Read Online A Place Beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick - Free Book Online

but it was difficult to refrain from giving them orders and he could not prevent his gaze from wandering around the hall, assessing areas where trouble might occur and watching who entered and who left.
    Making an effort, he turned his attention to his bride. She was wilting like a plucked bluebell, but he was not surprised since she was unaccustomed to being the centre of attention. John had marked the shy, anxious glances she kept darting at him and hoped she was not going to fall over the edge into hysteria when it came to their wedding night. He was used to forthright women who knew the moves with practised thoroughness. He had been keeping her cup well filled, but since he didn’t want her drunk out of her skull, or sick to the stomach, he had been judging her intake keenly - and his own. His experience with women was extensive, but frightened virgins were not a part of it. Should such creatures enter the lists of the court prostitutes, their innocence was the preserve of magnates and bishops - or the King.
    At least there was to be no formal bedding ceremony. John had chosen to take Aline back to his lodging on Scowrtene Street close to the castle. He owned the rents of several houses there and kept one for his own use when he was in the city. From what he had seen of Aline, there was no reason to doubt her innocence; he did not need witnesses to her virginity, and she would cope better without the palaver of public observance.
    ‘A toast my lord to you and your new bride. Waes hael!’
    ‘Drincheil!’ John gave the traditional response and raised his cup to the salute made by Patrick FitzWalter, second son of Wiltshire’s sheriff. The young man’s hazel eyes were glassy and his smile inane. Had John been on duty, he would have been herding him unobtrusively towards the door or the latrines. Patrick had a bearish arm around his youngest sister. ‘’S a good thing to show Sibby off at court,’ he slurred. ‘Make a fine marriage prize herself some day, won’t you, my chicken?’
    ‘I remember you.’ Aline’s gaze lit with sudden interest on the girl and she gave her a sweet smile. ‘You found my beads when I lost them at Salisbury. Do you like marchpane?’
    ‘Yes, my lady.’ The child answered with a polite curtsey.
    John congratulated himself on his judgement of his wife’s wine consumption. She was relaxed enough to speak of her own accord but that speech was clear and her fingers were dextrous as she broke a piece off the subtlety on her salver and handed the sweetmeat to the child.
    Sybilla took it and thanked her, then thanked John too. Unlike Aline, who had only taken quick blushing glances at him all day, the girl gave him a measured look from brown eyes flecked with tawny and green. Her appraisal amused John, for it was the kind of stare he would have bestowed upon someone he was weighing up, not necessarily to their advantage. When she looked down, he suspected it was out of courtesy and not because she was shy or embarrassed.
    ‘Has your father anyone in mind?’ he asked Patrick.
    The youth shook his head. ‘Not yet. Her sister married the Count of Perche last year.’ He swayed on his feet and, swallowing a belch, pinched the child’s cheek. ‘She’ll be a worthy prize, though, when the time comes.’
    Sybilla pulled away from her brother, giving him a straight stare too, although aggrieved rather than assessing. John folded his lips on the urge to laugh. ‘I have no doubt,’ he said when he had control of his expression.
    Lady Salisbury arrived and, looking irritated, took charge of her daughter and sent Patrick outside, telling him that his brother William and some of their mutual cronies were looking for him.
    ‘Formidable woman,’ John remarked to Aline. ‘I wonder if I could recruit her to my household.’
    Aline looked alarmed before quickly dropping her gaze. ‘I don’t think it would be allowed,’ she whispered.
    ‘It was a jest.’
    She reddened. ‘Oh.’
    He said