Chivalrous Read Online Free PDF

broad stone steps, a booming voice emerged from the portal. “Gwendolyn! Where is that ungrateful chit? Gwendolyn, join us at once.”
    Gwendolyn jumped.
    Rosalind took Gwendolyn’s hands in her own. She inspected the gorgeous concoction of braids and curls she had devised for Gwendolyn’s thick, golden hair. The rich green gown with gold edging clung to her mistress’s enviable curves to perfection. Its long flowing sleeves nearly swept the floor. She looked every inch the lady.
    Pleasure surged through Rosalind at the realization that she had served her mistress well. “You are no longer a little girl. There is nothing to fear.”
    â€œYou do not know him.” Gwendolyn’s voice sounded breathy.
    Rosalind gave her hands a squeeze. “But I know you. You are strong and courageous. Think of your father as an opponent on the jousting field and face him with all the confidence I know you possess.”
    Gwendolyn nodded but did not seem convinced.
    â€œAnd I shall go with you.” Rosalind offered an encouraging smile.
    Gwendolyn shook her head. “Father will not want extra servants about. You will only put yourself in harm’s way.”
    â€œAre you certain?”
    â€œCompletely.”
    Perhaps Gwendolyn was correct. Rosalind would not wish to anger the baron upon their very first meeting. Much as she wished to support her mistress, she had her family to consider as well.
    At that moment, a lone rider crashed into the courtyard, flinging himself from his horse and dashing up the stairs, thrusting Rosalind aside in the process.
    â€œHello to you too, Reginald,” Gwendolyn muttered to the retreating back of her dark-haired eldest brother. He offered half a wave without turning to look at her.
    â€œI hate to leave you thus, Lady Gwendolyn,” Rosalind said, looking from the great hall to her mistress and back again.
    Gwendolyn seemed to gather some of her fighting spirit. “I insist. Go.”
    With a backward glance over her shoulder, Rosalind headed down the passage that skirted the great hall and led up the stairway to the bedchambers. In their hurry this afternoon, they had left Gwendolyn’s room looking like a tempest had struck. Gowns in rainbow shades of silk and linen festooned the furniture. Pots of paint sat scattered upon the table. Jewels dripped from a wooden chest.
    And Gwendolyn had no use for any of it.
    Rosalind picked up a burgundy gown and shook it out.
    In the early days Rosalind had resented Gwendolyn over her lack of appreciation for the many blessings she had been afforded, but now Rosalind understood. Her mistress wanted only to be free.
    Rosalind was her own woman. She would have her fun, enjoy her life in the castle, live out romantic adventures with a few handsome knights, and someday settle down to her own husband and family. Perhaps she would even marry a wealthy merchant or a castle steward, as her mother hoped.
    But Lady Gwendolyn was a commodity to be bought and sold.

Chapter   3
    By the time Gwen reached the great hall, Father seemed to have forgotten her entirely. In her stead, he bellowed at Reginald.
    â€œÂ . . . some sort of jest! Surely you have not been off at the duke’s castle while my serfs laze about wasting time.” Gwendolyn’s father—with his dark beard, unruly hair streaked with silver, and mammoth frame—sat ramrod straight in a cushioned chair upon the raised dais.
    Mother sat next to him, a delicate golden flower by comparison, shrunken into her own chair with a look of pain marring her pretty face.
    Gwen turned a deaf ear to Father’s rant and sank into the side of one of the huge purple tapestries featuring the Barnes’s white-wolf emblem that hung from the stone walls. She supposed the banners were meant to appear festive, but the wolf’s bared teeth had ever reminded her of her father’s angry snarl, and she had long preferred to hide behind them rather