The Christmas Knight Read Online Free PDF Page A

trusted with his life. One was already in England, waiting for his arrival. Ranulf had been looking forward to introducing Laon to Tyr, eager to hear their blunt exchange. But it was not to be. Ranulf knew he would never meet another who would dare to be not just candid, but honest on topics no one ever ventured.
    Kneeling, Ranulf raised Laon’s head and clutched his hand. The dying knight squeezed as pain ripped through him. “I’m here, Laon.”
    The old man opened his eyes and rasped, “Promise me, Ranulf, promise me you’ll marry her.”
    “I’ll take care of them. This I promise. All your daughters will be safe. I swear it on my life.”
    Laon squeezed Ranulf’s fingers as he clung to life. “I need you to promise me you will marry her.”
    “Marry who?”
    “Lily, the youngest,” Laon gasped. “She is so lovely and so young. She will learn to love you and make you a good wife as my Aline was to me.”
    Ranulf instinctively let go and tried to release his hand from Laon’s grip. He had no intentions of marrying anyone and a dying request was not going to change his mind. “I made you a promise, Laon. I cannot do more.”
    But the fading knight was not appeased. He reached out and seized Ranulf’s wet tunic, giving him the choice to either forcibly remove the dying man’s grip or come closer. “You don’t understand. Marriage is the only way you can protect them all from—” And the rest was drowned out by gruesome coughs that accompanied internal bleeding.
    Ranulf struggled to understand why Laon believed only marriage could protect his daughters and said so, but his fading friend refused to release his painful hold on life. “Family. Must be family. Do this one thing for me…and…for yourself. Be my son. Marry her…marry my Lily.”
    Agony coursed through Laon’s face and every man around him knew that Ranulf held the manner of the old, admired knight’s passing in his hands. “I’ll marry her, Laon. Your family will be safe, and if that is what needs to be done, then it will be done. I promise.”
    Calmed by the vow, Laon closed his eyes and gave a brief nod. A second later, his hand dropped to the deck as he exhaled his final breath.
    Never before had guilt or pressure swayed Ranulf’s decisions, and although it might have appeared otherwise to those men who heard the exchange, neither emotion drove his promise. Ranulf doubted few could understand the real reason he had agreed, but in those last few seconds, Laon was not just a man, a vassal, or even a friend. He was a father, and to Laon, Ranulf was a son. Such requests could never be denied and so Ranulf had agreed.
    He just hoped that the duke saw reason and would refuse to allow the match. Because Ranulf was not going to get married, and he was damn sure not going to be snared for life to a shallow creature the world doted on because of her beauty.

Chapter One

    S UNDAY , D ECEMBER 19, 1154
T HE C ORONATION OF K ING H ENRY II

    Though crowned in October after King Stephen’s death, Henry II wasn’t coronated the king of England until December 19, 1154, in the Westminster Abbey. Appearing at his coronation dressed in a doublet and short Angevin cloak earned him his immortal nickname “Curtmantle.” Eleven years his senior, his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was absent from the event due to being heavily pregnant with their second son, Henry III, causing her own coronation to be postponed for four years, taking place in December 1158 at Worcester Cathedral. Marrying Eleanor, a power and influential figure, made Henry the largest landowner in France, including King Louis VII, his longtime rival and Eleanor’s first husband.

    Bronwyn reached back to close the small cottage door behind her and sighed regretfully as the warm sun beat down on her face. She had put on her heaviest bliaut and now was uncomfortably hot with only herself to blame. Minimizing castle staff had meant she and her sisters had to share an already overworked