Queen of Lost Stars (Dragonblade Series/House of St. Hever)
Read Queen of Lost Stars (Dragonblade Series/House of St. Hever) Online
Authors: Kathryn Le Veque
Tags: #Romance, #Medieval, #Fiction
A Medieval Romance
By Kathryn Le Veque
© Copyright 2014 by Kathryn Le Veque Novels
Kindle Edition
Text by Kathryn Le Veque
Cover by Kathryn Le Veque
Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.
All Rights Reserved.
Medieval Romance:
The de Russe Legacy:
The White Lord of Wellesbourne
The de Lohr Dynasty:
While Angels Slept
(Lords of East Anglia)
Great Lords of le Bec:
To the Lady Born
(House of de Royans)
Lords of Eire:
The Darkland
(Master Knights of Connaught)
Echoes of Ancient Dreams
(time travel)
De Wolfe Pack Series:
Scorpion
(Saxon Lords of Hage – Also related to The Questing)
Ancient Kings of Anglecynn:
Battle Lords of de Velt:
Reign of the House of de Winter:
Swords and Shields
(also related to The Questing, While Angels Slept)
De Reyne Domination:
The Fallen One
(part of Dragonblade Series)
Unrelated characters or family groups:
The Gorgon
(Also related to Lords of Thunder)
The Warrior Poet
(St. John and de Gare)
Tender is the Knight
(House of d’Vant)
The Questing
(related to The Dark Lord, Scorpion)
The Legend
(House of Summerlin)
The Dragonblade Series: (Great Marcher Lords of de Lara)
Island of Glass
(House of St. Hever)
The Savage Curtain
(Lords of Pembury)
The Fallen One
(De Reyne Domination)
Fragments of Grace
(House of St. Hever)
Queen of Lost Stars
(House of St. Hever)
Lords of Thunder: The de Shera Brotherhood Trilogy
Time Travel Romance:
(Saxon Lords of Hage)
Contemporary Romance:
Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Series:
The American Heroes Series:
Other Contemporary Romance:
Multi-author Collections/Anthologies:
With Dreams Only of You
(USA Today bestseller)
Sirens of the Northern Seas
(Viking romance)
Note:
All Kathryn’s novels are designed to be read as stand-alones, although many have cross-over characters or cross-over family groups. Novels that are grouped together have related characters or family groups.
Series are clearly marked. All series contain the same characters or family groups except the American Heroes Series, which is an anthology with unrelated characters.
There is NO particular chronological order for any of the novels because they can all be read as stand-alones, even the series.
For more information, find it in
A Reader’s Guide to the Medieval World of Le Veque
.
A very unusual novel….
This is yet another of those novels missing big chunks due to a faulty hard drive, written back in the days before clouds and Dropbox, when every chapter was its own file, and floppy discs were the back-up method. My guess is that this book first saw the light of day back in the late 1990s but I can’t be certain. I wrote a lot of stuff back then. All I know is that I was only able to salvage pieces of it. It’s an unusual storyline, and far different from anything I’ve ever written, so I thought I would finally finish it. Every story deserves to be finished! I have a few more that will be finished someday – someday soon, I hope.
Oh, the name changes that went on in this book! I have a confession – my heroine had a different name in the beginning, which I thought was pretty and unusual, but then I worked with a girl (back in the day when I worked in an office) with the same name and far be it from me to judge people, but she turned out to be a terrible co-worker, so I quickly changed the heroine’s name. Ha! The hero’s name was also different but that, too, changed a few times – yes, a few times – until I settled on the one you see. This novel had a bit of a difficult time finding an identity, but it has finally come into its own and now I am proud to present it to you. One thing that didn’t change is the name St. Hèver – our hero, Kaspian, is a cousin to Kenneth St. Hèver (
ISLAND OF GLASS
) from the Dragonblade saga. Since Kenneth’s father, Kurtis, only had one brother, we will assume that Kaspian’s father was a cousin to Kurtis and his brother, Keir (
FRAGMENTS OF GRACE
).
A few things to note in this book – there is a mixture of real and fictional castles as well as real and fictional lords and princes. Some places, like Hawarden Castle and Beeston Castle, are real places that played a role in the Welsh wars, but our main castle, Lavister, is fictional. The location where I placed it, however, really does have a hilly crag, a perfect place for such a fortress to be built – if it existed. There is some adventure in this book, a little bit of politics, and a whole lot of unusual romance.
A little erotic? Definitely. Like I said, very different from my other novels. Keep an open mind and I think you just might like it…!
Love,
Kathryn
CHAPTER ONELavister Crag Castle, South of Chester along the Welsh Marches
May, Year of Our Lord 1320 A.D.
“W
e’ve got to
move, man. Where have you been?”
The question came from a very large man, dressed from head to toe in enough armor and weaponry to single-handedly conquer a small country. He had his helm in one hand, revealing cropped blonde hair and a granite-square jaw, but the light in the pale blue eyes was cold, cold as the snows on an early winter morning.
It was, in fact, an early winter morning and the mighty garrison of Lavister Crag Castle was mobilized, organized and driven by the man with the ice-cold stare. Kaspian St. Hèver was a man not to be crossed or trifled with, and he certainly wasn’t a man to be disobeyed. He had the St. Hèver size, command ability, and lack of pleasant temperament. His question was focused on a big red-haired knight who had just emerged from Lavister’s significant keep, a man who smiled weakly to St. Hèver’s query.
“I wanted to see Madelayne one more time before we left,” he said. “Dolwyd will not let her come down to see me off and she is quite upset by it.”
Kaspian eyed the man, trying to shift from command mode into some semblance of a compassionate mode. The situation warranted it.
“Is she well?” he asked.
Cairn l’Ebreux nodded his red head, plopping his helm on to cover his skull. “She is,” he said. “She is worried, of course. She fears the child will be born whilst we are away. I have assured her that this quest will only take a week at most, but she is still frightened.”
Kaspian wasn’t one given to fits of mercy or humor in any given situation; therefore, moments like this were difficult for him to gauge. He didn’t want to sound completely heartless, but his was a world of battle and it was to battle his men were headed, including Cairn, who was an excellent knight from a fine family. But Cairn was also the husband of a woman who was on her second pregnancy in as many years, the first pregnancy having resulted in the loss of a premature son. The woman was terrified for this child and rightly so. But the fact remained that Lady l’Ebreux’s fear and her pregnancy were not his problem.
“The physic is with her,” Kaspian finally said, turning away. “Leave Dolwyd to tend your wife. I need you with me. I need your mind with me, Cairn. If you are distracted, you are of no good to me or yourself or your wife. I do not want to return to tell her that you have been killed.”
Cairn knew that was about as close to a compassionate statement as Kaspian could make. The two of them had worked together for years and although Kaspian wasn’t a man to cultivate friendship, Cairn considered him a friend. But Cairn was far more compassionate and feeling than his big, blonde counterpart and his heart, his soul, was with his wife up in their chamber.
He’d left her weeping, something he hated to do, but she wept a good deal these days. She was frightened for their child and now frightened for Cairn as he left to tend to a skirmish over at Beeston Castle, but the Welsh were on the march these days.
Led by Dafydd ap Gruffydd, or at least led by his supporters, the Welsh had been hitting English castles along the Marches, and inside Wales, more actively this year than in the previous ones. Sometimes they charged with a thousand men and sometimes it was just a few hundred. They weren’t particularly skilled for the most part but they could do damage if unchecked and they were bothersome. They tried to gain access to a castle any way they could and had been beaten back by the English time and time again.
