Sweet Enchantress by Parris Afton Bonds Read Free Book Online

rapped on the antechamber door, seeking to help her mistress disrobe, but Dominique wished only to be left alone and dismissed her maid-in-waiting. Doubtlessly, the young woman was headed for a rendezvous with the English captain, John Bedford, in some darkened alcove of the chateau. Their dalliance had been remarked upon by Iolande, who let nothing escape her attention. For her part, Dominique cared not as long as the captain did not saddle Beatrix with child when the English soldiers finally left.
    And if they did not?
    Pensive, she stared into the fire's hypnotic blaze. Her emotional antennae vibrated in disorder. Her jaws hurt from the anger and frustration stored there. Her intuitiveness aided her not at all these days. Like the blaze's fireflies, it flickered in and out of her awareness so that she only knew of its presence after the fact.
    The menacing Englishman had disrupted her whole w ay of life. Her county, her chateau, and now even her mind.
    She heard her antechamber door open again, then the massive door to her privy chamber groaned w ith the thudding of a fist. She shrank from the violence of the sound, the trumpeter of its master of violence, surely. She went to the door and sheathed its iron bolt. As she had expected, Paxton of Wychchester loomed in the anteroom’s shadows. At his feet, purred the ring-tailed cat.
    "You forget your place,” he told her. His face was as dark as his doublet.
    His ire at so small a disregard for ritual amazed her. She held her ground, keeping the door's aperture no more than a forearm ’s width. “The antechamber is an excellent place for cooling one's heels.”
    The cat streaked past her to crouch beneath Reinette ’s perch and hiss. The feline’s tail licked and curled in anticipation.
    “ Ca-ca-ca-ca-ca!” The high-strung falcon emitted a rapid staccato screech of perturbation. Its talons curved around its railed perch, as if already clutching its victim. Its wings beat the air wildly, then it flew off the perch as far as its tether permitted.
    Paxton pushed the door open and crossed the room to peruse her agitated falco n. "I have always found the weaker female sex tends to be more rapacious,” he mused in his heavy-timbered voice. Bending, he collected his hissing cat with a broad sweep of his arm. “Arthur here seems to be of the same opinion. You realize, do you not, that your falcon and my cat cannot live in close quarters. Your falcon will have to be set free.”
    "Free?” she demanded of his broad back. "What do you know of freedom? I am the prisoner here, sire, not you!”
    He turned on her. "I can take care of that, mistress. Off Marseilles’ coast are moored Saracen galleys eager to take on white slaves as cargo, especially fair maidens.” His fingers boldly reached down to touch her cheek, and she forced herself not to flinch. "Though thy cheeks are not so fair, maiden.”
    The confines of the room, and the fire's heat, stifled her. "No man has ever touched me without my permission,” she said with a quiet anger that left her trembling inside.
    "I do not find that surprising.” His laugh was short and derisive.
    "Do not touch my lady again,” a voice rumbled behind them. Baldwyn filled the open doorway. With the Englishman occupying a privy chamber at the other end of the solar, the aging giant was never far away these days. Strangely, his face, mottled by the disease, appeared almost timeless. His peaceful expression was unaltered. "I renounced the use of violence years ago, my Lord Lieutenant, but I would lay down my life in defense of my Lady Dominique.”
    "I would dislike that, Templar. Your life is too valuable for such a foolish gesture.”
    "Baldwyn, please,” she said. "Tis all right.”
    "No, it i s not,” Paxton countered. He released the cat to withdraw a folded sheet of parchment from his doublet and passed it to her. "Yours, mistress?”
    S he did not need to peruse its contents. The severed rose-colored ribbon and broken seal of her