Daughters of the Dagger 03 - Amber Read Online Free PDF

question my actions.”
    “It seems to me you’re finding reasons to make me suffer every time I return to the monastery.”
    “You were s upposed to be a monk, not a mercenary wandering the land.”
    “You are just angry that I didn’t end up as a man of the cloth who abides by the rules and doesn’t sin at all, just like you, Father, right?”
    “I did all I could to raise you right and in the eyes of God since the day I found you on the church steps.”
    “Speaking of that,” said Lucas, sitting up straighter. “I met a very interesting woman on pilgrimage who told me she’d witnessed a noblewoman dropping off a baby at the church steps three and twenty years ago.”
    “That happens all the time, so why should this news seem to surprise you?” The priest paced back and forth, his usual nervous self.
    “Mayhap because this noblewoman gave the baby to you along with a bag of coins.”
    “Sometimes coin is left along with the babies to ensure I can tend to their upbringing until I find a family to take them in.”
    “But they are not all named Lucifer and have the piercing light blue eyes of a bird now, do they?”
    The priest stopped his pacing , and grabbed hold of the back of the chair, stepping around it, and sliding down into it slowly. “I have no idea what you heard, but I assure you it is naught but idle gossip. I advise you to ignore it.”
    “This is one time I am glad for wagging tongues. Because now I realize that you have known the identity of my birthmother all these years but yet you’ve kept it from me.”
    “That is utter nonsense.”
    Lucas swung his feet over the side of the bed and sat up. He felt his fury rising. “So are you going to sit there and lie through your teeth like you’ve done for the last three and twenty years every time I asked you about my parents?”
    “Keep you voice down, ” he said, nervously glancing toward the door.
    “I will not, until you give me an answer.”
    “All right, calm down. So I’d seen your mother before in the village, but I tell you I never knew her name.”
    “Was she a noblewoman like the pilgrim told me?”
    “I … suppose. She paid dearly for me to take you off her hands.”
    “Why didn’t you find a family to take me in? I find it odd you kept me at the monastery and raised me yourself.”
    His eyes opened wide and then they turned to squints. His mouth was pursed as he seemed to be thinking of what to say.
    “S he made me promise to keep you here until she could one day return for you again.”
    “And did she?” Somehow he had a feeling the woman had come back and there was more to this than the priest was telling him.
    “She did,” he admitted. “Not more than a year later. But she told me she couldn’t keep you since her reputation would be tarnished. It seems she had you out of wedlock.”
    “So she was a noblewoman, or she wouldn’t have cared about her reputation.”
    “Yes, I suppose so.”
    Lucas’s side started aching, and at these words he slunk back down onto the pillows.
    “What did she look like?” he asked, staring across the roo m at nothing in particular.
    “Was she pretty?”
    “I suppose so, but I don’t notice those things, Lucifer, as I am not concerned with them.”
    Lucas knew that was a lie , as he’d seen Father Armand eyeing many a pretty woman over the years as he’d spoken to them after mass.
    “You told me you named me. Is that true or was it my mother?”
    “That is true,” he told him. “You were a newborn and had no name. She didn’t even know what I’d named you until she returned a year later.”
    “Why did you name me Lucifer? What would possess you to do such a thing?”
    The priest looked to the ground and just shook his head. It took him a moment to answer. “It doesn’t matter. Now give me the bag of coins you brought back from selling the relics.”
    “It matters to me,” said Lucas, but he knew he’d find out nothing more from the ma n at this time. His wound was