"Surely you do not fear she will be unfaithful? This girl was raised in a convent, man. She could not have learned the lying, cheating ways of a woman raised at court."
Aric was silent for a moment, then shifted his position at the table and murmured, "Do you recall my cousin, Clothilde?"
"Clothilde?" He thought briefly, then laughed. "Oh, aye. The girl whose mother would not allow her sweets, lest she grow in size, or lose all her teeth ere she married."
Aric grimaced. "Not a single sweet passed her lips ere her marriage, but they had a great tray of them at her wedding feast."
"Aye." Robert laughed again as he recalled the event. "She quite liked sweets once she tried them. As I recall, she nearly ate the whole tray all on her own."
"She still likes them. Perhaps more so because she was deprived of them for so long. In the two years since her marriage, she has grown to six times her original size. She has lost three teeth at last count."
Robert winced. "Do not tell me you fear your wife will grow overlarge and lose her teeth?"
Aric rolled his eyes, then sighed. "What is missing in a convent?"
"Well, I realize they can be strict in these places, but I am sure they have an occasional sweet or--"
"Forget the blasted sweets!" Aric snapped. "Men. Men are missing in convents."
"Aye, well, but that is the very reason behind their existence and--Oh!" A chagrined look on his face, he shook his head. "I think I see. You fear that having been deprived of the company of men all these years, your wife soon will find herself overly fond of their company."
Aric muttered under his breath and turned away with mild disgust at the length of time it had taken to get his point across. Surely his friend had not always been so dense?
"Aric. Friend. Do not allow Delia's behavior to color your views. She was raised by her uncle, Lord Stratham, the most notorious reprobate in the land."
"Yet my mother was not."
"Ah." Robert sighed.
"She was raised most strictly."
"Yes, but--"
"And she could not contain her passions."
Robert shook his head. "I can see you will not be easily reassured, but 'tis not as bad as all that. If you fear she will become overfond of the company of men, you merely have to keep her away from court. Keep her in the country, where the only men she may meet are peasants and serfs. Surely she was brought up with enough sense not to dally with one of them." He clapped his friend on the back encouragingly.
"Oh, aye. The king would most likely be very pleased should he never see his daughter again," Aric muttered. Robert frowned.
"Oh, there is that. He will most likely wish her at court on occasion."
"Most likely," Aric agreed dryly.
"He appears to hold great affection for her." Robert's frown deepened as he thought on that. "That could be a problem, could it not? Jesu! A king for a father-in-law," he marveled in horror as he realized the full significance of it. "Should you not make her happy, he might have you drawn and quartered. What a spot to be in!"
"Robert."
"Aye?"
"Stop trying to make me feel better."
Rosamunde's fretting ended abruptly at the opening of the door. Sighing, she pushed herself to a sitting position as Sister Eustice reentered with the gown she had fetched lying carefully over her arm.
"The creases are all gone, fortunately enough," the nun informed her and started to push the cell door closed, but paused when the abbess's voice sounded in the hallway. By the time Adela arrived at the door, both Rosamunde and Eustice were waiting curiously. Adela took one look at Rosamunde's expression and hurried forward.
"Oh, my dear child," she murmured soothingly, seating herself on the cot beside the girl. She embraced her briefly. "All will be well. You will see. God has a special path for you to follow and you must trust in him."
"Aye, 'tis what Sister Eustice said," Rosamunde whispered as tears welled in her eyes. Oddly enough, the small droplets of liquid had not threatened until the very moment that the abbess offered comfort. It had always been that way. While both Eustice and the abbess had taken the place of her mother on that beautiful woman's death, it was the abbess to whom Rosamunde had turned to bandage her banged-up knees and soothe her hurts. And it never failed that Rosamunde could stand absolutely anything with a stiff upper lip and grim smile until the abbess came around; at the first sight of Adela's kind face, though, she always broke down.
"Oh, now. Shh, my child. Do not cry. You must have faith in the Lord. He chose this path for you. Surely there is a reason."
"I am not crying out of fear of what is to come. Well . . ." she corrected honestly, "mostly I am not. Mostly I am crying for what is ending."
Bewildered, the abbess shook her head slightly. "What is ending?"
"I will have to leave you all, the only family I have ever known. Aside from my father," she added loyally.
Eustice and Adela shared a dismayed look, their own eyes filling with tears at the realization. They had been too distracted to consider that truth.
"Well . . ." Sister Eustice glanced desperately around, everywhere but at the young woman who had been her student in the stables since being a small child--young Rosamunde had latched onto Eustice's voluminous skirts and trailed after her the moment she had gained her feet and been able to walk. The nun had taught her everything she knew, and the look on Eustice's face conveyed her misery at their separation.
"Aye," Adela murmured unhappily, her own watery gaze on the floor. She had been taken with Rosamunde from her birth. The baby's red curls and sweet smile had melted her heart as nothing else ever had. Contrary to tradition, she herself had overseen the girl's lessons in the schoolroom. She had spent hour after hour feeding the child's expanding mind, encouraging patience, and curbing the temper that seemed always to come with redheads. The rewards for her effort had been great. Rosamunde was everything she had ever wanted in a daughter. With a grimace of pain, the abbess rose to her feet.
"Every bird must leave the nest one day," she said practically. She moved to the door, only to pause and glance back uncertainly. "I never thought you would leave us, Rosamunde. I was not warned." Adela sighed unhappily. "Thinking you would not need the knowledge, there was much I neglected to teach you about marriage and the marital bed."
"The marital bed?" Rosamunde frowned worriedly as she noted the sudden stain of embarrassment on the older woman's cheeks.
The abbess stared at her, at a loss for a moment, then turned abruptly away. "Sister Eustice shall enlighten you," she said abruptly. She started to slip out of the room, then paused to add, "But quickly, sister. The king is most impatient to have this business done."
The door closed, leaving Eustice staring at it in stupefaction.
About the Author
LYNSAY SANDS is the nationally bestselling author of the Argeneau/Rogue Hunter vampire series, as well as numerous historicals and anthologies. She's been writing since grade school and considers herself incredibly lucky to be able to make a career out of it. Her hope is that readers can get away from their everyday stress through her stories, and if there are occasional uncontrollable fits of laughter, that's just a big bonus.
Please visit her on the web at www.lynsaysands.net.
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By Lynsay Sands
ABOUT A VAMPIRE
THE IMMORTAL WHO LOVED ME
VAMPIRE MOST WANTED
ONE LUCKY VAMPIRE
IMMORTAL EVER AFTER
THE LADY IS A VAMP
UNDER A VAMPIRE MOON
THE RELUCTANT VAMPIRE
HUNGRY FOR YOU
BORN TO BITE
THE RENEGADE HUNTER
THE IMMORTAL HUNTER
THE ROGUE HUNTER
VAMPIRE, INTERRUPTED
VAMPIRES ARE FOREVER
THE ACCIDENTAL VAMPIRE
BITE ME IF YOU CAN
A BITE TO REMEMBER
A QUICK BITE
TALL, DARK & HUNGRY
SINGLE WHITE VAMPIRE
LOVE BITES
THE HIGHLANDER TAKES A BRIDE
TO MARRY A SCOTTISH LAIRD
AN ENGLISH BRIDE IN SCOTLAND
THE HUSBAND HUNT
THE HEIRESS
THE COUNTESS
THE HELLION AND THE HIGHLANDER
TAMING THE HIGHLAND BRIDE
DEVIL OF THE HIGHLANDS
THE LOVING DAYLIGHTS
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from Always copyright (c) 2000 by Lynsay Sands.
ABOUT A VAMPIRE. Copyright (c) 2015 by Lynsay Sands. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition OCTOBER 2015 ISBN: 9780062316035
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062316028
FIRST EDITION
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Lynsay Sands, About a Vampire
(Series: Argeneau # 22)
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