The Winter Mantle Read Online Free PDF Page A

to her mother's wain. The Countess Adelaide eyed him narrowly as he helped Judith within the stifling interior, aromatic with the smell of horehound and sage.
    'Fortunate that you were on hand to come to my daughter's aid, Earl Waltheof,' she said, but not as if she were pleased at the notion.
    'Indeed it was, my lady' Waltheof gave her a broad smile and bowed. Adelaide inclined her head in frosty acknowledgement and then looked away, indicating that both her gratitude and the conversation were at an end.
    'Thank you, my lord,' Judith murmured, feeling that she had to add something and that her mother's response was scant recompense. She was aware of the avidly staring maids, and of her sister hiding a giggle behind her hand.
    'Think nothing of it, my lady. I enjoyed the pleasure of your company.' He bowed, regained the saddle with swift grace and reined away to greet the first of the returning huntsmen.
    Adelaide gave her daughter a hard stare. 'The pleasure of your company,' she repeated in a voice nasal with cold. 'I hope that you did not encourage him, daughter.'
    'Of course not!' Judith glowered at her mother. 'I have done nothing wrong. Why should I not converse with him when he is my uncle's guest?'
    'Converse by all means, but do not encourage,' Adelaide warned. 'He is more and less than a guest, as well you know. You had no choice but to accept his aid just now, but I would rather that it had not happened. And I do not know what your uncle will say.'
    'It is no concern of my uncle's!' Judith felt a quiver of apprehension.
    Adelaide shook her head. 'Everything is a concern of your uncle. If you seem to favour one man above others, it complicates matters when it comes to settling a husband upon you. Granted, Waltheof of Huntingdon is handsome and pleasant, but he is not of high enough rank or quality to make a match with our house.' Her lip curled on the words
handsome
and
pleasant
, making it clear that she did not view such attributes with favour.
    Judith flushed. 'Even though my grandmother Herleve was a laundress and the daughter of a common tanner?' she retorted.
    Her sister gasped at the blasphemy. Adelaide reared like a serpent - no mean feat given the deep cushions and the rocking of the cart. 'I have not raised you to show such disrespect for your blood,' she said icily. 'My mother, your grandmother, God rest her soul, whatever her origins, died a great lady and you will not refer to her in such terms - is that understood?'
    'Yes, Mother.' Judith compressed her lips and contained her resentment, knowing that if she continued to argue she would be whipped. Her mother was inordinately sensitive that Herleve de Falaise was indeed a tanner's daughter whom Robert of Normandy had encountered pounding washing in a stream and brought home to his castle. She had borne him two children out of wedlock, one of them Duke William, the other Adelaide, and when the attraction had paled she had been married out of the way to one of Duke Robert's supporters, Herluin de Conteville. Adelaide had set out to distance herself from all mention of laundering and tanning. As far as she was concerned, only the noble bloodline existed, and it was to be enhanced. Judith knew, although it went unspoken, that her mother considered matching her daughter with an English lord a step backwards for the family name - even if Waltheof Siwardsson's pedigree was better than their own.
    Until her mother's outburst Judith had not really considered the notion of a match with the English earl, but now she did.
    Sitting in the oppressive cart, beneath her mother's disapproving scrutiny, she thought of the journey she had just made on the rump of his horse. The copper flash of his hair against the soft dark blue wool of his cloak. The warm good humour. What would it be like to live in a household with a lord who would rather smile than frown? The thought was enticing and filled Judith with a feeling of restless excitement. She was accustomed to a regime of