Sword of Justice (White Knight Series) by Jude Chapman Read Free Book Online Page B

once more.
    Later, when they collapsed in a fever and lay facing each other, moonlight stroking their naked bodies, they spoke without words. Drake wanted to lie in her arms from sunrise to sunrise until they grew old together, but it would have to wait for another night.
    He stirred. She protested. “I must go,” he said.
    She clutched him closer. They made love again while the moon sank and the first light of day appeared on the eastern horizon.
    At first light he rode Jenna home on Stephen’s dappled gray, a twin to the one Drake had stabled back at Itchendel. His hands encircling her waist, a waist more slender than it had been mere days before, he helped her dismount. Holding onto her hands, he leaned close and kissed her. Ribbons of grief streamed down her face. His mouth tasted the salt. She gave him a final embrace and sprinted toward the manor house where she and her family had moved July last.
    He soon lost sight of her slender figure as it disappeared into the muted brown landscape. She did not look back.

Chapter 6     
    OTHER THAN A FIGHT WITH a notable town bully, all that was needed to complete the transformation from Drake to Stephen was a change of clothes and a new sword.
    He wore the sword already, having strapped it on immediately after climbing down from Nelda’s window. As for clothes, the bundle Stephen brought back with him contained garments from his personal wardrobe, recognizable as uniquely his by their cleanliness and fine cut, a sharp contrast to Drake’s usual slovenly dress.
    After riding Jenna home, he changed quickly, mounted the gray, and rode for the castle of his recent captivity. When he was shown into the great hall of Twyford Castle, the kind of hush that welcomes Death itself palled the gathering of grieving kinsmen. Those who knew one or the other fitzAlan brother stared with contempt. More than one man put hand to sword. Those who didn’t were soon enlightened.
    “Stephen, dear, how thoughtful of you to come. I know you and Seward were boon companions.” Everyone had presumed the young man standing before them was Drake fitzAlan—murderer and mutilator—until Elberta Twyford, Seward’s gracious mother, shattered the illusion.
    Drake hitched a shoulder inside Stephen’s stiff but elegant tunic. Though Lady Twyford cleared up any misinterpretation concerning his assumed identity, the rest of Seward’s kin threw off the palpable opinion that the identical twin brother of a murderer and mutilator was little improvement. Leaving hushed whispering behind, Elberta ushered Drake into the chamber where Seward lay just outside Death’s door.
    Sitting vigil beside the frail heap that was his only son, Corwin of Twyford stared blankly at the knight come to offer his respects. “Look. Look what your brother did to him!” His leathery face, marred with scars and grief, reddened with wrath. Elberta hurried to her husband’s side and calmed the man whose son was his spitting image. Lord Twyford looked again at Drake as if he were the brother of the Devil himself. Then he broke down. “I know, I know,” he said, and covered his face with a broad, shaking hand.
    Taking a respectful course to the other side of the bed, Drake climbed the steps and gazed down at Seward Twyford, waxen as any man on his funeral bier and gasping shallow breaths through a slack-jawed mouth.
    “My baby, my darling.” Elberta’s eyes overflowed.
    Seward would not live, not because he looked like death itself but because his shattered skull had penetrated brain matter, evident through the swath of seeping bandages.
    “You know that Seward … that he has been …?”
    Drake nodded and gulped.
    Elberta urged her lord away from the sickbed. “I’ll stay with Seward. You take Stephen to the stables. Go.” Casting Drake a sharp look of hostility, the lord of Twyford reluctantly obeyed his bride.
    What Twyford had to show Drake was a white destrier standing forlornly without its master. “In his hurry to