The Unveiling by Tamara Leigh Read Free Book Online Page A

she capable of working vengeance without stealth.
    “Braose!”
    Muttering beneath her breath, she tramped after him.
    He stood before a wooden post set in the ground. “Your sword.” He extended the one he held.
    Her fingers brushed his as she turned them around the hilt, and she felt her blood rush. How curious hate was—
    The tip of the sword hit the ground, and she stared down the blade’s length before realizing she had been given a blade twice the weight of others. Though she knew such swords were used to develop muscles and grow one accustomed to wielding weapons, Rowan had never pressed her to swing one.
    “Are you hungry, Braose?”
    Dare she hope he might forego this exercise? “Indeed I am...my lord.”
    “Then the sooner you take the pel to ground, the sooner you may fill your belly.”
    All the way to ground? Though she supposed she ought to be grateful the post was not thick, she hated Wulfrith more.
    She took a step back, closed her other hand over the hilt, and heaved the sword up. It was not the pel she struck once...twice...a dozen times. It was the image she summoned of Wulfrith. She hacked until her arms trembled. And still the post was not halfway felled.
    Throat raw from labored breath, she lowered the sword.
    “You have much anger for one promised to the church,” Wulfrith mused.
    She looked to where he leaned against the fence. How was she to respond? As Jame Braose. “Were your own destiny snatched from you, you would also be angered.”
    He arched an eyebrow. “So I would.” He strode from the fence and advanced on her. “Finish with the pel and come to the hall. You will pour wine at table this eve.”
    When was she to eat?
    She thought he meant to pass behind her, but he paused at her back, leaned in, and said, “I promise you, Jame Braose, we will turn that anger of yours to good.”
    His warm breath on her skin made her shiver. Her good, not his.
    She heard his footsteps retreat. When she was fairly sure he was gone, she looked over her shoulder. Only she remained on the training field, and somewhere out there, Rowan.
    With a grunt, she raised the sword and swung. The blade bit, causing the wooden post to shudder and chips to fly. If it was a pel Wulfrith wanted, a pel she would give him.
     
    Across the darkening of day, Garr looked down from the battlements to the young man on the training field. Though Braose’s arms and shoulders surely raged, he continued to swing the weighted sword.
    He was not as expected. Though years from a man’s body, he was not fragile and fought well for one who had received little training in arms. And the anger that colored his eyes!
    It reminded Garr of the anger he himself had known as a boy. But Braose’s seemed to go beyond his loss of the church. Indeed, it was as if directed at Garr himself. Because Garr stood Stephen’s side and the little priest turned heir had gone to Henry’s side? That the young man’s father had not told in the missive sent two months past beseeching that his son be accepted at Wulfen.
    As for Jame’s impertinence, he dared mightily when it had been told he was acquiescent. As for face, he was nearly pretty, his skin smooth and unblemished and lacking any evidence that a beard might soon sprout.
    There was something else about him that bothered. Though Garr was trained to the eyes, that well of emotion more telling than men’s lips, something dwelt in the young man’s hate that could not be read. But soon enough he would come to it, Garr hoped, for his reading of men’s eyes had failed him once. Only by God’s grace had it not cost hundreds of lives.
    He shoved a hand through his hair. Though nothing was certain in life, there was merit in going to the eyes to truly know a person—rather, a man, for could one truly know a woman? And would one wish to?
    Bothersome creatures, his father, Drogo, had often said. But they were useful, for without them there would be naught, Garr conceded no more than his father and