Knight's Honor Read Online Free PDF Page A

caught her breath. "Do not tremble so. I will make no protest, but not through fear of you. I have given my promise and I will keep it. I know it is too late to retract."
    Chester, who had started to flush at his daughter's words, suddenly began to laugh instead. "So that is where the steel galls, eh? Nay, my pretty, you need not fear that Hereford covets your dower. You know what offers he made. He would have taken you empty-handed, I think, had I insisted that was the only way." Chester came up to Elizabeth and attempted to stroke her hair but she pulled angrily away. "Come, child, the boy only did his duty. He could come no sooner. His honor is engaged with Henry of Anjou's cause and he is young and cleaves greatly to his given word."
    "Ay. At least that I will gain from a change of masters. I need not fear that he will be forsworn with every breath of rumor that blows."
    That really hurt. Chester cast one reproachful glance at his daughter and turned to leave. He was a weak man and often broke his word, but he was no coward and was driven first one way and then another by ambition and dreams of glory, not by fear. His daughter's insinuation that he was attempting to avoid danger truly distressed him because he felt that if she believed that of him everyone else also would. Elizabeth had not meant to go so far; she fully returned her father's affection, and, although she was by no means averse to tormenting him to get her way, she had not meant to hurt him needlessly.
    "Father, wait," Elizabeth cried, jumping up and running after him. "I did not mean that. Oh, my accursed tongue! You know I did not mean it. I have always agreed with you in what you have done. If you have been at fault, have I not been so too?" Chester stopped, and Elizabeth curtsied deep before him and kissed his hand. "Dear Papa, forgive me. I do not know what ails me. I am so cross I hardly know how to bear myself."
    Chester raised her and caressed her fondly. "It may be that you do not know what troubles you, but I do. You will not believe me, Elizabeth, for you have long resisted marriage, but think on what I say. You have waited too long for a man of your own and children of your own. You have had my children by your stepmother, curse the woman, to care for, that is true, and you think you have filled your heart with them. Perhaps you have, but you cannot so fulfill your body." He patted her shoulder as she turned her face away. "It is the body calling for its rights and the mind denying that call which distresses you."
    "It is not true," Elizabeth murmured, her nostrils pinched with the violent suppression of her emotion.
    "You are an honest girl, Liza, love," Chester said, kissing her again. "Think on it. Make not such haste to deny. It is no shame to acknowledge the body's needs, even if the priests sometimes tell us it is a sin to satisfy them."

CHAPTER 2

    LORD HEREFORD LIFTED HIS HEAD SLIGHTLY TO CALL "COME" TO A sound at the door. He did not turn to see who entered because there was no need to do so; he was at home, in his own bedroom in the manor house of Hereford Castle, totally safe, totally relaxed, totally lapped in luxury. The room was far different from the stuffy or dank wall chambers of a keep. It was a section partitioned off from the main hall of the manor house which had been built within the walls of the old keep and had been furnished by his father and mother for their own private use with unbelievable luxury. The floor before the hearth of the huge fireplace where flames leapt and wood crackled, instead of being strewn with rushes, was covered with two great carpets brought back from the East by a crusader and won as booty by Miles of Hereford. Their originally blatant colors had been mellowed by time and use to softer but still glowing hues of red and blue touched with gold. On either side of the fireplace hung great tapestries worked by the Dowager Countess of Hereford. They were beautiful, but their purpose was not solely