Free A Dark Champion by Kinley MacGregor Page B

rather was his past coming back to claim him.
    Stryder took the note from her and placed it on his desk. “Please don’t mention this to anyone.”
    “You intend to keep your Brotherhood secret?”
    “Aye. No one needs know who among us were there and what we were forced to do to survive. We’ve all struggled hard to regain the lives and dignity that were taken from us.”
    She inclined her head toward him as if she understood exactly what he meant. “I shall keep your secret, Stryder. Always.”
    She started for the door.
    “Rowena?”
    She paused at his voice.
    “In the future, the best time to approach me for lessons is after we sup.”
    She nodded and offered him a small, almost fragile smile that played havoc with his insides…and his groin. “Then I shall see you tonight, milord. I prithee that you find no more trouble between now and then.”
    One corner of his mouth lifted in wry humor. “We shall see what the day holds, shall we not?”
    Rowena nodded in agreement. They would indeed.
    Gathering her skirts, she swept from his tent, past the four knights who traveled with Stryder. The small group of men paused outside the tent to stare in herwake while she made her way back to her rooms in the castle.
    It didn’t take long to return to her chambers inside the cool safety of the donjon’s whitewashed walls.
    The last thing Rowena expected was to find her women gathered together in her solar. Already word of Cyril’s death and Stryder’s possible part in it had reached them.
    “What are we to do?” Bridget asked as Rowena’s ladies-in-waiting huddled in the center of the room like a small flock of chickens. Bridget was a short woman who possessed jet-black hair and a small, willowy frame. “If Lord Stryder is convicted—”
    “I shall never marry,” Marian whined. Barely a year older than Rowena, Marian held light blond hair and a lush, round body that got the lady into plenty of compromising positions whenever a handsome man came near. “We’ll all be forced back to Sussex!”
    “Nay,” Joanne said, her voice every bit as upset. “I cannot abide another milksop man coming to me and singing odes to my thighs and neck as if I’m nothing more than a succulent hen.”
    Bridget patted her comfortingly on her back. “Have no fear, Joanne. We will not go back to Sussex, nor will Lord Stryder perish. We shall find the one responsible and hang him ourselves.”
    “What is this?” Rowena asked.
    Her ladies-in-waiting immediately broke apart. They looked about as if they were guilty of some crime.
    “What is what, milady?” Joanne asked, feigning innocence.
    Rowena looked at each one of them in turn. “What have you planned?”
    “We’re going to find Cyril’s killer,” Bridget announced proudly.
    “We’ll have to be devious,” Marian chimed in. “Ply men with…drinks and our wiles. But I think we are up to the challenge.”
    The others nodded in ready agreement.
    It was all Rowena could do to not roll her eyes as visions of her companions in trouble flashed through her mind. No wonder her uncle kept them secluded in Sussex. The whole lot of them, while tender-hearted, were ever ready to seduce any man who came near them. “You would do all this for Lord Stryder?”
    Marian nodded. “Well, aye. He must be proven innocent.”
    “And why is that?” Rowena asked.
    “So that you can marry him,” Joanne said simply.
    Rowena cocked her head at that. “I thought you wanted to marry him.”
    “Well, aye, I do, or did, but now that the king has chosen you for his bride we’ve been—”
    Bridget cut her words off with a sharp elbow to her side.
    “Ow!” Joanne snapped.
    Rowena folded her arms over her chest as a bad feeling went through her. “You’ve been what?”
    “You might as well tell her,” Elizabeth spoke up from Joanne’s right. “It’s not like she won’t figure it out.”
    Marian sighed. “Well, we’ve been talking. You and your uncle keep us sequestered in Sussex