Connie Mason Read Online Free PDF Page B

am sure you have duties inside the keep.”
    Raven sent Waldo a scathing glance but did not openly defy him as she turned on her heel and flounced away.
    “She will need taming,” Waldo muttered, stung by her disrespectful manner. “Raven and I would have wed years ago but for that cursed dispensation from the pope. Duff would allow it no other way.” His smile did not reach his eyes as he added, “There are ways of teaching a woman to obey her lord and master, and I know them all.”
    Drake stiffened; his mouth thinned into a white line. “Did you use those methods on Daria?”
    For a moment Waldo looked confused. “Daria? She died many years ago. Daria was biddable enough until . . .”
    Drake’s silver gaze honed in on him with deadly accuracy. “Until . . .” he prodded.
    Waldo must have realized he was on shaky ground, for he tried to shrug off his words. “ ’Tis naught. I vow I cannot remember that far back. Our marriage was of such short duration we barely got to know one another. Did you know our father died shortly before Daria took ill? He was killed by poachers.”
    “So I heard.”
    Waldo’s eyes shifted away from Drake’s penetrating gaze. “Ah, I see Duff talking to Sir Melvin. I need to discuss arrangements for the tournament with our host.”
    Drake smiled grimly as he watched Waldo stride away. His half brother had changed little over the years, he thought. Though Waldo had fought at Crécy, they had not crossed paths.
    Eager now to return to his men, Drake whirled on his heel and strode away. People turned to watch him, some crossing themselves as he passed by. In his stark black armor he looked lethal and sinister, every bit as dangerous as his name implied.
    As Drake rode over the drawbridge to the campsite Sir John had chosen, he had a niggling premonition that he should never have returned to Castle Chirk. He had not expected Raven to be so beautiful.
    The banquet that night was the first of many held to celebrate the wedding that would follow the four days of tournaments. Raven sat at the high table between Waldo and Duff, withdrawn and unresponsive to the pageantry of the evening. Duff had hired jugglers, jongleurs, and acrobats to entertain during the lengthy meal, but they did not interest Raven. After encountering Drake in the bailey, she had thought of naught but the way his silver eyes had gone hard and flat when he had first seen her. It hurt to think that afterall these years he still hated her for something in which she had had no part.
    She glanced at Waldo from beneath a heavy fringe of lashes and wrinkled her nose in disgust. He was stuffing food in his mouth so fast that some of it escaped from between his lips and fell on his red velvet doublet. Waldo was not fat, but Raven could not help thinking his legs resembled lumpy sausages stuffed into his hose, and she shuddered at the thought of having to bear the weight of his heavy body on her wedding night. The thought of being intimate with Waldo was repugnant. She’d do anything,
anything
to escape this marriage.
    Raven toyed at her food as dish after dish was paraded before her . . . brawn made from a pig’s head and jelly, baked fish, roasted pork, venison, pheasants, many kinds of birds, an array of vegetables, pies and puddings. Her disgust with Waldo increased as he picked apart a lark and crammed it into his mouth.
    The hall overflowed with knights and their squires and men-at-arms, and many extra tables had been set up to accommodate their great numbers. Raven made a slow perusal of the men partaking of the feast and frowned when she did not see Drake. She knew he had been invited, for everyone had been made welcome when they arrived and informed of the banquets to be held each night until the end of the tournament.
    She wished Drake did not hate her so much. Had they been on good terms, he might have been persuaded to help her. Then, from out of the blue, an idea popped into her head. It was outrageous, and hardly