Free The Hidden Heart by Sharon Schulze Page A

harm your chances of making a decent marriage, although with a dowry such as yours, combined with your beauty, I doubt most men would care.”
    Gillian drew in a gasp of air and, knife upraised, snatched her skirts into her free hand and charged after him. “Whoreson knave,” she growled, stalking him as he backed through the trees toward his mount. “Get you gone, else I’ll gut you where you stand.”
    He believed her threat, it seemed, for he spun on his heel and leapt into the saddle. “Let me know if you change your mind, milady,” he called, gathering the reins and nudging the stallion into motion. “At any time.”
    She gave a scream of outrage and let the dagger fly, sending it to land, quivering like her shaking limbs, in the thick tree trunk near where they’d kissed.
    Though she knew ’twas foolish, she watched him guide his mount through the trees, listened to the hoofbeats fade away, before she roused herself to motion. Not until she knew he’d gone beyond her reach did she dare to relax her guard.
    Then, her thundering heart the only sign of her anger and pain, she gathered her disordered locks together and began to fashion them into a neat braid.
    No one must know, she reminded herself. Not only that she and her servants knew Rannulf, but especially all that had happened between them.
    In both the past and the present.
    She settled her veil on her hair, then tugged the dagger free and slid it into its sheath.
    She picked up her basket and set off for the track back to I’Eau Clair.
    Her step faltered when she walked past her father’s grave, and she paused to say a prayer. He’d never have suspected the kind of man Rannulf had become, she thought as Rannulf’s parting words echoed in her mind. She knelt beside the grave and laid her hand atop the tender grass, then dashed a traitorous tear from her cheek. He’d never have offered her to Rannulf otherwise, she knew. What had gone through his mind when he’d received the betrothal agreement, with its detestable message, back from Rannulf? Often these past few weeks she’d wondered why her father hadn’t told her what he’d done. Perhaps he’d sought to spare her the pain he knew she’d suffer if she knew how Rannulf had responded to the offer of her hand.
    â€™Twas no use thinking of what she’d lost yet again, although with Rannulf there as a constant reminder, how could she ever forget?

Chapter Seven
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    R annulf stood on the battlements and observed Gillian’s progress. He’d spurred his mount hard so he might avoid her as she headed back, yet he felt compelled to watch over her, If only from afar. A stiff breeze tugged at his hair and whipped his tunic snug against his body, but it could not scour away the sickness roiling in his belly and stabbing at his heart over his cruelty to Gillian.
    He greatly feared ‘twas beyond him to maintain that pose for long, so he’d taken the cowardly way and run from her. The blade she’d brandished nigh in his face had not threatened him—by the rood, he’d permit her to have at him with her sword, knowing full well she might spit him with it—if he thought ’twould help promote his ruse.
    But after holding her in his arms, ’twas almost beyond him to let her go.
    He saw her pause near a grave in the fields alongside the path to the castle—her father’s, perhaps?—drop to her knees beside it and reach out to place her hand on the mounded soil.
    Lord Simon de I’Eau Clair. An honorable man, decent and true, who had never done him ill. Who had made him welcome here. A far better man than his own sire, he thought bitterly—in every way.
    And what had Rannulf done to repay Lord Simon, when he offered Rannulf his greatest treasure, his daughter’s hand? It shamed him to recall how he’d repaid his generosity, for not only had he refused his gift, but