The Wife Test by Betina Krahn

Author:Betina Krahn
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Medieval
Publisher: 0
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

The once tranquil glade was nothing short of a disaster. The entire area had been flattened … the bushes, the wrecked table, the stools and blankets … and covered with food, broken crockery, and scattered serving vessels and baskets. Nearer the stream, several of the kitchen helpers were frantically beating out the last of the flames caused by the overturned braziers, inadvertently fanning the smell of charred vegetation everywhere.

Onlookers, kitchen helpers, and the bridal delegation were coming down from their roosts looking a bit stunned. A number of horses were running nervously about the field while their riders—including Lord William and Sir Jaxton—gave chase. Averting his eyes with a groan, Hugh spotted someone lying a distance away under a tree with one of the maids by his side. He ran to see who was hurt, and Chloe and Graham quickly followed.

It was Lord Simon and Helen. She related that the earl had been moving their mounts out of harm’s way when one reared and came down on his foot. She had seen it happen and, as soon as the boar and hounds disappeared, ran to help him. She was holding his hand, stroking it, looking at him with undisguised admiration. Despite his pain, Simon seemed to be returning that sentiment. Hugh looked away in annoyance.

“I think we’re finished here,” he declared. “Graham, get everyone mounted up.”

The bridal delegation straggled back to Windsor behind their audience, who rushed back to the castle to spread the tale of what had happened. Hugh brought up the rear, watching Graham being cornered by Lisette, Simon being attended earnestly by Helen, and William and Jaxton riding protectively alongside Margarete and Alaina.

He felt strangely dislocated … removed from his usual reactions … as if his interior landmarks had somehow been uprooted. And he only had to glance a bit ahead and to his left, where Chloe rode, to understand why.

He had vowed to keep his distance, to remain detached and aloof from this wife test nonsense and especially from her, but each time he tried to remove himself, the king or fate or happenstance conspired to force him back into the thick of it. Back into contact with her.

Just now he had remained coolheaded and rational in the midst of the chaos, until he saw the boar headed for her. His entire world had narrowed abruptly to a curvy little body and a freckle-prone face that of late had become part of his mental landscape. Seeing her in danger, he had launched himself over a rampaging boar and risked life and limb—

He’d have done the same for any of the maids, he told himself. And that was probably even true. But he wouldn’t have felt as if his own life depended on saving any of the others. And afterward he would never have touched their hair or face, or felt such consuming relief doing so. And he sure as hell wouldn’t have come within a hair’s breadth of kissing any of the others.

God and the

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