Free When Love Awaits by Johanna Lindsey Page A

the arrogant girl.
    Leonie had only just finished her bath when Lady Amelia returned to inform her that her escort was ready to return her to Pershwick. This was so unexpected that Leonie was compelled to question it.
    “You are sure I am to go to Pershwick? So soon?”
    “It is the keep my lord mentioned, as you are familiar with it. No doubt he will supply you with what money you need, and perhaps he will appoint his own steward, but you should not be troubled by him there as long as you do not bring yourself to his attention. I assume that is as you would have it?”
    “Indeed! Oh, indeed, yes!”
    Leonie was stunned by this turn of luck, and hurried through her preparations as quickly as possible.
    Sir Guibert and Leonie’s men-at-arms were to be her escort. Guibert was alarmed when told what his first duty for the newly married Leonie would be. But seeing how eager she was to be gone from Crewel, he kept his doubts to himself. Then, too, he had heard that Rolfe d’Ambert was seldom in residence at Crewel, so he assumed the man wished to spare his wife being alone there. At Pershwick, she could be with people she knew.
    Guibert had also learned what Rolfe was about—a monumental feat, the taking of seven hostile keeps with only a small army. He wished him luck, but knew the job would not be finished quickly. He doubted hislady would see much of her husband the rest of this year.
     
    It was with some self-disgust that Rolfe found himself riding through the gate of Crewel at sunset, spurred on by a foolish eagerness to be with Leonie again.
    All of last night was not clear to him. His wound wasn’t bad, but he was hardly flattered to have received it. He did know that it had been a long time since he’d been so intrigued by a woman. No doubt the tension had had much to do with it, but it would do no harm to find out, would it?
    Disgust with his own boyish eagerness had much to do with his reaction when he found his wife was not there waiting for him. He simply turned around and returned to the siege of Wrothe Keep. Relief was partly why he did so. He did not chastise Amelia for overstepping her bounds. He had told her only that he would send his wife away, not instructed her to see to it for him. But Leonie’s absence was a good thing, for eventually he would have been disgusted with himself over his foolish desire to be with her. He certainly did not want the woman to know he desired her. He was not forgetting how spiteful she was.
    Several miles away, in Axeford Keep, where Sir Warren was temporary castellan for Rolfe, his wife, Lady Roese, was telling him how shocked she had been that morning when she saw Leonie d’Ambert’s face. Warren, who knew of his lord’s troubles with Pershwick, assumed correctly that the lady had resisted the marriage. It was a natural conclusion that if she had been beaten, it was her father who had done it.
    But Warren’s wife, who had been away visiting her family for several months, knew nothing of the Pershwick troubles. She knew little of Rolfe d’Ambert, either. Her husband liked him, but that spoke only of Sir Rolfe’s being a good overlord. It said nothing about his character. She knew only that Sir Rolfe had a hot temper, and she concluded that he had beaten his new wife. In her opinion, Lady Leonie had been married to a cruel man.
    Unfortunately, Sir Warren did not clear up the misunderstanding. He did no more than grunt when he was told Lady Leonie’s condition. In truth, he wasn’t really listening. His wife told the story the next day to Lady Bertha, who was staying in Axeford Town, and from there the story spread quickly.
    It did not take long for a firm debate to ensue, and many husbands and wives, as well as the serfs of Axeford, Kenil, Blythe, and Crewel argued the issue in the following weeks. The men knew their lord, and sided with him. The women did not know him, and they felt that men will always defend each other blindly and against all evidence, so they