LADY UNDAUNTED: A Medieval Romance

by Tamara Leigh

  She caught her breath. “You will return to Thornemede?”

  “Not this day, but I need to be away from here.” To think…to pray…to ensure fire did not rise again. “I shall return in a few hours.”

  She looked uncertain.

  “My word I give you,” he said, then released her and strode from the house into darkness that would soon know light.

  Ahmad left Ashlingford three days later, but Liam remained a sennight until Oliver recovered sufficiently to return to the castle and showed signs that with further healing he would be running about the keep again.

  “When will you go to court?” Joslyn asked as she walked beside Liam to where his men were mounted for the ride to Thornemede.

  He held his gaze to his men. “Never again, if I am so blessed.”

  “But surely the king will wish to meet with you to make right—”

  He halted, pulled her in front of him, and tilted her face up. “I have no business with Edward.”

  Joslyn frowned. “Of course you do.”

  “No business,” he said firmly. “Ashlingford is Oliver’s.”

  She stared at him. In all the days since Emma’s revelation, they had not spoken of it, and there had been no need. It was a given Liam would claim what was his, but now…

  She shook her head. “The barony is yours, not Oliver’s.”

  “I have Thornemede. I need no more.”

  He truly meant to hold only that barony that was but a shadow of Ashlingford? “But Thornemede is hardly—”

  “It will be, Joslyn. With good husbandry and time, it shall rise alongside Ashlingford.”

  Of course he would make it so, but that did not mean he should not also take what was his. “’Tis not right, Liam. This belongs to you.”

  The rising sun that flushed the sky with color cleared the shadows from his face, and he said, “The truth is best buried with Emma, and there I would have it remain.”

  His face blurred amid her tears. “You cannot.”

  He kissed her. “But I have. My beloved nephew, Oliver, will be lord of Ashlingford. And when next I come, God willing it will be for both of you.”

  “But if in the eyes of the Church we remain brother and sister, how can it ever be?”

  “With the aid of a friend, I pray.” He kissed her again, stepped around her, and mounted his destrier.

  As Joslyn watched him ride away, she added her prayers to his that he would find a way for them to be together.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  When the plague took its last victims and the people were freed of the terror that had gripped them for months, summer was upon the land.

  Though it was estimated Ashlingford had lost a quarter of its population and Thornemede somewhat less, they had won. Unlike other areas across the island kingdom, life more quickly moved toward its blessedly normal pace. The land produced, cattle were tended, and food was had for all.

  Liam had saved them from ruin.

  As Joslyn once more gave thanks, a voice called to her.

  Lifting her chin from her knees, she shifted her gaze from the workers in the fields to Oliver whose legs pumped vigorously as he climbed the knoll she had sat upon for what might have been one hour as easily as two.

  As he neared, she considered his flushed face. It was scarred from the boils Ahmad had opened. Though they had healed well and would continue to fade in the years to come, her beautiful boy would ever carry the marks that showed he was a survivor of the great sickness. And God be praised for that.

  He halted and propped his hands on his knees. “Uncle Liam is here!”

  She had only a moment to sigh over the loss of the sweet Unca he had outgrown before she was struck by what he said. Had Liam come for Oliver and her as was their hope? Was it possible?

  “And A-papa too.”

  She jumped to her feet. “Where are they?”

  “There.” Squinting, Oliver pointed into the sun.

  She shaded her eyes and saw three horsemen riding toward them. “Is your Uncle Richard with them?”

  “I think that’s his name.” Oliver had never met Joslyn’s brother.

  Painfully aware of the beat of her heart, she lifted her skirts, said, “Come, Oliver,” and ran down the knoll.

  Liam was the first to reach her. He swung out of the saddle, opened his arms to her, and held her close.

  Having not seen each other since he had left Ashlingford following Oliver’s recovery, they clung for as long as her son permitted. Not long enough.

  “You gonna marry now?” Oliver asked, eyes wide and hopeful.

  His question jarred Joslyn, but Liam did not appear discomfited. He slid his hand into hers and knelt before the little boy. “You would like that?”

  “Aye!”

  “Then we will do something about it.” He ruffled Oliver’s hair, straightened, and met Joslyn’s imploring gaze. “I have come for you, my lady.”

  She heard her father and brother rein in, but could not move her eyes from the man she loved. “Truly?”

  He grinned. “We shall wed.”

  The hope he would find a way had sustained her all these weeks, but hearing it spoken was like a dream. Beautifully unbelievable. “How?”

  He kissed her lightly. “I will tell all when we are alone. Now you must greet your father and brother.”

  Hours later, as she hugged Liam’s side in a chair before the fire in her chamber, he said, “Queen Philippa has given us aid.”

  “The queen?” she gasped.

  “Months ere the plague struck, I sent her a missive asking for assistance in obtaining a dispensation from the pope.”

  She had not known his feelings for her went that far back. It thrilled and touched her. “You have loved me a long time.”

  He trailed his fingers down her arm. “Not long enough.”

  His caress making her tremble, she said, “The pope agreed?”

  “He has issued a special dispensation to allow us to wed.”

  “But how? Are we not still brother and sister in the eyes of the Church?” Though what Emma had revealed proved they were further removed—cousins by marriage—still that truth remained buried.

  “The pope has decreed otherwise—for a price.”

  “Is it high?”

  “Not for what I shall have in return. But it shall take time to pay it.”

  “How long?”

  “Ten or more years.”

  “Ten!”

  “The pope wants an abbey at Belle Glen, and an abbey I shall build him.”

  Then Liam would pay dearly to wed her. “When did you receive the dispensation?”

  “A sennight past.”

  She blinked. “Why did you not come sooner?”

  “I would have, but I wished to collect your father and brother so they might be present when we speak vows.”

  Oh, how she loved this man! “I did not know I could be so happy, Liam.”

  “I did not know I could be so wrong.”

  She frowned. “Wrong?”

  “I believed all was lost.”

  “But all was found,” she said and, as ever, was awed by how far they had come from his ride upon Rosemoor…from their audience with the king…from that day on the balcony when he had said…

  She laughed. “You are sure I am more than sweet words, Liam? More than a kiss? A caress? That I am not only for the moment?”

  He crooked a finger beneath her chin. “Even then, before you thoroughly entwined my mind, body, and soul, you were more.” He lowered his head. “You, Joslyn, are for a lifetime.”

  EPILOGUE

  He hated the waiting. It made him feel like a young man too slowly approaching his wedding night. But that was what he did—waited for the din to subside so the promise made would be fulfilled. The promise of his bride.

  Liam pulled his regard from the revelers thronging Thornemede’s hall. With a sigh of his soul, he filled his gaze with the woman who sat beside him at the massive table whose construction Gunter
had overseen to ensure it endured the generations born of the two become one this day.

  Joslyn’s attention had been captured by her father and brother where they sat beside her. If not that she no longer swayed and tapped to the minstrels’ music and her hand in Liam’s had tensed, he would have thought she looked upon them with the usual pleasure over their reconciliation. Certes, this time she did so with concern.

  As evidenced by the goblet Humphrey held out to the woman bearing a pitcher, he wished more wine. As told by Richard’s shake of the head that sent the servant opposite, the son objected.

  Humphrey set the goblet heavily on the table and turned a deeply grooved brow upon the younger man who leaned near his father and spoke low.

  Remain true to your word, Humphrey, Liam silently counseled as he had forcefully—albeit discreetly—done a fortnight past when the two Reynards had heatedly argued over what Humphrey had named a harmless game of dice.

  Richard had been offended by Liam’s interference. But afterward, he had grudgingly thanked his future brother-in-law for ending the argument with as little ill will as possible.

  Blessedly, as now seen in Richard’s calm and Humphrey’s grudging grin, the crisis was past.

  Joslyn’s hand in Liam’s relaxed, and she turned her face to his, causing one of dozens of tiny pink rosebuds woven through her darkly gleaming tresses to tumble free. Appearing unsurprised to find her husband attended to the situation, she said, “I think they will make it work, that Richard will stay and father will learn moderation.”

  “I believe you are right.” Liam picked the rosebud from his thigh, put it to his nose, and breathed in the scent that would ever be hers. “Do you not think, dear wife, ’tis time we—”

  “I do.” Blushing the color of the rosebud, she said more restrainedly, “Day is done, night is come.”

  “Then we are of one mind.” He pushed the rosebud’s stem into the hinge of the brooch clasping his light mantle about his shoulders. “And shall soon be of one body.”

  It was hard to look away from her, she so enchanted him, but he turned his attention on the revelers whose celebration of their lord’s marriage was surely all the more joyous with the passing of the plague.

  He easily caught the eye of Father Warren, whom Joslyn had brought from Ashlingford to perform the wedding ceremony. The priest, appearing to have sought the Baron of Thornemede’s gaze for the same reason, answered Liam’s nod with his own and hastened to the hearth where a wave of his hand quieted the minstrels’ instruments.

  Excepting a group of children who continued to chatter and chase about, among them Oliver, Gertrude, and Emrys, the celebrants were soon silenced—an expectant silence amid which Meg gathered her ducklings and shushed them.

  Father Warren cleared his throat. “Now we have come to this day’s good end, all that is left is to put the bride to bed.”

  As good-natured murmurs and chuckles moved among the guests, Gunter shouted, “Our lord and lady be wed. To bed! To bed!”

  Others, including Sir John and Sir Hugh, who were seated on Liam’s left, quickly took up the refrain, “To bed! To bed!”

  Face brightening further, Joslyn eased her hand from Liam’s and rose, as did several women she had chosen to prepare her to receive her husband when he arrived in the company of his men who would see him properly slid beneath the sheets alongside his bride.

  Moved by Joslyn’s discomfort—and his own, though his was surely of a different nature—Liam stood. “Make haste, Father Warren! My wife and I follow.”

  The priest turned upon the stairs. “My lord, ’tis not for you to come to the solar until the bride is abed.”

  Liam looked to Joslyn, and thinking a man could warm all of himself in her amber eyes, said. “Wife?”

  She nodded. “Aye, we have waited long enough.”

  He swept her up into his arms, and she gasped with delight and curved an arm around his neck.

  “I need none to assist me in putting my bride to bed, Father Warren. Pray, go quick and see the chamber blessed.”

  As the priest hurriedly ascended the stairs, John clapped Liam on the shoulder. “Sons and daughters, my friend.” He beamed at Joslyn. “Sons and daughters.”

  Liam grinned, said, “We thank you, John,” and started forward.

  But Sir Hugh, recently elevated to keeper of Ashlingford so that great barony would not be without a lord the three weeks each month Liam and Joslyn resided at Thornemede, also had words for his friend. “Your father would rejoice in this day, my lord. As do I.”

  Liam imagined Montgomery Fawke here. Though thwarted in passing his title and lands to his beloved half-Irish son, he would approve of what Liam had made of the king’s crumbs—more, perhaps, that he had married for love.

  Liam inclined his head. “So my father would,” he said and carried his lady past her sire and brother.

  “To bed! To bed!” the chant resumed. And when he stepped from the dais, the gathered knights, men-at-arms, villagers, and castle folk made a path for them to the stairs.

  If not for the girl and two boys who were small enough to carve their own path among the revelers and intercept the groom and his bride at the center of the hall, Father Warren would have had little time to call down the Lord’s blessings.

  Gertrude, peering up at her uncle out of big, lash-fluttering eyes, said in a voice that barely carried over the revelers, “I told O’ver you are, but Emrys says you not.”

  Uncertain how to unravel that, Liam exchanged a questioning smile with Joslyn, then looked from Oliver who frowned so hard his eyebrows bumped, to the boy who was older by a year and a half. “What am I not, Emrys?”

  Also frowning, but out of a face less marked than Oliver’s by the death they had both been spared, Emrys propped his hands on his hips. “Oliver says you are his father, but you are his uncle the same as you are mine and Gertie’s.”

  And had been Michael’s, Liam sorrowfully reflected amid this day of joy. “That I am. But now that I have wed his mother, I am also his father.”

  The boy’s head rocked on his neck. “Both?”

  “’Tis rare, indeed, but it is so.”

  Oliver’s eyebrows parted ways, and he turned a smile on his brother. “Told you, Emrys. You don’t listen good.”

  The older boy shrugged his shoulders up to his ears and dropped them with a gusty breath.

  “Come, children!” Meg shouldered past those who had paused in urging the groom to hasten his bride to bed.

  Gertrude glanced at the woman, fluttered her lashes at Liam. “Can we play more ere we sleep, Uncle?”

  “That is for Meg to decide.”

  She pushed her lower lip out. “Then to bed.”

  “Not yet,” Meg singsonged and, as the children whooped, motioned them to follow her.

  “’Tis good Oliver’s brother and sister shall remain at Thornemede,” Joslyn said as Liam resumed his stride amid the chanting.

  When he had revealed his wish to keep Gertrude and Emrys, rather than find another home for Maynard’s children, he had worried Joslyn would not be comfortable with the arrangement, but she had assured him she would have it no other way, and her sincerity made him love her more.

  “It is good,” he agreed and mounted the torchlit stairs.

  When they reached the landing, Joslyn pressed a hand to his heart and said, “I yet marvel. Do you?”

  He halted two strides from the solar. “How can I not? Is it not Joslyn, wife of Liam Fawke, I hold? Joslyn, wife of Liam Fawke, with whom I shall be one? Joslyn, wife of Liam Fawke, I shall love all my days and nights?”

  Her smile had never been lovelier. “So ’tis, Liam, husband of Joslyn Fawke.”

  Resisting the temptation to be one with her here and now, he strode forward, and as he entered the solar, called, “I trust all has been blessed, Father Warren.”

  “Only just!” The priest came around the screen and, making much of his frown, said, “Now I shall stand this side whilst Lady Joslyn and yo
u quickly disrobe and get yourselves ’neath the sheet. Then I shall finish the blessing—”

  “We shall ourselves finish the blessing and give thanks.” Liam stepped past the man.

  “But my son—”

  “We thank you, Father, but I intend to slowly disrobe my wife. Beginning now.” Then Joslyn and he were on the other side of the screen with the great bed before them, listening for the patter of feet and the closing of the door. And there one was, then the other.

  Joslyn lifted her eyebrows. “So begin, Husband.”

  He lowered his head, covered her mouth with his, and kissed her slow and sweet. Then less so. Then ardently. Much too ardently.

  Lest they too soon find themselves abed, he drew back and, as she murmured her disappointment, set her to her feet. “I would savor you,” he said.

  “I wish you would not.” She leaned in and offered her well-kissed mouth.

  “You will see, my lady. More, you will feel.” He turned her, slid his hands over her back and in to her sides, and as he loosened her gown’s laces cross by cross, put his lips to the soft place between her neck and shoulder.

  “You tremble, Joslyn.”

  “So I do.” She turned her face toward his. “Not out of fear. Indeed, I am quite undaunted by what we shall make of this night.”

  “Then we shall make much of it.” Laces loosened on both sides, he set a hand to her right arm and drew it down her sumptuously buttoned sleeve to her wrist. Unhindered by his large, blunt fingers, he slipped the first button out of its loop, then the one above, and a dozen more, pausing once to raise her hand and kiss the inside of her wrist, pausing again to kiss the bend in her arm. Then he was done with the right sleeve. And in no more of a hurry to undo the left.

  The waiting, Joslyn inwardly bemoaned. Oh, the waiting. She might hate it if not that it was so achingly pleasant it made her shudder and sigh. But when her gown was sufficiently loosened to easily draw it off, still he did not do so. He stepped in front of her, took her face in his hands, and simply gazed upon her.

  She moistened her lips. “What do you, Liam?”

  “I marvel. Over my bride. My wife. My love.”