When Love Awaits Read Online Free Page B

time, and can help me in dealings with my other neighbors. Then, too, she has retainers. I have nine knights who follow me, but some are not suited to command and I need men to hold the other seven keeps.”
    “I can see your reasoning, Rolfe, but I can find you a wife who can accomplish at least half your purpose and is pleasing to look at.”
    Rolfe shrugged. “There are always women like Amelia.”
    Henry understood that very well. He was living openly as man and wife with Princess Alice of France. As long as a man had his mistress, what matter his wife’s looks? It was true.
    “Very well,” Henry concurred. “Is it only my permission you require?”
    “More than that, Your Majesty. I have offered for the girl and was refused. Without explanation.”
    “To deny his only daughter a husband?” Henry growled. “By God, you will have her three weeks hence. I will have the banns posted immediately and my messenger will reach Sir William on the morrow.” Then, in a less aggrieved tone, he asked, “But you are certain this is what you want, Rolfe? You have no hesitation about this marriage?”
    He certainly did, but that need not be mentioned. “I am certain,” he declared, and Henry grinned. “Then you will be pleased to know the lady is sole heir to Sir William, and Montwyn is worth five knights’ fees, as I recall. She was also her mother’s sole heir, and her mother left her a dower of three keeps.” Henrychuckled here. “The vassal at Rethel has six sons you might find useful. Lady Leonie is also niece to the earl of Shefford, and there are other uncles and aunts, most of them well placed. It does not hurt a man to be well connected, eh?”
    Rolfe was shocked. She was an heiress with a much richer dowry than he’d known about, and highborn relatives as well. He supposed all this ought to please him, but in truth he had believed her a solitary woman, and now he began to wonder if his anger had made him take on more than he wanted to.

Chapter 5
    L ADY Judith did not know why Rolfe d’Ambert wanted to marry Leonie. If she had known she would have been furious. As it was, Judith was in a state of near hysteria.
    She had put off telling William of the king’s order in hope that something would come about to stop the wedding. But it was the day before the wedding and she was in a panic.
    She sat at the table on the raised dais waiting for William to join her, having sent a servant to rouse him from sleep. It was morning, and much earlier than William usually woke. She prayed his soggy mind would clear long enough for him to understand, but only long enough for that. To have him sober for any great length of time would jeopardize everything she had accomplished over the years. If William ever realized what she had done, he would kill her.
    Judith did not dwell long on that thought. She knew that, given the chance to go back in time, she would do nothing different.
    William had destroyed all her dreams. He had been in a drunken stupor caused by grief over the loss of Elisabeth, and emerged from it to find that Judith had taken advantage of his drunken state and tricked him into marriage. He beat her nearly to death for this, andthe small scar she bore on her left cheek had remained. She would never forgive him for it.
    Vanity was her sin and her undoing. She had been so sure William would accept her as his wife and be happy about it. After all, six years ago she’d been a beautiful young woman lacking only a dowry. Her high-boned cheeks, jewellike green eyes, and heavy, dark blond hair set her apart from most other women. Many a man had wanted to marry her for her beauty alone, but none were as well landed as William of Montwyn.
    But William, it turned out, did not own all Judith believed he did. Three of his keeps belonged to his daughter. Had she known that, Judith would never have tricked William into marriage.
    He was in such a rage over the marriage that Judith had had to lie and say she was with child.