Lindsay Townsend's Blog, page 15

Bargains - 3 Mainstream Novels for just $2.97

I am offering 3 full length novels (each over 100,000 words) for under $3.00. They are all romantic suspense/adventure with very strong thriller plots.

All are now just 99 cents on Amazon  and 0.77p on Amazon Co UK 

Also at Barnes and Noble for 99 cents and 0.75p on the Nook

Just 99 Cents at Smashwords   and 99 cents at Apple


If you look on my Amazon.com and Amazon UK pages you will find many other bargains, such as my seasonal "A Christmas Sleeping Beauty" (only 99cents/77p). Barnes and Noble and the Nook have some amazing bargains.

Have a browse. You won't be disappointed.

Prodigies of Mystery! Three Crime Novels, One Romance and Two Novellas for under $5.00

Apple have a wonderful offer at the moment of three crime novels for just 99 Cents under their Prodigies of Mystery Series.

My medieval mystery, An Older Evil, is one of the three.




My historical romance novel, 'Flavia's Secret,' is still just 99 Cents 
(0.77p) from Bookstrand.  (5.99 from Apple.)

This novel is set in Roman Bath and has its climax during the Saturnalia, the ancient Roman version of Christmas. 

More details, including an excerpt here.


My historical romance novella, 'Mistress Angel,' remains at the bargain price of 99 Cents from Amazon and Amazon Co UK. 


This novella is set in medieval London and is a kind of medieval Cinderella. More details, including the first chapter, here.





My collection of short stories, 'A Rose of Midsummer,' just 99 C ents (0.77p) from many sellers, including Apple and  Smashwords.

'The Virgin, the Knight and the Unicorn' - now on Amazon. Here's Chapter One.

Sir Gawain, poor and eager for glory, is on a quest to catch a unicorn. His reluctant companion, the virgin dairy-maid Matilde, hates the nobility and loses no time in clashing with the thoughtless young knight. Gawain believes that, as the man, his word should be law—a law he is quick to enforce on his companion. However, the impetuous Matilde is not easily cowed and confounds him by her unexpected responses, especially to his discipline.

As they travel on their quest, the hot-tempered couple learn more about themselves and begin to compromise. Respect changes to fondness, perhaps even to love, but what future can there be between knight and bondswoman?

When Matilde is taken by outlaws, Gawain realizes, almost too late, what she means to him. Can he rescue her? Can he and Matilde join forces to combat a deeper conspiracy that is ranged against them?
And the unicorn? The unicorn, too, has a part to play…

Order the ebook now from Bookstrand Publishing  http://www.bookstrand.com/the-virgin-...  $2.99

and on Amazon: The Virgin, the Knight, and the Unicorn Reply w/ # AmazonCart for # free sample # new http://amazon.com/dp/B00MEN2S0G/ 

and on Amazon UK…http://www.amazon.co.uk/Virgin-Unicorn-BookStrand-Publishing-Mainstream-ebook/dp/B00MEN2S0G/ …


Excerpt:


Chapter 1
Summer, England 1196
In the late summer semidarkness, snug and warm within their castle, the lord and lady whispered together. They spoke softly so as not to disturb their younger children, who lay curled asleep in the same great bed with them.“She will go with him?” Lord John asked, squinting through the shutters at the rising moon.Lady Petronilla huffed and pounded her pillow. “The girl should be glad to go.”“But will she?” her husband persisted. “I know she is a bondswoman, but this is Matilde of whom we speak—Robert’s younger sister, with exactly his same cleverness, like his older sister Ivette.”“Am I a reader of minds?” snapped his wife. “Very likely your turbulent knight will force Matilde to leave with him, and there is an end of the matter.”The lord shuffled onto his back. “Yes, Sir Gawain is certainly most eager.”“Greedy for treasure,” his wife sniffed.“Treasure, yes. But he is a younger son and must make his own way in the world.”“Did he steal his armor and that warhorse from a battlefield?”“I did not ask. He did save my life in Normandy.”“And you knighted him in thanks.” Lady Petronilla sniffed a second time. “Why is he not satisfied?” “Gawain is ambitious. And the renown of capturing or slaying a unicorn, that also appeals to my knight.”“Do such creatures exist?”Lord John yawned. “Does that matter? Gawain is a troublesome fellow. A week or more slogging through the wild woods will curb his temper.”“Our other people in the woods?” inquired his lady softly.“That arrangement does not start until winter. Gawain and Matilde will be quite safe. Meantime their quest should bring Gawain down off his high horse.”Lady Petronilla murmured agreement. “My ladies think him handsome, if lacking in courtesy. If he spoke more to them, Gawain would do well in courtly romance.”Her lord grunted, then laughed. “Still, the wenches of the stew make no complaint against him. They appear to relish his visits in spite of how he uses them.” “Hush!” warned his wife, glancing at their slumbering youngsters. Seeing them sound asleep, she added, “I hope he treats Matilde the same. That girl is too proud.”“Unless he tries and Matilde kills him. Or he and Matilde kill each other.”Lady Petronilla pursed her lips. “I would be sorry to lose such an excellent dairy maid.”“The time of three milkings has passed for this year,” Lord John observed.“But can you not see, my lord?” his wife continued. “We must ensure that Matilde is a long way from the castle when the king’s justice comes here after harvest. Ivette may protest at our plans, but she is by nature contemplative—I can foresee her becoming religious, or a nun. Her sister Matilde is very much of this world. In her way, she is as ambitious as your knight and angry at her low status in life. If she is still here, Matilde will argue furiously and dispute well. She may even know something important, some morsel of fact or law that we have overlooked, and so she will win.”“I know. The girl could spoil everything, which is why I devised this quest for Gawain. I told him she was a virgin and so a fit lure for a unicorn. That is all he wanted to know. He never properly listens to anyone and he will not listen to her.”Reflecting, Lord John closed his eyes. Like his wife, he was mildly disconcerted at the thought of losing their clever and frankly beautiful dairy maid, but Matilde was dangerous. She argued like a lawyer and she knew things. If anyone can track a unicorn, it will be Matilde. But she will never find it because Gawain will not listen to her.Considering those two opposing points, he fell asleep.
* * * *
“The girl you want is weeding in the great field this morning,” Lord John told Gawain. “You will know her by her beauty. Her name is—”Gawain ignored the rest of his lord’s speech. The girl was a peasant, so why should he bother with her name? Did serfs have names? He gave a stiff bow of farewell to Lord John, nodded curtly to Lady Petronilla, and mounted his palfrey.Riding to the great field, Gawain spotted the girl at once. She was the youngest, cleanest, and the prettiest of those peasants toiling along the rows of peas and beans. A small, slender blonde, she was nimbly weeding along the flowering rows of his lord’s field strip. Pleasantly surprised to find her so comely, he stood up on his stirrups and hailed her. “You!”You plunged her hoe into the soil and looked up at him. Her eyes, gray as steel, flicked over him, a long, cool stare. Without speaking or bobbing a courtesy, she spun about on her bare feet and stalked away.“Hey!” Gawain called, astonished that she dared to turn her back on him. Half of him wanted to ride her down, but that would mean trampling his lord’s crop, so he had to content himself with nudging his horse along the ridge between the field strips to follow her. Gaining on the disrespectful wench with his bay’s every stride, he watched her kiss a wizened field-worker on the cheek and pick up a neat cloth bundle clearly left at the end of the strip. Now I have you.“Follow me, girl,” he ordered, smirking at the dust his horse raised as he cantered past her. When he looked round after a few paces, he saw her lagging way behind, making no effort to run. “Make haste!”“I am,” came her instant reply. “Though I am a dairy maid, I do not yet have four legs. If I might ride with you, we would go faster…Sir.” Staring at him full in the face, she added his title deliberately late.Scarcely believing her insolence, Gawain glanced at the other, crook-backed serfs. Had any been fit, he would have clubbed this wench to the ground and taken another but, looking properly at her fellow peasants for the first time, Gawain realized they were all old. There were no more maids in this field to take in her place. Reining in, astonished afresh, he saw by the wench’s half smile that she knew this, that she had probably even planned it that way. Temper scorched through his body. Catching his darkening mood, his horse snorted and laid back its ears. He tugged the reins again. “Easy.”“Do you speak to me, your horse, or to yourself, Sir Gawain?”She spoke with a rough accent, her mouth soiling his name. Incensed that she should know it, he swung down from his horse and stepped closer. The girl stood her ground. She was a foot smaller than him, dressed in patched but clean green skirts and an earth-colored tunic. Her blonde hair was partly hidden by a short veil, but her face was not hidden at all. She studied him as if they were equals, as if she had a perfect right to look at him. For an instant her beauty cooled his anger, as a sparkling frost may coat and still a pool. Cloud-gray now, her eyes were fringed with long, golden lashes and shone with intelligence and life. Her skin was flawless, rich cream and roses. Gawain found his hand rising, seemingly by its own will, to touch her perfect cheek. Forget the unicorn. This wench beguiles me, but where is the treasure or renown in that? Quickly, he jerked his arm down and gripped his belt instead.“Do we begin the quest, Sir Gawain?”Gawain twitched, irritated afresh that she should speak to him. I should speak first.“May I make a suggestion?”“No,” growled Gawain. “I need nothing from you but your obedience.” Tired of talk, he snatched her off her bare feet, cast her over his shoulder, strode back to his mount, and slung the writhing, gasping girl across his horse’s neck. As she opened her mouth yet again to protest, he leapt into the saddle, spurred hard, and rode off at a canter, laughing when her head bounced against the bay’s muscled flank and she shut her eyes tight. Keeping her secure with a heavy fist in the middle of her back, he galloped for the woods.The forest where I shall find and slay the unicorn, where this wench will be my lure, but first she will learn, indeed she will learn.As he reached the end of the fields, where the trees began, Gawain was smiling.
* * * *
Pain drove its blunt knives into her head and sat like a stone in her stomach. The hard pommel of the saddle dug constantly into her flank, keeping pace with the horrible pounding of the horse’s hooves. Only her pack, which she had luckily kept clutched to her, saved her ribs from being bruised by the horse’s neck. Sitting above this mental terror, this swirl and anguish of aching muscles, the knight laughed. Matilde, squeezing her eyes shut against the ground skimming and lurching a hand-span from her face, supposed he was handsome—if “handsome” was the word for a petulant, curly-headed, even-featured boy. He was the tallest person she had yet encountered, rangy and muscled, his blue eyes shining with vigor in his tanned, lean face. She felt his easy strength with the horse and for an instant knew terror. He does not think of me as human, merely a tool. He does not even want to know my name.Other maids watched out for knights and squires, sighed over them, imagined themselves in love with them. Matilde had always been wary, as she was of any brute beast or force stronger than herself. And this brown-haired brute will never have known a hunger-headache in his life.The old rage against the unfair ways of this world boiled in her, steeling Matilde afresh. Gnawing her lip against the pain, she vowed to herself that this handsome, careless man-boy would heed her, would learn from her. He must, or my family will starve by next spring.Through a haze of nausea, she felt the horse slowing and risked opening her eyes. The knight spotted her looking. “I shall deal with you presently,” he said, and reined in.Moments later, Matilde tried to slide from the bay but was not given time. A muscular arm hooked about her narrow waist, hoisting her aloft. She kicked and her knight from hell dropped her straight down into bracken, a soft if undignified landing. Jerking from her back to her knees, she forced herself upright. Her companion approached, his lean face determined, his hands spread and crook-fingered. However he wants to deal with me, it will not be to my good.Matilde crouched and scrabbled in the leaf litter, found a broken branch and jabbed it at the looming figure. “No farther, knight.”He tried to snatch the branch but she whipped it away.“I am Matilde!” She waved the stick like a sword. He laughed sharply and stopped, folding his arms across his chest, his eyes glittering with cold amusement.“Do you expect to best me, girl?”“God gave us speech to share, Sir Gawain,” she countered. “Call me by my name.” “Share! What would I want to share with you? All women chatter too much.”“Your mother never talked to you? Or did you not listen to her, either?”For an instant, the years fell from his mocking face and he looked puzzled. “She sang. When I was small. I remember her singing.” Pity swelled in Matilde. “Where is she now?”“In heaven. A long time in our years.” The words seem to slip from him, for now he scowled. “Chatter is for cowards and fools. I will have no more of it.” He grabbed again for her stick but she snapped it down, missing his knuckles by a whisker as he skidded sideways to avoid her clumsy blow. Before he could lunge at her a third time, she backed up, glancing round. Instantly she recognized the clearing, the steep, scree-studded banks surrounding it and the deep, muddy pool a spear’s length farther down. All were notorious in the village.“Not here!” she panted, scything with the stick to keep him off, to make him listen. “Not here, understand?”He swore in Norman French, caught the stick, and wrested it away. Anticipating a blow with it, she flinched but still repeated, “Not here! Listen to me—”He hurled the branch into the undergrowth and charged. Matilde stepped back. “If you will not listen, then look!” She kicked the banking desperately with her heel. At first, she thought the roar was the knight, but then she saw his astonishment as a large section of the bank fell away and shuttered down in clouds of stones, soil, and grass, splashing into the pool. “Bad place,” she gasped, before sucking in a large, steadying breath. “We call it the dragon’s tear in the village. One year, I almost lost a cow to the slippage of these banks.”“Cow?”“I am the dairy maid, Matilde,” Matilde said, through gritted teeth. “Do you ever listen?”The knight was still staring at the litter of fallen stones. “My horse could have broken a leg in that.”Finally, he talks to me and admits I know something!“If you want to stop, there is another clearing past those limes.” “And beyond?”“I do not know.” Matilde had never had the free time to explore father than that.He turned his back on her and stalked to his horse. About to mount, he looked round. “Why do you linger?”Though she knew she really should not do it, Matilde could not resist. In a deliberate echo of his earlier haughty, amused pose, she folded her arms across her chest. “I will not go another step with you unless you say my name, sir knight. And should you not thank me for preserving your horse?”Suddenly, shockingly, he was beside her, bundling her off her feet and onto the horse—not over its neck this time, but onto the saddle with him. Sitting behind her and snaring her wrists in one large hand, he trapped her completely simply by crossing one long, lean thigh over both her legs and then sharply snapped the reins with his free hand. The horse sprang forward on the track and they were off again. What have I done? Why can I not control my temper? Why must I always fight for the last word? What did he say, that chatter is for cowards and fools? Someone has taught him that kindness, gentleness, even speech are worthless. And he did not learn otherwise from his mother, for she is long dead. Now I come and challenge him, a challenge he understands only as a battle, as something to be won. What have I done? And what will he do to me?
* * * *
“Women always want things,” Gawain’s father had told him. “Your mother did her duty and was biddable but she was rare, a jewel. Most women talk too much and want more. Show them who is master from the start or you shall have no peace.”It had worked for him with the wenches in the stews and he intended to lay down his terms now to this squirming blonde piece of lusciousness. Lush, yes, she is that and more, but that is the danger. She was so glorious in her gold-and-rose beauty that he was tempted to be soft with her, to tickle her and to make her laugh. I cannot do that. Yet she slotted so nicely into his arms, with her round rump pressing deliciously against him. Each time she wriggled her arms, trying to break free—and she never stopped trying—he experienced a tingling buffeting against his groin so that he rode in a building daze of pleasure.“Keep still!” he warned, when she almost pitched off the horse into a hazel. He swiftly snatched her back to safety. Without considering why he should feel the way he did, Gawain realized that he did not want her pretty face to be scratched.“Let me go!” She said more and he almost ignored her, but then recalled how she had saved his horse from injury. Irksome as her chatter was, perhaps he should pay attention.“What, Matilde?”Instead of being grateful that he used her name, the naughty creature glared at him. “Off to the southwest there is a woodman’s hut close to the next clearing, a day’s walk from here,” she said in her gruff little voice. “There is a pool close by where many creatures come to drink.”“Including a unicorn, perhaps?” This was worth knowing.“Yes, perhaps. The hut is old now and abandoned, but sturdy enough still for us to stop there for the night and plan. Now, are you going to let me go? I am as engaged in this quest as you. I shall not try to escape.” He snorted at the idea of a peasant on a quest, more amused still when her eyes took on a steely glint. “Let me go!” she snapped.“No.” He was less amused when, raising her hands that he clasped tight in his left, she avoided her own fingers and bit into his palm.And that is quite enough.He released her hands, gripped her jaw, and squeezed, reining in at the same time. She yelped and he brought his face close to hers. For an instant, seeing the prints of his fingers glowing red against her chin, he was ashamed of his roughness to her, then sense asserted itself. She was a peasant and, moreover, she deserved it. “Were you a man, you would spit teeth for that trick, girl.”The woodcutter’s hut and clearing, the still pool, must all wait. Sure of himself again, Gawain leapt down from his slowing horse, yanked Matilde after him, and dropped into a clump of wild garlic, tossing the girl over his lap. A spanking is what I had planned for Matilde anyway, but now it must be for longer and harder. This wench needs management.
* * * *
Trapped across Sir Gawain’s knees, Matilde struggled in vain, cursing the world, the knight, and herself. Why had she bitten him? Because I let my temper reign me, as I always do. She had known that he was already displeased with her because of her love for the last word. Now she had fueled his anger by indulging her own.And what was he doing, tying her hands before her with a linen strip? She tried to rear up, crawl away, fight back, and found herself snared again by those hellish long legs of his. He simply hooked her kicking feet under his sinewy calves and she was stuck. “Beat me and be done!” she snarled, still unable to curb her fury.“Quiet.” He bundled a cloak under her head and wound an arm about her middle, pulling her so her head was down, pressed into the cloak, and her bottom raised. Lifting herself on her elbows, she struck out with her tied hands, her tiny, flailing movements knocking feebly against his firm male flank.“Be still. Be quiet,” came the growled orders above her.Was he determined, annoyed, or amused? With the blood singing in her ears, Matilde tried to appeal to his knightly self-interest. “You need my help!” She wanted to break free and punch him first. Disconcertingly, it seemed he understood this.“Aye, and you would like to scald me in a cauldron, but I am the man and knight, not you.”“Do knights often boil their prisoners?” she shot back, bucking again and failing to budge him a finger-width. The arm coiled about her waist was thicker than rope and as immoveable. Her own blood felt to be boiling as she heard him chuckle. “Are you the youngest?” he asked, surprising her.“What?” She strained her hands against her bounds, but could not break them. “Yes, but what of it? Why…?”To her horror and renewed fury, she found the rest of her question stifled. Swiftly, with a casual efficiency, her tormentor proceeded to gag her with another strip of linen. These are bandage strips. He is using bandage strips to gag me.“I am the youngest, too,” observed her captor. “We young ones always have to fight for everything.” He patted her rump. “But you will learn not to fight me. Indeed, ’tis time you learned the rules.”“What rules?” she gasped behind her gag but he took no notice of her protest.“Yes,” he continued, as if she had not spoken, “My rules. Now you must listen to me, Matilde, and feel my hand as well.”Two times he has called me by my name. But this was no comfort, with her tied and gagged and hung over his lap. “Finally you are quiet, little peasant, as you should be.” He continued to gloat, the pig.“Only by the custom of the nobles,” Matilde tried to say, but all that escaped was a high-pitched, mewing sound. “Easy now.” He stroked a hand down her back. “Take your chastisement like a good maid.”“Why?” she started to argue from behind her gag, her breath and speech failing altogether as she felt him draw up her skirts, exposing her legs. She rolled and writhed but only succeeded in rucking up her skirts even more. A warm, callused palm tucked her gown about her middle and she was naked from the waist down. Pinned, bound, and helpless, she thought of revenge, of shaving Gawain half-bald, or smothering him in mud, and was mortified when a tear of frustration trickled down her cheek.“You will not bite me, or anyone, again.” A large, heavy hand smacked her left bottom cheek. “You will not speak unless I invite you to.” The hand struck her right cheek. “No more argument.” Another stinging slap. “No more questions.” Again, her hips felt to burst into flame. “Never run away.” Slap! “Respect me.” Slap! Slap!Determined not to give him the satisfaction of her tears, Matilde bit down hard into her gag. He must stop soon. I will not stay. I will run off.Surely he will stop soon?
* * * *
Under his fierce attentions, her bottom was already a rosy pink, and promised to become bright red. Gawain smacked on with a will, his anger decreasing and arousal increasing with every swift, stirring slap. Were she a lass from the stews, I would couple with her after this and a fine, lusty joining we would make. But then of course this was not a bawdy, eager wench from the stews but a maiden, and he was not giving her a few love pats but a firm hand spanking, and warnings.“You will always address me as ‘sir’ or ‘my lord,’ and you will not scowl. Whatever you may believe, I am no bully or monster, Matilde.” Why did I say that? I give to the poor at the castle gate and I know the lasses of the stews like me right well and will take me for free when I have no coin, but I do not have to justify myself. Flustered, Gawain laid on a battery of fast, stinging swipes to the raised, glowing target presented to him. The girl shuddered, but she no longer kicked or tried to evade his punishment. For an instant, he even thought she raised her haunches up to him, but then he heard her whimper and he fixed instead on her scarlet face, her narrowed, tear-filled eyes. He rested his hand on her overwarm seat and thought he heard her whisper through her gag, “Stop. Please stop.”Have I been too harsh? The thought was new to him, and disconcerting. Where he had expected to continue spanking until she broke down and wept, he untied the strip of linen he had unceremoniously thrust into her mouth and drew it away from her reddened lips. “There now. Over.” Panting, Matilde lay sprawled over his knees, her veil lost somewhere in the undergrowth, her mass of golden hair escaping from its plait. Her face was becoming less red and strained and she swallowed. “You will have a drink soon,” Gawain found himself saying, “but first—”He reached under her head and brought out a small flask from his cloak. He had bartered this ointment from a peddler who had assured him of its magic and certainly. He found the stuff good on his hurts. He poured some onto his hand and palmed it smoothly over Matilde’s scarlet rump. She sighed and he felt her relax. “Better?” he almost said, which was absurd. The girl had deserved her spanking and if she was uncomfortable, so was he. His own arousal was as hard as a sword, and he was sorely tempted to scoop her off his lap onto her back and have his way with her. Not yet, though. I need her to be a lure for the unicorn. Yet perhaps I should ensure that she is indeed a virgin. Just because a peasant girl says she is a maid does not mean she is.But they had fought enough for one day and he wanted to believe Matilde, so he stroked and smoothed more of the ointment onto her bottom instead. Just to save her soreness, for we must ride again today.
* * * *
Matilde knew she ought to protest. No one had ever spanked her and no one had touched her as Gawain did now. But his caressing, sweeping fingers felt so alarmingly excellent, cooling and comforting. Her whole backside felt to have been pounded to a huge, throbbing blister that she had even feared might burst. She had not realized Gawain could strike so hard or fast, that his palm could hurt so much. At the same time, as her spanking had progressed, she had become aware of a different kind of heat pooling through her loins, making her womanly parts swell and become wet. And now that it was over she felt strangely safe, all the strain of the past weeks taken from her. Even his scolding had not been so terrible. The mint-scented unguent he gently worked into her scalded skin took away the bee-sting pain and left only a glowing warmth.Again, as she had during her spanking, she lifted her hips to his attentions, higher and higher. The cool, tingling ointment glided over one cheek, then the other, Gawain’s hand cupping and molding, tender, not punishing. His fingers dipped lower, slipping lightly between her thighs, brushing her intimate folds in a single, long, lovely caress that tipped her from contentment into delight. “Sir!” Unsure if she protested or if she was thanking him, Matilde closed her eyes and let the pleasure come.
* * * *
Was this little golden firebrand responding to him? Gawain had been unable to discipline himself and keep his roving hand in check. In truth, it had only been the faintest of touches between her thighs, one he had been prepared to deny or claim as a mistake, but now her eyes were wide and sparkling and her face flushed. Even as he raised his hand and so caught a savor of her sweet intimate scent on his fingers, she sighed. Pivoting onto her side against his ribs, she looked up at him and smiled.“I am thirsty,” she breathed.I spank her and she smiles at me. What next?At a loss, Gawain smoothed down her skirts and righted her so she was sitting on his lap. His painfully aroused lap, though clearly Matilde did not know that, for she watched him quite innocently, trying at the same time to reorder her hair. He handed her his flask of ale. “Here.”“Thank you.” She drank and offered him the flask again. “Do we move, Gawain—sir?”She calls me by my name! The old, pre-Matilde Gawain would have hauled her back across his knees and spanked her afresh for that slip to remind her of his knightly status. Now he traced her soft lower lip with a finger. “I am glad you remembered my title in the end, Matilde.”She colored up very prettily and lowered her head. “Yes, sir.”He drank himself. “In a moment.” When I can move without feeling aroused.She leaned back into the crook of his arm and they sat together in quiet.I want to kiss her. Worse, I want Matilde to kiss me. What next?He could hardly wait to find out.

Bride for a Champion - First Chapter

Bride for a Champion


I Command you to marry the bearer of this letter. Lady Alice Martinswood has no choice but to obey her dead father’s final instruction. His choice is his champion, the mercenary Simon Paton. To Alice, the handsome, arrogant Simon is a dangerous, seductive stranger.
Bewitched in turn by Alice, Simon is appalled when he discovers that Alice’s father disowned Henrietta, her younger sister, when Henrietta fell in love and eloped. Simon promises Alice that he will help her find her sister.
Still having nightmares after witnessing the sack of Constantinople, Simon misunderstands Alice’s tears of joy on their wedding night. Swearing not to hurt her again, he decides he must not touch her—a promise he finds impossible to keep, especially when Alice vows to beguile him…
Meanwhile Simon and Alice trace Henrietta to medieval London, wandering together through the perilous, exciting streets. Will they find Henrietta? Will they find true love with each other?
Genre: Historical Romance
Length: 22,984 words

Amazon
Amazon UK Barnes and NobleBookstrandGoogle Books
Excerpt (Chapter One)
BRIDE FOR A CHAMPION
LINDSAY TOWNSENDCopyright © 2014




Chapter 1
Summer, England, 1204.
I command you to marry the bearer of this letter. This is the man, the one I told you of, Alice, the one who saved me. My champion Simon Paton, come all the way from Constantinople. Marry him, bear him a son and heir and forget Henrietta. Do your duty by me.
Lady Alice, crouching on her knees with a cleaning rag and a ribbon of her missing sister’s in one hand and her father’s last letter in the other, knew she did not look her best. But what did that matter? Her father was dead and the dead no longer care for appearances. Since the loss of Henrietta, she did not care, either.She glanced at the man’s travel-stained cloak and mud-splattered boots without looking up into his face. Her steward should not have brought the fellow into her presence, should have given her time to compose herself and greet him in the great hall, but she sensed Simon Paton had ordered otherwise.And my steward obeyed him. Already my people take orders from him, because he is a man.“Forgive my appearance, Lady Alice,” said the stranger in a deep, faintly accented voice, clearly indifferent to whether she forgave him or not. “I had business to attend to in London. I have come as soon as I could.”Alice dropped the yellow ribbon back into her sister’s clothes chest. She had been searching the chest again for any sign that would point to where Henrietta had been taken and by whom, but her father’s last letter contained a devastating order. Marry him.The letter shook in her hand. Swiftly, she dropped it into the chest and closed the lid. “Your name, sir?” “I am Simon Paton. Your father’s champion.” The bearer of the letter. The man I am commanded to marry. “You were with my father in London?” She almost choked on her next question but she had to know. “At the end?”“I was, my lady. Your father died well and at peace.”Alice wished she could cry. She longed for some relief. When word had come ten days ago of her remaining parent’s death from fever she had expected to feel something. Instead her heart felt numb. Her beloved younger sister was lost to her and her father—their father—had disowned Henrietta weeks before. Henry Martinswood had always demanded absolute obedience from his daughters and, by her elopement, Henrietta had failed him. Yet now, by letter, he orders me from the grave. Marry this man. Give him sons. Do your duty. Always obedience and no word of love. Our father never loved his girls.“My lady?” Still without looking at Simon Paton directly, Alice reluctantly clasped his fingers and allowed him to draw her to her feet.“My lady, you may be assured that your father died and is buried as he wished, in London.”Beside the longed-for son that his London mistress had borne him, Alice guessed, wondering how this new knowledge did not pierce her soul. She had never met the young Henry, her father’s namesake, but when the child had died two summers back Henry Martinswood had become still more cold and grim toward his daughters.“Lady Alice. Look at me, Alice.”Hearing her name said so gently, she looked up for the first time and stared, forgetting the tingling pins and needles in her legs, forgetting everything. He was big, this Simon Paton, tall, well-made and starkly-handsome, black-haired and with a head-full of straggling, fierce curls. Tanned from many eastern suns, he was dressed in a mantle that was strange to her, very dark and at the same time glossy, like the plumage of a raven. His clean-shaven, pox-free face, as lean as a hermit’s, thrust at her like the prow of a great ship. He was smiling, or at least a shadow of a smile hovered round his full lips—though not his eyes. Simon Paton’s eyes—a dark blue, almost black, ringed with curling black lashes—gazed at her in a coolly intense, measuring way, as if judging her. He had a contained energy in him, as if he was ready to wrestle with angels, yet at the same time found the challenge distasteful. An unhappy man, she thought, yet also a striving one.The woman to win his heart will be most lucky. The idea—more a feeling than a thought—flashed through her and was gone, dashed aside by his next words.“Alice, I understand your father’s last wishes. I applaud them. Before he died, he spoke to me of them. When we are married, you will be safe. I shall protect you.”Thoroughly disconcerted, Alice wrung her hand from his. “He discussed my marriage with you?”“To ask my consent.”Yes, you are asked but I have to obey. It was the way of the world but she did not have to like it. “And my consent?”He waved that aside. “You need a man to be safe. I agreed, subject to my seeing you.”Alice clenched her teeth together, too proud to ask if he approved of her. Simon Paton was clearly enjoying her discomfiture.“Shall we take a glass of wine or tisane together, my lady?” he went on smoothly. “Toast our nuptials tomorrow?”So soon! Alice dipped her head, afraid her face might show her alarm. “Will you call my maid Beatrix, to serve us?” she asked this tall stranger—my husband to be—thinking he could be useful at least.“Such duties are for a woman,” came back his curt response. “I will await you here and we shall plan how best we shall manage together.” His dark eyes gleamed as she jerked her head up. “How you will obey me.”“You may be sure I shall be most agreeable,” Alice snapped, aggrieved afresh. “I shall fetch a tisane.”She withdrew, her head high and her heart hammering within her.If he is so keen to marry me, might he also help me to find and recover Henrietta? Or will he be only too keen to gorge himself on my father’s lands? Will this Simon Paton be thrilled with my dowry and delighted to keep me in my place? Such thoughts horrified her and she shivered. Would I were a man, in command of my own fate!
* * * *
Simon watched Lady Alice stride from the chamber, kicking her long skirts and apron out of her way, much as she probably wanted to kick him. He almost called her back to make some apology but then he thought of the dead, deflowered, crushed womenfolk he had seen in Constantinople, women who would have wept to be as safe and pampered as this one. Fetching and serving little cups was women’s work.“Yet she is very fine,” Simon said aloud, surprising himself. “Uncommonly pretty.” Just in need of management, which is scarcely surprising, since her father is dead and she has no uncles or brothers. In Constantinople the Lady Alice would have learned to be more modest. But Constantinople was fallen, a smoking ruin, and he had been unable to save it, or its women, or the children, those frightened screaming babies…The reek of the destroyed, fired city hit him again like a spear thrust and he rocked briefly on his heels, glad that there was no one to see his weakness. Sharp Alice with her moss-green eyes would spot it, though, so he must beware.“My sister Henrietta is prettier.” She had returned and he had not heard her light footsteps, only her tongue, which could take a courtesy and twist it. Without thought, he struck back.“How is that possible, my lady? Will you tell me?”Her green eyes darkened and her cheeks were suddenly tinged with a pale rose. Seeing her thus he felt ashamed of his unkindness but she answered him roundly, counting off the points as she handed him a cup of something hot and sweet-smelling off a wooden tray.“First, my sister is younger and men always prefer young flesh. Second, she is taller and more ripely formed, with gold not brown hair and bright brown eyes, not old-leaf green. Third—” She paused as she set the tray on top of an ancient chest and accidentally spilled some of the liquid in the flagon onto the lid of the chest. “Henrietta is far less clumsy.”She had changed what she had been going to say, he was sure of it, but she also smiled for the first time and he realized how young she was, surely no more than twenty. She was a little too thin and had shadows beneath her eyes that should not have been there, but she was still a youth. From the perspective of his seven and twenty and his seasons of war and trouble she was a child, a slender, very pretty girl but still an infant.And she has a younger sister, Henrietta. Why did my lord never speak of her? Where is she?“Tell me of your sister,” he said. “And what were you going to say just now?”For an instant a gleam of teasing shone in her face, making her seem younger still, then she shrugged. “Only that she is beautiful, uncommonly beautiful.”Which may mean that the sister still has all her teeth. Simon took a sip of the tisane. To his surprise it was excellent and the fresh scent of strawberries drew him back to simple boyhood pleasures, before Constantinople. “Good!” he remarked.“Will you have bread and cheese also?” Alice asked, clearly falling into an accustomed role as hostess.“The cheese,” Simon agreed, testing to see if the wench would obey him. “I have a liking for cheese, so hurry along.”“At once,” she answered, in a voice of frost. Certainly she was not clumsy in anger. Instead, in a fluid, graceful motion, she sped past him to the door again, her eyes glittering like a cat’s. He met her stare for stare, wondering why he was troubling to tease—to break a girl’s will was nothing.But, lady or not, she should heed me. She needs a man to guide her. “When you return you can tell me of your sister.” Why had his lord never mentioned this Henrietta? Another daughter and the old man had never spoken of her.From the edge of his sight he saw Alice stop on the threshold, her shoulders and spine stiffening. She wanted to linger and talk now, he guessed, but she should learn to heed him.“My cheese?” Simon waited for her to leave, but she twisted round like a spinning top, her long brown plaits flying, and said, very sweetly, “I have news of Henrietta, something I learned this morning from going through her chest.”“Nothing useful, I am sure,” Simon replied bluntly, wanting her to know he had seen through her obvious feint. She smiled at him, her lips as lush as ripe cherries, and inclined her head, though she had not yielded yet. “Perhaps, sir, you will escort me to the kitchen, then we may both return and tell all together?” Her wish to have her own way amused him and he found himself happy to placate her. “Aye, aye, I will go along with you,” he remarked, stretching his arms over his head. “Let me see if you are a good little housekeeper.”The girl’s look of dismay at these words and more especially at his joining her in truth had Simon stalking to the threshold, where he held the door open. “After you, my lady.” The instant she stepped through and they were away from the chamber she barred the way through the narrow corridor with outstretched arms. “What are you doing?” she hissed.“I am your kitchen escort. Tell me, do you often wander alone and unattended?” She ignored the question. “You want cheese no more than I do, so why, really, are you here?” “To ensure you are obedient, as a wife should be.”In the dimly-lit, wood-paneled corridor he heard her snort, unless it was the passing hunting dog that sneezed.“You dislike me?” Leaning against a wall, he allowed her to stop him for the moment. She was small and slim, brown as a sparrow, but for all that she was most gladdening to look on, with a beautiful face that could have graced a statue in Constantinople. “Do you find men distasteful?” he added, to keep her still a little longer. If she truly dislikes me and dislikes all men we shall have to reach another way of living together. I will not have her ground down. His sudden sense of protectiveness toward her surprised him.Her expressive, mobile face at once became unreadable. “I do not know you, so how can I say?” “Yet you think me arrogant.” Still, she does not flinch from me, so that is a start. He played with the thought of leaning down and kissing her, to reinforce that idea, but knew that he stunk of horse and dusty roads.Her breath stopped, as if she caught scent of him, or stifled a tart reply or a laugh—he was not sure which. She surprised him then by nodding her head and saying, in a considering way, “Perhaps not, not for a champion.“But,” she went on, “whatever your opinion of me or my house-keeping, you will not keep me out of the search for Henrietta. She is my sister, not yours. I will not give up the search for her.” Because of you was her unsaid thought, driving between them like a blade of steel.Exasperated—he did not give up on others, either—he stepped closer, remembering other women, soft and vulnerable like this one, so defenseless at the last. “You need protection.”“And you need a woman’s eye.” “How is it I have never heard of Henrietta?”She blanched at the question but answered promptly, “My sister fancied herself in love and eloped, but since then I have had no word from her. Our father disowned her. He said she was dead to him.” Her voice dipped even lower. “Henrietta is but fourteen.”The old man disowned his fourteen-year-old child? Was he mad?“I have to find her. I know my sister and how she thinks.”“Do women think? And surely, if you know her so well, should you not have foreseen her elopement?”Again, though, he spoke too harshly, as he might to men in a barracks. She flinched, as if struck, and he was sorry when tears misted her eyes. “Alice, I am—”He spoke to empty air. She had turned and left him, speeding along the corridor and clattering down the stairs so that he had to jog to catch her. On the final step she whirled about and faced him. “You will not bully me!”Because he had clearly hurt her he raised both hands in a truce.“Are we agreed?” she persisted.“That you should be involved in her search and recovery? Not a bit,” he replied cheerfully, for how could he agree to that?She pointed to his belt where his sword would be. “No one is invulnerable, not even you, my lord.”In the brighter light from the great hall, where even now servants and others were gathering, preparing for the later midday meal, her light brown hair was picked out with tiny flames of red, like threads of garnets. He savored the pert curves of her breasts rising and falling as she breathed her indignation. For an instant he wished he was like the earlier mercenaries of Constantinople and could Viking her away. He wished he had kissed her in the upper corridor, too, for was that not the reason he was here, to wed and bed this pretty nag? “God is, I believe,” he replied mildly, amused as she clapped her hands together in sheer irritation and strutted off toward the kitchen block, the swing of her hips revealing her as very much a girl, whether she liked it or not.

OUT TODAY - The Virgin, the Knight & the Unicorn

Sir Gawain, poor and eager for glory, is on a quest to catch a unicorn. His reluctant companion, the virgin dairy-maid Matilde, hates the nobility and loses no time in clashing with the thoughtless young knight. Gawain believes that, as the man, his word should be law—a law he is quick to enforce on his companion. However, the impetuous Matilde is not easily cowed and confounds him by her unexpected responses, especially to his discipline.

As they travel on their quest, the hot-tempered couple learn more about themselves and begin to compromise. Respect changes to fondness, perhaps even to love, but what future can there be between knight and bondswoman?

When Matilde is taken by outlaws, Gawain realizes, almost too late, what she means to him. Can he rescue her? Can he and Matilde join forces to combat a deeper conspiracy that is ranged against them?
And the unicorn? The unicorn, too, has a part to play…


Order the ebook now from Bookstrand Publishing  http://www.bookstrand.com/the-virgin-...  $2.99

Forever his: slaves in my fiction

Roman woman and her slave
(Photo Giovanni dall'Orto, Peiraius
Museum (Wkimedia Commons).Writing about the ancient and medieval worlds as I do I often encounter slavery as a fact of life. I explore this dynamic in some of my stories, in a careful way. Slavery was often utterly cruel and the harsh realities of life on the latifundia farms of Ancient Rome could be terrible.

For some slaves life could be a little easier, especially in personal, one to one relationships. So we have the tombstones of former slaves such as Regina (Queenie) at the ancient Roman fort near South Shields. Regina was a former slave, freed by her master who had married her. I explore that kind of hopeful dynamic in my novel Flavia's Secret and my shorter stories, Escape to Love and Silk and Steel .

I show the grimmer side of slavery in my epic adventure romances, Bronze Lightning and Blue Gold. In Bronze Lighting the heroine, Sarmatia, is captured and enslaved for a time by her enemy Carvin, the brutal king of the lands around Avebury. In Blue Gold, several characters are enslaved and must fight to regain their freedom.

Sometimes I explore aspects of submission and dominance in my stories. In my historical romances, I find this works well, fitting into the beliefs of the time. This is especially true in my medieval romances The Snow Bride , its sequel A Summer Bewitchment , and my forthcoming novella, The Virgin, the Knight and the Unicorn. Now with 10% off at Bookstrand until July 8th

I also have one light BDSM novel, Asking Too Much , set in a future where men or women can sell themselves into a consensual 'slavery' for a time.

The dynamics of acceptance and trust inspire me to explore such themes in my work. Bullying does not appeal at all to me but a situation where a man and woman come together in love, trust and respect where the heroine allows the hero to take care of her in masterful ways - that works for me.

You can see my slave and other fiction on my Amazon Author Page here and here

You can also see my slave and other fiction at SirenBookstrand at my Bookstrand Author Page here. This page also links to excerpts and reviews.

'A Taste of Evil' - Historical mystery now available for pre-order at half-price.

Alyson Weaver, five times wife and a now a widow of Bath, is back in her birth city of Bath fighting for her life in a sultry July, 1386. If she and legal advocate Solomon cannot answer devious Prior Herbert’s witchcraft charges, she will be burned to death for heresy and murder. Townsfolk turn against her, including the powerful and venomous Mary Tucker and Alyson’s daughter Margery. Peter’s paramour Isabel and bastard son Lawrence are hoping to seize her property, as are Peter’s grasping kindred. Prior Herbert hates her and Bath coroner Thomas Newby is out for revenge for her championing of those he abuses. Alyson herself had reasons to want Peter dead and Solomon, a church-trained lawyer full of clerical prejudice against women, finds it difficult to like or believe her. Nor can the reader be sure of her innocence. Her friend Felise is seemingly made dangerously ill by one of Alyson’s potions. Margery will speak at the inquest about her father, Peter, testimony which will harm Alyson.

The inquisition begins at Prior Herbert’s sumptuous local manor, where Alyson is attended by her servants, advocate Solomon, and the slippery Pardoner Christopher from An Older Evil. She defends herself stoutly and Solomon is impressive but her steward Gervase is revealed to be a heretic. Gervase is threatened with torture and Alyson and her party have to fight their way off the manor. Then, in a chance discovery by her page, Oliver, Alyson realises that Prior Herbert was right: Peter, her amoral husband, had made enemies all his life and was murdered by poison.


Through the streets and taverns of Bath, Alyson and Solomon have to find out who poisoned little-mourned Peter to save her from the stake and before the murderer gets nervous of her probing and strikes again.

The sequel to An Older Evil.

Excerpt and more details at:

MuseItUp Publishing, June 2014 (Plus other sellers shown in the MuseItUp Link, including Apple, B&N, Omnlit, Smashwords and Kobo)

Also available at Bookstrand

Half-Price for a limited time.

A Taste of Evil - Historical Mystery. Available for pre-order with money off! Half-Price!

Alyson Weaver, five times wife and a now a widow of Bath, is back in her birth city of Bath fighting for her life in a sultry July, 1386. If she and legal advocate Solomon cannot answer devious Prior Herbert’s witchcraft charges, she will be burned to death for heresy and murder. Townsfolk turn against her, including the powerful and venomous Mary Tucker and Alyson’s daughter Margery. Peter’s paramour Isabel and bastard son Lawrence are hoping to seize her property, as are Peter’s grasping kindred. Prior Herbert hates her and Bath coroner Thomas Newby is out for revenge for her championing of those he abuses. Alyson herself had reasons to want Peter dead and Solomon, a church-trained lawyer full of clerical prejudice against women, finds it difficult to like or believe her. Nor can the reader be sure of her innocence. Her friend Felise is seemingly made dangerously ill by one of Alyson’s potions. Margery will speak at the inquest about her father, Peter, testimony which will harm Alyson.

The inquisition begins at Prior Herbert’s sumptuous local manor, where Alyson is attended by her servants, advocate Solomon, and the slippery Pardoner Christopher from An Older Evil. She defends herself stoutly and Solomon is impressive but her steward Gervase is revealed to be a heretic. Gervase is threatened with torture and Alyson and her party have to fight their way off the manor. Then, in a chance discovery by her page, Oliver, Alyson realises that Prior Herbert was right: Peter, her amoral husband, had made enemies all his life and was murdered by poison.


Through the streets and taverns of Bath, Alyson and Solomon have to find out who poisoned little-mourned Peter to save her from the stake and before the murderer gets nervous of her probing and strikes again.

The sequel to An Older Evil.

Excerpt and more details at:

MuseItUp Publishing, June 2014 (Plus other sellers shown in the MuseItUp Link, including Apple, B&N, Omnlit, Smashwords and Kobo)

Also available at Bookstrand

Half-Price for a limited time.

Buildings: The Anglo-Saxon church at Bradford on Avon

The small church in Bradford on Avon is one of the few Anglo Saxon churches to have survived and is one of the most complete. That it has done so is something of a miracle or an accident, seeing that it has been used as a church, a school and a cottage.  The Victorian historian Canon Jones recognized the building as a church and it was restored in the 1870s. It is now used as a place of worship from time to time.
The church is dedicated to Saint Laurence, one of the very early Christian martyrs. Churches to this former deacon of Rome are often a sign of an earlier Christian community in the area. Whether or not that is the case, the medieval historian William of Malmesbury records that the church here existed in the 1120s. 
William thought that it dated back to the time of the 8th century and that it  was built by St Aldhelm.  Aldhelm, of the royal house of Wessex,  was the bishop of Sherborne and, after his death in 709, his body was known to have been brought to Bradford on Avon, maybe for burial in his church. That is possible, though the present building, from its architectural style, looks to be from the 10th century, which would fit a tradition that the church was intended to house to remains of King Edward the Martyr, the older brother of King Ethelred, who was murdered in 978, though Edward ended up buried in Shaftesbury Abbey.
The building is very tall for its size and decorated with arcades, similar in style to those seen  above on Bosham church as represented on the Bayeux Tapestry. It has few windows and these are small, while the doorways are tall and narrow.  In Anglo-Saxon times the interior would have been lit by candles. This sounds plain but there is evidence of decoration around the doorways and in the plinth running around the walls. It’s probable that the now whitewashed walls were painted, and in bright colors. This would have given the church an impression of a jewel,  a very suitable spot for the resting place of a martyr king.  Other decoration includes two stone angels, discovered in the east wall of the nave, and a stone bowl, which is now used as a font.

The church is important to show how the Anglo-Saxons viewed religious buildings as enclosed yet airy sacred spaces, a great contrast with the larger Anglo-Norman churches that came later. It reminds me of a sacred version of an Anglo-Saxon great hall, an intimate and companionable space for worship. 


You can read about Anglo-Saxon and early Norman society and the battles of 1066 in my novel, A Knight's Captive, available here at Amazon. Also Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble Apple Bookstrand Kobo  and many more. (List of Book-sellers down the side of the blog)

'A Summer Bewitchment' - new excerpt

A Summer Bewitchment, my sequel to The Snow Bride, begins as the witch Elfrida and disfigured knight Magnus are seeking desperately for kidnapped, missing girls. They wish to rescue all of them, whereas the nobility, represented by Lady Astrid and Tancred, are concerned with recovering only one.
EXCERPT:

That afternoon, while Lady Astrid dined in the great hall, Elfrida sought out the squire Baldwin. He had been with her and Magnus the previous winter, during their dangerous search for her sister Christina and the other missing brides. He knew she had magic.A tall, slim young man who enjoyed his food, Baldwin listened closely to her request. Too courtly to pull a face, he nonetheless made his feelings clear.“To ride with you now to Warren Bruer? Why, my lady?” He did not say them, but the words our lord will not like it also hovered on his lips.“It is necessary. I sense my lord has need of me.” She did not want to say more or admit to the storm cloud that seemed to have coiled itself in the middle of her chest.This is not my seething disappointment. It is Magnus’s, poor love.“Our lord needs me, Pie,” she repeated, giving Baldwin the nickname she had made for him the previous winter.“What of your guest?”“Piers can attend her. Or if she wishes, Lady Astrid can ride on with Piers and join us. But we should leave now. The steward can give our excuses.”Baldwin studied her a moment longer, drawing his brows together, then smiled, revealing the chipped tooth Elfrida found endearing.“Do I try to protect you from my lord, or do you protect me from him, my lady?”Relief flooded through Elfrida. “We ride and see.”And pray we reach the place before whatever is troubling Magnus bursts like a pricked boil.
* * * *
Bundled in his cloak, with his saddle cloth as pallet and pillow, the girl slept, curled over like a fern frond. Magnus was glad to see her at peace but felt sick at heart. She had screamed herself hoarse when first spotting him, shrieked herself into utter helpless weariness before fleeing into sleep.She was a redhead, too, which scraped his sense of shame even more rawly. He wanted to blame Tancred for cantering on ahead and hauling the girl to her feet to face him before any had troubled to tell her that he was maimed. He longed to rage at Mark, who had discovered her cowering in a thicket and done such a poor job of soothing her. Most of all he wanted to be veiled like an eastern woman. Then he would not have inflicted his ruined, bestial looks on this terrified, confused lass.Is she even one of the kidnapped girls? Tancred seems convinced of it, but we have no proof. We do not even have her name. How did she come here? Where did she escape from?Questioning his second in command, he learned that Mark had come upon the girl without any warning, when the dogs had discovered her in the thicket and barked. The child would not or could not say how she had got there. Magnus did what he could. He ordered Mark to set the hounds tracking again, using the girl’s scent. Tancred he sent off with another two of his men to the hamlets and villages, taking a lock of the girl’s red hair. He had made Tancred repeat to him what the girl looked like—small, slim, about fourteen, freckles, red hair, blue eyes—until he was certain the lad would remember. Bad enough for the parents of these missing girls to have their hopes raised by a poor description. His men also knew what the lass looked like, and they would be tactful in speaking to the people.Perhaps I should have kept Tancred with me, but he would keep jabbing the girl, wanting her to wake. The boy was anxious for his young kinswoman, well enough, but he seemed to think this harried, unconscious girl had no right to any finer feelings. “She is a peasant,” he answered, thrusting out his lower lip, when Magnus had warned him to go gently.Was I ever such a thickheaded one as Tancred?Giving orders, searching where the girl had first been found, those tasks he was glad to do. Returning to the stony roadway that skirted the little wood, Magnus spotted a new cartwheel groove in a seam of mud, but the cart or carriage had long vanished. Had she escaped from the cart? He could not tell.Rising awkwardly from his crouch, Magnus turned on the road to check on his reluctant sleeper. The man guarding her nodded to him as she dozed still beneath the spreading branches of an oak tree. As he watched her, the flashing gilts of her hair pierced him. His heart ached and his missing foot hurt as he tried to recall what he should do next.I am lost.The worst of it was that he wanted Elfrida here. His caring, fighting warrior of magic was so much better than him at consoling the shy and suffering. He imagined her running along the road to meet him. Both would be united, striving, understanding each other, giving aid to one another.He heard a drumming of hooves and guessed it was one of his men from the lack of shouts or challenges. Farther along the rutted road, into a faint shimmer of heat, pounded a gray horse with lanky Baldwin as rider. “To me!” Magnus shouted, before he realized that his squire was galloping toward him anyway—and not just Baldwin.Peeping from behind Baldwin’s back, her face clenched in concentration as she gripped the squire’s middle and clung on, was his Elfrida. Impossibly, she had known he needed her. She had known and come. She comes for me. Shame of his earlier fears concerning his wife, riding, and pregnancy scorched through him.Magnus started, then began to run toward her. With every sprinting, skidding step, his heart expanded. She waved at him, her veil flapping like a sail, her long hair gleaming like flames, her mouth busy with an inevitable apology.She smiles her love at me even as she calls sorry. She thinks I may be angry, the foolish, brave little wretch.He caught her as Baldwin reined in and before she tumbled from the horse.I am so very glad she is here but why has she come? What news is she bringing?

Lindsay Townsend