Read Online The Lord's Right by Carolyn Faulkner - Free Book Online Page B

the
great hall, while servants scuttled about them, spreading fresh
rushes on the floor along with small, tied bundles of sweet
smelling dried herbs. “Any more of them jackanapes sniffing after
Amber?”
    “ Not a one.”
    “ I thought
not.”
    Piers chuckled, taking a long pull on
his wine. His friend seemed to want to say something, but was
hesitant. “What is it?”
    Bruce was uncomfortable with what he
was about to say, but came out and said it anyway. “The girl. With
what I just said to the men, you’ve condemned her to spinsterhood,
not that she isn’t really already too old. But no one is ever going
to offer for her now.”
    He hadn’t thought of that. Piers had
allowed his jealousy to overtake him, and he had made a declaration
to all the men in the area that she was his, without actually
making her his, without giving her the benefit of his name in
marriage or even taking her as his mistress, which would have given
her at least some small measure of protection. As it was, there
would be nowhere she’d be safe from the gossip, ridicule and
speculation about the fact that he’d told the male population that
he desired her, and that he intended to trump any man who wanted to
give her his name in order to take her virginity for
himself.
    In essence, he’d labeled her his
whore, however unintentionally.
    Piers frowned deeply at his own
blunder.
    “ The king’s been spotted
an hour away!” a servant boy announced loudly, and the furor inside
the hall tripled in pace.
    He trusted his people to do what they
needed to do. He had to find Amber. Piers sought out Mrs. Tulane,
who was just coming out of Amber’s room.
    “ Where is she?”
    “ I don’t know, Sir. She
finished her work; she made all the bundles of herbs for the
rushes. Don’t they smell wonderful, now? But I’ve lost track of
her. She’s probably gone wandering in the woods again, you know how
she does, Sir.”
    Piers was thinking that she better
hadn’t, since he’d expressly told her to stay close to the
castle.
    Mrs. Tulane was prattling on. “Those
tunics you had made for the staff arrived just now, though, Sir. I
was putting hers in her room. That was a lovely thing you did, Sir.
Everyone’s clothes were looking right worn. Now we’ll all look
fresh and bright for His Majesty!”
    If he’d thought he could have gotten
away with just getting new clothes for Amber, he would have, but
he’d thought that might have singled her out a bit too much. He
wished he’d carried that idea through to his solution with the men.
It had cost him a pretty penny to get one new set of clothes for
every servant in the castle, but it would be worth it to put on a
nice face for the king, he supposed, and it would definitely be
worth it to see Amber in something new, that was of good
quality.
    He slipped into her room and grabbed
the deep green garment that was on the bed and tucked it into his
shirt, then headed out to see if the hunter could track the
hunter.
    He was gratified to find that he
could. Her feet were smaller than those of the men usually found in
the woods, so her tracks were generally easy to spot, although
there were a lot of them, and it took a careful eye to discern
which were the most recent, and he found he enjoyed the challenge.
When he finally found her, though, he was not of a mind to disturb
her, for a moment, but rather kept well back and watched, grateful
for the cover and the chance to observe her at her most
natural.
    She swam like a water nymph, diving
under and holding her breath for an impressively long time, diving
for a white rock she threw further and further into the pristine
lake. There was a small waterfall at one end, and he enjoyed the
immeasurable pleasure of watching her swim out there and wash
herself most thoroughly, wishing, as parts of him began to ache,
that he was out there to assist.
    When he was younger, he might well
have thrown caution to the winds and joined her, but with the king
only an hour away, he