When Love Awaits Read Online Free PDF Page A

It was either that or be cast out immediately. Of course, Judith could never have a child. An abortion the year before had ruined her womb, but William did not know that.
    To protect herself from the time when William would ask about her supposed pregnancy, she encouraged his inclination to stay drunk. And she had kept him in a state of drunken forgetfulness since then. She didn’t care that she had helped to ruin the man, for she’d hated him from the day he beat her. She hated him still. He was only a drunk now. She could not bear to be near him.
    Judith took charge of Montwyn, indulging her every whim, from owning costly gowns and jewels to keeping handsome lovers near her. Everything was in her charge, and she had seen to it right after marrying William that his daughter was not at Montwyn to interfere.
    It had been easy at first to tell William that Leoniewas visiting relatives. Later, she found she could make him believe that he saw Leonie regularly, so ill with drunkenness and grief was he. He was, within a short time, permanently disoriented. He could be told anything, be made to believe anything.
    Relatives and neighbors stopped inquiring after Leonie, thinking she had gone to Pershwick of her own choice rather than stay with a drunken father. Leonie was told that her father wanted nothing to do with her, and she was forbidden to visit Montwyn. One way or another, Judith managed to keep everyone from learning the truth.
    In the meantime Leonie’s dowry remained part of Montwyn and Judith spent all the profits. She turned down Leonie’s marriage offers, in William’s name, for she had no intention of giving up the use of Leonie’s land. If killing the girl could have brought that land to Montwyn permanently she might even have killed her, but Elisabeth’s acursed will left the land solely to Leonie. If she died without issue, the land would revert to Shefford.
    Now, by the king’s order, she was being forced to give up the land. Who was Rolfe d’Ambert to be so favored by His Majesty? Judith had dealt with both his offers, first for Pershwick, then for the girl herself, so she knew it was Pershwick the suitor really wanted. Why hadn’t he just taken the keep by force if he wanted it so badly? This was infuriating, she told herself for the tenth time as she paced her room. She had managed everything so cleverly, and now this!
    “Judith.”
    She started. She hadn’t heard William approach. When she looked at him, she was shocked. He looked horrid, far worse than usual. William was sick every morning until he’d had his first drink, but today heseemed barely able to pick up his goblet. She would have to have her say before he finished even this first drink.
    “I have made all the arrangements, William, as you bid me,” Judith began quietly. “We can leave for Pershwick as soon as you are ready.”
    “Pershwick?”
    “Where Leonie is, William. We will stay the night there, then go on to Crewel for the wedding.”
    “Wedding?” He looked at her squarely, the whites of his eyes so heavily veined with red as to be a hideous dark pink. “I do not recall—”
    “William, William, you cannot have forgotten your own daughter’s wedding,” Judith said with feigned exasperation. Of course, she hadn’t told him and he hadn’t forgotten.
    “Nonsense, woman,” he said, “Leonie is a child. What wedding?”
    “Only a father would still see her as a child. She is nearly twenty, William. You would not see her married. You turned down every offer for her. So the king has taken matters into his hands. You read his order. Shall I bring it so you may read it again? King Henry posted the banns himself. Leonie is to wed Sir Rolfe d’Ambert at Crewel.”
    William shook his head wearily. This was all too much to grasp. Leonie nearly twenty? What offers had he refused? Henry ordering his child’s marriage? By Christ’s holy blood, he could not picture his daughter grown up. He saw her still as a child, with those