Free Lancelot by Gwen Rowley Page A

of course, and many splendid jewels. I would be famed not only for my great beauty but for my countless acts of charity. Sainthood would, of course, have followed, but only after I’d lived to a great age and borne at least a dozen children.”
    Lancelot whistled softly. “Sainthood? Even I never aspired so high as that. But tell me, what happened to Lord Whosis?”
    “He did not wait. Alas, when my family vanished, he basely wed another.”
    “Churl. Shall I run him through?”
    “Would you?” She seemed to consider the matter, her head tipped to one side. “’Tis very kind, but you needn’t bother. I fancy he is gray and stout these days, no match at all for a knight of your undoubted caliber.”
    “But lady,” he said, “what I cannot understand—forgive me if this is an impertinence—is why you have not wed since.”
    “Can you really not?” Now her smile was mocking, though whether of herself or him he could not say. “Oh, come, sir, you know how it is.”
    Deepening her voice, she went on in a drawl—astonishingly accurate—affected by some of the younger knights at court. “Who is her father? Good. Her mother? That will do. What is her dowry?” Her lips twisted into a supercilious smirk, and one hand described a languid, flicking motion. “Quite. And will you introduce me to that other maiden now, the one with the squint and the three manors?”
    Lancelot, who had been sipping his wine, choked on his laughter. She obligingly pounded on his back, and when he was recovered, said, “I think I must be somewhat tipsy, sir, to talk to you like this.”
    “No, not at all. I have heard that sort of thing before—’tis only that I didn’t think the ladies were aware of it.”
    “Of course we are. Or do you subscribe to the common wisdom that females have no sense?”
    “At court,” he said, “it is generally accepted that a lady’s intelligence stands in direct proportion to her beauty. The plainest are reckoned to be clever, the fairest somewhat . . . less so.”
    “God giving with one hand and taking with the other, as it were.”
    “As it were,” he agreed. “Now, by such a measure, you, my lady,” he reached out and touched her cheek, “should by rights be little better than an imbecile.”
    She laughed, and the soft skin beneath his fingers took on a rosy hue. “Am I meant to be flattered or insulted?”
    “Mayhap the common wisdom is not altogether wrong,” he answered gravely. “Take all the time you need to work it out.”
    His hand drifted down to the soft hair hanging over her shoulder. He wound it around his hand and tugged her forward to look into her eyes. She went very still—the stillness of a hind that scents the hunter, of a dove beneath the shadow of the hawk. Yet she did not draw away.
    And Lancelot knew why. He knew precisely what he’d done. He had bought her trust with the coin of his own honesty, and she had repaid him with her friendship. It was precious to him, not only because there were few he had ever named a friend, but because he sensed it was not a gift she offered lightly. Let it rest here, and he had the hope of retaining that even when she learned his name. Go on takingadvantage of her ignorance, and he was the basest churl who’d ever lived.
    “Lady,” he said, hating himself yet powerless to stop, “to such as you, a dowry would be entirely superfluous.”
    His gaze drifted downward to her full pink lips, softly parted in surprise, and before he could stop to think of the terrible mistake he was about to make, he kissed her.

Chapter 11

    E LAINE had been kissed before. Once. At her cousin Alienor’s wedding feast—could it have only been last evening?—a knight had trapped her in a corner, grabbed her breast, and attempted to thrust his tongue down her throat. She had been at first revolted, then furiously angry as she jerked away and dealt him a stunning blow across the face. The experience was not one she had looked forward to