Read Online Dark Champion by Jo Beverley - Free Book Online Page A

another month seemed about right.
    “Hmm,” he said with a raised brow. “You must have had a merry Yuletide.”
    Before she could think of an appropriately scathing retort he walked away and settled back to his watching post.
    Imogen kept an eye on him as she tried to think of a tale to tell which would account for her supposed state. It was impossible to imagine that her father would not have noticed such a bulging waistline and arranged her marriage. In fact, she realized with concern, just about anyone in the locality would be able to tell FitzRoger she’d been properly indented in the middle only two days since. Her deception could not last long, but she needed to be out of FitzRoger’s power before he learned the truth.
    She looked over and wondered just what his reaction would be to having been fooled. The thought sent shivers down her spine.
    He tensed and she turned to see what he had seen. Nothing.
    “What is it?” she whispered.
    He ignored her. She had an urge to crawl over to him and demand his attention, but she hated to think of the sight she’d be at the end of it. She turned instead to stare at the castle with as much intensity as he. Finally she saw it. A slight movement as someone, emboldened by dusk, peered over a battlement. It could be a nervous servant, but it could be a concealed guard.
    “If Warbrick and his men had left,” she said, half to herself, “and there were servants still in the castle, there’d be no reason for them to conceal themselves.”
    “Exactly.” He slid sinuously from his watching post and came to loom over her, thumbs tucked into his sword belt. “Time for you to tell me all your secrets, Imogen of Carrisford.” A slight hand signal brought Sir Renald and two other men. “Well?” he said.
    She hated being tied to the ground at his feet like this. He was deliberately using her incapacity to terrify and control her, and she loathed him for it. “It is a family secret,” she said firmly, meeting his eyes, even though it hurt her neck to do so.
    “Then consider me family,” he said with a cold smile.
    “Hardly.”
    He dropped to one knee so that at least their eyes were level. “You claim to want Warbrick out of Carrisford, demoiselle.”
    “I do.”
    “Then prove it.”
    Imogen found having those cold green eyes on a level with hers, and barely a foot away, was even worse than having him towering over her. Like an icy wind, his intent gaze numbed her senses, stole her voice.
    “Ty,” said Sir Renald humorously, “stop glaring at the girl. You’ll scare what wits she’s got out of her entirely.”
    Imogen expected FitzRoger to gut the man for his impudence, but instead he collapsed back to sit on the ground, arms around his knees. His expression was still unfriendly toward her, but it did not have that numbing power. “You think she’s a half-wit?” he asked his friend dryly. “It would explain a great deal.”
    “I have all my wits!” Imogen burst out. “Though if I’d been using them, you are the last person I would have gone to for aid.”
    “Where then?” he asked sweetly. He was even smiling.
    Imogen decided his glare was horrible, but his smile was worse. She was sure he smiled at his enemies before he ran his sword through them.
    “To the king,” she said boldly.
    He raised one brow. “If you’d thought there was any chance of reaching Henry, you’d have gone east yesterday.”
    She frowned at a sudden thought. “Since Warbrick was at Carrisford, I should have gone east, through his land!”
    The men all looked at her with disbelief. “I think half-wit is generous, Renald,” said FitzRoger, and Imogen had to admit that had been a stupid thing to say.
    “Still,” FitzRoger continued, “she presumably has the knowledge of the secret passages in her muddled head somewhere. The question is how to get at it.”
    “There’s a key to every person,” said Sir Renald.
    “Mess up her feet a bit more,” said a massive blond-haired