Read Online Catherine Coulter by The Valcourt Heiress - Free Book Online Page B

hold still. He laughed. “You are ready, I see.”
    She crossed her arms over her chest and began tapping the toe of her slipper. She fell into step beside him as he walked into the inner bailey.
    “Do you ride?”
    “Oh yes, I love to ride, my lord.” Her voice fell off the cliff. “Ah, Lady Anne—”
    “Aye, the gracious Lady Anne taught you herself, is that what you were going to tell me? Did she teach you to groom a horse as well? Mayhap birth a foal?”
    His sarcasm hit her broadside. Well, she knew he hadn’t believed her. She’d tried. Without thought, her head came up, her chin leading the way. “She did not have the opportunity, but it would have been as nothing to her. Lady Anne could do everything.”
    “That is not what I heard,” Garron said, although he hadn’t heard anything at all about Wareham’s former mistress. He’d said it just to see what she’d do.
    She jumped instantly to the bait. “There are always those who are jealous, who are mean-spirited, who are—”
    “Aye, that is all quite true. Let us hope she taught you to ride well. I don’t wish to see you thrown into the dirt.”
    “I can ride anything you put me on.”
    He immediately turned away to help an old man carry a large plank of wood across the inner bailey to the barracks. He kept his head down so she wouldn’t see the huge grin on his face at what she’d said so unwittingly.
    He met her at the portcullis, not smiling now. “I was also told my brother abused Lady Anne.”
    Her jaw dropped. “Surely not! No man would, that is, well—”
    Garron eyed her a moment, wondering yet again who she was, what she was, and why Miggins, and all the Wareham people for that matter, was protecting her. He turned at a shout from Tupper. He looked up at the ramparts to see the old man’s face so filled with fear he looked ready to fall over. “My lord! ’Tis a band of men, nay, an army of men, at least one hundred of them, mayhap more, all vicious looking and hard, waiting to sever all of us in two equal parts. ’Tis the Black Demon come back to butcher the rest of us and crow over our severed bodies. One Retribution wasn’t enough for him. They’re riding like the hounds of Hell toward Wareham! At least God will receive us with full bellies.”
    Tupper crossed himself, eased his old bones down to his knees, and started praying, loudly.
    Garron shouted as he ran to the ramparts, “Keep the drawbridge up and the portcullis down and all will be well. Aleric, get our men in position. Keep our people calm.”
    He climbed the wooden stairs that led to the ramparts, broke into a run along the thick-planked walkway that went around the perimeter of the castle. He couldn’t wait to see the man who’d tried to destroy Wareham. He couldn’t wait to carve him into little pieces.
    Well, damnation. He stared down not at a hundred soldiers riding at Wareham like Arabs from the Holy Land, more like thirty, all of them seated quietly on their mounts in front of his castle. Their leader wasn’t wearing mail. He was wearing a dark gray cloak and, of all things, a thick woolen scarf wrapped around his head. Garron recognized that scarf.
    “My lord Garron! ’Tis I, Robert Burnell. I come directly from our mighty and beneficent king. May I enter?”
    Garron grinned. “Is it really you, sir? A moment—we will lower the drawbridge and raise the portcullis.”
    Merry stood in the shadow of the deep steps leading up to the great hall and watched the soldiers ride into the inner bailey. She watched Garron step forward and help the man in the shawl to dismount.
    “That is Robert Burnell,” Gilpin whispered to her. “He’s the Chancellor of England and, more importantly, the king’s secretary. Lord Garron says he’s the king’s fist, and his ears as well. Lord Garron says there’s always a candle lit in his chamber and he works harder than the lowliest serf.”
    She started to say that all at court knew Robert Burnell’s habits, but held