The Damsel's Defiance Read Online Free PDF Page B

should really be you who succeeds.’
    Robert threw her a wry smile. ‘My illegitimacy prevents me ever becoming King, Sister. The nobility would never allow it.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘I’m happy enough. I have Gloucester and a rich wife.’ A wife who I prefer to leave at home, he thought, thinking of all the comely wenches he had encountered at Torigny.
    ‘Aye, a wife who you never see because you are always acting as my escort.’
    ‘The King trusts me with your life. You know that.’
    ‘And I thank you for it, Robert. You are more of a husband to me than Geoffrey. Why my father ever arranged such a marriage for me, with such a lackwit, I shall always wonder.’
    ‘It was your father’s greatest wish that you should marry Geoffrey of Anjou.’
    ‘A man eleven years younger than me. What a joke!’ Maud fiddled with the knot on the braid that held back the embroidered curtain around the bed. ‘First he marries me to the German Emperor, a man old enough to be my father…’
    ‘You were too young at twelve….’
    ‘I was old enough for marriage, Robert, but not to someone I could scarce understand, someone so old. Why, it was like lying with—’
    Robert held up his hand, silencing her. ‘Spare me the details, Maud. I know how difficult it was for you.’
    Maud chose not to answer, her fingers still fidgeting with the curtain braid. ‘God in Heaven, when will the servants learn to tie these things properly? I’ve told them enough times!’ She threw back the material impatiently and rose from the stool, throwing out her skirts around her, shaking out the creases. ‘Oh, Robert, I hate this infernal waiting!’ She stretched her arms into the air, trying to relieve the anxious tension in her shoulders. ‘Should we not go out hunting again, rather than staring at him, waiting for him to…to leave us?’
    Robert crossed the wide elm boards to reach her, to take her shoulders. Under his fingers he felt her anxiety as she crossed her arms defensively over her chest. He knew the ambition she harboured, the ambition, above all else, to be Queen of her own country. She had an infinite sense of what she felt to be right and would not tolerate easily those who contradicted her.
    Maud stared at the still figure in the bed, tracing the familiar lines of her father’s face. Despite his ruthless ambition, he had been a good father to her, teaching all he could about the affairs of the land. His instruction had increased significantly on the accidental death of her brother, William, his only legitimate male heir. From that day on, he vowed his daughter Maud would inherit his realm on his death.
    She gazed at the taut panels of white skin that pulled over the bones of his face. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. She couldn’t see their colour from where she stood, but knew them to be a deep hazel, flecked with green. Eyes that had laughed with her, eyes that had cried with her. His lips were narrow, a bluish colour. She listened for the faint whistle of breath, a rasp of air. Nothing. She raised her hands to cover her face. If she didn’t see her father dead, then it might not be real.
    ‘He’s gone, Robert. He’s gone. Look, he breathes not.’ Almost as if she couldn’t bear the reality, she drifted toward the arrow slit window, wrapping her arms even more tightly around her torso. Robert moved over to bed, crossed himself, before closing his father’s eyes with gentle tapered fingers.
    The iron latch clicked softly on the oak door, and Hugh, Archbishop of Rouen and the King’s confidant, entered.
    ‘Good timing,’ Robert muttered wryly. ‘You should have been here.’
    Hugh walked over to the bed and looked down at the waxy mask of his sovereign. ‘May he rest in peace.’
    ‘You’re a bit late to take his last confession, my lord,’ Robert said, careful to keep any criticism from his voice.
    ‘I have already heard his confession, Earl Robert,’ Hugh announced, a hint of pomposity edging