In the year 1066, England struggles against Norman invaders, and two strangers cross paths on a pilgrimage fraught with peril—only to discover a love worth any danger...
Battle-weary knight Marc de Sens has never encountered a woman like Sunniva of Wereford: beautiful, brilliant, and miles above the curs who call themselves her kin. Alas, she is promised to another and Marc’s obligation is to his three orphaned nieces. But when Sunniva’s circumstances suddenly change, Marc learns the truth about her “betrothal”...
A rough-hewn knight so gentle with children intrigues Sunniva, who never knew a kind word or caring touch from any man until Marc rescued her from the grimmest of fates. When her loutish father and brothers are killed, Sunniva is finally free, but her troubles are far from over. Although Marc has appointed himself her protector, he has a dark secret—as well as an uncanny ability to disarm her completely...
Chapter One
Northern England, September 1066
“Uncle Marc! Is she not as beautiful as the sun? That
is what her name means. She is Sunniva, Sun-Gift. Do
you not think she is like the sun?”
“Steady, little one. You will wake your sisters. But
yes, you are right. She is most comely.”
Ignoring the powerful temptation to look where Alde
was pointing, Marc tucked the ends of his big traveling
cloak around his excited niece and encouraged the
child to lie down again by doing so himself. A swift, anxious
glance confirmed that Judith and Isabella were
sleeping, sprawled under his cloak, their small faces sunburned
with weeks of travel. Isabella was sucking her
thumb. The day had been long, the riding hard and
tiring. He prayed she would sleep through, free of
nightmares.
Just one night, Lord Christ. As a mercy to her, and to her
sisters.
“Uncle Marc?” Alde whispered, tugging on her lower
lip, the pupil of her left eye sliding toward her small,
faintly hooked nose as she fought her body’s weariness,
“Can I have—” A tiny snore escaped her pouting
mouth.
Marc waited a moment, watching his charges. His
brother had spoken of the “fierce love” a parent feels
for a child: in these past months he had come to understand
what Roland meant. He would kill for these
three.
Beside him a female peddler, as gnarled as the sticks
she carried for sale on her back, snorted and shifted
closer to the central fire. Turning carefully so as not to
disturb Isabella, Marc lounged on his side, one hand
absently rubbing his aching spine as he scanned the
company.
Two-and-twenty figures, hunched in various attitudes
of slumber, some snoring, most silent, were ranged
about the fire, their dun and dust-stained clothes
orange in its fading glow. Outside the ruined, roofless
square fort—an old Roman castle, according to their
escorts—he could hear the night guards walking and
talking softly. So far, the pilgrim party he was part of
had journeyed in safety, although he slept with his
sword close to hand. Even main roadways such as the
one they traveled on were haunted by footpads, ever
ready to prey upon the unwary or unprotected. There
were rumored to be horse thieves hereabouts in these
rough lands of the north and worse still, slavers.
He knew of one who would be a great prize to such
creatures. Blonde—such fair eyebrows and skin must
betoken blonde hair, although he had never seen so
much as a strand of it: Sunniva was a modest girl who
hid her tresses under a plain russet headsquare. Lithe,
with a tumbler’s body: that much he could guess from
her graceful walk, though her robe hung on her as if
made for a larger woman. And her face . . . Marc smiled
in the semidarkness. Even at a distance, she was more
than comely, she was spectacular, a prize—
“Sunniva! Damn you, wench!”
The carping voice broke into Marc’s guilty daydream,
causing him to stare where he had sworn he would not.
Straight across the fire from where he and his three darlings
were snuggled into a corner, their backs safe
against the fireproof stone walls, a hulking scarecrow of
a man sat bolt upright. Cloaks and scraps of precious
cloth and even tapestry rolled off him, scattering like
chaff as he whirled his beefy arms. “Here, girl, attend
me! Look at me, girl! You should not be sleeping!”
“Not when my leg troubles me!” Marc finished for
Cena under his breath, clenching both hands into fists
as he fought his own temper. Since he and his girls had
joined the pilgrim party five days ago he had grown
weary of this graybeard’s mewling complaints—
the Englishman moaned more readily than six-yearold
Isabella.
“Is it your knee, Father, or your arm?” his daughter
whispered, rising to her knees, her hands outstretched.
Her face and form were in shadow, but even so she
made a sinuous, lissome shape that instantly made
Marc’s body stiffen, his heart quickening further at the
sound of her warm, soft voice.
“Shall I rub the joints for you? I still have some of
the comfrey compress I made—”
“Bring wine,” was Cena’s graceless interruption,
“and do not dally.”
He gave her a spiteful shove that had Sunniva rocking
on her heels but she did not complain—the wonder
was, she never did.
“Of course, Father. Is there anything else you desire?”
“Why are you wearing old clothes? You look like the
lowest pot-scourer, not a lady of means!”
“But Father, as you have often told me, I have no
means and it is my duty to serve you.”
“Aye, and your brothers, remember that!”
“How could I forget, Father?”
“My God, when you smile that way you look as sinful
as your mother . . . Why that rag of a headrail, girl? Do
you mean to shame me? I want you to look good to
men; you’re no use to me ugly. Your blue headsquare
is better.”
“It must be washed, Father. Is there anything else?”
“More wine!” Cena’s broken teeth were visible as
black patches in his mouth as, grimacing, he raised a
scarred hand. “Now!”
“I am going.” Seemingly unafraid of her father’s
threat, Sunniva bent close to him. “The dressing on
your knee, is it comfortable?”
“No thanks to you. I said you had bound it too tight.
And your brother’s teeth are aching again.”
“I have looked to Edgar’s hurt, father, and to his
horse’s.”
“Wine! Where is my wine? Must I tell you again, idle
slut?”
“Of course.” Sunniva drew back, deftly avoiding
Cena’s flailing fist. “Wine will lift your spirits and if you
are a little ‘hazy’ mounting your horse tomorrow, I am
sure the saints will protect you. St. Cuthbert will surely
reach down from heaven to save you from falling on
your rump.” She raised two elegant, ghostly hands, paler
than moonbeams in the guttering firelight, and made
the sign of the cross. “I will bring the comfrey, too.”
“Get on, chatterer!”
Cena subsided under his mound of makeshift bedding and Marc quickly closed his eyes, in case she
noticed him watching. As with many of these father-
daughter exchanges he found himself grinning and
wondering: she had bested Cena in words yet again, but
did that old misery realize she teased him?
I would do much more than teasing, Marc vowed,
his mood darkening as he listened to her lightly stepping
amidst the sleeping pilgrims toward the baggage
heaped in the doorway. Only the girl’s own unfailing
good humor stopped him intervening: he longed to
take on Cena and Cena’s three useless sons, who, as
usual, slept on through these nightly conflicts.
What did Cena mean, “I want you to look good to men”?
Surely such a beauty as Sunniva would be betrothed—
A tiny snuffle close to Marc had him raking his
head round swiftly, but Isabella was all right, peaceful
and tranquil, still fast asleep. Kneading his wry
neck, Marc settled onto his side, his eyes drawn inevitably
to the other, golden girl.
I do not spy, he told himself. I look out for Sunniva
because her father and brothers do not.
She was at the saddles and packs now, a small shimmer
of movement against sooty stones, carefully easing
her eldest brother off one of the trunks, gently ruffling
his dirty-blond hair to calm his muttering slumber. To
his chagrin—he was no longer a gangling youth—Marc
found himself blushing, envying the brother her touch.
In his own mind, he instantly imagined those slim fingers
stroking him—a pleasantly distracting thought.
Suddenly, he saw her direct a single, piercing glance to
Cena. The fellow was snoring again.
Sunniva acted fast. Her hands burrowing nimbly
inside the trunk, she retrieved a wine flask and salve
and then she was off.
She was going outside!
Even as Marc marveled at such folly, he was straightening,
seizing his sword. Striding over the peddler
woman, a scrawny monk and a serving-lad with bare,
wind-chapped legs, he reached the other side of the
fire before realizing he had misjudged the moment:
Sunniva was standing by the threshold, breathing in
the sweet night breeze.
She was merely snatching an instant for herself, Marc
guessed, feeling foolish at his overreaction. Reluctant
to intrude further on her, he turned to go back.
A slight shift in the air was his only guide that anything
was amiss. With a warrior’s quickness, Marc
whirled about, freeing his sword, feinting a stumble,
lunging his counterattack. His blade slashed through
shadows and there were only the grunting sleepers
round his feet. Beyond the hot-iron glow of the banked-
down fire was an utter darkness, where any creature,
thief or troll, might linger. He squinted into it, looking
for anything stirring, listening intently for the rasp of
metal, his head full of old Breton stories of deadly night
elves, lethal elf-shot and the evil of the devil.
Isabella and the others, were they still asleep? Safe?
Was he failing them again?
“God help me!” The whisper burst from his clenched
lips and was answered at once by a flash of gold, bright
as lightning, and a choked cry.
His purse, its long strings newly sawn through, was
fixed to one of the few remaining crossbeams, scarcely
two spears’ lengths from his own head. Outside there
was a rush of fading footsteps, quickly lost in the
still night as the thwarted cutpurse ran off the road
into cover.
Marc was still staring at what had nailed his purse to
the beam. Slowly, as in a dream, he sheathed his sword
and freed the long dagger, catching the purse as it fell.
“He will have escaped over what is left of the roof by
now,” Sunniva observed softly. “I spotted him scrambling
in by the same way, just before you sensed him
and reacted, but could not warn you in time to be on
your guard. Our night watchers missed him, or never
expected a thief to come in that way. I am sorry.”
“I heard him leaving.” Amazed that she was talking
to him—to him!—Marc stretched out the arm that was
clutching the dagger. As she stepped closer to take it
back, he wanted to snatch it away, snatch her away.
Rapidly, he schooled his expression into what he
hoped was a polite smile and said, “Thank you. That
was . . .” He hesitated as a thousand questions flooded
through his mind. How had she done that? How had
she learned such throwing skill? How had she seen
anything? “That was unexpected,” he finished lamely.
“I see right well in the dark,” she said, taking the
knife back most carefully, as if she had guessed part of
his thoughts.
“Better than most. Far better than me.”
She smiled at him for the first time then, another
lightning flash in the darkness of their makeshift sleeping
quarters, and he felt a bolt of pleasure strike deep
in his loins.
“You need apologize to me for nothing,” he grunted,
retying his purse to his belt for something to do. She
could have ridden over him on a war horse and if she
smiled that way he would have been smitten afresh.
“Nothing.”
She looked troubled, but did not answer.
Marc knew he should say something: about his
nieces, perhaps, or the changeable English weather, or the pilgrimage they were both on for their different
reasons. What were hers? He almost asked her, but
then the moon broke through the gray ramp of clouds
and lit her fully.
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