Reckless Angel Read Online Free

for the king, so I had to go too.”
    Daniel found himself unconvinced of the imperative here, but then he was not fifteen years old and in love. “Your family will be distracted with worry for you.”
    Her face closed again. “They will care only because if I am not there they cannot compel me to wed Sir Reginald—” She broke off abruptly.
    Daniel regarded her thoughtfully. Obviously she had realized that completing the name of the intended bridegroom might give her interlocutor some clue as to her own identity, or at least to the part of the world from which she hailed.
    He sat down companionably on the edge of the bed, noting absently that a week’s fever had left her wan and peaky. Her hair, which he suspected to be very fair, was now lank, straggling halfway down her back in limp, dirt-darkened strands. “And why does Sir Reginald not find favor?”
    Her features screwed themselves into a disgusted grimace. “He’s a fat, drunken sot and his breath reeks most foully! He has no hair and his teeth are green—those that he has—and he is old as Methuselah!”
    Daniel absorbed this horrifying image in comprehending silence before asking, “Why are you to be compelled to wed this less-than-paragon?”
    â€œOh, ’tis something to do with bonds and staple-statute. A debt my father owes Sir Reginald.”
    â€œUpon staple-statute?” When she nodded, Daniel pulled at his chin. This debt the girl’s father owed would thus take precedence over all other claims on his land and property, and the man he owed could take possession of all land and property at any time he pleased until he was paid in coin of the realm. “So, this Sir Reginald will have you to wife instead. Is that it?”
    â€œNo, he will not!” she declared with more strength than a week’s fever and a wounded shoulder should have permitted. “For I will not go home to be had.” Her face was suddenly wiped clean of all defiance and the brown eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “If Will had not been killed, I am certain I would have persuaded him to elope. Even if it meant he was disinherited and I had no dowry, we would have managedsomehow.” She dashed the back of her hand across her eyes, sniffing dolefully.
    â€œLove alone is an insubstantial diet, child.” He stood up. “A man is like to starve with naught else to put in his belly.”
    â€œWe could work. There is farm work, and I could be a dairymaid…But now…” Her voice faltered. “Will is killed, so…so…” The tears fell then, fast and furious. “It is not just,” she sobbed. “He was too young and I loved him so much.”
    Daniel had little comfort to offer. Too many young men beloved of their maids had gone to their deaths in the last eight years of civil strife. He stroked her head, gave her his handkerchief, and waited for the storm to blow itself out.
    â€œNow, now, what’s this?” The goodwife bustled up the stairs. “Lordy, sir, she shouldn’t be workin’ ’erself up like this.”
    Thus reprimanded, however unjustly, Daniel left Harry in the charge of the goodwife and went outside into the late afternoon. The story she had told him was hardly unusual, but no less unpleasant for that. Daughters were currency and not all parents were scrupulous in the manner in which they spent that currency. It did not alter his task, however. He had no choice but to return her to her home and deliver her up to whatever fate there awaited her, for all that he was aware a runaway daughter was unlikely to draw a light sentence even from the fondest parent.
    Of course, before he could do anything, she had to recover her strength and be induced to reveal her identity. Meanwhile he must kick his heels here, a mere half day’s ride from Preston, where Parliament’s army was still mopping up straggling Royalists. It went against