Connie Mason Read Online Free

battlefield by the king. They praised his courage, his strength, his amorous conquests. If he had a name, none remembered, for he had been called the Black Knight from the time he became the Black Prince’s champion and appeared on the battlefield clad all in black like his prince.
    Raven of Chirk was amply impressed by the Black Knight’s stature and bearing. He sat his destrier proudly, even arrogantly, as he rode through the portcullis and into the innner bailey. Raven was startled when he lifted his head and stared directly at her window. She quickly stepped back, but not so far that she could not see him. Had he seen her? It matterednot. To the best of her knowledge, she had never met the legendary Black Knight.
    Raven had heard so much about the mysterious Black Knight that she could not help being more than a little intrigued by the man. Today, however, was not a good time to admire strangers.
    After the games ended, she was to be married to Lord Waldo, Earl of Eyre. She had but four short days left in which to escape this travesty of a marriage. Though she had cried and pleaded, Duff would not be swayed. Several years ago she had lost her mother and father to a virulent fever that had spread death and pestilence across the land. Had they lived, Raven knew they would not have forced her to wed Waldo, not after what had happened to her poor sister.
    Dead at sixteen, married but a few months, Daria had died of a strange stomach ailment shortly after Lord Basil had been killed by poachers. But Raven could not relieve herself of the notion that Waldo had been responsible for Daria’s untimely death. Then Duff, Waldo, and Aric had gone to France to fight with the king’s army. Unfortunately Aric had been killed in battle at Crécy.
    When Waldo returned from France, he asked Duff’s permission to marry Raven. Duff gave his consent, but only if Waldo obtained a dispensation from the pope, for to wed one’s sister-in-law was considered incest.
    The dispensation arrived four long years later, and Duff had betrothed her to Waldo. During those four years Raven had seen little of Waldo, enjoying a peaceful time of virtual freedom, doing as she wished, whether it was riding the hills and moors on her favorite palfrey or making decisions that affected the inhabitants of the castle and village. Now her wedding day was at hand.
    Raven descended the winding stone staircase to the hall and walked outside, crossing the inner bailey to the kitchen.As lady of the keep, it was her duty to check on food preparations for tonight’s banquet, given especially to welcome the knights who had arrived to compete in the tournaments Duff planned as part of the wedding festivities. Knights from all corners of the kingdom had converged on Chirk to compete in the games and partake of the abundant food and drink offered by the lord of the castle. After the tournaments, they were all invited to celebrate the marriage of Raven of Chirk and Waldo of Eyre.
    Raven would soon be a countess, a title she had never aspired to. She hated Waldo and wondered how she could submit her body willingly to a man she detested.
    “Raven, wait!”
    Raven stopped to allow her maid to catch up to her.
    “Are you not excited? I cannot wait to see what the Black Knight looks like.”
    “I saw him when he rode in, Thelma,” Raven confided. “He is just another man aspiring to greatness.”
    “Oh, but he
is
great,” Thelma gushed. “They say he was knighted on the battlefield by King Edward himself for saving the life of the Black Prince. When he saved the prince a second time, the king gave him a title and an estate.”
    “So I have heard. He is now Earl of Windhurst. I heard his estate is a crumbling fortress built on a bleak cliff overlooking the southern coast many leagues away in Wessex. It has been unoccupied far longer than I have been alive. I doubt the impoverished knight can afford to repair the crumbling hulk, much less hire men to defend it.”
    “How