The Queen's Bastard Read Online Free PDF Page B

efficient.”
    “Yes, Papa.”
    Robert split a grin, toothy in the darkness of his beard. It was longer than when she’d seen him last, coming to a full lengthy point and trimmed shorter along the line of his jaw. He stroked his hand over it, noting Belinda’s critical gaze. “Does it suit, Daughter?”
    “Yes, Papa,” Belinda repeated. Robert’s grin cracked through the beard again.
    “‘Yes, Papa, but I would like to know about this man whose fate is entwined with mine,’ is that what I hear you saying?”
    Belinda swallowed. “I am sure you’ve made the best choice for me, Papa.” She waited a few seconds, a fingertip tapping against the table, hard-won stillness at war with the opportunity Robert presented her. The latter won out: she blurted, “Yes, Papa!” and Robert threw his head back with a laugh.
    “All right. All right, my Primrose, let me tell you of Rodney du Roz.”
    “Du Roz,” Belinda echoed. “He’s Gallic?”
    Robert nodded. Belinda’s eyebrows drew down. “Papa, an Ecumenic?” Gallic sympathies lay with Cordula, heart of the ostentatious Ecumenic Church in southern Echon. Aulun’s break with Cordula was still fresh, and her people still wounded from it. Lorraine herself followed the Reformation, and her religious passion held Aulun in its sway. Belinda’s faith was in the asture Reformatic God to whom Lorraine declared herself devoted. In all her hours of waiting and considering what she waited for, marrying outside the Church was a thought that had never risen.
    “Is he…wealthy, Papa?” she asked cautiously. Religious differences could be put aside when profit was on the line, but Robert’s status as viscount was a gift from Lorraine, and had little money to go with it. Belinda herself was pretty, with wide hazel eyes and soft brown hair that made her pale skin dramatic, but she hadn’t the beauty that would make an unprofitable marriage worth considering, not to a man whose religious trappings were the opposite of hers.
    “Merely a baron,” Robert replied. “Landed, but not extravagantly. You, barring blood of my blood, are heir to more.”
    “Then—” Belinda traced a half-circle on the table’s surface, thoughtful motion. “Then I am a good match for him,” she said slowly. “With land and a title, if you should have no children of your own. And…with a father who has the queen’s ear.” She looked up to see Robert’s smile, so pleased that he hid it behind another bite of goose.
    “That’s a clever lass.” The smile faded into drawn-down eyebrows, making his expression unusually dark. “And this is how it shall go, Primrose. Heed me well.”
    Belinda listened, her arms drawn around herself as if for warmth, despite the heat of the kitchen fire turning her cheeks pink. She listened, and learned what it was she had been waiting for all her life.
    B ELINDA P RIMROSE
14 February 1577                  Alunaer, Aulun; the Queen’s Court
    He was younger than she expected.
    Belinda stood at her father’s elbow, studying du Roz across the gathered court. In his twenties and thin-cheeked, he might be handsome if his disposition were choleric, but standing in the court, speaking with a courtier dressed far more expensively than he, du Roz looked mild to Belinda’s eyes. His hair, like his cheeks, was thin; his hands, in motion as he spoke, were long and elegant. There were worse matches to be made, if a glance could tell her anything.
    But it had not yet been made. The queen’s approval came first, and that could not be granted until Belinda had been presented to her. Only after that would the nominal steps of courting be taken and permission to wed asked of Lorraine.
    Trumpets blared, half a dozen courtiers nearby flinching into squared shoulders and sucked-in guts. Belinda smoothed a hand over her skirts, watching du Roz. He straightened, but not in startlement, and turned to the far end of the hall with calculated smoothness. Belinda,