Linda Barlow Read Online Free Page A

how much he understands, but he's harmless, I promise you. Put your scimitar away. This isn't the Moorish coast."
    "I'd like to know what the devil he was doing spying on us."
    Ned was shaking and vainly trying to squirm away to the safety of Alexandra's skirts. "I’faith, you're suspicious, aren't you? Let him go. He and I are friends. Come, Neddy, let's brush you off, shall we?"
    Roger backed off while Alexandra helped the frightened youth to sit up. Slowly, with another wary look at Ned, he sheathed his weapon. "You have some curious friends."
    "Aye, like ex-monks, ex-mercenaries, and sea captains," she taunted him. "You've scared him out of his few remaining wits."
    Ned's head was twitching back and forth. He stole a closer look at Roger as Alexandra explained to him, "This is the baron's other son, Roger, who's been away for a long time. You needn't be frightened of him, Neddy."
    Ned did not appear to find this reassuring. In fact, the more he squinted up at Roger, the more alarmed he became. As Alexandra rose to her feet, he rolled over, jumped up before either of them could stop him, and fled into the woods. Roger tensed for a second as if he might chase him, then relaxed and laughed. "He's not half-witted when it comes to saving his skin, is he?"
    "I warrant he's not half-witted at all. He's clever about some things. He knows the forest better than I do, and the birds and animals come when he whistles to them. He's gentle, and he cries when the village children throw stones at him."
    While she was speaking, Roger took another look into the ditch. "If only he could talk," she said. "If someone did lay an ambush for Will, Ned might have seen it. He's always in the forest, even at night."
    She thought Roger's mouth tightened at this, but he said nothing more as they walked on toward Whitcombe Castle. Rounding a rocky mound, they could see the ancient fortress with its towers, outbuildings and ramparts atop a grassy hill. Although the oldest walls of the outer enclosure were in a state of disrepair, the crenellated keep was still an imposing sight, a symbol of the power and privilege which the Trevor family had long enjoyed. It seemed inconceivable to Alexandra that the eldest son of this noble house could have been done to death in a ditch.
    Roger must have felt something similar, for he said, "Doubtless it was an accident, after all. Anything else would be extraordinarily farfetched."
    "Aye. Accidents do happen." She tried to lighten the mood by teasing him. "Anyway, the only person with a true motive to murder Will was out of the country at the time."
    His mouth twisted. "You mean me? What motive did I have?" He glanced up at the buildings on the hill. "A crumbling stronghold which will take my entire patrimony to restore? A minor title at an insignificant court? Some rocky farmland, a sweep of moors, and a few sheep?"
    "In sooth, it does sound paltry when you put it like that." He was exaggerating, she knew. The barony of Whitcombe included villages and farms with extensive arable lands, a forest full of valuable timber, a great many flocks of sheep that produced good English wool for market, a stone quarry, several mines, and considerable wealth in the form of gold, silver, and precious jewels. Because of her marriage contract with Will, she was well acquainted with the details.
    "We might as well accuse you," he went on. "You didn't want to wed him. What a fortuitous escape." He ran his eyes over her in the same lecherous manner he had employed in the church. "Will they hang you, I wonder? By that sweet neck of yours?"
    Alexandra abruptly recalled the old lesson of their childhood: you don't tease Roger unless you're prepared to be repaid in the same coin.
    "If you'd been clever, you'd have waited till you'd got yourself a son," he went on. "Then you'd have been a rich widow with dower rights, as well as the mother of the heir. That's what I would have done in your place."
    "I'm not so cold-blooded. And neither are