Breath of Heaven Read Online Free Page A

said.
    Every day before the noon meal, she came to him after seeing to the keep and townsfolk. Each day he asked and she went over the happenings of life at Aubregate. The simple things of everyday living went on even as the lord lay dying. It was the way of things, the way it was supposed to be. But knowing it should be so did not make the pain any easier to bear.
    “It snowed again last night and the well was covered with ice so thick that Goran had to drop an anvil attached to a rope to break it.” She watched his face as she imparted the news. “It took three men to pull it up. I was most relieved to see that the rope did not break on the way down.” She knew, and Goran now knew after the lashing she’d given him with her tongue, that he should have used a chain instead of a rope. She waited to see if her father would offer an opinion upon the matter. Instead a smile flitted across his face, more evident in his eyes than his mouth.
    “I was prepared to tie a rope to Ammon and send him down after the anvil,” she added. Her father’s smile grew broader at the thought of the gangly stable boy dangling from the end of a rope over the well.
    “I am sure Matilde would be more than willing to hold the rope,” he said.
    Eliane smiled at his joke. There was a long-goingwar between Matilde, who ruled the kitchens, and Ammon, who was always lurking about, looking for a tidbit to fill the bottomless pit that was his stomach.
    “How fare the townsfolk?” Edward asked.
    “They fare most well,” Eliane said. “There are stores aplenty. I saw Gryffyn’s new son and he is hale and hearty,” she added. She chose not to mention that the blacksmith had asked to bring the babe to the keep for the lord’s blessing or that she had put the young man off, bidding him keep the babe close to home until it warmed a bit and the snow was not so deep. She did not want the people to see her father like this. They should remember him as the lord he had been, not the wasted man he had become.
    “Ferris saw a boar at the edge of the wood yestereve,” she continued. “There will be a hunt later today.”
    “And you will ride?” Edward asked. His hand grasped weakly at the hem of her tunic, then moved down to flip the ends of the cross garters that held her chausses firmly in place around her thighs.
    She shifted her seat. She knew her position was most unseemly: she had one leg curled on the bed and the other poised against the rug that covered the oaken floor. “I always ride, Papa,” she reminded him. “You taught me well.”
    “I fear I have taught you too well the ways of a man and not enough the ways of a lady,” he said. His glance took in her state of dress, which made her look more like a woodsman than mistress of Aubregate. It made sense to dress that way. How could she climb a tree or pull a lamb from a frozen stream if she wore skirts?
    Eliane could not tell if he was sad or just weak. She could not stand to think he felt regret, so she hastenedto assure him. “I have found your teachings to be most wondrous, Papa. Indeed I feel that I have fared better than most daughters of lords who are kept as secret treasures and then bartered off in marriage at a very young age. Most of them before they can even comprehend what it means to be a woman.”
    A wry smile twisted Edward’s face. “And do you comprehend these things, my daughter?”
    Heat flamed her neck and cheeks, almost matching the fiery hue of her hair. “Madwyn has taught me the way of things,” she said softly. “I know what happens between a man and a woman.” She could not meet her father’s gaze. Instead she looked at Llyr, who laid his head upon her lap at her sudden discomfort and rumbled questioningly while he stared up at her with his deep brown eyes.
    The silence stretched uncomfortably between them until Eliane could not bear it any longer and looked up from beneath her lashes to make sure her father was still with her. She found him studying