My Lady Faye Read Online Free Page A

the might of its owner. On any other night, it would have been filled with castle folk, chatting away the hours before bedtime. Only Sir Arthur was here now, keeping silent vigil. Even the dogs lay silent by the hearth, their ears pricked, their gazes patient and watchful.
    A pall hung over Anglesea and contrasted with his happy memories of the place. This hall should be a place filled with cheery, laughing faces, packed with love and good humor. The difference saddened him.
    A large man with a barrel chest and the battle-hardened arms of a warrior, Sir Arthur’s craggy face drew into grim lines. He rose to his impressive height. “Sir Gregory.”
    Not many men met him eye to eye. Sir Arthur stopped just shy. “Merely Gregory, now.”
    Sir Arthur flushed. “Indeed, Father, my apologies.”
    “Not Father either.” The admission pinched at his gut. “I am still a postulant.”
    Sir Arthur’s brows rose. “You have not become a novice?”
    “Nay.” Resentment sputtered and died. Calder had Simon and his Lady Faye lay as a brittle shell in her chamber. Thank the Lord he could produce coherent speech with all warring inside him. “The Father Abbott has adjudged me not ready to take my vows.”
    “Indeed. It is perhaps fortunate for us this is so.” Sir Arthur pressed his thumbs into his eyes. “You have seen my daughter?”
    “I have.” She still rendered him weak when they shared the same space.
    “I have failed her.” The older man’s shoulders slumped. “My child has come to me in her hour of greatest need and I am impotent as a—” His gaze flickered over Gregory and he flushed.
    The first glimmering of humor since Garrett dragged him from the monastery tilted his mouth into a smile. “Not impotence, my lord, abstinence.”
    “Verily.” Sir Arthur cleared his throat and motioned the chair beside him.
    Gregory adjusted the skirts of his habit and sat. They seemed ridiculous beside the armor-clad Sir Arthur. Of course, they were not ridiculous. His robes served as a reminder of his inner conviction, the symbol of his chosen life. He shouldn’t be here. Dear Father in Heaven, as if he would be anywhere else. “The abstinence is harder.”
    Sir Arthur gave a short bark of laughter. “I wager so.”
    A log popped in the hearth and one of the coursing hounds raised his head. The hound trundled over to him as Gregory clicked his fingers. There were animals aplenty at the Abbey, but farming beasts, bullocks, chickens and goats. He stroked the courser’s brindle coat and the animal settled again with a heavy sigh.
    “I am given to understand your hands are tied.” One of them had to broach the conversation and Sir Arthur seemed lost in his study of the fire.
    The older man grunted. “Aye. Since the Army of God, I am under the king’s suspicion. All the rebel barons are.”
    “And Calder has risen as a shining example of loyalty.” Sour coated the back of his tongue. Calder played this well, the larcenous wretch, he stayed on the side most likely to pad his coffers. Supporting the late King John through the baron’s uprising had played well for Calder, and now he enjoyed the favor of the boy King Henry.
    “I did not see it.” Sir Arthur shook his head. “I, who have always prided myself on my acuity in reading men, gave my daughter to that conniving dog.”
    Anger curled low in Gregory’s belly, demanding he tell the man the truth of what he had given his daughter into. It was not his secret to tell, so he held his peace.
    Whining, the dog nudged his hand.
    “Calder is a master dissembler. I was fostered into his household as a page and I did not see him for who he truly was until recently.” To say more would be cruel. Sir Arthur’s careworn visage rebuked his anger and he had not the heart to add another worry.
    “But you are not her father. She was not entrusted into your care at birth.” Sir Arthur brushed his hand across his face.
    Nay, but she was entrusted into his care at her