Shana Abe Read Free Page B

minor nobles who lived in the castle with them were present, and she saw when she looked more closely, so were some unfamiliar figures.
    Soldiers in orange and green tunics milled about in the crowd, jesting and drinking, examining the great stateroom curiously. They were all long-haired and bearded, with a wild, harsh look she instinctively did not like.
    Someone saw her lingering at the bottom of the stairs, and elbowed his companion. The knowledge of her presence spread like wildfire throughout the crowded room, until she could see literally all eyes upon her. A hush descended.
    Solange did not know what to do. She was unused to such widespread, meticulous attention and not schooled in the finer arts of court behavior. A furious blush stole up her neck and turned her fair cheeks to scarlet. Desperately she searched the crowd for a friendly face, but was met only with open, brash stares.
    She took a step forward, and then another. She lifted her chin a little higher to hide the quiver of anxiety in her stomach. Where was Damon? Where was her father?
    That question, at least, was answered for her.
    “Daughter.” The hearty, booming voice came from behind the backs of the soldiers. One by one they parted to reveal Henry, standing by the giant fireplace with another man. With great relief Solange slipped through the crowd to go to them.
    Henry met her halfway, then escorted her back tothe man he had been talking to. “You look exceptionally fine,” he muttered under his breath, as if to reassure himself.
    Solange looked up at him in surprise. He had never complimented her on her appearance before, or indeed, on anything at all. She had the impression he thought of her as a sort of domestic pet, to be fed and stroked now and again but never deeply regarded. She opened her mouth to thank him, but the marquess cut her off. He clapped the stranger on the shoulder.
    “Well, good sir, this is she.”
    Solange waited in vain for either man to complete the introduction, but they only stared down at her, both appearing lost in some deep thought. She felt her stomach clench tighter in the silence.
    “I greet thee, kind sir,” she finally murmured shyly, staring down at her hands. She was afraid to look up and confirm her thoughts that the entire population of the castle was eagerly watching this strange scene.
    Without warning the man reached out and took her hand, pressing it to his lips. Startled, she looked up into his face, taking it in for the first time.
    He had the brightest eyes she had ever seen. They seemed to reflect all the light in the room without revealing any of their own color. In fact, they appeared not so much like eyes at all, but rather like two shiny glass balls in a man’s face. For an instant she felt a tingle of alarm as his lips gently touched her skin. A man without eyes has no soul, she thought whimsically.
    But then he smiled, and the empty eyes shifted to a light gray color, and he was just an ordinary man after all.
    Her father spoke. “Daughter, this is the Earl of Redmond.”
    “Lady Solange,” the earl said with just the right French accent. In what seemed a peculiar trick of time, she watched his lips move before she heard her name.
Sol-ahnjh
 …
    Her own lips parted slightly in shock. She knew exactly who he was, of course. Stephen, Earl of Redmond, was the latest heir to a neighboring family of nobles that had been held alternately in either great esteem or great revulsion by her own family for centuries. The clashing dynasties held a continuous, and of late frigidly cordial dispute over land boundaries and tithings from the villages that straddled the lines of the two estates.
    It had ultimately taken a royal decree to stop the fighting. Wily King Edward wanted neither of two of his most profitable estates to bankrupt each other in petty skirmishes, so he had claimed the disputed strip of land as his own and thus ended the feuding.
    What astonished Solange was that the earl was here at