The Wife Test Read Free Page A

door, she sat up, wiped her face, and righted her garments to make herself presentable. But the voices passed by and she was left sinking again into despair, staring at the rush-strewn floor through bleary prisms.
    There would be no husband, no children, and no home except the one she had always known. The longing for family sharpened to an ache in her chest that made it difficult to breathe. How could the abbess be so cruel? Just because she didn’t bear the name of a noble—
    Gilbert.
The second shock of that purloined conversation struck her anew. She wasn’t from the city of Guibray as she had always believed, at least not anymore than she was from any other place. It had been an English name, Gilbert, that had accompanied her in the basket that bore her into the sisters’ care. Her heart beat faster as the full impact of it descended on her. This was the first real clue she had ever had to her true identity. Her spirits began to rise.
    Had her father been an Englishman, as the abbess said? Or was it her mother who had borne that name? The truth of it could only be found in England … land of woolly sheep and greedy kings and victorious armies … and
Gilberts
… some of whom might belong to her.
    England. Suddenly it sounded like the Promised Land. She had to go, to search for her beginnings and learn the secrets of her past. She would never have a future unless she did. What did it matter who was sent to London, as long as they were suitable for matrimony? The duke was claiming daughters that weren’t his own; he could scarcely object to being claimed as her father until she could discover hers.
    Sister Archibald was right; she was perfect for the duke’s ransom. The abbess was just too stubborn—or selfish—to see it. Resolve straightened her spine and filled her heart with fresh hope. She had to take matters into her own hands, had to find a way to include herself in that bridal delegation.
    Her gaze darted around the small chamber, and she slowly began to smile.
    Becoming the duke’s fifth daughter shouldn’t be so hard for someone who, of late, had become the abbess’s reading eyes and writing hand.

Chapter Two
    The crude wooden door of the loft over the tavern banged open, and the opening filled with a huge, black-clad form with burning eyes and white-knuckled fists. On the sour straw pallets that filled the chamber there was a flurry of curses and bare body parts as men-at-arms scrambled to untangle themselves from their partners in illicit pleasure.
    “Worthless sons of curs—on your feet!” Sir Hugh of Sennet ducked through the doorway and charged inside, grabbing first one groggy soldier and then another, yanking them to their feet and shoving them toward the door, where his lieutenant waited. “I ordered you to stay
on
duty,
at
the ready, and
out
of the cursed taverns!” He ripped a tunic from beneath a fleshy pair of buttocks—eliciting a feminine squeal of protest—thrust it into its owner’s fumbling hands, then planted a boot in the wretch’s backside. The fellow shot out the door, glanced off the knight waiting outside, and went careening down the steps to join his comrades.
    When the chamber was cleared of men, Hugh of Sennet ducked back outside, stomped down the steps, and stood with his fists jammed onto his waist, glaring at the soldiers struggling to don their garments. His sniff of indignation quickly turned to a wince.
    “They smell like piss pots. Get them cleaned up,” he ordered their sergeant, “and ready to travel at a moment’s notice.” Then he addressed the men themselves. “If I have to pull any of you out of a tavern again before we reach London, I’ll personally deal each of you a hundred lashes! Is that clear?”
    The prodigals turned a bit pale beneath their sun-weathered skin, nodded, and stumbled off toward the nearby stream under a tirade from their sergeant.
    “A hundred?” Sir Graham of Ledding, Hugh’s second in command, lifted an eyebrow. The