Lady Fortune Read Free Page A

transport. Everything had belonged to her husband and to his sons and their wives. It wouldn’t take long to make her ready for a journey of less than three days. Unless the madman chose to strangle her before they arrived.
    She slept poorly in the narrow bed she had seldom shared with her husband, and when she arose in the darkness before first light she stared down it, feeling oddly detached. It had been her place of comfort and rest when she was blessedly alone. It had been her place of pain and humiliation and misery when her husband had come to her.
    But Victor was dead. And she was useless as a wife, with no lands and no possibility of children. With any luck she would never have to endure a man’s touch again.
    Agnes was weeping softly as she fixed Julianna’s long, wheat-colored hair into thick, hip-length plaits for the last time. “I’ll come with you, milady,” she sobbed. “We’ll find a way to bring Angus and the children along later…”
    “No, Agnes. You belong at Moncrieff, and you know it. I doubt Reynald’s wife would be able to survive without your help, and I will no longer be responsible for a household. I’m certain Lady Isabeau will find a young girl who will see to my needs.”
    Agnes wasn’t so far gone in sorrow that she couldn’t wrinkle her nose in disapproval. “She’s your lady mother, Lady Julianna,” she chided her. “Why do you always call her by her formal name?”
    Julianna wasn’t about to waste her last moments arguing with the woman who hadn’t been just her servant, but her dearest friend as well. “Don’t worry about Lady Isabeau. We’ll be reunited in a few days’ time, and things will work themselves out.”
    Agnes sniffed. “And how long has she been no more than a few days’ ride from you, and you’ve made no effort to see her?”
    “She’s made no effort to see me.”
    “You don’t answer her letters, lass! You return her gifts.”
    “Don’t let us spend our last few minutes quarreling,” Julianna begged. “You’ve been a better mother to me than she ever was. I’ll be polite to her. I’ll show her the deference due her. I can promise no more than that.”
    Agnes shook her head. “You’re a hard lass for one with such a sweet soul,” she said. “But I’m counting on the goodness of your heart to strip away the anger. Your lady mother had no choice in this world. Few women do.”
    Julianna ignored her words, embracing her stout, pregnant body in her arms. “I don’t know who I’ll miss more, you or the children.”
    “The children will miss you terribly,” Agnes said, thankfully distracted from her lecture on daughterly duty. "They love you dearly, as much as you love them. You need children of your own, lass…”
    It had gone from bad to worse. “Enough!” Julianna cried. “I’m close enough to tears as it is. It’s God’s will that I’ll have no children, and all the prayers and hopes have made no difference. At least I can love other women’s children.”
    Agnes shook her head. “You’re young yet, lass. Still a child yourself. You’ll learn that life is far from certain.”
    “I know one thing,” Julianna said calmly. “I will never bear a child. I will never willingly lie with a man again, and I will never forgive my mother for abandoning me.” The harshness of her own voice surprised her, and she pulled out of Agnes’s comforting embrace, expecting reproaches.
    But Agnes’s broad face was wreathed in a wry smile, despite the tears in her eyes. “Life is full of surprises, my lady,” she said. “And I will pray every day that all your surprises are blessed ones.”
    Julianna didn’t bother to argue. The first surprise of her new life was the presence of a mad fool, threatening to drive her crazy.
    Things were not looking up.
     
    Nicholas Strangefellow had come a long way since his childhood in the north of England. Nicholas of Derwent was born an only child, beloved of his frail mother and gruff,