Valentine by Heather Grothaus Read Free Book Online Page A

family; Roman, his good name and livelihood returned.” He paused when his eyes fell on the last man, and a prickle of irritation tickled at Valentine’s spine. “And for you to have back the life that you wish, Valentine.”
    Not even God himself is capable of that, Valentine thought.
    “I at first intended to use the coin to further Melk’s ministries,” Victor continued, “but, after reflection, it seemed neglectful, when I had the four of you here, whose futures were so imperiled.” Victor took a deep breath. “And so I dispersed the coin from Chastellet.”
    Valentine leaned forward in his chair. “I beg your pardon—you did what?”
    “I gave it away,” Victor said. “To trusted religious contemporaries at houses in all corners of the earth.”
    “You gave away the coin,” Valentine repeated.
    “Wait, Valentine,” Stan requested.
    “Yes. With instructions that requested any monk, prior, abbess, sister, priest—anyone connected to me or to Melk—to send any with your names on their lips to me here, with the stated intention of ‘bringing justice to the traitors of Chastellet.’”
    From his chair near the window, Adrian Hailsworth muttered, “That’s brilliant, Victor.”
    “Indeed,” Roman chimed in. “For where else could one go with information of such a dangerous nature if not to his trusted priest? And then word could be sent safely here to you, and to us.”
    “Exactly,” Stan said. “And now it seems as though Victor’s efforts are at last beginning to bear fruit.”
    The abbot nodded. “It has taken a bit longer than I’d hoped, and this first encounter was not at all what I expected.” He looked up at Valentine again. “We have a problem.”
    “So you have said,” Valentine replied.
    “The woman you brought into Melk is betrothed to be married in only a few months, but the family priest—a man I indeed know personally—has discovered that the marriage cannot take place because of an agreement entered into by the woman’s parents shortly after her birth.”
    “A childhood marriage?” Roman guessed.
    “Yes,” Victor confirmed. “Her parents died less than a year after the agreement was made. The woman has no choice but to track down the man to whom she is bound and have the record expunged. There can be no trace of the man’s name connected to her, lest the match be lost.”
    “I fail to see the correlation,” Adrian mused from his chair. “Why would your priest friend send her to us? Are we to locate her wayward spouse?”
    “She’s already found him,” Victor said. “The conundrum she faces is returning with him to England to annul the agreement.”
    “I, too, fail to see our part in this,” Valentine said.
    “The man is wanted for conspiracy, with a great price on his head.”
    Valentine shrugged. “Yes, well, I can sympathize with him.”
    “He is thought to be in hiding.”
    “Of course.” Valentine hoped he looked as unimpressed as he felt.
    “He is also being hunted by his own family.”
    Valentine frowned. Then he glanced around the table at his friends. They were all staring at him; Roman’s blond eyebrows were raised.
    Victor’s next words drew Valentine’s attention once more. “The same family who witnessed the agreement, which was entered into a score and six years ago, in the Spanish kingdom of Aragon.”
    And then memories that he hadn’t visited for years bloomed in Valentine’s mind:
    Playing on the damp shore, watching the black clouds race off toward the horizon. The small wooden ship floundering on the reef, listing dangerously. The big bearded man rowing ashore, his words foreign but his anxiety clear.
    “The man she seeks,” Victor said, interrupting his thoughts of the past, “is none other than Valentine Alesander.”
    “Valentine is married?” Roman asked, his disbelief clear in his tone.
    From his window seat, Adrian Hailsworth chuckled. “To a lovely English lady, no less.”
    Valentine still could not find any