The Dragon and the Jewel Read Online Free PDF

promised fervently.
    Lord God, how impassioned the child was. “Your older sisters are both gone to be queens and I don’t want them to outshine you. You mustn’t think of Windsor as a prison. It is a beautiful castle with walled gardens and a great forested park for hunting. Henry is doing much building there so that when he marries it will be a great king’s residence. You won’t be isolated and lonely there.”
    “But I shall be surrounded by adults all telling me what to do from the moment I open my eyes in the morning until they order me to bed at nine o’clock.”
    He thought for a moment, then told her, “I am going to ask my young sister Isabella to come and stay with you until her husband returns.”
    Eleanor sniffed and wiped her sleeve across her nose. “She’s pretty, but she’s quite old.”
    “She’s only twenty.” Lord God, if she thought Isabella old, she must think him in his dotage. A man of forty wedding a child not yet ten! The whole thing was a farce. Decisively he said, “You shall have some companions your own age. Some little maids of good family.”
    “May I choose them myself?” she begged.
    “Well …” He hesitated. “I will select six or eight suitable families and you may choose the three you like best.”
    “Oh, a mutual decision! See how well we shall deal together, William?”
    He let out a relieved sigh. Eleanor Plantagenet could be handled if one used a velvet glove. His eyes crinkled in an indulgentsmile. He unfastened his black doublet to bare his chest. Then he lifted her to stand on the bed so that they were the same height. He took her fingers in his big hand and traced his well-muscled ribs. “Right here between the third and fourth rib is a very good place to stick in your sword. It goes straight in to puncture the lung.” He raised her fingers to beneath his arm. “Feel that soft fleshy part in the armpit? A downward plunge almost always produces a mortal wound.”
    He saw the tip of her tongue between her little white teeth as she concentrated on the lesson. He drew her hand to the center of his wide chest until she felt the heavy beat of his heart. “If you drive your sword home here, it is always fatal,” he promised solemnly.
    “Oh, my lord earl, I do love you!”

3

    W illiam Marshal couldn’t quite rid himself of a sense of —what was it, guilt, betrayal, unease over his marriage? He had kept the same mistress for some years now until they had become like an old married couple, unremarkable in any way, yet comfortable. The disloyalty he felt, however, was not for his leman, but for the exquisite girl with whom he had fallen in love in his youth at King John’s court. Jasmine de Burgh’s delicate beauty and innocence had captured his heart, and if he was being truthful she was probably the reason he had never married. He laughed at his own folly. He had been but a youth and stood no chance whatsoever against the bold warrior, Falcon de Burgh, who plucked the flower the moment he had laid his lusty eyes upon her.
    In his heart Will had been faithful to her all these years. Whenever he went to Ireland he visited the de Burghs, glad of the deep bond of friendship that had developed. He sighed. Falcon de Burgh had made her completely happy and given her strapping twin sons whose strong sword arms he could depend on whenever there was trouble in that fair isle.
    He felt the irresistible pull of Jasmine now and knew he would not be at peace with himself until he had confessed thismarriage to her and explained that his motive was due to royal pressure and politics rather than love. Before he left for Ireland, however, he paid a visit to his favorite sister, Isabella, Countess of Gloucester and Hertford.
    “It seems you made a very favorable impression yesterday, Isabella,” William began tentatively, knowing the sacrifice he was about to ask of her.
    Isabella blushed and her lashes fluttered down to her pink cheeks. Her behavior had been disgraceful,