by Tamara Leigh
Eleanor’s lids narrowed, and though Laura expected her to warn her cousin about the lengths to which she could go to charm, the queen said, “A quarter hour. No more.” She turned, and Tina quickly opened the door and closed it behind her.
“I know what you are thinking lass,” she said as she drew her lady to the dressing table. “I saw the steel in your eyes and that which straightened your back—and I am glad of it—but proceed with caution. You do not want to fall out of favor with a woman such as that.”
Laura lowered to the plump stool before the mirror, looked near upon her reddened eyes and cheeks. “Worry not, Tina. Cruelty by cruelty I am finding my way through this world.”
And shall leave a well-marked path for Clarice to follow, if necessary, she did not say. Then she silently prayed, Please, Lord, let it not be necessary. Let me do for her what I should have done all along. Let her life not mirror mine.
When he was not discreetly tracking the woman who had betrayed him, ensuring their paths did not cross, he watched the queen. But though it was with the hope of catching her eye and receiving permission to approach, whenever she gave her gaze to him, it was dismissive.
But he would not play her game. And that she would have to accept.
A moment later, Lothaire heard her voice. Looking around, he discovered the distance between Laura and himself had narrowed considerably. She was in the company of Lord Benton, having shed Lord Gadot with whom she had sat at meal. The two strolled the same path upon which Lothaire stood.
He nearly turned on his heel, but she looked up and pride demanded he not scurry for cover.
Something flashed across her dark eyes. Not a sparkle. Nearer a fire. And she returned her gaze to her companion and said, “She is nine years aged.”
Lothaire ground his teeth. He did not wish to hear of the child made with another. But worse it would look if he retreated. Hoping they would alter their course, he remained unmoving.
“As lovely as her mother?” Lord Benton asked.
Lothaire would not know her smile was forced were he not acquainted with the true turning of her lips.
“Clarice is still very much a girl, but I believe she will be far lovelier than I. She has the most beautiful sable hair.”
Likely given by her father, Lothaire succumbed to bitterness. But it was short-lived, for they were nearly upon him and he would not have her know how much she disturbed.
“I look forward to meeting her, my lady.”
She inclined her head, shifted her gaze to Lothaire, and as if surprised to see him gasped, “Baron Soames, I meant to seek you out.” She and the nobleman halted. “I would apologize for not acknowledging you earlier. I vow I did not mean to be rude. Unfortunately, I had to change my slippers.”
Though Lothaire had no desire to converse with her—and would not outside Lord Benton’s company—it was she who provided him with satisfying small talk. He looked down her skirts, eyed the shoe visible beneath the hem. “Do you not wear the same slippers, my lady?”
She gave a little laugh. “’Tis a style and color I quite like.”
How easily she lied, though only between her words. “Indeed.”
“Oh!” She angled toward the man at her side, laid slender fingers on his arm. “In my absence, did you have the chance to introduce yourself to Lord Benton?”
“Well enough,” Lothaire said sharply. And berated himself for not controlling his emotions. And he paid for it when she clapped a hand to her mouth and smiled on either side of it. That expression making him hurt as he had not in a long time, he steeled himself for what was to come.
“Baron Soames, is this jealousy?”
“Jealousy?” Lord Benton jerked as if his chin were clipped.
While behind Lothaire’s face, distaste and anger jerked through him.
“Ah, we must remedy this,” the lady said. “’Tis only fair all my suitors know who they must better to win my hand.”
Almighty! Lothaire sent heavenward. She does not even try to disguise the Daughter of Eve who bore a child out of wedlock.
And there was more. She stepped forward and set on Lothaire’s arm the hand recently familiar with the other man. “Your rival, Lord Benton, the handsome Baron Soames of Lexeter. The fourth of four—well, I believe ’tis only four.” She made a face that once more sent Lothaire into the past. “We shall see, hmm?”
She released him, and he breathed again. But only for a moment. As she turned away, the ends of her unbound hair swept his wrist and the back of his hand, and he remembered the feel of strands he should never have drawn through his fingers.
Not for the first time, though it was long since he had pondered it, he questioned if the kisses and caresses they had shared during visits prior to the wedding that had not taken place were responsible—at least in part—for making a Jezebel of her. He had liked them too much, and had she felt as much as he, perhaps she had gone in search of one to show her what came next.
“Now,” she returned him to this present he longed to leave behind, “I must find Lord Thierry. I gave my word I would sit with him whilst the troubadours encourage us to fall in love. Lord Soames,” she said, then once more touched the other man’s arm. “Lord Benton. Good eve.”
Head high, she left what she wrongly believed to be two rivals.
“Just passing through, hmm?” Lord Benton grumbled.
“The lady has a high opinion of herself and her charms,” Lothaire said. “Aye, just passing through.” He turned, gained the queen’s gaze, and lost it. Not as dismissive this time. There had been interest in the arch of her eyebrow, but not enough to grant him an audience.
“Curse you, Eleanor,” he muttered and strode toward the stairs that would deliver him from the presence of the woman who would make one of her suitors wish he had found another way to return prosperity to his lands. Just as Lothaire had long sought to do. And would continue to do.
Even if every day the rest of my life I must work the demesne myself, he vowed.
“Lothaire.”
There. She had spoken his name. It made her ache and swept her back to when she had called it over her shoulder and he had chased her across soft spring grass, dry summer grass, leaf-covered autumn grass, frost-bitten winter grass. But most painful were memories of when she had whispered his name against his lips and he had groaned over hers.
Though they had both wanted more than kisses and caresses, neither had tempted the other past want. And there had been no need, certain as they were of a nuptial night and every night thereafter.
Laura swallowed. Assured Tina slept on her pallet, snores so soft her lady rarely had difficulty sleeping through them, she said again, “Lothaire.” Slowly, so she felt each tap behind her teeth and the warmth of her breath across tongue and palate when she came to the end of it.
She had been glad she had eaten little at meal, so sickened was she by behavior Lothaire would think wanton and taunting words that confirmed she was not merely thoughtless.
He would be gone on the morrow and, God willing, she would not see him again.
“Please, Lord. Never again. I love him still.”
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed this excerpt of the seventh book in the AGE OF FAITH series. Look for Lady Laura and Sir Lothaire Soames’s Winter 2017/18 release.
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EXCERPT
LADY BETRAYED
A Clean Read Rewrite of USA Today Bestseller BLACKHEART
Releasing August 2017
A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
England, 1195 ~ Lady Juliana Kinthorpe is no longer the fanciful young woman who embraced the notions of romance and chivalry nurtured at Queen Eleanor’s Court of Love. Wed to a desperately bitter man, she is forced to steal from the knight who betrayed her husband during the Holy Crusade. But even to save her sister, can she do the unthinkable? That which will cost her dignity, her heart, and perhaps her so
ul?
A KNIGHT TO DECEIVE
When Sir Gabriel de Vere receives an invitation to tourney from his old friend, he declines, well aware Baron Kinthorpe blames him for his laming at Acre. But the ransoms to be won prove too tempting. Accompanied by his tournament partner, Sir Erec Wulfrith, Gabriel journeys from France to England. Though he finds the fair Juliana much changed, still he is drawn to her—until he uncovers her deception and determines to take back what she stole from him.
Certes, there will be more than ransom to pay…
PROLOGUE
Barony of Wyverly
England, 1187
Son of a whore.
Over and over the words resounded through Gabriel. Consumed his being. Inflamed his soul. Beginning to quake, he turned from the Baron of Wyverly and pressed his hands to the windowsill.
In the bailey below, the garrison stood at their posts, castle folk went about their duties, and a large cat stalked its next meal. As befitting the burial two days past, the mood was solemn, and as different from that which tore through Gabriel as was a legitimate child from a misbegotten one.
Son of a whore. Whoreson.
He ached to bloody his knuckles. Were he alone, he would make an enemy of the first thing come to hand.
“I am sorry,” his father said. “You have been as a son to me.”
Gabriel swung around. “I am your son!”
Arnault de Vere’s gaze wavered. “The Lord knows, I wish it were so.”
“It is!”
“Perhaps, but Giles shall succeed me.”
The third son, whose strong De Vere looks could not be questioned. It was the same for the fourth son, nineteen-year-old Conard. In contrast, Gabriel and Blase favored their mother’s family. The two eldest were tall, big-boned, dark-haired, and possessing faces so plain as to defy description. But Gabriel had one thing Blase did not—their father’s blue eyes. Not that it had any bearing on his claim to legitimacy, the baron having decided to overlook it.
“Did Mother…” Such a bitter thing there was no possibility her blood did not course his veins. “Did she say I am of another man’s body?”
Sunlight slanting through the window lit the silver amid his father’s thick hair and beard. “She did not.” A muscle in his jaw jerked. “On her deathbed, she confessed only to cuckolding me ere your conception. And afterward.”
It was no secret the Lady of Wyverly had engaged in adulterous behavior during the latter years of her marriage. In the summer of Gabriel’s tenth year, he himself had happened on her in the arms of a man not his father.
He glanced at the canopied bed at the center of the lord’s solar and recalled what he had seen there. How he had detested Clemencia de Vere, and now it was known her indiscretions went further back, he was gripped with something so terrible it made the enmity felt for her all these years seem mild.
“Then she did not know if ’twas you or another who sired me?”
“I did not ask.”
Gabriel’s stride scattered the herbed rushes, causing the scent of mint to spring upon the air. Halting before his father, he demanded, “Why did you not ask?”
“Her confession was made to the priest. She did not know I heard.”
Gabriel’s fists shook with the effort to keep them at his sides. “For this you set me aside?”
The baron’s mouth tightened. “When I leave this world, I shall do so secure in the knowledge Wyverly is in the hands of a De Vere, as it has been for one hundred twenty years.”
The self-control Gabriel’s knighthood training demanded of him containing the tempest, he silently cursed the woman who had borne him. Because of her, he was set out like a flea-infested dog, everything that should have been his forfeited—title, lands, betrothal, the heir who would one day succeed him.
Knowing if he stayed he would do something he would regret, he stepped past his father.
“You will be provided for,” the baron said in a rush.
Gabriel halted, looked around. “On the chance you are wrong?”
Arnault de Vere was not a man to reveal the depth of his emotions, but that which grooved his brow and convulsed his mouth was born of pain and regret. “You are a son any man would be proud of, Gabriel, and though you may not be of my body, it does not change my feelings for you.”
“Of course it does! It changes all.”
“Not if you allow me to provide for you.”
Gabriel had no intention of taking whatever scraps his father offered—and by all that was unholy, Arnault de Vere was his father—but he said, “What do you propose?”
Hope glimmered in the older man’s eyes. “When your training for knighthood is complete a year hence, I shall give Shard Castle into your keeping.”
The greater of Wyverly’s lesser castles. Had his future not once held it and all else, he would grasp at the opportunity, but anger and pride were a great malady. “What would you have me say to those who ask why I am reduced to a vassal? My father suspects me of being a whoreson?”
Arnault de Vere momentarily closed his eyes. “Say you do not wish the responsibility of ruling so vast a demesne.”
“So all shall know me for a liar?”
“I wish it could be”—his father’s voice caught—“otherwise.”
As much as Gabriel wanted to renounce his sincerity, he could not. His sire had always demanded much of his eldest son, but never was there any question he loved Gabriel as best he could with a heart scarred by his wife’s infidelities.
“Why did you not send her away, Father? Why did you allow her to dishonor you time and again?”
The baron averted his gaze.
Though nearly suffocated by pain, Gabriel was not alone. Beyond all foolishness, Arnault de Vere had loved his beautiful wife. A worse mistake a man could not make.
“Take what I offer, Gabriel. Still you will be lord.”
And vassal to his younger brother. Gut twisting as if to wring the life from him, Gabriel said, “Do you not fear I will seek Giles’s death?”
The baron startled, stared, then heaved a sigh. “I know you, Gabriel. You are angry, but in time—”
“You do not know me! Did you, you would not squander your breath. Keep Shard Castle. I want naught from you.” He resumed his stride toward the door, but his father followed and caught his arm.
“Think, Gabriel! You are twenty years old. What else is there for you?”
Gabriel looked down. Though Arnault de Vere was not a small man, his eldest son was taller and broader. Perhaps another had sown him.
Immediately, he rejected the bitter thought. He was a De Vere. “I shall return to Wulfen Castle and complete my training.” That great fortress where he had spent much of the past twelve years laboring to become the worthiest of England’s defenders. “After Lord Wulfrith knights me, I will live the life dealt me this day.” He pulled free and continued to the door, paused. “What of Blase? Will you tell him he is misbegotten? Disavow him as well?”
Looking suddenly old where he stood at the center of the solar, the baron said, “There is no need. He is destined for the Church.”
Except Blase was no more fond of their teachings than Gabriel was of treacherous women. Regardless of the effort Friar Jerome expended fashioning his pupil into his own image, it was not the Bible that Blase clasped to him.
Gabriel nearly inquired into his sister’s fate but set his teeth against the words. Five-year-old Avice no more resembled the baron than Gabriel and Blase, but unlike her brothers, she was blessed with a pleasing combination of Clemencia de Vere’s looks and those of the man who had sired her, whomever that might be. No reason to cast more speculation on the little girl than that which had surrounded her since birth.
Gabriel threw open the door, traversed the corridor, and descended the spiral stairs. As he stepped into the great hall, he was struck by its warmth, but it had little to do with the blazing fire. What caused him to stop and stare were splendid tapestries hung ceiling to floor, plastered walls p
ainted with bold, colorful patterns, and the dais upon which an immense table sat.
There being no question all this would be his, never had he considered it through the eyes of one who had no hope of attaining such wealth. Now for the sins of his mother, he looked upon it as if he were a stranger.
“What is it, Gabriel?” Blase called.
He swept his gaze to his three brothers gathered alongside the hearth. Upon the death of Clemencia de Vere a sennight past, Giles and Conard had also been summoned from the households of those from whom they received knighthood training. Blase was the only son who resided upon Wyverly. If not that he was to commit his life to the Church, he would now be a squire.
Giles stood. “What did Father say?”
Gabriel looked from his younger brother’s golden hair to a distinctive brow, from modest cheekbones to a generous mouth. There was no doubt from whose loins he sprang, but as much as Gabriel was tempted to resent his brother for displacing him, he could not. The boy was barely twelve—an innocent. Clemencia de Vere was the guilty one.
“Tell us,” young Conard entreated.
What was he to say? Their mother was more a harlot than thought? Should he make them despise her as much as he did? Nay, let Arnault de Vere do the telling.
Though it was two years since all four brothers had been together, and Gabriel had been unable to spend much time with them, he could not bear to pass another moment here. “I must leave.”
Blase rose. “This day?”
“Now.”
“But you are not due to return to Wulfen for a sennight.”
“That has changed.”
Blase, followed by Giles and Conard, crossed to his side. “Why, Gabriel?”
He stared at them. No matter how many times Clemencia de Vere had strayed, these were his brothers. No matter how great his anger, he must not loose it upon them. “I leave it to Father to explain,” he said and left them.
