In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,21

would simply stand by and do nothing while he raised the Pembroke lions over the battlements of Deheubarth …

Dafydd almost chuckled to himself. Indeed, it would be his pleasure to escort Lady Ariel to Normandy and plead his brother’s case to the Marshal of England. It would be equally pleasurable to bring back an echo of the lion’s laughter, or, should the heavens split open and gold florins fall from the sky, to bring him back his new bride and stand aside while Rhys and Llywellyn fought each other over possession of Gwynedd.

For with any luck at all, they would kill each other and he would be free of them both.

Château D’Amboise, Touraine

Chapter 3

It was the blade of sunlight that disturbed him. A single bright beam of light had found a narrow chink between the wooden shutters and had crept slowly across the width of the bed, stroking a path of lazy warmth across the faces of the two recuperating occupants.

The first had tiny beads of dampness glistening on her brow and throat. She looked and, indeed, was utterly drained and depleted by the activities of the hour preceding her collapse. The raw potency of the energies she had expended softened the lines of her face and showed in the swollen redness of her lips. The mottled pinkness across her breasts and belly kept her warm and scorned the need for any covering or blanket.

She dozed with her head cradled on a muscular shoulder, her body curved against another of immensely powerful proportions. A soft white arm was flung limply across a chest thickened and plated by years of wielding heavy swords and lances; a pale limb was hooked over a thigh that might have been carved from marble. The hand of her companion was broad and callused, and rested in the tangled, damp nest of her hair; another cupped the plump white flesh of her rump and periodically moved through a stretch or a vague restlessness to pull her softness against him.

The blade of sunlight spilled its liquid gold over the man’s strong, square jaw, lighting a mouth that had, until a sennight ago, been issuing battle orders and shouting words of encouragement to fellow knights as they fought a bloody melee with King Philip’s army at Blois. The rout had been a complete success, but the knight had been wounded slightly in the crush of steel and armour, and the ragged cut on his arm still glowed an angry red between the barber’s row of knotted threads.

It was only a trifling wound and the memory of earning it had probably already been lost amongst the scores of other scars, some big, some small, that marked the powerful musculature of his body. One of the cruelest scars he bore disfigured his left cheek. It was not so hideous as to make a maid faint outright from the sight, but it was shocking enough to draw stares and sighs of pity, for without the flaw, he would have been handsome enough to leave women swooning and gawking for very different reasons.

It was just as well, though, for he had little time or interest to spare on women. He liked them well enough and used them often enough to bolster his reputation for being more than just a champion in the lists. For the most part, however, he preferred to release his tensions on the battlefield or the practice yards, leaving the wenching and whoring to those who thrived on it.

At twenty-six, he was in his prime as a fighting man and to his credit had amassed a respectable personal fortune on the tournament circuit, winning prizes of armour and horseflesh from his defeated opponents, then ransoming them back for double their original worth. He had never suffered the ignominy of a loss himself. He could, in fact, boast of being split from a saddle by only one man—coincidentally the only man who could have won a rueful smile as a result of the ungallant tumbling. That man was his father, Randwulf de la Seyne Sur Mer, Baron d’Amboise, Scourge of Mirebeau, champion to the dowager queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

The sunlight continued to pour its golden heat across the thick crescents of chestnut lashes and Eduard FitzRandwulf d’Amboise was forced to open them. He squinted up into the brilliant shaft and the smokey gray of his eyes was seared almost colourless. His annoyance brought a muffled curse to his lips and he turned, pressing a kiss into the crown of the