Margaret Moore - [Warrior 13] Read Online Free Page B

will.”
     
    Standing at the window of her chamber in the king’s castle assigned to her use during her family’s residence in Winchester, Anne watched the sun set. The rest of the night and a whole day had passed since she had encountered Sir Reece Fitzroy in the corridor.
    Closing her eyes, she again saw Damon’s vicious, dishonorable blow. She had grabbed his arm and pulled him back, but he had shaken her off the way a dog might shake a rabbit. Thank God the king’s guards had arrived.
    They had listened to Damon explain, aided by Benedict, as some of the other soldiers carried away an unconscious Sir Reece. Once she knew he was safe, and seeing her half brothers occupied, she had slipped away and fled to her chamber. She had not seen Damon or Benedict since, but someone had turned the key in the lock of the door to her chamber later that night, and she was imprisoned yet.
    As the hours had slowly passed, she had hoped Sir Reece’s injuries were not life threatening. He had lost blood, the damp stain on his tunic evidence of that, and a terrible bruise had been forming beneath his eye the last time she had seen him.
    She had remembered other things, too—the excitement most of all. She had never felt that way in her life and probably never would again. She doubted anyof her brother’s choices for a husband would be able to create even an instant’s desire or passion. Unfortunately, if Sir Reece survived—and please God, he must!—she was sure he would never want to have anything to do with her again.
    How long Damon intended to keep her here without food or water she could not guess, but this was the king’s castle, not Montbleu, so her continued absence would be more difficult to explain. Surely they could not keep her here without food or water for much longer.
    Anne started when she heard the key in the lock of her bedchamber door, then steeled herself as Damon sauntered inside. She had been right not to expect Lisette, a maidservant from the queen’s household assigned to her upon their arrival, Damon being too parsimonious to bring any servants from Montbleu. In truth, however, she preferred the vivacious, merry Lisette to the dour, ancient maidservant who cared for her at home.
    Her half brother twirled a heavy iron key around his finger as he surveyed the chamber. This room was certainly much finer than the small bedchamber she had at home, and better furnished. In addition to the wide bed with feather tick, there was a dressing table and stool, a chair and bright tapestries on the walls. The coverlet on the bed was silk, and the candles on the table were made of beeswax. In the corner stood the large chest containing the new garments Damon had purchased for her before they came here, finefeathers to entrap a rich husband, which was why he had been so uncharacteristically generous.
    “Hungry?” Damon asked as he sat in the chair, carelessly crushing a cushion. Still spinning the key around his finger, he threw one leg over the arm and rested his elbow on the other.
    Hiding her relief, she kept her expression bland. “I assume from your casual manner that you did not kill Sir Reece, or surely you would be busily plotting your defense at the king’s court.”
    Damon smiled his evil little smile. “Of course he did not die. I struck to wound, not to kill.”
    Damon no more had the finesse or skill to strike in such a calculated way than she did, but she hid her skepticism from him, along with her other emotions.
    “Of course you are hungry,” he answered for her as he tucked the key into the wide leather belt around his waist. “But you will have no food tonight, either. That will teach you to talk to an unworthy young man and interfere in his just punishment.”
    Even though righteous indignation at his vicious attack on Sir Reece, as well as her subsequent imprisonment, burned inside her, Anne regarded her half brother with a bland expression and stoic silence. He was an arrogant, ambitious fool