Elaine Barbieri Read Online Free PDF Page B

it honestly. To my mind, you could not ask for more.”
    “To my mind, your impertinence is dangerous. If I did not desire you—”
    “You desire me, but I do not desire you! I am, instead, appalled to hear that you would have me abandon a man who shares my birthright. You say he may be easily replaced. If that is true, I am Saxon and may be easily replaced by you as well—I would hope by one of the young maids who look at you with covetous eyes, not by a young man like me.”
    “How easily you speak those words.” The baron eyed Rosamund with escalating heat. “Were I not unexpectedlyenthralled by your appeal, they would damn you.”
    “Would they? Methinks you are too enthralled with dreams of a great future to forsake the impression you hope to make with the glorious cathedral you plan. Methinks you will realize that I am presently indispensable here and because time has already been wasted on your grand plan, you will sate your desires on a more favorable and willing personage.”
    “The tongue of a serpent!”
    The baron’s handsome face reddened, but Rosamund stood fast. She did not see the panic on Hadley’s face when he interjected, “My lord, Ross does not mean what he says. He—”
    “Silence!” the baron’s wrath exploded with a single word in Hadley’s direction. Then he turned back to Rosamund. “I find that I admire your audacity in speaking to me without restraint when I requested an honest answer.” Closing the short distance between them, he loomed over her with his superior height and said, “For that reason you will escape reprisal this time, but be forewarned…I will not overlook your impudence a second time. And I tell you now, sooner or later I will have my way.”
    The baron stepped backward. In a voice calculated to be overheard by those who were near, he addressed Hadley firmly. “In the meantime, you had best hope that your work pleases me, for in truth, much more than you realize depends on it.” With a final suggestive glance in Rosamund’s direction, the baron mounted and spurred his steed away.
    Turning back to Hadley, Rosamund apologizedsoftly. “I am sorry, Father. I did not mean to put you in jeopardy, but I could not allow him to speak to me in so insulting a manner.”
    “I understand. Were I free to act as honestly as I wished, I would have struck him dead.” He shook his head. “I originally believed that your disguise would save you from his advances, but the attempt was useless.”
    “My disguise may still prove effective, Father. The baron is intrigued with me now because he is confused, but his ambitions outweigh what ever sexual fantasies he harbors. I will be safe for the duration of your reign as master mason.”
    “I will make arrangements for you to vacate this place…to disappear so that he will never find you.”
    “You need me, Father.”
    “I do not intend to save myself at the expense of your innocence.”
    “Neither will come to pass. You will see. Neither can I leave now and abandon the man who lies desperately ill in our hut. I will not allow another Saxon to die as the result of William’s conquest.”
    “You have done your best for him. It is time for others to assume his care.”
    Rosamund shook her head as though she found the thought abhorrent. “The stranger trusts me. He looks to me to aid him, and I will not fail him.”
    “But you do not know him. We will locate his mother…his sister…his wife to care for him.”
    “
His wife…?”
Rosamund shook her head vigorously.“The stranger has no wife! Nor does he have any other woman whom he depends on. Only me.”
    “He knows you are a woman?”
    “No.”
    “But you know who he is.”
    “No.”
    Confused, Hadley said, “At least you know where he comes from…his name.”
    “No.”
    “Then how can you be sure?”
    “I know. I have seen it in his eyes…eyes that speak only truth.”
    “And the truth is?”
    Rosamund took a breath. “The truth is that I have made him a