Candle in the Window Read Free

dissolves my manners and my sincere interest in
your son’s tale.”
    “Do not apologize. Your interest in the
country’s welfare has given me a moment to steady myself. I
still can’t talk about William, you see, without a pain in my
heart. It makesme so angry, for he was injured
for nothing. Nothing!” He turned his head back and forth,
seeking to dispel the tension that knotted his neck. “We had
a battle with a neighbor, a modest skirmish. The most minor of
fights.”
    “Your son was hurt?”
    “God, yes. Bashed in the back of the head.
His mail hood left bloody imprints on his neck, his basinet helmet
crumpled. We had to cut him out. It would have killed a lesser man,
but not my Will. He lay like a stone for two days, and we were
scared, Kimball and I.” Lord Peter shrugged his shoulders,
uncomfortable with the unaccustomed sensation of fear,
uncomfortable with the volatile emotion of love. “Well,
he’s my only surviving son, and Kimball’s father. And
there he sprawled, white and still and barely breathing, like a
great oak knocked to the ground. He woke up, though. Just came
roaring up, demanding breakfast and demanding that we light the
damn torches. With the fire flickering on the hearth and the
daylight streaming through the slits in the walls.”
    Saura bent her head in thought. “How long
ago?”
    “Two months.”
    “He has his health, my lord?” she
queried, tender with his grief.
    “Healthy as a horse. Well, he does have pain
in his head. But what good is his health? He’s too old to
adjust gracefully. He’s damn near twenty-seven years old. He
earned the colée when he was fifteen, knighted for bravery in
the field of battle. He’s overseen the management of his
mother’s lands all these damn dark years since old King
Henry’s death. He’s a big man, by God, he has legs like
tree trunks and shoulders that bulge with muscle. He’s a
fighter and a man of action, but now he won’t go outside,
he’s ashamed to have the folksee him and
afraid of making a fool of himself. He won’t do anything
inside.”
    “Because he’s afraid of making a fool
of himself?” Saura understood, her insides clutching as she
recalled moments of being a fool, moments filled with the sound of
careless laughter at her own pain.
    “Exactly. And because he wants to be outside.
He won’t accept help, he won’t help himself; he just
sits and broods and drinks.”
    “He’s pitying himself.” Maud
snorted.
    “He’s tangled in it.” Saura
nodded, touched by the real torment in Lord Peter’s voice,
the gruff call for help. “There’s only one thing to
cure it, my lord, and that’s a swift, brutal kick in the
seat.”
    “I can’t! I’m crippled too,
crippled by my love for the boy.” Responding to the sway of
the women’s bodies as they bent protectively to him, he
stuttered with awkward emotion. “I know you not, barring the
little I have seen tonight, but I can see, Lady Saura, that
you’re a good woman caught in a bad situation. Your
stepfather leers at you, and he’s a weak man.”
    “Ye decided that quickly enough,” Maud
said.
    “I’m a warrior. There are times when my
life depends on my judgment of character and circumstances.”

He stared at Maud, and Maud stared back at him and nodded. “I
can help you, and what I’m going to suggest will assuage all
of our discords. I admire you. I admire the way you handle
yourself, your life. I admire your spirit. I would like you to come
and live with me.”
    A growl from Maud interrupted him and he held up
his hand. “Peace, old woman. I don’t want her for any
dastardly reason. Just to live at my castle for a while. She could
helpme with William, tell me how to help him,
perhaps she could help him herself.”
    “And if this William of yours refused her
help, ye old fool, then where would we be?” Maud blazed.
“That slimy whoreson downstairs would never let us
return.”
    “Which would be worse?” Saura twisted
her mouth with disdain.