Promised to the Crusader Read Free Page A

Zander?’ she whispered as she followed a few steps behind her serving woman to the courtyard, where the burly groomwaited. ‘Please return to me. I beg you, do not desert me.’
    Raising her head, Elaine forced a smile to her lips as she passed through the courtyard. No one must realise that she was close to tears. Only a weak woman cried. Elaine was strong. She had won a promise from her uncle and she had more than two months of freedom before she must think about becoming the Earl of Newark’s bride.
    ‘When do we attack the castle?’ Stronmar looked at his lord, the Earl of Newark, as he walked into the hall where the scene was one of preparation for war. ‘All is ready, you have only to give the word, my lord.’
    ‘Howarth is a fool,’ the earl growled. ‘He told me that his niece would be mine at Christ’s Mass if I waited in patience, but a man should not be ruled by a woman’s whims. He should force her to obey him. There is no reason to wait.’
    ‘You do not need to wait. Howarth neglects to send out patrols and believes the rumours of a band of marauding bandits on his land are merely that. He has no idea that we have been the ones attacking travellers and burning the isolated cottages. We leave none to tell the tale.’
    ‘You have done well,’ the earl said and smiled thinly. ‘Had the lady agreed to the marriage I might have spared her uncle, but I shall not be thwarted. I want her and her lands—but she is Howarth’s heir. When her uncle dies she will be twice the heiress she is now, for besides the castle he has other manors in the north.’
    Stronmar grinned, revealing a row of rotten teeth. He was an unfortunate-looking man, his features heavy and ugly, the stench of his breath worse than a latrine. His one redeeming feature was his loyalty to the earl and he would die for the lord who had rescued him when as a young lad he had lain close to starvation after his parents had both died from a terrible fever. The harvests had rotted in the fields that year, for a pestilence had killed most of the villagers. He, too, would have died had the lord not ordered him taken up and carried to his castle, where Stronmar had grown strong and tall as the years passed.
    ‘The lady will be yours, my lord. Give the word and we shall ride for the castle this very day. The fools will not suspect an attack and we may take them with scarcely a fight.’
    ‘Then we ride at once,’ the earl said. ‘I see no reason to wait when I may have the lady now. Once I have bedded her she will beg me tomarry her. A woman must be shown who is the master or a man is nothing in his own home.’
    ‘The Lady Elaine is too proud for her own good.’
    The earl nodded, his thick lips curving in a sneer. ‘Pride such as hers must be curbed, and methinks I shall find it amusing to teach the wench a lesson she will not forget. Besides, I need an heir, for my wives gave me only daughters.’
    ‘We have gathered herbs and berries enough,’ Elaine said. Their baskets were filled and the day was drawing to its close. Enjoying the unseasonably warm sunshine and the freedom of being away from the castle, they had strayed a long way from her home in search of berries, herbs and nuts to fill the deep panniers that Bertrand had attached to the pack horse. He was riding his own stout horse while the ladies had ridden Elaine’s palfrey. ‘I think we should go home now.’
    ‘Yes, my lady.’ Marion smiled at her. ‘Your uncle may grow worried and send out men to search for you if we do not return before nightfall.’
    ‘I would not have him think we had run away.’ Elaine thanked the groom as he put firsther, and then her lady, up on the palfrey. Marion rode pillion behind her, as was the custom for a serving woman, though for some of the day she’d ridden with Bertrand so that the palfrey should not tire of carrying them both.
    The little party turned in the direction that would lead them home. They had laughed, talked and danced