Beloved Stranger by Patricia Potter

Author:Patricia Potter [Potter, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-11-23T21:05:27+00:00

Chapter 14

ROBERT Howard felt he was walking a dagger’s edge as he sat among his country’s enemies and tried not to look at Kimbra Charlton. She sat on the other side of the Charlton, a place of honor.

He was several seats down, among the reivers. Jock was on one side of him. A man called Davey’s Son on the other. Cedric was on the other side of the table, his face set with resentment. A man looking very much like him was at his side. Garrick, he remembered.

Robert Howard, like nearly every other man in attendance, could barely take his eyes from Kimbra Charlton. The color of her gown turned her gray eyes blue, and her dark hair was pulled back, with several curls arranged around her face. She looked enchanting, and when she’d entered the room at the Charlton’s side, he’d felt an odd jerk in his heart.

She was as bonny as the sun touching a Scottish loch and as challenging as a storm at sea.

Where had those images come from? Suddenly he was sitting on a cliff overlooking the sea, waves crashing beneath him. A rock jutted out of the sea. A feeling of malevolence jolted through him, settled in the pit of his stomach.

Then it was gone.

“Howard?”

He suddenly realized Jock had addressed him.

“Aye?”

“Ye do not look well.”

“’Tis nothing. A momentary weakness.”

“Eat well.”

He tried to eat well. Platters and platters of food came. Mutton. Beef. Pheasant. As he ate, he tried to concentrate, to focus again on that rock. He saw it in his mind’s eye, but the feelings were gone, the sense of evil he’d felt. The rock had once been important in his life. Of that he was certain.

He glanced up at Kimbra. She was smiling at something the Charlton was saying, and jealousy coursed through him. The man was nearly three times Kimbra’s age, and he should have no such feelings. But the intensity of them were painful.

“No one has claimed ye yet,” Cedric said on the other side of the table. “Appears strange that none know of ye.”

He shrugged and did not reply.

“Mayhap ye are not a Howard at all,” Cedric continued.

Robert Howard shrugged again, ignoring him and turning to Jock. “I hear most of Henry’s army is leaving.”

“Aye. They keep losing horses,” Jock grinned.

“The Scots, no doubt,” Robert Howard replied.

“No doubt,” Jock agreed with a chuckle.

Cedric broke in. “It is said ye fought on the continent. For or against the French?”

“For whoever paid the most,” Robert Howard said.

“The French are our enemies.”

“Not always.”

Cedric’s face reddened. “I do not believe yer wild tale.”

“That is your choice,” Robert Howard said mildly and turned back to Jock, with whom he had developed somewhat of a truce in the past few days. They had even shared a pitcher of ale after the Charlton’s first visit.

“It is as good as yer wild tales,” Jock suddenly confronted Cedric. “Ye disappeared during the battle.” He turned his glance away in obvious disgust.

Robert Howard glanced up the table. Kimbra looked down at the same time, and their gazes met.

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