The Damsel's Defiance Read Online Free Page B

icy cold from her experience on the dockside. She felt shaken, unnerved by her experience, annoyed that Lord Talvas had effectively sabotaged her foolish notion that she could deal with any man. Her fingers, still numb from the cold, fumbled for the jade amulet that hung from her neck. To hold the precious stone within the palm of her hand steadied her, reminded her of her father and his wise words. Occasionally, Anselm Duhamel would accompany one of his own ships on a trading voyage; on returning from the Baltic, he had presented her with the necklace. Not long after, the ship he travelled on went down, with all souls lost, just before her fifteenth birthday. Emmeline missed his gentle presence with a keenness she would not often admit, but knew he would have been proud of the way she kept his ships afloat. She tucked the amulet back into the neckline of her pale green bliaut.
    ‘Keep still, child, or your hair will end up in a worse tangle,’ her mother admonished. Felice Duhamel attacked her daughter’s long coils of hair with vigorous swipes of the ivory comb. ‘What did you say the man’s name was?’
    Emmeline’s slender fingers reached for the earthenware cup of spiced cider that steamed gently on an adjacent table. The puffs of heat rising from the surface bathed the icy skin of her face. Tentatively, she took a sip, wondering whether the dark liquid would burn her lips. The delicious, apple-smelling juice curled down her throat, an elixir, a soothing balm to her rattled senses.
    ‘Emmeline?’
    ‘He says his name is Lord Talvas of Boulogne. I’ve never heard of him, but Geoffrey seems to think I should have.’
    The comb stilled.
    ‘Maman?’ Emmeline twisted round in her seat, trying to see her mother’s face in the dim light of their cottage. Outside,the bright sunshine had been obscured by low cloud; rain seemed imminent.
    ‘God in Heaven, Emmeline, what did you say to him? Lord Talvas is kin to royalty…you know his brother-in-law—’
    ‘I know all that, maman. ’ Emmeline dismissed her mother’s words with a waggle of her fingers. ‘I know that he is nephew by marriage to Henry, King of England and Duke of Normandy—’
    ‘—and could have you slung in prison for insubordination.’
    Setting her cup with studied deliberation on the scrubbed oak table, Emmeline rose swiftly, wrenching at the comb that had become snarled in her locks. Her eyes flashed an angry green at her unsettling memory of that odious man as she faced her mother. Her swift movement unbalanced her, jarring her weak ankle and causing her to grab the edge of the well-worn kitchen table in an effort to steady herself.
    ‘All I know, Mother, is that he mistook me for…for a woman of the night…’ There! She had said it.
    Her mother viewed her in horror, mouth slack with disbelief. ‘Oh, Emmeline, daughter!’ Felice moved to clasp her daughter’s rigid hands. ‘What have you done? God in Heaven, this is all my fault, I should never let you leave the house with your hair unbound!’
    Emmeline bit her lip, eyeing her mother’s pale face. She hated seeing her mother so upset, especially on her account. Felice had suffered greatly at the loss of her husband, spending long days just lying on her pallet, weeping. Emmeline’s instinct was always to protect her mother’s feelings, to guard her from reality, and now she moved away from the table to kneel on the flagstone floor, stilling her mother’s fluttering hands by clasping them within her own. ‘Don’t fret, Mother. He’ll have forgotten I even exist by now. Besides, it was all sorted by the time we parted. Geoffrey didmost of the talking, smoothed things over. It’s not likely I will ever see the man again.’ She shook her hands free of her mother’s light grip and gave her a wide hug. ‘Why not continue with my hair?’ She handed the comb back to Felice and resumed her seat before the fire.
    Felice eyed her daughter warily, hesitating a moment before resuming