Tyrant of the Mind Read Online Free PDF

last one.
    “You mentioned the arranging of a marriage for Robert, my lord. Have you spoken with him about this?”
    “I am not without concern for my son’s future happiness, Eleanor,” the baron snapped. “As you would do well to remember, I allowed you to take the veil much against my own wishes.”
    Indeed he had, but then few had ever won an argument with his elder sister, Beatrice, she thought. “I remember with gratitude, my lord. Who is the woman and what does she bring to this marriage?”
    “Do you remember Sir Geoffrey of Lavenham?”
    The name was familiar, but the man she knew was a poor one. Was she mistaking him for his elder brother? She shook her head.
    “Perhaps not. I think it was your fifteenth summer when you last saw him. He and I were pages together, and we fought de Montfort at Lewes and Evesham.”
    “I was not aware that he had lands to give a daughter.”
    “Indeed he was a landless knight at the time you knew him, but his elder brother died of tertian fever some years later and Geoffrey inherited all Lavenham lands and title. His elder brother was a good enough man, but I must say his death was timely, soon after Geoffrey suffered the jousting... Did I not write you of Geoffrey’s accident?”
    “Robert did, father. He lost his hand, if I recall, and I do remember him well. He had two sons and a daughter. George is my age…”
    “…and would have made you a fine husband, if you had but listened…”
    “…and the other two were, indeed I may hope that they still are, a few years older? Yes, that year I lived at Wynethorpe before I took my vows, we all spent much time together.” Eleanor smiled. “There was a young ward, I think, and I also remember Sir Geoffrey’s sweet wife. He was so devoted…”
    “The mother of his children is dead. He has since remarried. To the Lady Isabelle.”
    Eleanor blinked at the harshness of his retort but chose to ignore it. “The only Isabelle I remember was his ward, his daughter Juliana’s good friend.”
    Adam’s face reddened, then he turned away and walked toward the huge stone hearth cut deep into the wall just behind the high table. His limp was marked, made worse with the cold, Eleanor thought, and it pained her to watch him struggle not to grimace. For a long time, he stood in silence, his back to her as he heated a poker. When he thrust the glowing iron into a nearby pitcher of cider, the hiss was like that of a trebuchet flinging a stone at a castle wall, but the cold air soon grew warm with the pungent scent of spices. Eleanor watched and waited for him to speak. As he passed her a steaming cup, she noticed that his hands were shaking ever so slightly.
    Adam sipped at his own hot drink in silence. “Geoffrey was besotted with her,” he said at last. “I swear his good wife was barely in the ground before he had the whore in his bed.” The baron looked up, his face a mottled red. “I beg forgiveness for my crude language. That is not something I should have said to a daughter, let alone a woman dedicated to God.”
    “You may say what you will, father. I am no longer a child and, thanks to your sister, I am neither ignorant nor disapproving of the carnal pleasures between men and women.”
    The corners of Adam’s lips twitched upward. “A spirited enough response and direct enough to match my blunt words. I see the fine hand of Beatrice in that as well. She always was one for plain speech. Her desire to forsake the world for the convent after her husband’s death made as little sense to me as your desire for the same.” He coughed. “That aside, I need a woman’s help and have no other to turn to.”
    Anger in her heart swelled with her father’s ever-dismissive attitude toward her wish to enter the convent over his desire to put her into an arranged marriage. Eleanor said nothing but only nodded in response, for she did not trust herself to speak with civility.
    “To better answer your question, the Isabelle you