To Kiss in the Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

ease.
    Contemplating that happy possibility was almost enough to get him to his feet with a smile. He rose just the same, brushed off his abused backside, and stared at the ridiculous pair walking away from him. The lady, Lianna, was a mystery he wished he had time to solve. Why did she find herself at court? And what, the saints pity the poor girl, was she doing befriending his randy brother, who could have had any and all of the most beautiful women in England or France tumbling into his bed at the mere hint of an invitation?
    He paused, tempted to solve those mysteries.
    But nay, he couldn’t. He had business to accomplish. The mystery of his brother’s whereabouts was solved. Jason had little doubt he could find Kendrick again easily. Only his brother would clothe himself as a nun and stride about with his hairy legs clearly showing under skirts that hit him just below the knee and a cloak that didn’t fall to the middle of his forearm—and believe that such a disguise would deceive any but the most foolish of men.
    Or women, if that was his purpose, which Jason suspected it might be.
    He was momentarily tempted to follow them and force Kendrick to speak with him immediately, but he could already see himself using his fists on his brother, and it would be just his luck to have someone see him brawling with a nun. His reputation was black enough without that.
    Nay, he would but wait for supper, then see to delivering his message.
    Then he would be on his way to France.

Three
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    Lianna sat in the shadows and stared at the fire in the midst of the great hall. The smoke burned her eyes if she didn’t blink often enough, but such was the price one paid for a roof over one’s head, she supposed. In her sire’s hall, the fires had been set into the wall, with flues to carry the smoke outside. Her father’s people had thought him mad to do such a thing, but he had been convinced of the wisdom of it. And Lianna, her eyes now burning in the midst of the king’s appropriated hall, heartily agreed with her sire’s thinking.
    But at least the smoke gave her a reason to let her eyes water, which they wanted to do just the same from the kindnesses she’d been shown that day.
    She peered through the smoke at the king’s table and tried to discern the goings-on there. Normally, she would have been sitting there as well, but tonight all the places had been given to lords of either importance or wealth—such as Kendrick of Artane.
    Or of dark reputation, given who sat next to Kendrick.
    She picked absently at her supper and contemplated the very unlikely turn her life had taken over the past two days. Apparently, giving her tongue free rein in the presence of—and, unfortunately, in the most unflattering ways about —one of the most sought-after men in the realm had amused him enough to turn him into something of a comrade-in-arms. She had passed a delightful day in his company, finding him to be nothing that his critics said he was and everything they said he was not. In Artane’s second son, she had found a brother and a friend.
    Now, his brother was a different tale entirely.
    From the very moment she had heard Lord Jason’s voice in her ear, she’d been unsettled. She’d tried not to show that, to walk as other women did, speak with levity, and carry herself as if she hadn’t a care in her heart. She’d certainly had no intention of letting him know what his brief kindness, or the mere sound of his voice in the passageway, had wrought in her. And she’d done her best to forget him as she walked with his brother in the sunlight and heard that brother tell stories of Jason as if he’d been a harmless pup—which Lianna couldn’t believe he was.
    Not if the rumors were true.
    But none of those rumors was foul enough to dissuade her from searching for him through the smoke in the hall and wondering if his visage was as