When Christ and His Saints Slept Read Online Free

he started to squirm, then turned upon Stephen a torrent of gratitude.
    Laughing, he held up his hand to stem the tide. “Lady Angharad, you do me too much credit. The lad was in no real danger. Even if he had taken a tumble into the water, we’d have fished him out quick enough.” He was not surprised, though, that his assurances counted for naught; he’d never known a more doting mother than his uncle’s young Welsh mistress.
    Stephen treated all women with courtesy, felt protective toward most of them. But Angharad, in particular, had always stirred his sense of chivalry. He knew little of her past, only that she’d been brought back by his uncle from one of his campaigns in Wales. She couldn’t have been much more than fifteen at the time, and he sometimes wondered how she’d felt about being claimed as a prize of war by an enemy more than thirty years her senior. Stephen had been quite young himself then, and had only a few hazy memories of a timid country lass with nary a word to say for herself, downswept lashes and sidelong glances and a shyness that served as her shield. But in the six years that she’d been at Henry’s court, she’d learned to speak French, adopted Norman fashions, and borne Henry two children, a stillborn son and Ranulf.
    Stephen knew that most people would envy Angharad, not pity her, for her life held comforts undreamed-of in Wales. The king’s concubine would never go hungry, never lack for warm clothes or a soft bed. As tight-fisted as Henry was, he looked after his own, freely acknowledging all his bastard-born children. He was said to have sired at least twenty offspring out of wedlock, and had made brilliant marriages for many of them. Stephen did not doubt Ranulf was fortunate, indeed, that his mother had been fair enough to catch a king’s eye. Whether that was true or not for Angharad, too, he had no way of knowing.
    Hoisting Ranulf up onto his shoulders, Stephen escorted Angharad and the nurse across the gangplank, found for them a space under the canvas tent, and wished them a safe and speedy journey. Returning to the quay, he was hailed by a husky female voice. “Stephen, you fool! My husband will be here any moment, and when he finds you lusting after me like this, he’ll slay us both!”
    Stephen bit back a grin. “If ever there were a woman worth dying for, it would be you, my dearest…dearest…no, do not tell me! Clemence? No…Rosamund?”
    That earned him a sharp poke in the ribs. “Swine!” She laughed, and he reached out, gave her a hug, for they were kin and could take such liberties without giving rise to gossip.
    They were not really related, though, not by blood; it was Amabel’s husband, Robert, who was Stephen’s cousin. While King Henry provided well for his illegitimate children, he preferred not to do so out of his own coffers. For Robert, his firstborn son, he’d found Amabel Fitz Hamon, daughter of the Lord of Creully, a rich heiress who’d brought Robert the lordship of Glamorgan, the vast Honour of Gloucester. Stephen had recently heard that the king meant to bestow upon Robert, too, the earldom of Gloucester. His was not a jealous nature, but he did begrudge Robert so much good fortune. No man so self-righteous, he thought, deserved an earldom and Amabel and a king’s favor, too.
    “So,” Amabel said, linking her arm in his, “what sort of trouble have you been up to? I heard you ran down some poor soul in the street this afternoon?”
    Stephen shook his head in mock regret. “Never give credence to rumors, love. As it happens, I was being a Good Samaritan.” And he related for her, then, his rescue of Berold, the hapless butcher’s lad. When he was done, she clapped her hands and called him “St Stephen,” but her brown eyes were alight with admiration, a look Stephen liked very much, indeed.
    Not that he expected anything to come of it. Amabel was a flirt, but she was also a devoted wife. Like all marriages, hers had been an