LITMIR.BIZ

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mouth snapped shut as she realized she’d been staring at him like a besotted ninny. This was just a man, after all, not a supernatural being.

      “I thank you, sir, for your help,” she said with haughty dignity. “I’m sure any injuries I’ve sustained are minor.”

      His smile disappeared, and the light in his brown eyes dimmed.

      This was as it should be. After all, she had not come to court to find a husband. She had come to court to do all she could to prevent being married.

      A hiss came from behind her. The last of the kittens had finished nursing and the mother cat clearly thought it was time for all her brood to go.

      The white kitten bounded out of the man’s grasp and ran to join the others.

      The handsome, well-spoken and therefore surely noble stranger gave Adelaide a rueful grin. “Alas, I’ve been abandoned.”

      Adelaide didn’t want to smile, lest he take that for encouragement. She looked away—and saw a long scratch on the back of his hand. “You’re bleeding!”

      “Little devil,” the man muttered as he examined his hand, exposing his wrist and mottled, red skin that had obviously once been rubbed raw. As if he’d been shackled. For weeks.

      Adelaide raised her startled eyes to find the stranger regarding her steadily, with an expression that betrayed nothing. Although she was full of curiosity, she decided it would be best to say nothing and simply tend to his wound, as he’d come to her assistance.

      She hurried from the stall to the nearest trough and dipped the corner of her veil into the water before returning to wash the scratch.

      The unknown nobleman, as well as the cat and her kittens, were gone.

      Adelaide stood dumbfounded, wondering where he’d gone and if she should seek him out, until she heard the all-too-familiar voice of Francis de Farnby. It wouldn’t be good to be found here with a man—any man—and especially not a man as attractive as the unknown nobleman. She could easily imagine what the gossips of the court would make of that.

       CHAPTER TWO

      “ARMAND! You’re finally here! I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost.”

      Delighted to hear the voice of his closest friend, Armand stopped rubbing down his horse and smiled as Randall FitzOsbourne limped into the stall.

      As usual, Randall was dressed in a long, dark tunic that reached the ground, with a plain leather belt girded around his slender waist. He wore his hair, the color of newly cut oak, in the popular Norman fashion, although the cowlick on the left side of his head gave him a rakish look that was distinctly at odds with his gentle personality.

      “Is that your horse?” Randall asked, running a wary eye over the ill-tempered animal that shifted at the sound of his voice.

      “It was the best I could afford,” Armand replied, tossing the rag he’d been using into a bucket on the other side of the stall. “I’m sorry if I gave you any cause to worry. This beast is not the swiftest, and I was longer at my uncle’s than I planned.”

      “Success?” Randall asked, his sandy brows rising in query.

      One hand stroking the horse as it snorted and refooted, Armand reached into his tunic and tossed a small leather pouch at Randall, the coins within clinking as he caught it. Randall had excellent coordination and would have been a formidable knight, had his club foot not made that impossible.

      “How much?” Randall asked, pulling the drawstring open and peering within.

      “Ten marks.”

      Randall’s disappointment matched Armand’s. “So little?”

      “There was no love between my father and my uncle,” Armand reminded his friend with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “I was fortunate he didn’t set the hounds on me.”

      Randall sighed as he leaned back against the stable wall. “As bad as that?”

      “Yes.”

      Armand saw no need to elaborate on the unpleasant reaction his arrival had elicited from his uncle when he went to plead for money to ransom his half brother, Bayard. He would not repeat the justifiable epithets applied to his vicious, lascivious, mercifully dead father, or the cold reminders that his uncle had already helped to pay for Armand’s freedom; he had little to spare for Bayard.

      “How much have you got now?”

      “Two hundred and eight-four marks.”

      “So you still need two hundred and sixteen. I’m sure the earl would gladly loan you that amount, except that he’s not here,” Randall said with regret. “His steward, while a fine fellow, isn’t likely to lend you so much as a ha’penny without the earl’s leave.”

      “When is the earl expected to return?”

      “A fortnight, I think.”

      Armand cursed softly.

      “If you’d let me go to my father again—”

      “No. As desperate as I am to have Bayard free, I’m not going to put you through that humiliation again.”

      As long as he lived, Armand would never forget the terrible treatment Randall’s father, Lord Dennacourt, meted out to his only child when, in his desperation to rescue Bayard, he’d agreed to go with Randall and seek the ransom money, or a portion of it, from that wealthy nobleman. Judging by Lord Dennacourt’s reaction, you would have thought Armand wanted to murder him and that Randall had deliberately crippled himself to thwart his father’s plans.

      Armand clapped a companionable hand on Randall’s shoulder and, picking up his leather pouch, steered him out of the stall. “I’ve come up with another way to raise the money,” he said with a good humor that wasn’t completely feigned. “I believe, my friend, that the time has come for Armand de Boisbaston to take a wife.”

      Randall stared at him in amazement. “You’ll marry to get the ransom money?”

      “If I must,” he replied, understanding Randall’s surprise.

      Before he’d sailed to Normandy on that ill-fated campaign, he would never have considered such a mercenary motive for taking a bride. Profit had been his father’s reason for marrying again when Armand’s mother had been barely a month in the grave, and that second marriage had been a disaster, a constant battle of wills and epithets, curses and blows. Armand had promised himself he would have affection, amiability and peace when he wed, regardless of dowries and lands.

      But now, with Bayard depending upon him, he couldn’t afford to think only of his own desires when it came to taking a wife. And he had to admit that his plan seemed more palatable now that he’d met that lovely, bashful beauty in the stable. It hadn’t escaped his notice that she wore no wedding ring.

      When she’d raised her eyes and looked at him, he’d experienced that almost-forgotten thrill of excitement and arousal, too. It was as if the recent past had never happened—until she’d seen his scarred wrist and he’d fled like a coward, or the most vain man alive. “I trust our king still enjoys the company of orphaned young ladies who are royal wards, as well as several wealthy, titled widows he can bestow in marriage on his friends, or those to whom he owes much?”

      “Yes, he does,” Randall replied as they entered the courtyard.

      Several soldiers patrolled the wall walk and guarded the gate. Others not on duty lounged in the July sunlight, laughing and cursing as they exchanged stories. Ostentatiously ignoring the soldiers, a few young female servants strolled toward the well, whispering and giggling. Other servants, in finer garments, bustled about on business for their noble masters.

      Merchants and tradesmen’s carts arrived with produce for the castle kitchens; others, now empty, departed, their drivers cursing

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