Knights Read Online Free Page B

feel a little guilty, since the servants were so frightfully busy—her tub was carried outside and set beneath the canopy of flowers. Warm water was brought, and Gloriana herself added lavender before shedding her clothes and stepping into the bath.
    As she soaked, dreaming of her reunion with her husband, a breeze caressed the courtyard and a rainfall of golden petals descended in a scented cloud. They covered the surface of the water, like a blanket of gossamer velvet, and Gloriana told herself this was a good omen, a blessing from the Fates. This night, she would go to Kenbrook’s chambers as his wife, and he would find her pleasing.
    Gloriana dozed despite her excitement, lulled by the buzzing of the bees and the comforting clamor of daily life at Hadleigh Castle, a mingling of many sounds—birds chirping, horses neighing, shouts and the clanking of swords as the men-at-arms practiced their art, servants going about their business and calling out to each other.
    The water was cold when Gloriana awakened; perhaps that was why her senses were instantly and acutely attuned, rather than languorous from what must have been a long nap. She knew almost before opening her eyes that she was not alone in thecourtyard.
    He was sitting on the stone bench, watching her, his broad shoulders slightly stooped, his hands loosely clasped and dangling between his knees. His fair hairgleamed in the changing light, and his eyes, troubled, were a fierce Nordic blue. They were, she thought as something sharp and warm pierced her heart, the eyes of a Viking.
    “My lord,” she said shyly, with an inclination of her head. Her hair was wet through, clammy against her cheeks and her neck.
    She swallowed hard. Over the years of their marriage, she had rehearsed this meeting a hundred times, nay a thousand, but now, when it mattered, all the pretty words had fled. In her imaginings, Kenbrook had been the grandest of men, full of valor, handsome beyond bearing, strong as the proud warhorse he managed so easily. And her imaginings paled before the vital reality of the man himself.
    The girlish adulation she had always felt for him was quite real, however, and now it had doubled and redoubled just since she had opened her eyes and found him there, watching her.
    “You are Gloriana?” he asked, almost as if he hoped she would say she was someone else. His voice sounded hoarse, and he looked quite stunned, perhaps even feverish as he studied her,
    “Yes, my lord,” she said meekly.
    “We must talk.” There was no anger in the way he spoke, but she sensed reluctance in him and a sort of troubled resolution. Lord Kenbrook cleared his throat. “Not while you are in a state of near nakedness, of course.”
    Gloriana flushed with a combination of indignation and despair. Some men, she thought, would be pleased to come upon their wives in such a condition. No doubt he found her wanting, and it was unfair of him to judge her so swiftly. He had not seen her dressed in green, after all, with her hair brushed and braidedthrough with ribbon. “We did not expect you, my lord,” she said moderately. “If you had written, or sent a courier, preparations might have been made.”
    He had continued to stare at her, and she had the very clear impression that he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. “You are not at all as I thought you would be,” he remarked.
    Gloriana was stung, but she made herself smile, and that dispelled some of the terrible nervousness that had heretofore tangled her tongue and scattered her thoughts. “I see,” she murmured.
    Dane made no move to rise from the bench. “You do not see,” he said with some impatience and, to Gloriana’s way of thinking, rather presumptuously. “You are twenty years of age—an old woman by anyone’s reckoning. I did not think to find you so—fetching.”
    He’d struck close to the bone with that first comment, but he’d also called her “fetching.” Gloriana was both injured and