventually, Maisie did enter the chamber, bearing a tray of food and drink as well as a fresh pile of cloths and a basin of water, along with a small pot of dried plant matter.
    â€œHow is she this morn?” Maisie asked as Roman rose from his chair.
    â€œStill sleeping,” he said, sidestepping around the perimeter of the chamber to give Adrian’s wife room to put the tray down. “She had a bad night.”
    Roman did not elaborate upon Isra’s weeping and moaning episode in the deepest dark, or how he had been unable to withstand the sound of her misery and had escaped the cell to stand on the far side of the fountain for many long moments, keeping close watch on the doorway. When he’d returned, she was asleep once more.
    â€œI’m nae surprised