Read Online Chivalrous by Dina L. Sleiman - Free Book Online Page A

handsome knight, beaming with joy like the sunshine.

Chapter   6
    Rosalind stared out the hallway window to the bustling city of Edendale. Nearby hawkers cried their wares, and children dashed squealing about the busy streets.
    As a small child, like nearly every other girl in her tiny village, she had played at being a duchess in this very city. Of being captured by an evil villain and a handsome knight coming to rescue her. But lady’s maid in an elegant townhome would do quite nicely for the real world. She would have more than enough adventure on the morrow if Gwendolyn had her way.
    Enough daydreaming. Rosalind desperately needed this position and could not afford to muck it up. Too well she remembered those days after her father’s death when disaster and deprivation had struck their family. The hungry whimpers of her younger brothers and sisters yet called out to her. She could never risk losing this position and subjecting them to that again. But Lord Barnes had been dismissing servants one after another since he returned.
    Thank the good Lord he had no idea what she and Gwendolyn had been about earlier this day, nor what they planned for the morrow. But Gwendolyn was her best ally in this place, not to mention quite dear to her, and Rosalind did not wish to disappoint her mistress.
    As she entered Gwendolyn’s bedchamber, the oddest sight met her eyes. Lady Barnes examined her daughter’s twisted form much as a physician would a patient.
    â€œThrust your left leg to the side a little further please. Hmm . . . better.” Lady Barnes tapped a finger to her lip and walked a circle around her Amazonian child. Though Rosalind had never considered Gwendolyn overly large, even she must admit that next to her diminutive mother, Gwendolyn appeared a hulking figure.
    Tonight Gwendolyn would be officially presented at the duke’s court, although she seemed not at all excited. She looked beyond lovely for the occasion in a rare velvet dress of midnight blue with sweeping sleeves inlaid with a gilded fabric and glimmering jewels stitched across the fitted bodice.
    Yet her mother frowned. “You must keep your shoulders straight, of course, but try dipping your head demurely to one side—like so.” Lady Barnes demonstrated.
    Gwendolyn followed suit, bending her neck at an awkward angle so that her ear nearly grazed her shoulder.
    â€œExcellent!” Lady Barnes clasped her hands to her chest. “That takes off a good two inches and adds a soft touch of femininity as well.”
    By Rosalind’s way of thinking, Gwendolyn’s ample curves and artfully arranged golden tresses provided quite enough femininity, but it was not her place to say so. Gwendolyn shot Rosalind a silent plea for help.
    â€œNow bend your supporting knee,” Gwendolyn’s mother said.
    Already teetering in her bizarre position, Gwendolyn dipped her knee, completing her transformation from lovely noblewoman to humpbacked troll.
    â€œPerfect! Why, altogether we have reduced your height by nearly half a foot.” Lady Barnes pressed her hand to her mouth in delight. “Your father will be so proud.”
    Gwendolyn grimaced. “Nonsense. I shall get a crick in my neck and a cramp in my leg bent over like such. And however shall I dance?”
    Lady Barnes’s pretty face twisted in confusion. “I had not thought that far. Rosalind, what do you suggest?”
    Dare Rosalind mention the troll? “I do understand your concern to make Lady Gwendolyn appear shorter. But do you not agree that in doing so you have created a silhouette that appears both more withered and rather stout?”
    Lady Barnes sighed. “Goodness. This is true. I had not considered that by making her shorter, we would draw attention to her girth.”
    â€œWhich would be a pity, for she is by no means fat. And she shall not be able to perform that graceful walk we have been practicing if she is hunched