Conquering Knight, Captive Lady. Anne O'Brien

      ‘I say it is mine. As does this.’ Drawing his sword with ruthless deliberation, he raised it, the tip pointed at the very centre of her breast, although he did not allow it to quite rest there.

      A feral smile slashed a white gash in the dark, unshaven face, but failed to warm that fierce gaze. ‘Might is right, lady. And as of this moment, with this sword in my hand, I hold the power here. You do not.’

      Rosamund froze on the spot, the implied threat too real to be discounted.

      Suddenly, without warning, the point of the sword fell. Thank God! But Rosamund’s relief was short-lived when the knight took a long stride forward to close the space between them. Before she could retreat, she found herself caught within his arm, tightly banding around her waist. Dragged hard against him almost off her feet, breast to breast, thigh against thigh.

      If she had been speechless before, now she found herself unable to think, to marshal any thoughts at all. It was all sensation, all awareness of the power of his body, the heat of him, as she was held plastered against him. To see those cold grey eyes, gold-flecked, looking down into hers with what she could only interpret as hatred.

      What could she hope for at the hands of this man? For the first time in her life Rosamund de Longspey feared for her safety and her honour.

       Dear Reader

      Rosamund, my heroine, escapes from her family to take refuge in Clifford Castle, which today is an atmospheric ruin on the bank of the River Wye in the Welsh Marches, not many miles from where I live. A tale is told of a lady who, in medieval times, was besieged there, taken prisoner by a local robber lord and forced to accept his hand in marriage. When the King came to hear of it he descended with an army, punished the lord for his despicable exploit and offered the bride her freedom and a purse of gold. Instead of snatching at the chance, the lady refused the King’s justice and would not be parted from her impetuous husband.

      And that, I thought when I read it, is the stuff of romance. I could not resist such a glamorous opportunity. It inspired me to explore the wilful passion between Rosamund and her own robber lord, Gervase Fitz Osbern. I have created for them a difficult path to travel before they can accept that one cannot live without the other, as I am certain the original lovers too experienced. Rosamund has to learn that sometimes a man needs to be seduced into a compromise, without his knowing it, when all the time he thinks that his is the controlling hand. Whilst Gervase, almost too late, realises that military force is not the way to his lover’s heart.

      I hope that you enjoy Rosamund and Gervase’s journey of discovery as much as I did writing it.

      As for Mills & Boon, I owe them so much—not least that they gave me my first opportunity to write historical romances for my own, and your, pleasure. I know you will join me in wishing them Happy Birthday for their magnificent centenary.

       Anne

      About the Author

      ANNE O’BRIEN was born and has lived for most of her life in Yorkshire. There she taught history, before deciding to fulfil a lifetime ambition to write romantic historical fiction. She won a number of short story competitions until published for the first time by Mills & Boon. As well as writing, she finds time to enjoy gardening, cooking and watercolour painting. She now lives with her husband in an eighteenth-century cottage in the depths of the Welsh Marches.

       Recent novels by the same author:

      THE RUNAWAY HEIRESS

PURITAN BRIDE MARRIAGE UNDER SIEGE THE DISGRACED MARCHIONESS* THE OUTRAGEOUS DEBUTANTE* THE ENIGMATIC RAKE*

*The Faringdon Scandals

      Conquering

      Knight, Captive Lady

      Anne O’Brien

      

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For George, the hero of all my romances.

      Prologue

      January 1158—a cold, wet winter four years into the reign of King Henry II.

      Clifford Castle—a remote border stronghold in the Welsh Marches.

      ‘Stop! What in God’s name are you doing?’

      ‘As you see.’ The unknown knight who commanded the formidable force of soldiers might have been surprised to see the lady, but with barely a flicker of an eye chose to spurn her. Even when she continued to shiver in the bitter wind at the top of the flight of steps leading up from the enclosed space of the bailey to the stone keep. Even though that lady was clearly seething in an enraged whirl of mantle and veil, another lady similarly muffled to the tip of her nose against the elements at her shoulder. The knight proceeded to give brisk, efficient instructions to his men for them to dismount and immediately secure the fortress.

      The lady opened her mouth. Shut it, tight-lipped. Eyes of green, clear as glass in an ecclesiastical window and just as sharp, her eyebrows beautifully arched and dark, she surveyed the organized overrunning of her castle in horrified silence. Under her veil the rich red-brown of her hair, a fox’s pelt with gold and russet depths, shining and glowing, as vibrant as the autumn fruit of the chestnut tree, was whipped into a messy tangle by the wind. She paid it no heed. For one of the few occasions in her life she could find no words to express the shock, the sheer fury, that held her motionless. But not for long.

      ‘What are you doing here? Who are you? Who opened the gates to you?’

      ‘I am Fitz Osbern.’ He barely took the time to glance in her direction.

      The lady narrowed her eyes at the device that fluttered and snapped on the profusion of pennons attached to the soldiers’ lances. A mythical beast, dragon-like with a fierce snarl on its mask of a face, silver on black. Definitely not one she knew. Fitz Osbern—why was he here? As a marauding brigand? A robber lord? There were plenty of those in the March, wild and lawless men, answering to no man, not even to the King. He certainly looked the part. She scowled at the man who had by this time dismounted to stand, one hand fisted on his hip, in her bailey. Equally at the older knight, who had moved in silent support to his side, and the greyhound, as lean and rangy as its master, that loped and dodged with excitement between the horses’ hooves. Fitz Osbern … She pitched her voice above the general racket that had descended on her home. ‘I don’t understand what you are doing here.’

      ‘Which is a matter of supreme indifference to me, lady.’ Fitz Osbern flung the reins of his dark bay stallion to his young squire. ‘Bryn!’ He snapped his fingers to the hound, bringing him immediately to heel, then made to walk toward the far stabling, still issuing orders to his men in a tone that brooked no disobedience.

      But this spurred the lady into action. Who he was or was not was entirely irrelevant. ‘I will not be defied in my own home!’ She covered the distance down the steps and across the bailey in remarkable speed to grasp at a fold of his cloak with bold authority, grimacing at the slick coating of mud and rain that squelched beneath her fingers. ‘You have no right to give orders here!’

      ‘I have every right.’

      He shook her off as if, she thought, she were a troublesome hound puppy, and then had the temerity to turn his back on her—again.

      ‘This castle is my home—my property, my inheritance.’