Knights of de Ware 01 - My Champion Read Free

“She did it—collected her debt without our help.”
    Duncan wasn’t fooled. If it hadn’t been for the presence of the de Ware knights and the silent threat of their blades, the Spanish reiver might have done the girl harm.
    Now, at least, Duncan could rest easy. She seemed safe enough. Her old servant wheeled several casks of Spanish wine from the hold of the Corona Negra across the dock, payment from Spain for the merchant’s previous losses. And El Gallo, apparently unwilling to witness the confiscation of his goods, had disappeared into his cabin.
    “Now can we go home to supper?” Robert rubbed his belly. “Watching that fat rooster strut across the docks has made my mouth water.”
    Holden nodded surreptitiously toward a trio of moon-eyed young ladies making their way up the hill and muttered, “You’re not the only one drooling over your next meal.”
    Duncan glanced at the giggling maids and sighed. He’d wanted to stay, to get a closer look at the angel on the docks. But the women were coming for him. They were always coming for him. Ever since his nine-year-old betrothed had fallen from a horse and died last year somewhere in France, every marriageable female in the country between the ages of five and ninety sought him out. Doggedly. Hanging on his every word as if it were a jewel. Twittering over his most trifling comment. It was no wonder he’d taken to disguising himself half the time.
    “Garth,” he murmured resignedly.
    “I believe it is your turn,” Robert said, clapping Garth on the shoulder.
    “Make quick work of them, eh?” Holden added.
    “But—” Garth looked horrified.
    “There’s a lad,” Duncan said with a wink as the three of them whirled away, leaving Garth to fend off the feminine crush.
     
    “What!” Lord James de Ware fired the word like a rock from a catapult, garnering the instant attention of the scores of diners who sat at the trestle tables in his great hall. His eating dagger hung in the air halfway to his mouth, a thick slice of venison balanced precariously on its edge.
    Duncan pushed away his own empty platter. He leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs, and watched his father expectantly, vaguely amused. To Duncan’s right, Holden, ever the warrior, tightened his fingers reflexively on his knife. Beyond Holden, Garth appeared to be holding his breath.
    “Duncan, is it true?” Lady Alyce asked, her buttered knife poised over a piece of bread, unruffled by neither her husband’s outburst nor the subsequent silence in the great hall. “A woman obtained royal letters of marque?”
    “A woman?” Lord James echoed in wonder. The slice of meat had fallen from his knife, but he still held the blade aloft.
    “Aye.” Duncan crossed his arms over his chest. “A wool merchant. We all saw her.”
    Lady Alyce leaned forward, her gray eyes twinkling. “So an Englishwoman claimed her cloth was stolen at sea by Spaniards, and King Edward gave her leave to collect her due from any Spanish ship in port?”
    “Aye.”
    “Well! And what did the Spanish captain have to say about that?”
    Duncan shrugged. “Something…Spanish. Something about the merchant girl’s parentage, I believe.” A smile tugged at his lips. “Isn’t that right, Garth?”
    Young Garth, whose church studies had left him with both a command of several languages and the reluctance to discuss such wickedness, colored and grew singularly obsessed with his trencher of pottage.
    “She was awarded letters of marque?” asked Lord James, still confounded. “A woman?”
    “A woman,” Lady Alyce gushed, raising her pewter cup as if in a toast.
    Lord James muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “A woman merchant can only mean trouble.”
    “Agreed,” Holden chimed in.
    Lady Alyce fluttered her hands, waving away their inconsequential opinions. “Well, I believe it’s quite marvelous. With the king’s seal on the documents, there’s really nothing the Spaniard can do,