Never Kiss A Stranger Read Online Free

swept past Sybilla out the door. Alys turned toward the window once more, so that Sybilla would not see her childish tears.
    From behind Alys, Graves spoke to Sybilla. “Would you have me bolt the door, Madam?”
    “Nay, Graves,” Sybilla said. “Alys is now free to go where she would.”
    “Shall I accompany you, then?”
    “Of course. You are family as well, dear friend. This announcement will be a joyous one for Fallstowe.”
    Alys heard her bedchamber door close.
    Alone at last, she sank to her knees and dropped her head to the stone window seat with a sob. She barely heard the skittering behind her of the monkey clambering across the floor and then leaping up to sit near her head. The animal started picking at her veil and hair beneath.
    The damned monkey! It had ruined the feast, ruined her life!
    She gave a long sniff and rose up to gather the animal close to her, rubbing her cheek against its soft hair, staring, staring out the window.
    Sybilla would not win. Not this time.
    Likely the Foxe Ring was naught but a silly tale. So be it. But she would go there to make a point. Alys was not a child, and she would not be treated like one.
    She would simply run away with her monkey, instead.

Chapter 2
    Every bone in Piers Mallory’s body ached as he trudged up yet another hillock in the dark, wet night. Perhaps, as the monk had warned him, he was not yet well enough to travel. His wounds were not completely healed, and even now, Piers’s head throbbed so that his stomach roiled.
    Spill his brains onto the ground! I want to see them seep from his skull and wash downstream, the filthy bastard-beggar!
    He paused, blinked painfully against the pressure of the woman’s shrill voice, swallowed. He could all but taste the green water of the River Arrow on the back of his throat once more. Thankfully, he did not vomit again. So, indeed, perhaps he was not yet well.
    He began to walk slowly once more. London seemed very far from his vantage point over nothing more than his own two feet, and he must reach the King’s Bench in a fortnight. If he did not, Bevan would win Gillwick Manor.
    Bevan is no brother to you, Piers.
    His father’s words were quieter, but the torment they inflicted was no less severe and so he had to stop again—the pain was threatening to turn his insides out. He wascertain he could move more quickly if only he could stop reliving that hell-filled night over and over again inside his bruised brain. The night his father had died. The night Piers himself had nearly lost his own life. The memories squeezed so, twisted, in his head and in his guts.
    Why, Father? Why now do you weep?
    My son, my son! Can you ever forgive me?
    The night went red behind his eyelids, and Piers thought for a moment that he might pass out. But then a heavy fog rolled through the valley and misted his already damp neck with a sweet coolness. The red faded slowly, the pounding behind his eyes lessened enough so that he could open them once more. He straightened with care, and onward he went, the hateful voices gamely giving chase.
    Slovenly peasant! Son of a whore! Nasty little bastard! Someone ought kill you in your sleep!
    His stepmother, the conniving Judith Angwedd, would be at court as well, of course. How she had terrified him as a child, barring him from even sleeping inside his mother’s humble cottage. She had done everything in her wicked power to be certain that Piers never saw Gillwick again. She and Bevan thought him dead even now.
    But Piers lived. He lived, and he walked. To London, in the night, where he would not be discovered by any who could report to Judith Angwedd. Time when he could heal, and think, and plan the exact moment when he would appear in Edward’s court and make his claim for Gillwick. When he would at last stand before his half—nay, not half. When he would stand before his
step
brother, look him in the eye as an equal.
    And then Piers thought he might kill Bevan Mallory. Perhaps with a blade.