When Love Awaits by Johanna Lindsey Read Free Book Online Page B

morning. But it is not a great pain and is quickly over. Afterward—is most enjoyable.”
    “Truly? The other girls at court said it was horrible.”
    “They lied. Or they repeated what their mothers told them.” She shrugged. “For some women it is always painful because they believe it is a sin to enjoy it. But as long as you have some feeling for your husband—” Wilda gasped, realizing her blunder. “Oh, my lady, I am sorry. I know you have no liking for the man.”
    “So I am doomed always to feel pain? But he has no liking for me, either, so perhaps he will not bother me often. I thank you for telling me, Wilda.”
    Leonie told herself to stay calm. She could not go to Crewel trembling in dread. If he hoped to see her cower, he had much to learn about Leonie of Montwyn.

Chapter 9
    L EONIE instantly recognized the woman who waited in the large hall of Crewel to greet the wedding party. She introduced herself as Lady Amelia, ward of Rolfe d’Ambert, but Leonie knew her as the woman who had given the Black Wolf her favor on the tourney field and accepted his passionate kiss. Ward? Mistress, without a doubt. But Leonie wasn’t sorry. The Black Wolf could have a hundred mistresses, as long as he left her alone.
    “Sir William, Lady Judith, do you make yourselves comfortable and my lord Rolfe will greet you in a moment,” Amelia said in a most agreeable tone. She turned to Leonie then. “My lady, if you will come with me, I will show you to a chamber where you may wait until the ceremony begins.”
    Leonie said not a word. She followed the older woman, glad to be gone from her father and Judith’s company. She had said not a word to either of them during the journey to Crewel. Her father had tried to talk to her, but she had turned away from him.
    Leonie knew Crewel well. She knew that Amelia was taking her to the small room next to the chapel in the forebuilding. Crewel was not like Pershwick at all. Sir Edmond had looked to his comfort in all things, and Leonie remembered that one of the reasons she enjoyed coming to Crewel as a child was the fascination of always finding something changed. Once it was a new room added above the raised dais at the lord’s end of the hall. Later that space was enclosed to become the lord’s chamber. Then a room was added at the opposite end of the hall above the servants’ smaller hearth, when Alain was knighted. Soon after that the space between the two large chambers was filled in, and now there was a whole second floor with many stairways circling up to it from the hall. The original ceiling had been so high that, even with the second floor, the ceiling was still high above everything.
    It was a place of comfort, and it offered privacy where Pershwick did not, but Leonie’s nervousness was mounting. It struck her suddenly that the Black Wolf’s mistress had greeted them in the hall. What peculiar behavior. He was treating her contemptuously even before the wedding.
    The small room that Amelia brought her to contained two stools and a table with a bottle of wine and glasses on it. “It may be a while before they are ready for you, Lady Leonie. The marriage contract must be agreed upon first.”
    “I am in no hurry,” Leonie replied without feeling, leaving Amelia wondering what to think of her. She had been ready to hate her rival, eager to spite her in any way possible. But the girl before her was no bigger than a child. She even sounded like a child. With her cloak drawn tightly about her and a long veil covering her head and face, there was no telling what she looked like. Girls were married at thirteen and fourteen, or even younger, so she could be very young. That would certainly change Amelia’s thinking, for she could hardly see a child as a rival.
    “Is there something I can do for you?” Amelia asked. “Would you like to remove your veil or…?”
    Leonie shook her head. “If you would send me my maid Wilda, I would be grateful.”
    “As you will,”