The Redeeming by Tamara Leigh Read Free Book Online Page A

solitude, Gaenor sank onto the chest at the foot of her bed. A sennight she had bargained for and been granted. A sennight in which to salve her terrible loneliness in the company of a man who did not look upon her with mere tolerance, who could not compare her to her beautiful sister and find her wanting.
    Though naught could come of their short time together, Sir Matthew was hers. And perhaps in the dark days as Christian Lavonne’s wife, memories of the knight’s attentiveness would be a salve to her discontent.
     
    W ithin four days, all to which he aspired would be set in motion.
    From the woods that bordered Broehne Castle, Sir Robert, the illegitimate issue of Aldous Lavonne and half brother to Christian Lavonne, surveyed the outer walls that stood against him—walls he would scale in his brother’s absence.
    He almost laughed at his good fortune of finding the castle without its lord. Despite months of plotting during his imprisonment for the attempt on Lady Beatrix’s life, what he planned should have been more difficult and carried more risk.
    He chuckled. Though he was not a man inclined to prayer, it seemed God favored the wronged son of Aldous Lavonne.
    “Sir Robert?” the man at his side queried.
    “I am pleased, Sir Timothy,” Robert acknowledged the one who had delivered tidings of Baron Lavonne’s absence an hour past.
    The knight, along with a dozen others who had been released from service by Christian, had thus far proved useful—foremost in securing Robert’s escape from his London prison. No easy feat, that, as evidenced by the lives lost. Fortunately, only one of those who fell to the sword was among Robert’s men. The other two who bled out their lives had been prison guards. The fools should have taken the coin offered.
    “Your father will be pleased to lay eyes upon his eldest son,” the knight said.
    Would the old man be pleased? After all, he had entrusted Robert to repay the Wulfriths for the death of his second son and heir, and no satisfaction had he been given.
    Remembering the trial that had found Lady Beatrix innocent of murder, Robert’s mouth turned bitter. As the Wulfrith woman had escaped the noose, a dagger in the back was to have been her fate. Instead, it was Robert who had taken a dagger, and it had been thrown by his own brother, Christian.
    As Robert had done every day since, he fed hatred of his younger brother with imaginings of a tortuous death. But regardless of his dark thoughts and past sins, it seemed God yet favored him. For all he had suffered in being born illegitimate—in watching from afar as his younger brothers enjoyed lives of privilege and position, of being given little more than their leavings—his cause was just. And the realization was almost enough to make him gain his knees. Though all of his life he had merely tolerated religion when the situation demanded it, he felt a sudden need to set his hands upon a psalter. Of course, what good when he could not read?
    “Something is amiss?” Sir Timothy asked.
    “All is well. Soon I shall give my father what he seeks—an eye for an eye.” No sooner did the words pass his lips than he was struck by how spiritual he sounded. And found he liked it. Not that he was entirely certain “eye for an eye” was of the Bible, but it was from a priest he had heard it spoken.
    “The old baron will finally have his revenge,” Sir Timothy mused. “You could not please him more.”
    Nor suffer more his displeasure if his father learned that the death of his youngest son was nearly as inevitable as the death of a Wulfrith. Unfortunately, despite Christian having proved a bitter disappointment, Aldous Lavonne clung to his one remaining legitimate son. But, eventually, he would have to let Christian go.
    “To the grave,” Robert muttered.
    “Sir Robert?”
    Robert smiled so wide his parched lips cracked. “Let us lay our plans.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    S he had not spoken a word upon entering, but he had known she