Sharon Schulze - L'eau Clair Chronicles 03 Read Online Free Page A

his reaction to her, he might simply have been amusing himself further at her expense.
    Lord Ian looked at her as if she were mad.
    “Do you mean to tell me you don’t know? I thought your actions foolish before, but now—” He shook his head.
    “Just tell me,” she cried, rising from the stool and gathering the mantle about her. She wanted to pace, to move, but the chamber was too small and his cloak too long. She sighed her frustration.
    “Please.”
    “Aye, he’s here. But I doubt he’ll see you. His labors begin with the dawn, and continue without cease until the sun is set. In the evening he makes time for nothing but merriment.” Did she detect scorn in his voice?
    His face told her nothing, but what did his opinion of his master matter to her? She had run Llywelyn to ground at Dolwyddelan, climbed the curtain wall and survived.
    Relief weakened her already shaky knees. She plopped down on the stool.
    “Saints be praised,” she said, smiling.
    Ian stared. Her smile transformed her face, and her green eyes appeared lit from within. Although dirty streaks still covered her cheeks, she looked happy. And beautiful.
    Christ on the cross, had he turned into a besotted fool?
    He shifted his gaze to the narrow beam of sunlight streaming through a slit high in the wall. Somehow, this woman had addled his brain.
    But he refused to give in to the temptation she presented.
    The image of a strong, unified Wales rose in his mind, the shrine he worshiped above all others. He’d likely given up all hope of heaven, of family and a life of his own, to attain that goal. A mere slip of a woman would not keep him from it.
    He’d ignored far more compelling distractions, he re:
    minded himself as he forced himself to look at her again.
    Her smile had disappeared. Perhaps God’s light still shone upon him, after all.
    “Would you plead my case, milord?” she asked.
    “It truly is important. I’d never have tried so hard to see him, otherwise.”
    What harm could there be in it? Christ knew, she’d shown more valor than many a noble warrior. She’d earned her chance to speak—to him, at least.
    “I’ll hear what you have to say.”
    “Thank you, sir.” Lily settled herself on the stool, her spine straight as an arrow, despite the fact that she had to ache like the devil.
    “I searched for the prince for more than a fortnight, though it seems as though my quest had gone on forever.”
    “Where have you come from?”
    “I’ve lived in the abbey of Saint Winifred all my life.
    My mother and I were boarders there.”
    “What is your mother about, to permit you to wander the countryside alone?” He began to revise his initial opinion of her. No one of low degree boarded at an abbey, especially an abbey as wealthy as Saint Winifred’s. And her speech carried the refined tones of the nobility. His wits had gone begging. He should have noticed that immediately
    “My mother is dead, milord, this month past.” She made the sign of the cross.
    “May God grant her peace.”
    She closed her eyes, sadness etched upon her face.
    Perhaps grief at her mother’s death had confused her, sent her upon this senseless journey.
    “Surely you must have family,” he said, ignoring the way her eyes had filled with tears–just as they had last night.
    “Someone must have paid the abbey to keep you. The Church’s charity doesn’t stretch that far.”
    Lily shook her head and met his gaze. She believed what she told him, he could see it. And no cloud of madness or confusion tainted the clear emerald of her eyes.
    “The abbess, Sister Maud, swore my mother was the only family I had. And that our board had been paid, and would continue to be paid, by a benefactor unknown to her.”
    “Surely the bishop–” “I sought him out first of all, once I’d escaped the confines of the abbey.”
    “Escaped? They had no right to hold you,” Ian said.
    The more she told him, the less he understood. Nothing she’d said made sense.
    She