Free The Wife Test by Betina Krahn Page A

stead.”
    “Perhaps the exchange will offer hidden benefits,” Lisette intoned, lifting one tights-clad leg to study in the moonlight. “We’ll all be caring for husbands and their garments soon. What better way to learn about men than to spend a bit of time in their tights?”
    Chloe stared at her, and then at the others, who apparently hadn’t caught her double meaning. She was going to have to keep a closer eye on Lisette.
    “I can think of better ways,” Helen declared, contorting an arm around her back to scratch. “Watching them in a tournament, for one.”
    “Dining with them at celebrations and on feast days, for another.” Alaina pushed up her sleeves and scratched all the way to her shoulders.
    “Walking with them,” Margarete added, scratching her lower half.
    “Oooh … in the dark,” Lisette said eagerly, rolling up onto her knees. “Where they can steal kisses that take your breath away.”
    When Chloe turned to look, Lisette was smiling in a way that seemed somehow prim and mischievous at the same time. Walking in the dark with a man was one of the things specifically forbidden in the Sisters’ teachings on virtuous conduct. It was considered an invitation to—
    Her breath stopped. She’d just sampled a variety of “walking in the dark.” If they hadn’t been interrupted … the thought staggered her … would Sir Hugh have kissed her? If he’d been about to kiss her, he couldn’t find her that repugnant or objectionable. And if he didn’t find her so objectionable …
    Her reasoning stood every test of sense and logic she could put to it. Her heart began to beat again. It was suddenly as clear as rainwater: his hostility toward her had more to do with
him
than with
her.
    “Try to get some rest,” she told the others. “We have a long day ahead. But with Heaven’s help, tomorrow night we’ll be aboard ship, out of danger, and back in our own garments.”
    As she settled amongst the others, on hard wooden crates and barrels beneath itchy woolen blankets, she heard Alaina’s determined muttering.
    “Not without a bath, I won’t.”
     
    A predawn mist settled over the camp, curling white and thick in low areas, covering blankets, shields, and helmets with dew. By the time the sky had begun to gray with first light, the moisture had softened the long grasses around the camp enough to keep them from rustling a warning to the men dozing in groups on the ground around the circle of wagons. Even the two sentries posted in nearby trees had been lulled by the chill and the stillness into a state of reduced awareness. The faint swish of sodden grass and the moisture-muffled snap of small twigs underfoot were all but lost in the heavy morning air. The brigands were halfway through their camp before they were even spotted.
    It was the soft, metallic “chink” of mail meeting plate armor that made one of the men sleeping near the wagons raise his head. He saw a man in ragged clothes signaling with an arm movement that repeated that all-too-familiar sound. Then came a muffled but unmistakable cry from the direction of the Sisters’ tent, at the same instant someone on the far side of the camp raised an alarm. He was on his feet in the next instant, reaching for his weapon and shouting to his fellows of the attack.
    The invaders abandoned all attempts at stealth to slash and rip back the felt covering of the women’s tent. They poured inside, grabbed the habit-clad figures, and hoisted them—albeit, with some difficulty—over their armor-clad shoulders. As the men bearing the “maidens” staggered toward the trees, the others formed a tightening phalanx at their rear, fighting off Sir Hugh’s contingent while retreating strategically toward the forest. A few of their number fell, but most closed ranks and battled on as their comrades fled with their substantial prizes.
    Hidden in one of the baggage wagons, Chloe and the others clutched each other and listened with anxious relief as the