Beauteous book two age o.., p.1
BEAUTEOUS: Book Two: Age of Honor, page 1
BEAUTEOUS
Book Two: Age of Honor
Tamara Leigh
www.TamaraLeigh.com
THE WULFRITHS. FIRST. IN BETWEEN. IN THE END.
The late middle ages. England’s king seeks to recover the French lands of his ancestor William the Conqueror and claim the continental throne. France’s king aspires to seize the remainder of his royal vassal’s lands and retain his throne. So begins the Hundred Years’ War, the backdrop against which the formidable Wulfriths of the AGE OF CONQUEST and AGE OF FAITH series continue their tale.
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ONCE UPON A BEAUTY
The once beauteous Lady Ondine Wulfrith holds close a secret for which she conceals her face, surrounds herself with all things lovely, and is drawn to those of broken wing. When she happens on an enemy of the Crown wounded during his escape from the king’s men, she delivers the warrior to her family’s abandoned hunting lodge to tend his injury. While thwarting his efforts to return to flight until he heals, attraction to her resistant patient becomes something more—and unexpected once the two are discovered by her brother in what appears a compromising position. Now that her scarring is revealed, will Sir Sinjin do the honorable thing? And if she secures his release long enough for him to put his affairs in order, will he return to her before King Edward arrives and exacts a price that could cost her everything, above all her heart?
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ONCE UPON A BEAST
Sir Sinjin Daschiel of questionable English loyalties and unquestionable Scottish sympathies is determined to shed his manacles and escape those charged with delivering him to London. Injured while overpowering his escort, he falls into the hands of a masked woman who seeks to restore his bid for freedom—but on her terms. By the time he learns the savior who tempted him to a kiss amid shadows is the same earlier glimpsed in the wood commanding an owl and wearing a gown that seemed woven of the wind, Sinjin’s purpose has begun to unravel. And when a sword at his throat evidences she is far from the commoner she pretends, his purpose becomes entangled with the deceiver’s. But only until her family learns whose blood flows through him. Or the king severs his life. Whichever comes first.
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From USA Today Bestselling author Tamara Leigh, the second book in a new medieval romance series set in the 14th century during The Hundred Years’ War. Watch for SCANDALOUS, the tale of Sir Percival D’Arci and Lady Adelaide Soames in late 2022.
LES WULFRITHS. D’ABORD. ENTRE. À LA FIN.
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BEAUTEOUS: Book Two (Age of Honor) Copyright © 2022 by Tammy Schmanski, P.O. Box 1298 Goodlettsville, TN 37070 tamaraleightenn@gmail.com
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This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents, and dialogues are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.
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All rights reserved. This book is a copyrighted work and no part of it may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photographic, audio recording, or any information storage and retrieval system) without permission in writing from the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the author’s permission is illegal and punishable by law. Thank you for supporting authors’ rights by purchasing only authorized editions.
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Cover Design: Ravven
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Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-942326-58-8
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-942326-59-5
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Author’s Note
Scandalous: Book Three Excerpt
Pronunciation Guide
Glossary
Also by Tamara Leigh
About the Author
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
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~ Lord Byron
Prologue
Barony of Wulfen, England
January’s End, 1349
I war, I war,” she whispered. “Heavenly Father, I war.”
“His suffering is done, Ondine,” spoke the one she could not bear to look upon as he lowered to the mattress beside her. “Now drink.”
So she could prolong her suffering? So she could watch the suffering of others destined for the hunting lodge the same as she and Squire Briant? So she could hate longer, not only this brother but herself?
Pressing lips in defiance of the rim set against them, she held burning eyes to the two on the opposite side of the timber room—the young man first to succumb to the pestilence at Stern who lay unmoving beneath the sheet drawn over him, and the kneeling physician who sought to pray into heaven what had fled a body so ravaged it was barely recognizable.
Blessedly, entirely unrecognizable were Squire Briant’s final words. Despite the absence of a priest to shrive him, had they been of confession? If so, would the physician share them with her brother?
“You must drink, Ondine,” Hector said tautly.
Longing to cast some portion of her punishment on him—to strike with cruel words and hands that ached to scratch her skin—she beseeched, “Lord, I war!” She coughed, drew a wheezing breath. “How I war.”
“Almighty,” her brother also entreated, voice so strained it did not sound his, then commanded, “Drink!”
Refusing to look away from the dead and the praying, she croaked, “Why? It will not ease your…conscience.”
He had been tense before, but as the Lord refused to aid in tempering her tongue, now Hector was so rigid a blow might split him down the center. Still, he was gentle in shifting her higher on the pillows and once more pressing her to drink.
Were those the worst of his current offenses, perhaps she could have closed her eyes and allowed what had claimed Squire Briant of twenty years to claim this lady of ten and six. But her brother turned his body, intentionally blocking her view of the first casualty of what his hubris had brought into their home.
God help him, he trespasses too far! she silently raged. And God help me! Not only did she thirst, but anger demanded of her what required much breath and strength.
Flinging up a hand Hector had bandaged to keep her from clawing at things rising from beneath her skin, she knocked aside the cup. The drink of honey and herbs splashed the space between them, landing against his tunic and the cloth covering his lower face that the physician believed aided in keeping the evil from entering the healthy.
Hearing the cup hit the floor, wanting her brother to be far from gentle so she had more cause to hate him, Ondine swept her gaze to where he sat like stone. “He is dead,” she said between chattering teeth. “And soon I follow.”
He jerked as if struck, causing silvered dark hair to shift across his eyes. “You will not!”
She did not think it possible to laugh, and perhaps she did not since what passed her lips was so absent music it would frighten were she not wading in things more terrible than a sound.
“I shall,” she hissed, then recalling what many named her, which she needed no mirror to confirm was lost, added, “Just as beauty flayed from me, life taken by death circling and…choking the moat around my sickbed.”
“Cease!” He started to draw her near.
It surprised she longed for the comfort of him holding her—but there the war within Ondine Wulfrith. Defecting to the other side, she slapped and punched, but he parried all and captured her wrists.
She whipped back her head to cast more words that would make stone of him again, but what she saw made stone of her. Though she had thought her flailing ineffectual, if the drink-splashed cloth fallen down around his neck had kept the evil from him, her exertions had great effect.
Heart threatening to shatter, she strained away. “The cloth, Hector!”
Pulling her in, he pinned her arms and hands against his chest.
Unable to grip his face cloth to push it up, she dropped back her head. “Pray, cover yourself!”
Moist green eyes peering into hers, he said, “I am sorry for what I wrought.”
“The cloth!”
He pressed her head down against her bandaged hands. “Truly sorry, and all my life I shall be, be it one day or thousands.”
She longed to argue further, to persuade him and the physician to leave her to her dying and save themselves, but what strength she scraped together was spent. As she sank into him, she began crying softly between whispered prayers this all end with her.
It did not. Though barely present for days, this she knew—the three in the lodge grew in number. Hector’s pregnant wife arrived, followed by their second brother’s wife, then their sire, next castle folk.
Though the Great Mortality was late in coming to England and extending its tentacles to the Barony of Wulfen, it had come—and shown biding its time was no great inconvenience.
Chapter 1
Stern Castle, Barony of Wulfen
November, 1352
Visitors at Wulfen, and of good regard for being permitted to dismount before the donjon rather than at the stable in the outer bailey.
Wishing she had not cast off her gown following her outing with the owl, Ondine turned from the table where she had completed her ablutions and hastened to the postered bed draped with swathes of cloth.
She snatched up her robe, and as she crossed to the nearest window, thrust her arms in the sleeves, skirted a chair, and cinched the belt.
Though tempted to whip back the shutters so she not miss those below entering the hall, lest creaking hinges reveal her, she eased open one and was caressed by a warm breeze.
Pleased her windows had yet to be fit with partially transparent panes to temper the cool of autumn and chill of winter, slowly she leaned forward to prevent any with a developed sense of the unseen from looking upon her bared face.
Below, under escort of Stern’s captain of the guard and men-at-arms, were four horses whose warriors had dismounted. However, the fifth horse retained its rider, a broad-shouldered man of relatively short hair who was of note for manacled wrists—and further note for how short the chain between them.
Dangerous, but not terribly so since he was permitted inside the inner bailey. However, after looking nearer upon his escort, she revised her conclusion. As proclaimed by what was emblazoned on surcoats worn over fine armor, these were King Edward’s men. Regardless of the danger their prisoner presented, none had gainsaid those who wished the manacled one to accompany them to the donjon.
So who was the man likely bound for London to answer to one who may or may not be his king? What had he done? And what would be his punishment?
“Come down, Daschiel,” commanded the knight before the steps whose balding head evidenced middle age or greater.
“Daschiel,” Ondine whispered, searching for familiarity with what sounded a surname as she watched the prisoner lean back and swing a leg over the horse’s neck. Thigh met thigh, and with a thrust of hips and rattle of chains, he came down the saddle and booted feet thumped the ground.
More links sounded as one of the king’s men stepped forward. When he went to his haunches before the prisoner, Ondine saw he had another set of manacles. The chain was longer between these, and a good thing since otherwise the prisoner would have to be carried up the steps. What was not good despite the entertainment of great curiosity was he should be so dangerous his feet must be bound.
Had the Baron of Wulfen been at Stern, likely he would have denied the prisoner entrance to the donjon regardless of offending the king’s men. But it would be done in consideration of the comfort of the women and children of his household since Stern’s garrison could easily protect its charges.
In Hector’s absence, doubtless their eldest sister had taken measures against exposing her young son to one so villainous he might be a murderer. Were Dangereuse standing just inside the doors with their new sister-in-law, it was only because she had sent Sebastian abovestairs.
Ondine’s musings nearly proved her undoing. Peering down at the prisoner who watched the one fitting irons to booted ankles, sooner she should have seen the rise of his chin and eyes sliding up the donjon.
Glimpsing a handsome visage fit with a dense beard whose russet color contrasted with dark brown hair, she lurched back to prevent her face from being seen. Albeit once its beauty might have exceeded the attraction of his, never again.
She teetered against the chair she came up against and dropped onto the seat. Hating she trembled as if seen by eyes that, at best, had caught movement of the one spying on him, she bent forward and clasped hands that were now her greatest beauty—graceful, long-fingered, unmarred. It was nearly the same for her breasts, upper back, and feet, their blemishes so slight they were more felt than seen. But the rest of her…
Ondine parted her hands and studied them to assure herself nothing had changed, then fingered scars on her neck and face that would be worse had Hector not so securely bandaged her hands that the tear of teeth had been unable to free destructive fingernails.
Feeling the tug of memories that sought to return her to those cruel weeks, she said, “I am here.” She shoved to her feet. “Here. Now. The present…” Granting herself permission to speak what once she had believed lost to her and still felt foreign though each day she went through one end of it and came out the other, she finished, “…moving toward the future, whatever that may be.”
The great doors closed below, the visitors now in the hall where they would be greeted by the womenfolk of England’s renowned trainer of knights.
Ondine longed to join her family and satisfy her curiosity over the king’s prisoner, but it was hard to stand before strangers. So much easier to go to the upper room and while away time in the company of the owl who was near to gaining his freedom.
“Easier were you not a Wulfrith,” she reminded, then preferring to be faceless than faint-hearted, crossed to her clothes closet.
Recalling the attractive face glimpsed, she reached for her favorite gown of blue gossamer cloth whose many layers rendered it impenetrable to the eye. And hesitated when she heard the click of her beloved companion’s tongue—rather, remembrance of it since the relation who had returned Ondine to a semblance of life after the pestilence was long lost to her.
Ondine, if what pleases you pleases the Lord, do as you will, Roslyn had said more than once. Do not act first out of the belief you must impress others.
Though her gossamer gowns made her feel pretty despite her scars, her first consideration in choosing what to wear had been the man in chains when it ought to be what pleased one whose life was mostly lonely for the inability to wed and become a mother. Thus, she pulled out a gown of dark green wool whose bodice and hem were edged in fur. It was pretty, practical, proper, and among those she would have chosen following her ablutions.
On the morrow she would be fanciful again, but should Stern’s visitors join the Wulfrith family and their retainers at meal this eve, the greatest curiosity she would present was that of one who veiled her face and hair as if in mourning.
And in her own way, she did mourn. Still.
The Baron of Wulfen was not in residence—not a bad thing since it was his wife with whom Sinjin had a favorable acquaintance. Not that he and her husband were of foul acquaintance, but they had met at swords six months past, one out of choice, the other necessity.
