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

Lady Mary here?” He simply could not reason it out.
    “I am to marry her tonight.” Geoffrey’s eyes, as he made this pronouncement, had the look of a man peering into the abyss of hell.
    The blood drained from Thomas’s face. “Why?” he croaked, his mouth gone dry as sand.
    “My…father.” Geoffrey struggled to bring out those words, apparently not wanting to acknowledge any familial relationship. “He is determined to retain the properties and titles that were to come with Lady Mary on her marriage to Roland. The connection to the royal family was most attractive to Lord Longford. Before Roland even died, the bastard sent riders to court, to the king, suggesting that my betrothal to…” Geoffrey paused, barely able to control himself. “To Lady Alyse be set aside and the contract between Lady Mary and Roland be honored by me instead.”
    “And the king consented?”
    “Aye. The king wanted the connection of our families as well.”
    “Have you not protested?”
    Geoffrey turned dead eyes to him. “Do you doubt I have tried to move heaven and earth, Thomas? You who know what she means to me?” He sighed. “I talked to my father. I begged, pleaded with him not to doom me to marriage with a woman for whom I felt nothing.” Geoffrey’s eyes narrowed. “He laughed at me. Called me a weak fool to think marriage anything other than an efficient way to exchange property and status.”
    “Appeal to the king yourself.” The solution presented itself like a ray of hope. “You have served Edward faithfully these many years, and Alyse has the ear of the princess. Go plead your case before him.” Why had Geoffrey not seen this solution days ago?
    “Had I had my liberty, I would have been on the road the moment he told me of his intention. But he bound me here this entire week, imprisoned in an upper chamber, while he persuaded His Majesty to sanction the match. That sanction arrived a few hours ahead of you. Sealed by the king himself. It will not be revoked.”
    Geoffrey paused, swallowing with difficulty, then continued. “Lord Longford also informed me that if I tried and succeeded in overturning the sanction, he would disinherit me. In which case, Alyse’s father would deny the betrothal, and we would still not be allowed to wed.”
    Thomas looked wildly at Geoffrey. The trap had been too well laid. “Could you not make another appeal to your...Lord Longford? Can you not argue...” But he could think of nothing that might tempt the autocrat.
    “Thomas,” Geoffrey’s tone was dull but kind. “You are now where I was a week ago, out of my mind to find a solution.” His voice broke. “I even asked him what he would say if I told him that I had already lain with Lady Alyse, and that therefore, in law, we were married. He laughed again.” At this memory Geoffrey’s eyes shone with black hatred. “He said he hoped for the maid’s sake I spoke falsely, else her father would find it hard to secure a new betrothal for such a sullied wench.”
    Fists clenched, Thomas shook his head at this insult to Alyse.
    “’Twas then I hit him.”
    Thomas’s mouth dropped open. “You hit your father?”
    “In the face. He shall carry the scar the rest of his life.” Geoffrey’s voice steadied, cold with satisfaction once more. “But his words convinced me I dared not press forward against this marriage, lest I bring down shame on the head of the one I will always hold as my wife in my heart.” Geoffrey’s voice caught. “I had believed my despair complete at the thought I would never call my dearest love my wife, never again know her warm embrace, her sweet kiss. But at his words, another knife twisted in my torn heart.” The furrows alongside his mouth seemed to deepen. “She will have to marry another. Thoughts of my Alyse in another man’s arms, as another man’s wife…” He closed his eyes, seemed to shrink into himself. “This is why I envy Roland his cold estate.”
    As numbed as Thomas had