Dark Deceptions

by Christi Caldwell

  “Dust from the stone,” Romney told him. “Father is building house for the soldiers and this is the dust from the white stone.”

  Gart inspected it a moment longer before wiping it on his tunic. His gaze moved to the youngest, who was no longer crying but still rubbing his head.

  “Had you not attacked me, you would not have hurt your head,” he was looking at the smallest boy but lecturing all three. “Does your father know what you are doing?”

  Romney lifted his shoulders, for the first time losing some of his confidence. “He does not care,” he said. “Will you give me your money or will I have to fight you to the death?”

  Gart bit his lip to keep his smile from breaking loose. “Are you sure you want to fight me to the death?”

  “I am sure.”

  “I do not have any money on me.”

  Romney’s fair brow furrowed and he looked to his brothers with uncertainty. “Well,” he said reluctantly. “We will wait until you return for it. Come back with your money.”

  “I will not,” Gart said flatly. “Why do you want my money, anyway?”

  “Because,” Romney said. “We want to buy nice things for my mother and sister.”

  Gart scratched his head. “Your mother and sister?” he repeated. “Surely they have enough nice things.”

  Romney shrugged. “It makes them happy. When Mother is crying, it will make her stop.”

  Gart scratched at his chin again, a little puzzled at the last sentence but he didn’t pursue it.

  “I see,” he said. “I am afraid that I am going to disappoint you, your mother and your sister. You will have to get your ill-gotten gains somewhere else.”

  Romney didn’t like that answer at all. It was clear he wasn’t used to having his wishes denied. Gart eyed the children one more time before turning for the stairs and the three were on him in an instant with their fists and sticks. Gart rolled his eyes with frustration as he grabbed Romney by the arm and twisted it behind his back. Romney screamed and the other two lads stopped their onslaught.

  “Oww!” Romney howled. “You are hurting me!”

  Gart lifted an eyebrow. “I am getting tired of being attacked simply because I walked in to this keep,” he said in a low voice. “If you promise to cease your assault, I will let you go. Otherwise, I will bind all three of you and toss you into a closet.”

  Before the boy could reply, they heard a voice from the floor above. It was a female voice, soft and sweet, and soon the swish of a voluminous surcoat could be seen and heard. Great yards of crimson fabric descended the stairs, calling for Romney and Orin. As Gart stood there with Romney’s arm twisted behind his back, a vision in red appeared.

  “Romney!” the woman gasped. “What has happened? Are you injured?”

  Gart stared at the woman in surprise, although his stone-like features did not give him away. He was actually stunned speechless for a moment as a vision from his past made an unexpected appearance. Although it had been years since had had last seen her, there was no mistaking the ethereal beauty. There wasn’t anything like it anywhere else in England.

  “Emberley?” he asked hesitantly. “Emberley de Russe?”

  The Lady Emberley de Russe de Moyon came to a halt when she heard her name, staring at the enormous knight with shock and some fear. He had her son by the arm and the child was in obvious pain, but as she gazed at the man, he began to look vaguely familiar.

  From the mists of her memories emerged the face as a very young man, someone her brother had been friends with. She had known that face well, long ago. Now he had grown into a strikingly handsome man. Her deep blue eyes lit up with recognition.

  “Gart?” she asked.

  Her voice was soft with uncertainty. Gart’s green eyes glittered as he nodded his head, realizing he still had Romney by the arm and hastening to release the child. He tried not to feel guilty that this glorious creature had witnessed him roughing up the child.

  “It is me,” he just stared at her, a rather soft expression coming over his masculine features. “I have not seen you in years.”

  Emberley smiled broadly, a dimple on her chin and beautiful straight teeth. “It has been some time,” she agreed. “I believe the last time I saw you was when I had just returned home from fostering at Chepstow Castle and you and my brother were newly knighted.”

  He nodded. “I recall,” he said. “That was many years ago.”

  She warmed to the recognition. “Twelve years, at least,” she agreed, cocking her head thoughtfully. “I also seem to remember that on the day I returned you and my brother tore through the outer ward on your chargers, slicing up anything that did not have a heartbeat. My mother yelled at you and my brother for an hour after it was over.”

  Gart was grinning, an unusual occurrence for him. The man had features of stone and cracking a smile was something that did not come easily. He was trying not to appear too embarrassed.

  “We could not help ourselves,” he admitted. “Erik had a new sword that your father had given him. We want to make sure that it worked properly.”

  Emberley laughed in remembrance. “My mother took it away for a week,” she snorted. “Erik and my father were furious.”

  Gart’s smile grew as he stared at the woman; his last memory of her was a slip of a girl barely past womanhood but to see her now, he could hardly believe the change. She was positively magnificent. His eyes moved over her luscious blond hair, arranged into a beautiful style that had it pulled off her face and trailing down her back. She had spectacular dark blue eyes, like sapphires, and ruby lips that were parted in a magnificent smile. The longer he looked at her, the more enamored he became.

  “I was banned from visiting Morton Castle for awhile,” he said, wanting off the subject of his wild youth. “But that was long ago and now I find you at Dunster. Why are you here?”

  Emberley lifted her hand as if to embrace the entire structure. “I live here,” she replied. “You and my brother were in the Holy Land with Richard when I was betrothed to Julian de Moyon. Did you not hear of it?”

  He shook his head. “I will confess, I did not,” he said, somewhat regretfully. “My focus was on sand and battles until… well, until Erik was killed. Then I returned home to more battles and more intrigue.”

  Her smile faded, her dark blue eyes glimmering warmly at him. “I heard that you brought my brother home for burial,” she said softly. “I never had the chance to thank you. It meant a great deal to my parents.”

  “Do they live still?”

  She nodded. “Still,” she said quietly. “They live at Morton Castle and have never gotten over the death of my brother. The fact that I have sons has eased their grief somewhat.”

  Gart gazed into her lovely eyes, the same color and shape as her brother’s had been. He realized he missed his best friend very much, someone he’d not thought of in almost eight years. It was a sobering realization.

  “Erik was a great knight,” he said somberly. “He is missed.”

  Emberley smiled in agreement, in sympathy, knowing that her brother and Gabriel Forbes had been best friends since childhood. In fact, she had practically grown up knowing Forbes, a man known as Gart because he didn’t like to be called Gabriel. To see him now brought her a great deal of emotional comfort in a life that knew little.

  He was an enormous man, very tall, with a muscular body and long, muscular legs. He had sculpted cheekbones and a square jaw, and murky green eyes that were mysterious and intense. His hair, a dark shade of dark blond, had been practically shaved from his scalp but it did not detract from his virile male handsomeness. The man was powerfully and painfully handsome.

  Truth be told, Emberley had always been fond of Gart. As a young girl, she would dream of marrying him. But those days were long gone, as were her dreams. As she thought on the faded days of her childhood, she glanced at her boys and realized they were covered in white powder. Her brow furrowed.

  “Why are my children dusty white?” she poi
nted at them.

  Gart tore his eyes off her to look at the boys. “These are your children?”

  She nodded. “Romney is my eldest,” she smiled at the boy with pride. “He is an intelligent lad, sweet and loving. Orin is my middle son and Brendt is the youngest. Boys, why are you covered in white powder?”

  She addressed her sons, who had a complete change of demeanor since her arrival and were now innocent little angels.

  “We were playing, Mama,” Orin insisted. “We were ghosts.”

  Emberley’s delicate eyebrows lifted. “Ghosts? Why on earth are you ghosts?”

  Romney took charge of the conversation before Orin blew their cover. “Because,” he said simply, hoping that would be enough to satisfy his mother. “Mama, can we eat in the hall tonight? I want to see all of the knights!”

  Emberley shook her head. “Nay,” she told him. “You must eat in your chamber. Your father has business to attend to and does not want you underfoot.” She looked at Gart. “Am I to understand that you have met my sons already?”

  Gart wasn’t sure how to answer. He looked at the boys, who all gazed back at him quite innocently. He didn’t believe it for a moment. In fact, he was resisting the urge to scowl at them with disbelief.

  “Aye,” he said slowly, reluctantly. “I have just arrived and the boys were… that is to say, they were….”

  “Mama,” Romney latched on to his mother’s arm. “We were going to show Sir Gart to the hall. May we do that, Mama? May we, please?”

  “Of course, sweetheart,” Emberley smiled at her eldest. “That is quite gracious of you.”

  Gart eyed the boys suspiciously as the youngest one reached out and took his big hand. “We will show you, Sir Gart,” he said politely. “Come with us.”

  Gart didn’t want to pull away from the child because he didn’t want to offend Emberley. He stood there dumbly as the boy took his hand and Emberley smiled happily.

  “’Tis so good to see you again, Gart,” she said sincerely, her dark blue gaze drifting over his handsome features. “It has been a very long time. Much has happened since you and I last saw one another. I would like to know what you have been doing in the twelve years since I last saw you.”

  Gart could only nod. Realizing she was the baron’s wife dampened his enthusiasm at their re-acquaintance and he was coming to think that he had been very, very stupid as a young man not to have realized her potential. True, she’d always been a lovely girl, but had he known she would have grown into such an exquisite creature, he might have vied for her hand. But that thought was tempered by the fact that she had apparently raised three hooligans who had her completely fooled. The woman was raising a pack of wild animals.

  Emberley smiled at him and beckoned him to follow her back up the stairs. He did so willingly, gladly, but the moment she turned her back on the boys and headed up the stairs, the youngest one yanked his hand from Gart’s fist and began smacking him on the leg.

  Romney, too, waited until his mother’s back was turned before shaking a fist at Gart, making horrible and threatening faces at him. Orin still had a stick and he whacked Gart on the back with it. Gart grabbed the stick and tossed it away but when Emberley turned around at the sounds coming from behind her, the four of them froze and smiled innocently at her. Emberley grinned and continued up the stairs.

  The attack against Gart resumed all the way into the great hall above.

  Read the rest of Archangel! Find it at all major eBook retailers.

  The Thunder Warrior

  Kathryn Le Veque

  Enjoy a bonus chapter from Kathryn Le Veque’s upcoming release, THE THUNDER WARRIOR.

  Part One

  Winds of Fate

  May

  “In days of old,

  With men so bold,

  A storm was brewing brightly.

  These men, it was told,

  As knights so bold,

  Were known to tame the lightning”

  ~ 13th century chronicles

  Chapter One

  Year of our Lord 1258 A.D.

  Reign of Henry III

  Oxford, England

  It was a day of days, a mild spring day that was perfect in every fashion. The sun was brilliant against the deep blue expanse of sky with nary a cloud to hamper the view. Days like this were rare, neither hot nor cold, but in that perfect temperature that seemed to bring out the best in both man and beast. A breeze, as soft and caressing as a child’s whisper, whistled through the busy and proud town of Oxford.

  The Street of the Merchants was a bustling road that was lined on both sides by close-quarters buildings, stalls and shops that were manned by aggressive salesmen determined to push their wares upon a spend-happy public. Between St. Clément’s church and the castle stretched the main thoroughfare through the town, and travelers spilled into the Street of the Merchants, just off the main road. This created a crowded bottleneck at the head of the street.

  Four armed knights pushed themselves through the bottleneck and ended up in the crowds shopping along the avenue. The smells from the bakers on the next street wafted heavily in the air, the scent of yeast and of hard, brown crusts making for hungry shoppers at this time in the morning. Near the middle of the avenue near a fabric vendor’s stall, a man playing what looked like a crudely made vielle stood in the tiny gap between two buildings while his daughter, a round girl with a big mouth, sang quite loudly and somewhat off key. All of it, the sights and smells of the day, contributed to the hurried setting.

  “Licorice root, wasn’t it?” one of the knights asked the group. “And spiced wine?”

  The knight in the lead, a very large man with massive shoulders and a crown of dark, wavy hair replied. “Wine with marjoram,” he said. “She was specific. It settles her stomach, as does the Licorice.”

  The knight who asked about the licorice room made a face. “Have you ever tasted licorice?” he asked. “It is most foul and turns your tongue black.”

  The knight in the lead turned to look at the licorice-hating knight, who was now sticking his tongue out to demonstrate his aversion. Sir Maximus de Shera, a brawny beast of a man with enormous shoulders and a granite-square jaw, shook his dark-blonde head at his younger brother’s antics.

  “It does not matter what you or I think of it,” he said. “Jeniver is feeling ill from her pregnancy and Gallus asked us to find her some.”

  Sir Tiberius de Shera put his tongue back in his mouth but he still wasn’t convinced. The very tall, leanly muscular brother was animated to a fault and opinionated until the very end.

  “The spiced wine would do better,” he said. “Moreover, why are we running Gallus’ errands for him? His wife is the one feeling ill; he should be the one to come and fish for stinking roots and rotten wine for her.”

  Maximus grinned. “Will you tell him that to his face?”

  Tiberius shook his head. “Not me,” he said. “Much like you, I do as I am told by our illustrious older brother. Let us get this over with; I will head down to the end of the avenue and see if I can find an apothecary. You stay here and see if you can locate the wine with all of the dried weeds in it.”

  Maximus merely waved Tiberius on and the man headed down the street with another knight in tow. Maximus cocked an eyebrow.

  “He does not understand,” he said to the knight who had remained with him. “He is not yet old enough to realize that a man will do anything for the woman he loves. He’s not yet had experience with love like that.”

  The knight who had remained with him, a hulking man named Sir Garran de Moray, glanced at Maximus with his onyx-black eyes.

  “You speak as if you have known an affair such as that,” he said. “I did not know that about you, Max.”

  Maximus pulled his muscular rouncey to a halt and dismounted. “It was a long time ago,” he said, muttering, as if he did not want to spare thought to those memories. “I was seventeen years of age and she was fourteen. We were madly in love.”

 
“What happened?”

  Maximus grunted. “A de Shera cannot marry below his station,” he said, somewhat sarcastically. “She was the smithy’s daughter. When my father found out, he sent both her and her father away. I heard that she died later that year of a fever. I have always wondered if….”

  He trailed off, disinclined to continue, as he tethered his horse to the nearest post. Garran dismounted beside him, unwilling to push the subject of his young and tragic love. Garran had known Maximus and this was the first time he’d heard such a thing, but he wasn’t surprised. Maximus tended to keep silent on personal matters. He wasn’t one to wear his heart on his sleeve on speak on things even remotely private. Keeping that in mind, Garran pointed to the building in front of them.

  “A wine and spice merchant,” he said, changing the subject. “It is my guess we will be able to find a myriad of things to settle Lady de Shera’s belly. If the wine doesn’t make her drunk enough to forget her ills, then we shall find a spice that will make her giddy enough to not care.”

  Smirking, Maximus moved into the shop with Garran on his heels. Inside, it was dark, cluttered, and smelled of great and exotic lands. Mustard, nutmeg, and cardamom were in great baskets lining the walls, and there were spices from The Levant, Egypt, and darkest Africa. It made him sneeze. The merchant, a fat man dressed in silks and speaking with an odd accent, tried to sell them all manner of mysterious ingredients, including flakes of gold that were said to ward off the demons of sickness.

  Maximus didn’t want golden medicine; he simply wanted licorice root for his brother’s wife’s nausea. The merchant, however, steered him towards chamomile and assured him that it would soothe an upset belly, so he ended up buying that as well. As the merchant tried to interest him in some dark seeds that looked like bugs, seeds that also promised to ease Lady de Shera’s belly ache, screams could be heard out on the avenue.