Always Read Online Free

him halt. She did so look like her mother. Henry had found it impossible to refuse the mother anything. Why should their daughter be different?
    Sighing, he removed his cloak and handed it to Eustice, then shrugged out of his short surcoat and handed that over as well.
    â€œWho taught you to do this?” he asked gruffly, bending to kneel beside her in the straw.
    â€œNo one,” she admitted, flashing him a smile that warmed his heart. It immediately made him let go of his impatience and anger. “It just seemed to be the thing to do when I saw the problem. She will die otherwise.”
    Nodding, he shifted as close to her as he could get and reached his hands inside the mare to help. “It is the head you cannot find?”
    Rosamunde nodded. “I have the rear legs, but I cannot––”
    â€œAha! I have it. It is caught on something.” He paused. “There we go.”
    Rosamunde felt the back legs slip from her grip and shift away. She just managed to tug her hands free of the mare as her father turned the animal within its mother until its head was at the right angle.
    â€œThe mare is too weak. You will have to—” even as the words left her mouth, her father tugged on the foal’s head and front legs. Seconds later it slid out onto the straw.
    â€œOh,” Rosamunde breathed, peering at the spindly-legged creature as it wriggled on the straw. “Is it not adorable?”
    â€œAye,” Henry agreed gruffly; then he cleared his throat, grabbed her arm, and urged her to her feet. “Come. Time is short. ’Sides, ’tis not fitting for a girl of your position to be participating in such things.”
    â€œOh, Papa.” Laughing, Rosamunde turned and threw herself into his arms as she had when she was a child.Henry quickly closed his arms around her and gave up the reprimand as she knew he would.
    Â 
    â€œSo that is the king’s daughter.”
    Aric shifted on his feet, his gaze leaving the girl the king was embracing to glance at his friend. “It would seem so.”
    â€œShe is lovely.”
    â€œQuite,” Aric agreed quietly. “Unless my memory fails me, she appears a copy of the fair Rosamunde.”
    â€œYour memory fails you not. She is an exact likeness of her mother,” Shrewsbury agreed. “Except for the hair. That is wholly her father’s. Let us hope she did not inherit his quick temper along with it.”
    â€œShe has been raised right, my lord Bishop. With all discipline and goodness, and the disobedience worked out of her,” the abbess announced staunchly, glaring at Shrewsbury for the very suggestion that the girl might not have been. Then, seeming to regain herself, she forced a smile and in a much more pious tone murmured, “It is most gratifying that His Majesty received my message. We feared, when we heard that he was in Normandy, that he might not receive the news in time to make it back for the ceremony.”
    Aric exchanged a glance with Robert, then asked carefully, “What ceremony?”
    â€œWhat ceremony?” Adela echoed with amazement. “Why, Lady Rosamunde takes the veil tomorrow.”
    There was silence for a moment after that announcement; then Robert murmured, “The king will no doubt be a bit surprised by that.”
    â€œWhat!” Henry’s roar drew their attention.
    â€œI believe he just learned,” Aric muttered. Turning, he found Henry a sight to see. The king’s face bore a furious scowl and was so red as to seem almost purple. Even his hair seemed to have picked up some of the fire of his temper and shone more red than gray. He stormed angrily toward them, hands and teeth clenched.
    His daughter was hard on his heels, a startled and somewhat bewildered expression on her face. “I thought you knew, Papa. I thought you had received my message and come to witness—” Her words came to an abrupt halt when her father paused in his