Lady Knight by L-j Baker

Author:L-j Baker [Baker, L-j]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781933110752
Amazon: 1933110759
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2007-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Eleanor would have preferred to have remained in bed with Riannon but bowed to the necessity of being present as hostess during the dinner for her niece and her new husband.

"I'll find a meal elsewhere," Riannon said.

Eleanor bit back her protest. She knew if she asked, Riannon would change her mind. That would please her but make Riannon highly uncomfortable in the company of her brothers. As with Riannon's compulsion to keep herself hidden in her shirt, Eleanor forced herself to accept this choice. If she had learned anything in two marriages, it was to exercise care in selecting when she took a stand, and when to let go. Not all battles could-or should-be won.

Cicely greeted her aunt as warmly as a boon companion she had not seen for years. She looked well enough, though Eleanor noticed that she frequently shot glances at her husband with the air of one expecting a reproof. Eleanor did see her niece laughing, though, when Cicely sat with her new stepson, Lord Richard. He was two or three years Cicely's senior.

"You must be gratified, Lady Barrowmere, to see your family united so closely to that of our queen."

Eleanor, whose thoughts had actually strayed to her own more intimate relationship with a cousin of the queen, stared at the whitehaired speaker for several heartbeats before she recalled his name.

"For certès, my Lord Geoffrey," she said. "And my niece looks well pleased with her new family. I fear, though, I must offer condolences on the recent loss of your daughter-in-law."

He nodded. "Katherine died in childbed. And her child with her. May the gods have welcomed them into paradise. But my son is young yet and has plenty of time to sire an heir. I was older than he is now at his birth. So, I do not despair on that account. But I'll miss Kate. She was a lively young thing who brought some spring back to my life."

"You make it sound as if you are in your dotage," Eleanor said.

"I feel it," he said. "The only creaking my son hears from his body is the leather straps when he dons his armour. My joints plague me every morning and night. I'm an old man. I remember drinking and hunting with your father when we were younger than my son."

"If you keep on thus," she said, "you'll have me buying the russet for my mourning weeds for you. I wager, though, there's life enough yet for you to dance with me. Or should I escort you to a bench and press a restorative plaster against your brow?"

He chuckled. "There's every ounce of your father's liveliness in you. Did he ever tell you about the time we went with the old Earl Marshal into Iruland to challenge Prince Fulk and his followers on the tourney field?"

Eleanor dutifully counterfeited an interest in his tale of past glory while they danced. Most of her mind wondered where Riannon was, and how soon she could be rid of her guests.

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