The Game Read Free Page B

to remain at the convent despite the fact that she had no pension.
    Katherine’s stomach churned. Whenever she thought about the earl’s failure to communicate with the abbess over the matter of her support, she grew terribly dismayed.
    Knowing her father, Katherine assumed that he must be at war with the Butlers again. It would be unlike Geraldto let the massacre of Affane go unavenged. He was too busy to think about his only daughter. Perhaps Eleanor was responsible for their ignoring her. She was but a few years older than Katherine, quite beautiful, and Gerald adored her. And she did not like Katherine.
    Katherine’s apprehension grew. She knew her father would not be pleased to see her when she arrived at Askeaton Castle, unbidden and unexpected. Perhaps he’d even be angry if Eleanor had indeed whispered against her in his ear. However, Katherine was willing to risk his wrath for the sake of realizing her dreams. But first she must persuade the abbess to allow her to leave the nunnery without her father’s permission. It was a monumental task.
    After the meal was done, Katherine and Juliet exchanged conspiratorial glances and separated. Katherine hurried not to the dorter where she slept, but to the antechamber where the abbess worked. Her anxiety increased. So much was at stake in the interview she would soon face. Katherine could not lose.
    For she could not remain at the abbey any longer. She could not. Life was passing her by, and it was grossly unfair. This could not possibly be her fate. Her fate had to be something far more.
     
    The abbess’s plump face registered worry and concern. “You wish to go home.” She sighed.
    Katherine stood before the delicate mahogany secretaire where the mother superior was seated. “I cannot remain here. I am not suited for this life. I must return home, remind my father of my existence. Surely then he will arrange a marriage for me.” Her gaze was direct but pleading. “Mother Superior, all I have ever wanted is a husband and a home of my own and several children. I am already eighteen. In another few years no man will want me.”
    The abbess doubted that. Katherine was an extraordinary beauty, in spite of her tall stature, with her perfectly oval face, her fine features and flawless ivory skin, her startling green eyes and dark wine red hair. She rose to her feet, the color returning to her cheeks. She was in a quandary.A terrible quandary. She studied Katherine. “My dear, you have a few years left, trust in that, before you are old and gray.”
    Katherine began to protest.
    The abbess lifted her hand, cutting her off. “I am well aware that you are not suited to this life. I have been aware of it almost from the first day you arrived here, a wild vixen of thirteen. I have no doubt now that you would be a superb wife. Clearly you are endowed by nature to bear many healthy sons. But what you ask is impossible. To send you home without your father’s permission? I cannot do it!” But even as she spoke guilt twisted inside of her. For she knew Katherine would never receive her father’s permission to leave. And she also knew what awaited Katherine—and was terribly uneasy.
    Katherine wet her lips. When she spoke, her tone was strained. “Do not misunderstand me. I am very grateful for the charity you have bestowed upon me in allowing me to remain here. I am unhappy, but I am so grateful. You have been nothing but kind to me.”
    The abbess winced, but Katherine did not appear to notice.
    “There is another reason for me to return to Ireland,” Katherine continued urgently. “I am afraid that something is amiss. How could my father forget to send my pension to you? It makes no sense. I must return, I beg you, Mother, to learn why I have been forgotten like this. I cannot stay here. Perhaps my father needs me. Or—perhaps he is truly too busy to think of me at all.”
    The abbess felt a deep pang of sympathy for her young charge. Gently, the older woman said,