Betrayal (Book 2: Time Enough to Love) Read Online Free PDF Page A

closed, yet she moaned and stretched her arms out, lifting her body as though grasping for something beyond her reach.
    “Geoffrey! Geoffrey!” she called, tears trickling down her face, though she did not wake.
    “God’s death!” Thomas clenched his jaw, suffering a spasm of pain for the young woman before him.
    She quieted, although her frown deepened. He quickly wet the cloth again and sponged her face and hands, trying to comfort her body though ’twas her spirit needed consolation most. He glanced at the door, expecting the princess and her ladies to have returned by now, but there was no sound of feet scuffing in the hallway. He settled down to wait, his gaze drawn back to her face, hoping for the sight of open eyes. They were blue, were they not?
    The eyes that haunted him were Geoffrey’s.
    Last night, he had finally reached Longford Manor well after midnight, with Lady Mary in tow. All he had known was what he had been told—that Lady Mary had been summoned to Longford, and he was to accompany her thither at Sir Geoffrey’s specific request.
    Lord Longford must have threatened dire consequences to his emissary if the truth of the matter came out before his stratagem was completed. Thomas tensed as he mused on the cunning and betrayal necessary to bring the feat about. Had he his way, Longford would have felt the steel of his sword from gullet to neck. Would that a blade had dispatched the old bastard long ago.
    The image of Geoffrey’s countenance when he greeted him would haunt Thomas as long as he lived. His friend had been waiting for his arrival outside the manor door, his face plain in the light of a torch—so carved in misery, so deeply etched with pain it might have been used to illustrate the agony of the lost souls in Dante’s Hell. That ravaged visage stunned him to his core. Only the death of a dearly loved one could produce such startling lines of grief. Indeed, the strain of this suffering seemed to have aged him from eight-and-twenty to two score years or more. He bounded up the stairs, his heart in his throat.
    “My God! What has happened?” He laid a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder, only to be pulled into a crushing embrace.
    “I am undone, Thomas. I am undone!” Geoffrey’s whisper rasped in his ear.
    He stood back to look into Geoffrey’s eyes. “Sir Roland?”
    “Died the morning after you left me.” Geoffrey regained his self-control, and his voice became matter-of-fact. His hands were pulled tightly behind his back, his expression as of stone.
    “I am truly sorry—” His condolences were cut short, stopped by Geoffrey’s look of contempt.
    “Do not be. I would trade places with Roland this minute and count myself the luckier one. At least then I might be in heaven, with hope of...” He trailed off, heaving a great sigh that seemed almost to take the life from him.
    There was silence as they stood on the stoop, Geoffrey apparently lost in some personal hell. His friend’s depth of feeling for his brother puzzled Thomas. Although Geoffrey had always respected his elder brother, theirs had not been a close relationship. He shrugged. As an only child, he had never experienced the grief of such a loss. His deep feeling of friendship for Geoffrey, however, gave him an inkling of the anguish his friend must have been experiencing. Should any mishap befall Geoffrey, his own mourning would be as profound.
    He sighed at the thought and shifted his weight, causing him to notice the carriage still waiting, with Lady Mary ready to alight. He made a move in that direction then turned back to Geoffrey, frowning.
    “If Roland has been dead these seven days, why summon his betrothed to Longford tonight? Surely the funeral was performed days past?” He blanched, aghast at the thought of what the July heat might have done to Sir Roland over the last week.
    “Yes, it was carried out the day after his death.” Geoffrey’s voice was flat, distant.
    “Then why have I brought