Patricia Ryan - [Fairfax Family 01] Read Online Free PDF Page B

England—perhaps in all of England.”
    Up ahead, Sir Thorne pointed out something in the countryside to the young man next to him. On either side of the road stretched rows of narrow cultivated fields planted with wheat and rye and separated by turf banks. The stooped peasants toiling in the fields stood up as the party rode past, shielding their eyes to get a better look at the travelers.
    Martine recalled how the Saxon had looked standing on the pier in the gray mist, his face glowing with mysterious light, his sky-blue eyes smiling at her. She took a deep breath. “I was wondering something. Sir Thorne is such a good friend of yours, and he is a knight, after all, so he’s a nobleman, even if he isn’t of noble blood. I mean, I was just wondering—”
    “Why I didn’t betroth you to Thorne?”
    Martine blinked, suddenly self-conscious. “Not that I would have wanted you to, I just—”
    “He’s landless. There are others like him in England, bachelor knights who live in their overlord’s household because they’ve yet to earn a manor of their own. They can’t marry, because they’ve no home to bring a wife to, and nothing to offer the family of a noble girl in the way of a bride price.”
    “Do you mean that even if he wanted to marry, he couldn’t? How awful for him.”
    “I suppose so,” Rainulf allowed. “But my primary concern has to be for you, not him. I had to betroth you to someone with property. ‘Twould be different if you had holdings of your own. Then I suppose you could marry whomever you wanted. But I gave all my lands to the Church when I took my vows, and I’ve none left to settle on you.”
    One of the field laborers, a hunchbacked old man, cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Sir Falconer!”
    The Saxon waved, calling out something in that guttural language that sounded so odd to her ears. She had heard men speak Danish, and also German. English sounded very much like these tongues, but it had a different cadence to it, and the words, when put together, had a different sound. Not as musical as Danish, nor as gruff as German.
    “To be perfectly frank,” Rainulf said, “I doubt Thorne would have agreed to marry you even if I’d proposed it. You’re quite a marriage prize, but your value as a bride is largely a matter of status.”
    “My supposedly legitimate relationship to the queen.”
    “Exactly. For a man who already has property, you’re very much the catch. But Thorne has nothing. And even if he someday earns a manor and is free to marry, he’ll want to increase his holdings. He intends to find a woman with property of her own to marry. He’s told me as much in his letters.”
    “I see,” she said, her voice gone hard. Far up the path, Thorne and Albin laughed at something. She did see. She saw it all too clearly now. “He’s an ambitious man, your friend,” she said quietly.
    Rainulf glowered at her. “Martine, you know perfectly well that noblemen marry for property, not love.”
    “I should,” she snapped. “‘Tis a lesson I learned in a cruel way at a tender age.”
    “Thorne is not Jourdain,” he said. “Just a man trying to make the best of his life.”
    “At my expense.”
    “What?”
    “Why do you suppose he was so eager to marry me to the son of his overlord? Merely to accommodate you?”
    “Aye. Why else?”
    She sighed irritably. “You said yourself I have great value as a bride. Sir Thorne’s arrangement of this marriage will undoubtedly put him in good stead with Edmond’s father. And that, in turn, will put him one step closer to earning a manor, which he then intends to supplement with some young girl’s inheritance. The idea of being used like that, just to further someone else’s ambition, makes me feel—”
    “Thorne is a man of high ideals. He’d never use a sister of mine to such ends.”
    “You’ve both used me to suit your own ends, and I daresay my betrothal has worked out rather nicely for both of you. We’ll