The Chosen Queen Read Free Page B

bubbling Tyburn river, eager to enter in good time for the great meeting. Horses pawed beneath impatient masters, cart-drivers jostled with each
other to be first in line, and the air sang with barely suppressed fury. The vast stretch of the Thames rolled carelessly past to the right of the road, safe in its own dangerous currents, but the
Chelsea meadowlands on the left were teeming with muddy servants. No one, at least, was looking her way and she glanced back into the woods.
    She’d been coming back from Chelsea market behind the rest of her family when she’d seen Lord Torr slipping into the bushes with a servant girl. Curiosity still sparking after last
night’s encounter on the dance floor, she’d been quick to follow. She’d lost the unlikely pair briefly but now there were noises coming from the other side of the bramble thicket
– a rough mingling of breaths which she longed to understand – and she had pulled herself into a tree to follow them.
    Edyth glanced guiltily again towards the royal compound where gaudy pavilion roofs peeped over the palisade fencing, the flags of all the great families of the land flapping proudly in the light
breeze, taunting those not yet inside. Catching sight of her own father’s black and gold banner, she shuddered. The council was still a turn of the glass away but he would already be pacing
like a caged bear. She had to hurry. Reaching up for a lichen-encrusted branch, she heaved her slender body higher and suddenly there they were.
    ‘Oh!’
    She clasped a hand over her mouth to contain her surprise and nearly lost her balance. It was like nothing she’d imagined. The girl was on her knees, rough brown skirts rucked up so that
her most intimate area was exposed whilst Torr, his own trews around his ankles, clasped her roughly back against him.
    As Edyth watched, he reached one hand out to grab at the girl’s hair, arching her back and making her cry out his name, and this time Edyth was too slow to catch her own gasp. Torr looked
up. He saw her immediately and far from rushing to hide, locked Edyth in his gaze. For a long moment she was caught, then finally she yanked her eyes away and began to scramble down, half-climbing,
half-tumbling through the dense branches of the oak.
    Her hair tugged, her skirts caught, but she dared not stop. She had to get out of there. Nearly at the bottom, her foot slipped and she fell. She screamed as the ground rushed up to meet her but
at the last minute two strong arms caught her and lowered her easily. Terrified that Lord Torr had come to claim her, she fought to free herself.
    ‘Steady on now. You’re quite safe.’
    The voice was soft and gentle and Edyth dared to look.
    ‘Oh, thank God.’
    It was not the dark-eyed Torr but his brother, Earl Harold. He was looking at her so kindly that she longed to collapse into his arms but just in time she remembered her father’s
displeasure and pulled away.
    ‘Are you quite well, Lady Edyth?’ Harold asked. ‘You’re as white as a sheet.’
    ‘I . . . I fell.’
    ‘So I saw and I’m not surprised. You were coming down that tree like a hound after quarry.’
    ‘I’m late for the council,’ Edyth said weakly. ‘Mama will kill me.’
    ‘She will when she sees your dress. What were you doing up there?’
    Edyth tugged miserably at the rips in her woollen overgown, her thoughts racing.
    ‘I thought I saw a falcon.’
    ‘Really? Where?’
    Harold was instantly alert, scanning the trees, and Edyth cursed under her breath.
    ‘I was mistaken. It was just a . . . a robin.’
    ‘You mistook a robin for a falcon? Come now, Lady Edyth, with a hawkhouse as fine as your father’s I find that hard to believe. What were you really up to?’
    Edyth glanced uneasily at the trees; someone was coming their way, she was sure of it.
    ‘I have to get back,’ she said desperately, and tried to turn up the road towards the royal compound.
    At that moment, however, the bushes parted just