A Knight to Remember Read Online Free Page A

infirmary at first light,” she said. “I must have touched one of the men.”
    A falsehood, easily traced, but Edlyn never had lied well. “I couldn’t sleep,” she added hastily.
    “The result of a burdened conscience, I suspect.” Adda gloated at her own striking rejoinder.
    “Get out.” Edlyn spoke softly. She didn’t realize it, but her voice carried the same element of command that characterized Hugh’s. “Get out and don’t come back lest your insolence tempt me to the sin of speaking ill of one of God’s servants.”
    “And whom might that be?”
    Edlyn walked to the door and pushed it wide. Gesturing to the out of doors, she said, “You.” She watched Adda skitter out the door and up the walk, cackling like an offended chicken all the way.
    Then she shut the door with a bang. The noise cleared her head; she had to regain control.
    Wharton rose from the corner and brushed the clinging rags off his body. Glowering, he fingered his knife. “I told ye t’ keep them out.”
    “And I told you that was impossible.” She stared as he cleared the rags from the long metal-clad problem stretched out on her floor and wished fervently they were anywhere but here. “Remove his armor,” she said. “He needs to rest comfortably, and he can’t do that trapped in a pile of rusty metal.”
    “Rusty?” Wharton squawked.
    “Pile?” Hugh sounded as insulted as his servant.
    Pleased to have offended them, she said, “He needs a gown.” She stared at Wharton. “I don’t suppose you brought one?”
    “I beg yer pardon, m’ lady. I forgot it in th’ rush o’ battle.”
    Wharton’s weighted sarcasm made her blithe. “It’ll not be easy to find one that’s long enough for him, but I’ll look in the infirmary.” She skipped out of the door before Wharton could stop her, and for the first time since she’d seen that broken latch, the tension that blocked her throat eased.
    What had she done in her lifetime to deserve trials such as these? She had hoped the worst was over; she had prayed for tranquillity and a release from the unrelenting grief. Lately, she’d thought God had heard her prayers. Obviously, that had been nothing but false hope.
    She stepped from the herb garden and into the large open square on which all the abbey buildings stood. From here she could see the nuns’ dormitory, the infirmary, the barns, and the visitors’ dormitory where she slept. In the center, both spiritually and physically, the church stood, towering over everything, embracing all within its reach.
    A flock of the abbey’s sheep nibbled on the grass beside the great stone steps that led up to the sanctuary, and one of the less noble nuns fed three grunting pigs the scraps from the kitchen.
    On the far side of the church, across the road and with its own small square, the monks lived and worked as an addendum to the abbey. To the nuns went the traveling nobles and the ill; to the monks went the vagrants and the lepers. Everyone had his place.
    Everyone, that was, except Edlyn. She didn’t need Lady Blanche to point that out. She felt the deficit every day, and as she walked across the square, she wished she belonged somewhere. Anywhere. She’d been mistress of her own home for too many years to easily adjust to living under another’s jurisdiction, regardless—
    “Lady Edlyn.”
    Edlyn spun around at the beloved voice.
    “You were far away.” The abbess tucked her hand into the crook of Edlyn’s arm and urged her to walk on toward the infirmary. “Won’t you come back to us? We treasure your gentle wisdom.”
    Lady Corliss smiled at Edlyn, and Edlyn’s spasm of guilt almost bent her in half. Lady Corliss didn’t deserve such a betrayal. This lady, so tall, so regal, always sought Edlyn out, always spoke of Edlyn’s expertise with an admiration that soothed the sting in Edlyn’s soul.
    “You look so troubled, my dear. Is there something with which I could help you?”
    Aye , Edlyn wanted to say. Tell me