Secrets of the Knight by Julia Latham

Author:Julia Latham [Latham, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Romance, Historical Fiction, Fiction, General, Great Britain, Historical, Knights and Knighthood, Love Stories, Great Britain - History - Medieval Period; 1066-1485
ISBN: 9780061432965
Publisher: Avon
Published: 2008-08-25T22:00:00+00:00

After supper that night, instead of sedate board games and conversation, Diana had engaged the services of minstrels come to play while the great hall was decorated for Christmas. Villagers and farmers crowded the hall to share their evening meal, glancing with interest between Lord Bannaster in his London finery and Cicely wearing her own lovely wardrobe. Diana wore her usual somber colors, having no one she wanted to impress.

And wishing to dissuade one man’s interest.

How dare he claim he would seduce her and that she would succumb quite willingly! And then in the next breath, proclaim his intention to keep company with Cicely as well! At least he had said he would not attempt to seduce her, which would surely lead to a marriage, if her sister had any say in it.

She glanced over at Bannaster where he stood beside her sister, leaning down to listen to something Cicely was saying over the sound of the minstrels who launched their first merry song, with pipe and harp and tambourine.

Knowing Cicely, she might very well be the aggressor in a seduction. As far as Diana knew, Cicely was yet a virgin, but her sister was already thinking of Bannaster as her last chance for the right marriage. What would she do out of desperation?

Nay, Diana was no longer going to wait. She would discover his plans. She only had this last evening to get through.

Servants and villagers began to put up ladders, decorating the mantel and tapestries and staircase balustrades with holly and ivy. Diana looked at the happy faces and tried to remember what it was like to enjoy the innocence and peace of the season, but her worries and concerns were too much a part of her this year. She was drawn from her reverie by the sight of her maidservant, Mary, standing in the arched entrance to the kitchen corridor, her face full of worry.

Diana approached and smiled, asking a question whose answer she already anticipated. “This is everyone’s favorite time of the year. Why do you not participate?”

“Mistress, his lordship recognized me from his kidnapping,” Mary said softly, as if Bannaster could overhear her over the noise of cheerful voices and Christmas music. “I wish not to prod his memory further.”

“And Joan? What is her excuse?”

“She will remain in the kitchens when his lordship is here, mistress. If he sees us both…if he remembers us together at Castle Bannaster…”

When she trailed off, Diana nodded, her own unease a cloud over the holiday. “I understand. I wish it were not necessary. This is a season for joy, after all.”

“Mistress, I will feel joyful when he is gone,” she said meaningfully.

“And I, too.”

“How was your afternoon of…courtship?”

Diana gave her a narrow-eyed glance, but Mary was not teasing her. “He apologized and said that our encounter this morn would not happen again.”

“Did he really?” Mary said with hope.

Diana had not meant to say more, but Mary was the one person she’d always told the truth to—as well as her fears.

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