Read Sword of Justice (White Knight Series) for Free Online Page B

the fates of Seward and Rufus, he knew only what Drake knew. “You wouldn’t have done that to them. Or to Maynard.”
    “How generous of you.”
    “Drake,” he said on a hiccup. “You know I didn’t mean.”
    “Then it must have been Graham.”
    “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”
    Graham had been Drake’s closest friend since boyhood. They shared wine, women, and song; practical jokes and playful pranks; innermost desires and deep-seated hatreds. Graham didn’t have the meanness in him to castrate anyone.
    “I’ve been trying to track him down,” Stephen said, his voice fading. “He’s disappeared. No one has seen him since that day. Dead or alive. Whole or in pieces.” His eyes drifted closed; his head lolled to the side.
    Drake shook him awake. “What about the giant of the efficient seaman knots?”
    In a sleepy monotone, he said, “Baldric, I think his name was.”
    “He must be the one who killed Maynard and Rufus and left Seward for dead.”
    “Might have, but he wasn’t carrying your sword.” Like his twin, Stephen could be foolish, but also like his twin, he wasn’t a dolt. He observed what Drake had observed: the killing sword did not have a dragon etched on the blade.
    “Are you going to make it?”
    Stephen jerked at the sound of his brother’s voice and brushed sweat-soaked hair from his eyes. “All I need is some sleep.”
    “You won’t get it. You’re leaving after prime.”
    “Nay, you’re leaving after prime.” Stephen chortled with a spurt of mirth cut off by a twitch in his side and an accompanying moan. “Anything for my brother.”
    Drake took hold of his Stephen’s hand. The almandine cabochon—a twin to the ring stolen from Drake in the Twyford Castle dungeon—was missing.
    “Oh, that.” He let the hand drop to his side. “I lost it … misplaced it.”
    “Lost it gambling, you mean.”
    “Never could lie to you.”
    Drake gathered up the sword and bundle Stephen brought back with him. “It’ll be all over Winchester by morn that Stephen fitzAlan lost his pretty face in a drunken brawl with the town bully.”
    “And that he received his just desserts for being a fitzAlan.” Stephen laughed half-heartedly. Just as Drake reached the window, Stephen roused himself. “Wait. You promised.”
    “You’re forgiven,” Drake called out in a whisper and escaped from Nelda’s chamber the same way Stephen had reentered.

Chapter 5      
    A SINGLE FLAXEN BRAID DRAPED over one shoulder, Geneviève de Berneval was sitting on her haunches, her bare feet tucked beneath her and her back straight and proud. “Drake?” Her voice was hopeful yet laced with fear.
    Sunrise was an hour off, but the setting moon filled the sky with ample light to behold a willowy body adorned in a blue kirtle embossed against the indigo grotto. The secret aerie, hacked by nature into the hillside, was tucked behind a gentle waterfall. A single approach led straight up from the riverbed. When Drake stepped into the mouth of the cave, Jenna lifted azure eyes to his and studied his face.
    “Drake?” she said again. “Oh, Drake. I came every night. Hoping. Praying.” Moving with ease, she rose to her feet and sank into his waiting embrace. He gasped involuntarily. “You’re hurt.”
    “No longer.” He smiled to reassure her.
    They dropped onto the short-cropped grass. Craggy eaves of white granite enclosed them inside an enchanted dwelling, private and exclusively their own. She smelled of the night. The silver bobs in her ears tinkled whenever she moved. The entwined Celtic dragon she wore around her creamy neck settled into that tantalizing depression at the base of her throat. Fearful of what they might find, neither looked into the other’s face. Instead, they blindly groped to make sure the other was real.
    “I’ve heard stories,” she said. “They’re accusing you of the most horrible acts.”
    “None is true,” he said.
     “What will you do? Where will