This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Enchanted by his captive!
The Lady of Striguil is fleeing from the tyrant who stole her birthright and threatens her still. Disguised as a nursemaid, Eva is horrified when her enemy’s handsome brother rides into her life, unveils her…and takes her captive!
The Count of Valkenborg is on a mission to fulfill his dying brother’s wish and return the runaway. But the warrior hasn’t counted on the battle Eva will spark between his duty and his growing desire for her…
Beneath the solid weight of Bruin’s hand, Eva shifted, sensing his distraction.
Did he realize how close he was standing? His knees bumped against hers, rustling her velvet skirts. She could see the individual stitches on his surcoat: satin stitch, chain stitch, making up one of the embroidered lions, the gold thread interspersed with blue. A labor of love.
A bolt of longing shot through her; earthy and visceral. Her mouth parted in a silent gasp, air pleating her chest. His nearness acted like a balm: soothing her frayed nerves, easing out the tension in her back. But in truth, it did far more than that. A kernel of need grew at the base of her belly, slowly at first, like a newborn fire, smoking and spitting, until it burst into flame, incandescent. A wild insanity ripped along her veins, a primal yearning that stretched every sinew in her body to near breaking point, vibrating and aware. If only she could lean into him, rest her head against his chest and squeeze him tight to her. And more.
Meriel Fuller lives in a quiet corner of rural Devon with her husband and two children. Her early career was in advertising, with a bit of creative writing on the side. Now, with a family to look after, writing has become her passion… A keen interest in literature, the arts and history, particularly the early medieval period, makes writing historical novels a pleasure.
Books by Meriel Fuller
Harlequin Historical
Conquest Bride
The Damsel’s Defiance
The Warrior’s Princess Bride
Captured by the Warrior
The Knight’s Fugitive Lady
Innocent’s Champion
Commanded by the French Duke
The Warrior’s Damsel in Distress
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The Warrior’s Damsel in Distress
MERIEL FULLER
To J. Now we are 50! xx
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
CHAPTER ONE
The Welsh Marches—January 1322
‘The day grows chill, my lady.’ Eva eyed the tall, slim woman at her side. ‘Shall we take the children inside now?’
With the sun sinking rapidly, she had climbed with Katherine up the gentle hill from the castle, watching her friend’s three young children laugh and scamper up to the edge of the forest, their woollen cloaks bright, vivid, against the dull winter colours. The ground was iron-hard on this north-facing slope. Untouched by the sun all day, frost clung to the long grass, white-fringed, lacy.
Breath emerging in visible puffs of air, the two women had paused at the point where the rough open grassland met the shadow of the overhanging trees, turning back to look down at the castle below. Their elevated position emphasised the castle’s dramatic location above the town: perched on a stony outcrop above the river, the jagged curtain wall was built directly on to the limestone cliffs. The low rays of the sun bathed the numerous turrets in a haze of orange and pink, transforming the river cutting through the densely wooded valley into a solid silver ribbon, a flat trail of light.
Katherine’s pale skin glowed with the exertion of the climb. She smiled. ‘Let’s stay out a bit longer, could we? It’s so beautiful up here.’ She tugged her fur-lined hood up over her silken veil and gold circlet, tucking gloved hands into the voluminous folds of her woollen cloak. She frowned at Eva’s thin threadbare gown. ‘Are you warm enough?’ Worry edged her voice.
Eva laughed, her blue eyes glowing, sapphires of light. ‘You must stop this, Katherine, remember? Stop showing concern for me. You must treat me as a servant, a nursemaid to your children, otherwise people will notice, start asking questions. And those people might talk and he will find out where I am.’ Her voice wavered and she chewed down on her bottom lip, hating the wave of vulnerability surging through her. ‘You must behave as if you care nothing for me.’
Behind them the fractious breeze stirred bare trees and a group of large black crows huddled forlornly on a swaying branch, wings folded inwards, brooding outlines silhouetted against the brilliant sky. And through the scrubby outline of trees, the slender curve of a moon appeared, milky white, almost invisible, transparent.
‘But I do care about you. You are my friend.’ Katherine’s voice trailed away miserably. ‘I find it so difficult, having to treat you like that, seeing you dressed like this…’ She glanced disparagingly at Eva’s garments: the coarse strip of linen that served both as a wimple and veil, covering her glossy chestnut hair and winding around her neck, the simple cut of her gown and under-dress, patched in numerous places, the apron tied around her slim waist. No cloak, no gloves. The only reminders of Eva’s past life were the good leather boots and fine woollen stockings hidden beneath her hemline.
‘I have no other choice. You know that,’ Eva whispered. The children raced around them in a circle, darting in and out of the women’s skirts, playing tag, shrieking with laughter as they snatched at each other’s clothes, then raced off again.
‘You will always be the Lady of Striguil to me, Eva. What that man did to you…’
Eva shook her head, hunching her shoulders forward. Her eyes filled with unexpected tears. ‘Please, don’t speak of it. I’m here now, thanks to you, and that’s all that matters.’ Shivering in the icy air, she wrapped her arms across her bosom, aware that the children had stopped running and were pointing at something on the distant ridge. A flash of light on the horizon, reflected by the sun. She took a deep, unsteady breath. Katherine’s words had kindled a rush of familiar panic, a surging terror that gripped at her heart, her throat. How long would it be? How long would it be before she could acknowledge what had happened to her without being reduced to a useless, quivering wreck? It had been a whole year now, yet the slightest reminder turned her to a stuttering idiot. She had to be braver, more stalwart, if she were ever to put those awful days behind her.
‘Horsemen,’ Katherine announced, following the children’s pointing fingers. ‘Heading this way.’ She dropped
her gaze, uninterested, retying the loose strings of her youngest daughter’s cloak.
Eva narrowed her eyes, bracing her feet wide on the icy hillside: a stance of mock courage. Her skirts swept around her, the biting wind pinning the fabric to her slim legs. Fear trickled through her belly, a chill runnel, as if her mind already knew what she was about to see. She focused on the black figures, advancing swiftly. Not horsemen. Knights. The dying sun bounced off their shields, their chainmail, forcing her to squint. Friend or foe, it was difficult to tell. But whoever they were, why were they here, in this remote corner of the Marches? Her terror grew, lodged in her throat, and her breath stalled.
‘There’s no other reason they would take that path,’ she stuttered out. ‘There’s nowhere else to go, but here. We need to go back. Now.’ Her voice emerged jerkily, low and urgent. ‘Come on, Katherine.’
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ Katherine rounded her brown eyes in astonishment. ‘Surely they’re only travellers, looking for somewhere to stay the night? They’ll find lodgings in the town.’
‘Maybe.’ Eva’s lips tightened warily. ‘Maybe not. King Edward has not stopped punishing the Marcher Lords who rebel against him. He is determined to quash them.’ Seizing the hands of the two youngest children, she began to stride purposefully down the hill, her generous hem whisking at the ice-covered grass to leave a long dark trail. If she and Katherine walked quickly they would be back within the castle walls before the knights arrived. The horsemen still had to make their way through the forests to the north of the castle and then pass through the soldiers on the town gate. Eva prayed this would delay them long enough for the castle guards to throw the bolts across the gates and keep them out.
Katherine ran to catch up with her, her cloak billowing out like a wing. ‘But they wouldn’t bother with me, surely?’ Doubt shadowed her features. ‘A widow, living alone with my three children? And my trusty nursemaid, of course.’ She squeezed Eva’s forearm. ‘The King has long since forgotten about me; he’s too busy fighting his battles.’
‘But you are his niece and therefore his responsibility. And you are the widow of a rebel lord. You hold the fortunes of three men: your father, your brother and your husband, God rest their souls. You are rich, Katherine, and therefore useful. Remember, I thought the same before Lord Steffen plucked me from my castle. I thought that I was safe.’
But Katherine failed to hear her. She seemed distracted, looking back up the slope. ‘Where’s Peter?’ Katherine’s oldest child had an annoying habit of scampering off and hiding at the most inconvenient times. ‘Where is he?’ Her voice rose, the note shrill and wavering.
‘Here, take these two.’ Eva handed Katherine her daughters, darting a concerned glance towards the figures on the far hillside, galloping at full pelt down from the ridge. Had they spotted them up here, colourful cloaks pinned against the drab-coloured grass? ‘Go now, run, and bolt the gates behind you. Don’t let those people in, whatever you do. I’ll find Peter.’
* * *
Dropping his reins on to the glossy neck of his destrier, Bruin, Count of Valkenborg, twisted his tall, lean body in the saddle and reached for the satchel strapped to his horse’s rump, extracting a leather water bottle. Sidling to a standstill, the huge animal pawed the ground impatiently, jerking its head upwards in irritation, iron bit rattling against enormous teeth. Bruin pulled off his helmet, giving it to a soldier riding alongside him, and pushed back his tight-fitting chainmail hood. Vigorous blond-red curls sprang outwards. He pushed one gauntleted hand through them, the icy air sifting against his sweating scalp. The leather glove rasped against his chin. There had been no chance to shave the short hairs from his face in these last few days of continual riding and now his beard glowed red, like the Viking beards of his ancestors. Dragging off his gauntlets, he slipped frozen hands through the chainmail openings across his palms to open his flagon.
‘Hell’s teeth!’ he murmured as he failed to undo the stopper. Clenching his fingers into his fist a couple of times, he encouraged the blood to run through his numb veins. ‘God, but it’s cold!’ Balancing the flagon on the saddle in front of him, he blew into his cupped hands, a hot gust of air, rubbing them together briskly.
Moving his horse alongside his companion, Gilbert, Earl of Banastre, laughed. ‘You, of all people, should be used to this kind of weather!’ With his face obscured by his helmet, his voice was muffled, an odd, hollow sound.
‘What, because I was born across the North Sea? It’s warmer over there, I swear. And definitely flatter.’ Bruin’s grey eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled, finally removing the stopper with his teeth. Tipping his head back, he gulped the water down with relish, wiping stray drops from his mouth with his chainmail sleeve, the silvery links glinting in the low sun. ‘Is Melyn much further?’ Tucking the bottle away, he rolled his shoulders forward, trying to relieve the strained muscles across his back. ‘We’ve been riding for a long time.’ He yawned.
Gilbert tipped up the visor of his helmet. He sighed. ‘The journey would have been a lot quicker if the rebels hadn’t burned all the bridges over the river.’ White hair straggled out from beneath his chainmail hood. The metallic links, a few flecked with rust, gripped the fleshy folds of his cheeks in a perfect constricting oval. He inclined his head to one side, a questioning look crossing his face. ‘But I’m surprised you, of all the knights, should volunteer to accompany me,’ he chortled. ‘Surely such a task is beneath a soldier of your calibre? That’s why the King decided to drag me out of my comfortable retirement and send me to escort Katherine de Montague. Why did you not travel north with Edward? Flush out more of the rebel barons?’
‘The King wanted me to go with him,’ Bruin replied, shrugging his massive shoulders. ‘Even offered me double the normal amount of gold.’ His eyes darkened, glittering pewter. ‘He’s pleased to have me back after…’ A muscle flexed in his jaw.
‘After your year adrift with Lord Despenser.’ Gilbert threw him a brief smile.
Bruin scowled. ‘I swear you have the ability to make even the most awful things in life sound good. I was a mercenary, outside the law. Raiding and plundering merchant ships in the Channel.’ His mouth tightened, a wave of guilt coursing through him. ‘I was out of control after Sophie’s death and well you know it, Gilbert. I’m not proud of what I’ve done.’
Gilbert’s eyes flicked over to his younger companion, startled by his blunt admission, the raw desperation in his voice. He had heard that Bruin blamed himself for her death. ‘But the King has brought back Lord Despenser out of exile and forgiven him, just as he has forgiven you.’ Anxious not to dwell on the subject, Gilbert pushed at Bruin’s shoulder with a rounded fist, a friendly gesture. ‘It’s good to have you back, even if it is just to help me escort Lady Katherine and her children.’
‘I came with you for another reason. When my brother heard where you were going, he asked me to accompany you.’ Bruin paused. ‘He wants me to find someone for him.’ Staring out into the lattice of pine trees that clustered each side of the track, his grey eyes adopted a bleak, wintry hue. ‘Steffen seems intent on righting past wrongs, absolving himself of all his sins. He’s dying, Gilbert.’ His voice held little emotion, for he and his brother had never been close. Stronger at birth, Steffen had always been his parents’ favourite and indulged as such. Spoiled. As a sickly child, nobody expected Bruin to survive. But he had survived, and when he started to become well regarded for his prowess on the battlefield, drawing congratulations from all around, Steffen’s spoiled character seemed to spiral out of control, developing into a deep resentment towards Bruin. He wanted the accolades for himself.
‘I am sorry.’ The older man drew his grizzled brows together. ‘I forgot that you saw your brother at Deorham. He sustained a wound from the Battle of Durfield, I hear?’
Bruin shook his head to clear the memories clouding his mind. He sighed. ‘Yes,
a head wound. It’s a bad one.’ He remembered the ragged gash above his brother’s ear, blood congealing in the blond-red strands of his hair. ‘The physician doesn’t expect him to survive much longer. I only hope I can find this woman before—well, in time.’ He kneaded idly at the bulk of his thigh, leg muscles bunched and heavy beneath the fawn wool of his leggings. A wave of guilt passed through him. How churlish of him to dwell on their troubled relationship. His brother was dying.
‘Someone he loved?’
‘I’m not certain. Maybe.’ Bruin frowned, a defined crease appearing between his copper-coloured brows. After their years apart, seeing Steffen again had been a shock. Racked with fever, his brother had thrown him a thin, wan smile from his sick bed. Scrabbling at Bruin’s arm, eyes rolling wildly, Steffen had begged his brother to find this woman to ease his troubled mind, to find peace in death. He talked of her dark brown hair, her blue eyes. He also talked strangely, incoherently, about a butterfly, the mark of a butterfly. And he had given him a name: the Lady of Striguil.
* * *
‘Peter, where are you?’ Eva called quietly. A drift of frost-coated leaves littered the twisting track through the woodland. Her feet crunched through them, purposefully. Wrapping her arms around her chest, she stopped for a moment, listening intently. Her face was rigid with cold, cheek muscles stiff, inflexible; the tip of her nose was numb. Where was the boy? Was he watching her from a hiding place, a smug smile pinned on his face as he heard her calling? The sun was dropping quickly now; soon it would be dusk and he would be much more difficult to find.
She hoped Katherine had reached the safety of the castle by now. A great shudder seized her body, catching her by surprise. The sight of those soldiers in the distance, the sun bouncing against swords and shields, aggressive and intimidating, danced across her vision, taunting her. She hugged her arms about her waist, clamping down on another wave of fear. Katherine was probably correct; they were men looking for bed and board for the night, nothing more.
Marriage Deal With the Outlaw & the Warrior's Damsel in Distress & the Knight's Scarred Maiden : Harlequin Historical August 2017 (9781488021640) Page 23