Patricia Ryan - [Fairfax Family 01] Read Free Page A

Marriage might be inevitable, but love is a trap I’ll never fall into.”
    “It doesn’t have to be a trap, Sister. Love can free the soul, it can liberate—”
    She laughed harshly. “Free the soul? Jourdain owned my mother’s soul. When he married his thirteen-year-old heiress and abandoned Mama, he took her soul with him. Mama had nothing left after Jourdain was through with her. He’d used her up. She was empty.”
    Her throat tightened, and she trembled. She closed her eyes and rubbed them, and an image came unbidden, as it often did, both awake and in her dreams: a luxurious gown of apple green silk, shot through with gold threads and adorned with thousands of tiny beads, floating on the breeze-riffled surface of a lake. The gown her mama had sewn for the wedding that never came, the gown in which she had finally surrendered, in despair, to a watery death. The pain this vision brought had gained strength with the passage of time, until it felt worse than desolation, worse than grief; it had become a live thing, a dark and heavy thing that rose from her belly to her throat, squeezing her from within.
    When she opened her eyes, she found her brother staring at her, his expression sad and a little helpless. She took a deep, shaky breath and swept the image from her thoughts. Struggling to smile, she said, “I’ve heard tell there’s no summer in England, and it must be true, because the closer I get, the colder—” Her voice caught, and she bit her lip, willing herself not to cry.
    Rainulf moved closer, put his arm around her, and patted her gently. Did he really know her? Did he have any idea how much she feared this marriage, how much courage it took to go through with it for his sake? He whispered something, and she turned toward him so she could hear.
    “I know. I know, Martine. I do.”
    *   *   *
    A fanfare of trumpets from the quarterdeck announced that they were docking. Martine rose to peer out of the porthole and Rainulf followed her. The rain, which had fallen steadily since the storm, had almost let up. She could make out a multitude of other vessels jostling one another in the dreary mist enveloping Bulverhythe Harbor, the harbor for Hastings.
    “Remember, Martine,” Rainulf cautioned. “If anyone at Harford Castle questions you about your family or your parents or your relation to the queen—”
    “I’m to keep my counsel,” she impatiently recited. It was to hide her illegitimacy that Rainulf had sought her a husband so far from the place of her birth. Godfrey of Harford had been so excited at the prospect of uniting his second son with a relation of the queen that he hadn’t bothered to ask questions. No one at Harford knew that she was but a bastard cousin to Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was formerly queen of France, and now, having divorced Louis and married Henry Plantagenet, was queen of England. Even Sir Thorne, who had arranged the betrothal contract, knew only that Martine was the half-sister of his old friend and fellow Crusade veteran; Rainulf had never volunteered the circumstances of her birth.
    “Mind that you do keep your counsel,” Rainulf said. “So far I haven’t had to lie outright, because it’s simply assumed you’re legitimate. We’ve been lucky. So far. But if Lord Godfrey were to find out the truth, there would be no question of a marriage. Your reputation would be ruined, as would mine, and quite possibly Thorne’s.”
    “Don’t worry,” she said. “I know what’s at stake.”
    She returned her attention to the harbor. They were gliding toward an empty dock with one small figure on the pier, a boy. She heard him call out “Sir! The Lady’s Slipper ! She’s here! Sir!” and watched as he ran away from them up the pier, disappearing into the fog.
    Presently a larger figure emerged—a man wearing a black cloak, its hood raised against the rain—and walked toward the end of the pier.
    She could feel her heart drum in her chest. All she knew about