Read Online In a Treacherous Court by Michelle Diener - Free Book Online Page B

deep in work.
    And still, with all that, with every other thing equal, her father thought she should not sleep with Joost. While Lucas could bed half of Ghent if he had a mind to.
    Parker’s face came to her and she tried to push it aside, regretting the train of her thoughts. They drew her away from the painting and she fought them, gently brushing the pale yellow of a fire’s glow onto the sturdy mugs on the table, on the cheeks of those sitting closest to the flames.
    Parker was much more interesting than Joost. More dangerous, more vital. More everything. And her father was not here to stop her.
    She felt a tension deep within, a coiling of nerves and excitement. With an annoyed exclamation, she stepped back from the painting.
    She shrugged her shoulders, rolled her neck, and felt the muscles contract and protest. Finally, she reached for her mug and savored the feel of rising from some deep, weightless place back into the real world.
    With a blink she took in the deep darkness, the dwindled number of men at the table, the bang of the door as a new patron entered the Boar’s Head.
    Just how long had passed?
    “Mistress Horenbout, I see you are back among us.”
    Father Haden stood at her elbow, and she started in surprise. How long had he been there, watching her?
    “My apologies, Father. I am poor company when I feel a work this strongly. It absorbs me.”
    “May I see it?”
    With a flick of panic, Susanna’s eyes went to the painting, suddenly unsure of it.
    It glowed back at her.
    It was the first time she’d stepped back and looked at the small painting as a whole, the first clear look she’d had.
    It was good. She felt the tremor of excitement unfurl within. As strong as the sexual pull a moment before at the thought of Parker.
    No wonder so many artists slept with their models.
    “It is not complete, but yes.”
    The priest stepped closer, squinting in the dying light to look. “Magnificent,” he murmured.
    His praise sparked requests from the other men; even the landlord and his wife asked to look. Soon there was a crowd around the easel, their voices hushed as if in church.
    “If I hadn’t seen yer there with me own eyes, painting it, I’d never believe ’twas a woman done it.”
    The landlord meant it as praise, but suddenly exhausted,drained of all energy, Susanna was not able to summon even a weak smile at the insult.
    She sat on the chair someone had drawn up for her and took another gulp of her ale. She was just lowering the mug when the door to the Boar’s Head crashed open, blowing in snow and leaves and Parker.
    His cloak billowed around him in the icy breeze before the door swung shut, and every voice was still as all eyes turned to look.
    He was a warrior, cloaked in darkness. Even in the weak light of the lanterns and fire, her eye picked up the blood crusted on his knuckles, the look in his eyes that said he was fighting his way back from a dark pit.
    Parker had left the Boar’s Head this afternoon and, despite preferring paradise, had taken a trip to hell.

10

    The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier:
To be handesome and clenly in his apparaile.
    Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman:
To apparaile her self so, that she seeme not fonde and fantasticall.
    W hat happened?” Susanna asked softly the moment they entered the house. She hadn’t dared say anything on the way home from the Boar’s Head. Parker’s expression was closed. He would not answer her on a public street.
    “Too much.” He took her cloak, and his fingers lingered on her shoulders. “Not enough.”
    “You were attacked?” She waited for him to turn back from hanging up her cloak, then took one of his hands in hers, rubbed a thumb over the blood that splattered the back of it.
    “It was more a clash. A battlefield engagement.” He withdrew his hand and clenched it as if ashamed. “They tried, but only I drew blood.”
    “There was more than one?”
    Parker shrugged as if