LADY UNDAUNTED: A Medieval Romance (33 page)

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 you 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.”

She
tsked,
said, “As I would marvel over you,” and unfastened his brooch and let it and the single rosebud drop to the floor ahead of his mantle.

“My wife is eager,” he rumbled as she pulled at the laces closing the neck of his tunic.

She peeked at him from beneath her lashes. “I am as you made me.”

He laughed, lifted a hand to her hair, and touched a flower. “Then ’tis time our bed was covered in roses.”

Off came the gown. Off came the tunic. Off came all. And finally…finally…Liam put his wife to bed.

Dear Lady Reader (and the occasional Lord Reader),

I hope you enjoyed Joslyn and Liam’s love story. If you would consider posting a review of
Lady Undaunted
at
Amazon
, I would appreciate it. Thank you for joining me in the age of castles, knights, ladies, destriers, deep, dark woods and—dare I mention it?—outdoor plumbing. Wishing you many hours of inspiring, happily-ever-after reading.

For new releases and special promotions, subscribe to Tamara Leigh’s mailing list:
www.tamaraleigh.com

EXCERPT

LADY EVER AFTER

A clean-read rewrite of
Unforgotten,

published by HarperCollins, 1997

From Tamara Leigh, the USA Today best-selling author of the acclaimed
Dreamspell,
comes another medieval time travel romance set during the 15
^th
century conflict of the Wars of the Roses.

Lady Catherine Algernon, dreaming of her death at the hands of traitors, is stunned when a handsome stranger from the twenty-first century saves her life just as her nightmare is about to come true. Look for
Lady Ever After
in Fall 2016.

PROLOGUE

Northern England, May 1464

She had seen her death. Though the dream had come to her every eve for a sennight, that from which she now awakened had been this-worldly—so real she momentarily considered this was the dream.

Chemise damp with the sweat of fear, Catherine turned onto her stomach, reached beneath the bed, and patted a hand over the floorboards until her fingers found the hilt.

“There you are,” she whispered. “There.” She started to draw her hand back but could not.

Every night before attempting a few hours of sleep, and each time she came up out of the dream to find the dark still upon her, she felt for the dagger to reassure herself it could be brought to hand. This night was different, the living, breathing memory of her death demanding more than reassurance.

She curled her fingers around the hilt and dropped onto her back. Clasping the sheathed blade to her breast, she stared at the ceiling. But try though she did to resist the dream, fatigue once more thrust her into that world.

Her enemies were upon her. Before, behind, and beside her. Every one of them faceless, though she need not see their coarse jaws, gleaming eyes, and grinning mouths to know them for traitors.

The stench of their bodies making her swallow hard, crude taunts stirring the fine hairs across her body, she held. Though her defense of the gatehouse would be for naught, never would she surrender. Thus, she must be felled, and the warrior who broke from the others believed he was the one to do it.

Straining beneath the weight of a sword whose point sought to be more intimate with the floor than the air, Catherine added her left hand to the hilt and hefted the weapon as the man drew near enough that he appeared faceless no more—whiskered jaw, leering eyes, moldering teeth.

Moved by fear of a strength that allowed her to sweep the blade high, she sliced through his sword arm.

The long silence of disbelief. The roar of pain and anger. The sword clattering to the floor. The savage warrior coming for her.

Catherine stumbled back against the portcullis winch and tried to raise her sword again, but too late. Ever too late.

The devil wrenched the weapon from her, and without a pittance of hesitation, turned it on her.

She could never remember his face upon awakening. But now she saw clearly his contorted features as he drove the blade through her, barked triumphantly, and lurched back, brandishing steel whose silver was terrifyingly more beautiful varnished in crimson.

Catherine dropped her chin. Blood spread across the bodice of her cream-colored gown, but where was the pain?

She almost laughed when it answered like a child eager to assure its mother it was here.

Oh, how it was here! As torturous as the sear of a hot iron one should not trip fingers across and yet foolishly and fiercely gripped.

She opened her mouth to drag in air needed to lend voice to her agony, but there was no breath to be had.

’Tis good
, she told herself, embracing what was to be her last pleasure—denying these traitors the satisfaction of hearing her scream like a lamb put to slaughter by one incapable of delivering a mercifully swift death.

Accepting her battle was terribly lost, grateful it was finally done, she slid down the winch to the floor.

Lord, Lord,
she called ahead of what she prayed was her ascension,
if only I had my life to live over…

CHAPTER ONE

England, Present Day

Collier Morrow ended the call, dropped the cell phone on his desk, and dug his fingers into his neck muscles.

“Bloody rotter,” he growled, envisioning his older brother smiling his maddening smile, feet up on the desk, unlit cigar jutting from his mouth.

And James had every reason to wallow. His latest acquisition was no minor conquest. Indeed, there was none beyond it.

Collier dug deeper, pushed and pulled at the muscles.

There had always been rivalry between the brothers, encouraged by their father who had seen it as a means of ensuring it could never be said he had produced weak sons. But the lessons Winton Morrow had taught them had not died with him six years ago. If it wasn’t James scrambling to snatch a property out from under Collier, it was Collier returning the favor the next go-around. Always a higher stake. Always a way to better the other. Until now.

It had been their father’s greatest aspiration to recover Strivling, the castle that had been held by the Morrows from the fifteenth century until the nineteenth when it was sold to raise the family out of debt. Having failed in that endeavor, his sons regarded it as the ultimate prize, the victor never to be outdone.

And Collier’s defeat was all the harder for the company it kept with reminders of the injuries he had sustained a year ago. His neck, arm, and ribs aching—he choked down air and slowly exhaled. But there was no lessening of the pain. No relief.

Knowing where he was heading, he struggled against the need and told himself it would pass, that he had only to wait it out.

But for how long? An hour? A day? Longer?

He released his neck, thrust a hand into his pocket, and clamped his fingers around the vial.

Two,
he promised.
No more than three. And if it gets bad—

“Your home is beautiful.”

He snapped his head up and stared at the woman who stood in the doorway of his office. Auburn hair framing a lovely face, sky-blue eyes steady, Aryn Viscott gave a half-hearted laugh and stepped into the room. “Not the reception I was hoping for.”

Telling himself he felt neither pain nor anger, Collier drew his hand from his pocket and strode from behind his desk. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Are you?”

“You know I am, darling.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You were going to meet me at the airport.”

And would have had he not been derailed by one call after another. Although pricked by guilt over sending a driver for her, he’d had no choice, not with Strivling at stake. “I apologize. An important business matter required my attention.”