The Border Lord and the Lady by Bertrice Small Read Free Book Online

was brushing her hair. “My head aches,” she greeted him languidly, waving him to a chair.
    “Give me the keys to the storerooms,” he replied, not sitting.
    A wary look came into her large brown eyes. “Why do you want them?” she asked him boldly. “Do not stop brushing! It eases my pain,” she snapped at Donna Clara. “Must I live in agony always?”
    “Give me the keys to the storerooms,” he repeated, not answering her. “Am I master of Leighton or not, madam?”
    “Have you found a place for your daughter?” she wanted to know.
    “I have,” he said, “and now I will see that Cicely is properly garbed and equipped for her new home.”
    “I am the mistress of this household,” Luciana said in a hard voice. “It is my duty to see your daughter supplied with what she needs.”
    “You have laid eyes on Cicely but once, and not by choice, madam,” the earl said in an equally hard voice. “You have denied her serving woman the cloth necessary to make the child gowns. Her
garments are worn, shabby. Have you no shame, Luciana? Cicely is an earl’s daughter, not some stranger I have taken in.”
    “She is your bastard!” Luciana cried angrily.
    “Her mother died before we could wed, but our daughter was legitimated by Rome, Canterbury, and the laws of England,” the earl shouted furiously. “Why do you refuse to admit the truth, Luciana? This was all long before I even knew of your existence. You have given me three sons. My respect for you is great. What more do you want of me?”
    “You loved her !” the Countess of Leighton accused.
    Robert Bowen looked surprised. “Loved whom?” he asked her.
    “My ladybird,” Donna Clara cautioned, “do not pursue this, I beg you.”
    “Your daughter’s mother!” Luciana spat. “And everyone says the brat is her mother’s image. The whore who was your servant’s daughter!”
    The Earl of Leighton slapped his wife across her angry face.
    Luciana shrieked, outraged, her hand going to her burning cheek.
    Donna Clara gasped in shock. Never had she seen her English master lose his control. He was always calm, always the voice of reason. The look in his eyes now, however, was one of uncontrolled fury. Her mistress stood on the brink of disaster.
    The red haze faded slowly from before his eyes as the earl fought to regain some measure of control, struggling with himself not to put his hands about her slim white neck and snap it. Finally he felt calm, but he was very angry. His wife stood glaring at him, totally unaware of how close she had come to death. Donna Clara knew, and her eyes filled with relief as Robert Bowen came to himself again, and spoke.
    “Aye, I loved Anne,” he told Luciana. “She was everything you are not. She was beautiful, and Cicely is her image. She was kind and generous. She was genuinely devout. We were blood kin, madam, but not so close that a marriage between us was forbidden. Old families like mine frequently parcel out the responsibilities of their estates to
kin, because in most instances blood will not betray you. Your interests are their interests, madam. Whether your estate is large or small, such loyalty is important.
    “I might have wed the daughter of another noble, but an honorable family like mine was left with little dower. However, I fell in love with Anne, and we planned to wed. The banns had already been posted when her father was killed in an accident. She was his only child, and his own wife, her mother, had died when Anne was ten. The shock of her father’s death caused my beloved to go into an early labor. She lived long enough to push our daughter from her body, and then with a great sigh she died.
    “I was content to remain unmarried, but Cicely needed a mother to teach her the things a girl of her rank should know, and I needed a legitimate son. And then your father learned I sought a wife. As your behavior in Firenze had made you unmarriageable, he had to seek a husband for you here in England. I was