Enchanting the King (The Beauty's Beast Fantasy Series) Read Online Free Page A

with a mess of tangled reins and broken legs that way, my lady.”
    “I know it.”
    “My second man, well. I married him for his looks, and we didn’t much leave the bedroom. We worked well enough together there .”
    Aliénor flopped back in her chair, combing her fingers through her hair and mussing her braid. “So perhaps it’s me. Perhaps I’m not made for marriage. Perhaps I lack that womanly trait, that ability to combine my will with another’s to make us both better.”
    “Yes, or—” Noémi bit the word off and pinched her lips tightly closed, as if the words might fight their way free despite her.
    “Or what?”
    Noémi shook her head, but Aliénor knew well enough what she would have said. What they were both thinking: Or perhaps you and Philippe are simply not well suited . But neither of them could say that aloud. Jerdic women married for life. To contemplate leaving Philippe, being free of him…
    Noémi touched her hand. “For both your sakes, my lady, perhaps you should try harder?”
    Aliénor flinched. Marriage is for life. I took this vow for life . However ill-considered it was, however young she’d been— This is no good. Sitting here wallowing will accomplish nothing . “Noémi, let us see if that wounded soldier is awake.”
    “An excellent idea, Your Highness.”
    ***
    Thomas awoke in pain, disoriented. When he opened his eyes and looked around, he recognized neither his surroundings nor his caretakers.
    “Easy, easy. You’re safe.” The lady had a pleasant voice, young and clear, so it took him a moment to understand the spike of alarm that arose inside him at the words. It wasn’t until she spoke again—“How are you feeling?”—that he understood his instinctive fear.
    The woman was speaking Jerdic, the language of Jerdun. Thomas eased onto his elbows and smoothed the lines of his face to stillness. When he answered her, he answered her in perfect Court Jerdic. “Where are the rest of my men?” There were a few other injured men laid out on pallets on the ground in this tent as he was, but none that he recognized.
    She tilted her head, looking surprised as her large brown eyes widened. She had a lovely face with strong cheekbones and a determined chin. Her skin was ivory pale but dotted with freckles, and her hair was a light red-gold braided in a somewhat mussed coronet atop her head after the Jerdic fashion. A married woman most likely and, judging by her cultured accent, a lady. No matter. Too young for you, old soldier . She couldn’t have been more than twenty, nearly half his age. Still, she was exceedingly pleasant to look at.
    She stared at him from narrowed eyes for a long moment and cleared her throat. “I’m so sorry. You are the only…the only survivor we’ve found so far.”
    Thomas gritted his teeth, tamping down the wave of despair that threatened to swamp him.
    “I’m sorry.” She made a small flinch of movement, as if she would have touched his hand, but then her eyes fluttered downward again. She kept her hands tightly folded in her lap.
    He wet his lips. “I think I owe my salvation to you, fair lady. It was you who found me, yes?” He thought he remembered her face now, hovering over his before he’d blacked out. “May I know my rescuer’s name?”
    “I am Princess Aliénor. Of Jerdun.” Her gaze flicked to his face, avidly studying him for some reaction.
    So this is young Philippe’s bride . Thomas knew of her husband by reputation—a weak, petulant child—but Thomas knew nothing of this woman. A duke’s daughter, perhaps? Was he remembering right? A particularly insistent thread of pain uncoiled in his forehead, but he still smiled pleasantly for this woman. A soldier never shows weakness in front of his enemies.
    “And you?” the Princess Aliénor asked, and there was more than a bit of challenge in the question.
    “I’m called Thomas.” True enough, if incomplete information. He should have invented a minor barony or claimed