Medieval Ever After Read Online Free Page A

faster and faster. She swallowed, hard, endeavoring to retain her courage to say what she must. But she found she couldn’t look him in the eye as she spoke, praying he would understand her words and rush to the king to demand the betrothal be broken. In her deepest humiliation was her only hope that he, too, would be humiliated enough to fight it. Spit it out, foolish lass!
    “When I was eleven years old, my father took me and one of my brothers on a trip to Carlisle,” she spoke barely above a whisper as she sank onto a stool against the wall. “My father went into Carlisle quite a bit on business but it was the first time I had ever gone with him. I remember that my brother and I were so very excited to go to the big city; it was an enormous place with soldiers and people. My father took us to a street with vendors who had goods from all over the world. While my father was attending to business, somehow I wandered away. I remember smelling something sweet and delicious, and I went in search of it. The next thing I realized, someone grabbed me and took me to a grove of trees that was just beyond the border of the street. I tried to scream and to fight, but he was simply too strong. I was only eleven years old, mind you, and no match for the man. He had been one of the many English soldiers I had seen throughout the city. When he finally took me to a place where no one could hear my cries for help, he.…”
    She suddenly trailed off, unable to continue. Stephen, however, was riveted to her dark head, suspecting with some certainty what she was about to tell him. There was a table in the room and he lowered his big body onto the corner of the table, his eyes fixed on her with sharp intensity.
    “Go on.”
    She was staring at her feet. Her head started wagging back and forth. “Please….”
    “Tell me the rest.”
    She kept her head lowered for the longest time. One big tear fell to the dusty floor, followed by a second. “He… he compromised me.”
    “He raped you?”
    She nodded, once. “My family committed me to the cloister because I was not a suitable marriage prospect being that I was no longer a virgin. I have been there ever since.”
    “Yet you are here at Berwick with your family during the event of a siege. Why is that?”
    She cleared her throat softly as she struggled for composure. “My mother needed me,” she said softly. “She has not been well for some time and my father called me home almost a year ago. With the loss of her sons, the madness has only gotten worse.”
    “After eleven years away, he calls you home?”
    “He did.”
    “Do you not have a sister that could have attended to her also?”
    “Maggie is already married and living in York. Her husband would not let her come.”
    Stephen drew in a slow, steady breath, his eyes still riveted to her lowered head. The story, such as it was, had grown by leaps and bounds. He would not be made a fool of.
    “You will forgive me if I do not believe you,” he said quietly.
    Her head snapped up, her pale blue eyes wide with shock and outrage. “You do not…?” she could hardly grasp what he had just said. “You do not believe me?”
    “I do not.”
    She was beside herself. “Must I prove to you that my mother is not well? How would you expect me to do that?”
    “I did not mean the story about your mother, although it does ring strange. I mean the story about the English soldier raping you at eleven years of age.”
    Her mouth flew open with outrage. “Do you think I tell you this horrific story simply to gain your sympathies?”
    He was unemotional. “Women will say or do most anything to gain their way. No matter what you tell me, you and I shall be married as soon as the priest arrives.”
    Joselyn was beyond shocked; it never occurred to her that the man would not believe her. Her shock turned to rage such as she had never known and the fire of the Scots, so inherent to her soul, bubbled up like a great raging beast.
    “Perhaps