Wonderful by Jill Barnett Read Free Book Online Page A

him to ignore her. Which was what he did.
    Some perverse part of her wanted to march up to him and kick him, but she wasn’t stupid, just annoyed because her wonderful idea was not working as she decided it should.
    She stood there for the longest time, so long that people started looking at her out of pity and shared embarrassment, which made her feel even more conspicuous, more humiliated. Her betrothed was speaking to a villein, Thomas the Plowman, who held the most acreage and every year planted barley, wheat, and hay. Thomas was telling his lord about the land, about the water, soil, and the best crops to plant.
    She kept waiting, and waiting. She shifted her weight, then forced her chin even higher so no one would know she was feeling embarrassed.
    Lord Merrick would have paid more attention to a fly.
    She sought to occupy her mind with something, anything. She began to do ciphers, the way she had learned in the convent, only with new variables. If she had two maces, four battle axes, and a war hammer, how many hits in the head would it take to get the Earl of Grim’s attention?
    If she had a jar of hungry fleas or a pot of sticky honey, which would be more amusing to put inside his armor?
    If she had three frogs or a pitchfork—
    “Lady Clio, my lord.” Thomas the Plowman said her name and all eyes turn toward her. All eyes except her Merrick’s.
    She saw him stiffen, but he did not act as if he knew she was there. Perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he was deaf from battle. Perhaps he was thick-headed from too many blows to his helm. Perhaps …
    “What need has my Lady Clio for your crops?”
    “Not all crops, my lord.” Thomas looked from the earl to her, then back to the earl.
    Oh, God’s feet! Merrick was about to find out about her brewery. She shook her head, but Thomas was no longer looking at her.
    “Lady Clio only needs the barley,” Thomas continued, never looking back at her. “She made provisions to purchase the villeins’ own plowshares for brewing her ale, my lord.”
    “Her ale?” Now Lord Merrick turned and looked directly at her. So much for thinking he did not know she was there.
    “Yes, my lord. Lady Clio told us how she had learned to brew ale at the convent and how very special the ale would be. How there would be plenty of ale at Camrose, enough for those of us who only have cider or mead.”
    It was not a simple task to stand there and look calm and collected beneath his piercing blue stare and his cool detached manner.
    “Our lady has great plans for the castle brewery,” Thomas said proudly.
    “Does she, now?” Merrick nodded, watching her with an unreadable expression.
    “Aye, that she does.”
    Clio wished Thomas the Plowman would be silent.
    “Come, my lady.” Merrick raised his hand toward her. His tone made it clear he was not offering her a choice.
    Her feet moved of their own accord while her mind screamed, “Where’s your pride! Stay there and ignore him the way he ignored you!” Then she was standing before him, her pride in tatters. Her mind was calling her a coward, while her sense said, “Don’t cross him before all and sundry.”
    She placed her hand in his, because she had to. When his hand closed about hers, she felt the calluses on his hand, calluses from gripping the hilt of his sword, from the reins of his warhorse, and from lances and maces and other such weapons of war.
    It was a simple gesture, an honor to ladies that was supposed to be a courtesy. Many times a man had held out his hand to her—her father, the king, and others.
    Yet with this man the act seemed intimate, private, and unsettling. As if he knew her thoughts, he turned and drew her with him to face the crowd, their hands held up for all to see. And they stood together, hand in hand; it felt as if they were one. This stranger and she.
    His hand closed more firmly around her fingers, like the manacles that held prisoners to the walls of a cell. With a sense of doom more foreboding than any