shadow and lace Read Online Free PDF

Her trembling hand dipped into a silver bowl and came out with a mound as golden as the sun that floated over the moor on a spring day. She dared to lick it. Sweetly seasoned apples coated her tongue. She closed her eyes in rapture.
    With the hunger of a lifetime unleashed, Rowena darted up and down the table, dipping a hand into each bowl and snatching at each platter, pausing long enough to stare at what could have only been the remains of a whole cow sprawled at the end of the table. A mean-eyed yellow hound stood on the table with his hind legs in the gravy. Rowena wrestled a turkey leg from him and washed it down with a half-full tankard of ale she found abandoned in the honeyed plums.
    With a huge sigh, she plopped down on the stale-smelling floor rushes, lulled by her sated belly. The hall spun around her. The silken veils of the dancing women swirled in violent splashes of purple and peach against the bright red and blue of the men's surcoats. She swiped at her moist brow, wondering what sort of peculiar people would waste a roaring fire on a summer night.
    "See how he charms," came the hissed whisper above her.
    Rowena's gaze followed the stained satin bliaut of the woman beside the table up to a round face wreathed in a malevolent smile.
    "I daresay Alise will lift her skirts before morning is nigh," murmured the tall, bony woman beside the other. "Sir Gareth garners few refusals."
    Rowena's eyes widened as she followed their gazes to her captor. The unadorned black of his garments was unrelenting against the backdrop of bobbing reds and greens. He stood with one foot propped on a stool, his dark head inclined toward a laughing woman. The woman's hand slipped farther up his thigh with each of her whispered words. A tight smile curved his lips in a mocking travesty of the smile he had given Rowena at the stream. His hand lightly caressed the woman's slender neck even as his gaze pulled away and traveled the hall. Rowena leaned deeper into the shadows under the table, not wanting to be found by those dark eyes.
    "Charmed the king himself into knighting him, he did, at the tender age of seventeen."
    "Oh, go on! If you'd have stepped between a Welsh sword and old Longshanks on a battlefield running with England's blood, I daresay he would have knighted you, too." The plump woman plucked something off the table and tossed it in her mouth with a satisfied smack. "Dare I pop a fly in Alise's pudding?"
    "If you refrain, the dark lord will pop more than a fly in her pudding tonight," the thin woman replied.
    "Alise can handle de Crecy. She has outlived two husbands, has she not?"
    "I'll wager she wouldn't outlive that one." Both women cackled.
    "See how Mortimer watches with jealous eyes. I believe he fancies Gareth himself. Let us determine if he is drunk enough to be stupid."
    "Or stupid enough to be murdered." The thin woman giggled. She stumbled away from the table, treading on her friend's embroidered train until the woman snatched it up and threw it over her arm, slapping several dancers more insensible than they were.
    The women descended on a pasty-faced minstrel. His long, delicate fingers continued to pluck his lute as the women flanked him, leaning forward to capture both ears with sly, sidelong glances at Gareth and his lady. He shook his head, but the plump woman only leaned closer, smothering him with her ample bosom. He shrugged and nodded. The women backed away, whispering behind their hands. Rowena tugged a strand of her hair from her cap and tucked it into her mouth.
    The jolly tune halted abruptly, to the groans of the dancers. A man near Rowena continued to dance, slinging invisible partners to and fro with a regal air. The minstrel pulled a flask from his vest and took a long swig. Most of the wine missed his mouth and dribbled down his chin.
    A stumbling knight cried out, "Play now, Mortimer. Quench your infernal thirst later."
    "Play and I shall send my squire to your chambers after the revelry to