Wild Wind Read Online Free PDF Page B

in frustration. “How am I supposed to...keep myself occupied for half a year?”
    The king raised his arms in a grand and meaningless gesture. “Take up hawking. Learn to play the gigue.”
    “What the devil is a gigue?”
    “‘Tis a sort of...” William drew a shape in the air that put Alex in mind of a voluptuous female. “Stringed instrument.”
    “Long and slender,” the queen elaborated.
    “And it makes a most mellifluous sound,” Berte put in. “You really ought to heed His Highness and try your hand at—”
    “Yes, fine,” Alex gritted out, quite overwhelmed. “I shall take the...what is it?”
    “Gigue,” Luke offered, snickering.
    “Gigue...under serious consideration.” He drew in a deep, pacifying breath. “Many thanks for the suggestion, Highness.”
    “Not at all!” Beaming, William rose, offering a hand to his queen. “We’ve tarried here longer than we ought to have, my plum. The next course is about to be served, and if I’m not mistaken, ‘tis a fish jelly. Your favorite.”
    “Ah.” Beaming in anticipation, the queen leapt to her feet. “Mustn’t miss that.”
    “Why so melancholic?” Milo inquired blearily after the royal couple had hastened back to the high table to savor their fish jellies while minstrels pounded their drums and rang their bells.
    “I’m not melancholic, merely” —Alex shook his head at the impossibility of the situation— “perplexed as to what I’m supposed to do with myself for the next six months.”
    Milo’s smile struck Alex as almost sly. “Perhaps I can be of some assistance there.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Milo lifted his wife’s goblet to his mouth, spilling a fair measure of wine down his chin. “Blast!” Wiping his chin with his tunic sleeve, he said, “We must talk. Just the two of us.”
    “Yes, you’ve been saying that.”
    “Have I?” Milo frowned and shook his head. “Can’t recall...”
    Nicolette and Gaspar exchanged a glance.
    “Yes, well, you know...” His head quivering, Milo slid his gaze first toward his wife, and then Gaspar. “Just the two of us. Catch up on old times.”
    “Very well,” Alex said carefully.
    “That sounds right jolly,” Gaspar said, “but as for now, milord, I think you’d best let me take you inside for a little nap. The heat and all...”
    Milo did not acknowledge the cordial summons. “Come to my chamber at compline,” he implored Alex. “We’ll take a walk along the Seine and watch the sun set over the water.”
    A walk along the Seine? Thinking it unlikely Milo would be up to such an outing, Alex nevertheless agreed to meet him. Gaspar and Nicolette flanked Milo and gently urged him up from the bench.
    “They gave us the worst chamber in the whole cursed keep,” Milo griped as his wife and retainer began leading him away. “Dismal little cell at the top of the north tower. All those stairs...damn their eyes...”
    “Well!” Berte huffed when the three were out of earshot. “Have you ever in your life—”
    “I need to stretch my legs.” Alex stood abruptly.
    “As it happens, so do I.” Rising, Luke asked his wife, his gaze flicking almost imperceptibly toward Berte, “Will you be all right here alone for a bit?”
    Faithe regarded him balefully. “For a bit.”
    Alex and Luke strolled upstream along the bank of the Robec until the babble of music and conversation from beneath the canopy faded into blessed silence. Pausing at a curve in the river, Alex picked up a rock and skipped it across the water. His brother followed suit. They occupied themselves in this manner until Luke said, “Rather a nasty surprise, eh? Finding the lady Nicolette here.”
    Alex shrugged as he inspected the stones at his feet, looking for one of just the right shape. “Life is mad. One deals with it.”
    “So you’ve said many times. I’ve long envied you your phlegmatic temperament. But can you really be so unmoved by the reappearance of a lady who once brought such misery down