Who better to aid the man and supply his services than the man who once loved the lady beyond reason?
This is the story of AT HER SERVICE, the first in my trilogy about three knights who served King Richard the Lionheart—and who find themselves at odds with his ignoble younger brother, King John.
Here, a lovely childless countess must bear an heir—or lose
her lands, her honor—and her life. The man sent to sire a child with her is
none other than the one who grew up fostered in her father’s castle as a
boy—and the man Elise has yearned for lo, all the lonely years since he left.
A nibble of AT HER SERVICE! (Copyright, Cerise DeLand. All rights reserved.)
Circling up, up, up the winding tower that was the back
entrance to their private rooms, she heard no one behind her. She breathed
deeply in relief for that. Simon would not dare to come to them in full view of
Alphonse’s retainers and servants. Simon might be under her husband’s thrall,
but he would not leave the hall after her and, thus, make the servants aware of
what his mission was.
She pushed open her husband’s bedroom door. It creaked, an
eerie sound that sent shivers up her spine. But the warmth of the hearth fire,
always blazing in the winter’s snow, rushed out to bathe her face and welcome
her inside.
“Close the door, Elise.”
At the distinctive husky tone she could still identify after
all these lonely years, she paused with one foot upon the threshold. She
watched in amazement as Simon unfolded himself from the chair nearest the door
and stood to his ungodly height. Anger flooded her at Simon’s impertinence of
speaking to her before her husband bid her enter. Her gaze shot to Alphonse who
lay beneath a pile of woollens and silks, snoring, his thin face grey, his
mouth lax, his once manly frame reduced to a skinny child’s.
Simon took a step forward and extended his hand to the chair
opposite his. “Come.” His rough bass voice flowed across the expanse of the
chamber like thick molasses over her senses, her body warming to his sensuous
tone. Simon’s merest words could entangle and enslave her.
Against his allure, she braced her spine. “How did you get
in?”
Mere feet away, she noted how his silver eyes shown like the
hard coin he would take for his service to her. “Your husband gave the order to
his steward.”
“He should have told me, asked me,” she objected without
regard to wake her husband, clenching her fists in fear at Cleve’s knowledge.
Her voice bore her outrage that she could not countermand the great earl of
Atherton, even as he lay dying in his bed.
Simon strolled forward, his head high, his expression
earnest and pleading. Beneath his breath, he spoke to her alone. “The steward
put me in the room below.” He nodded towards her alcove and the private winding
stairs down to his tiny room. “We must talk.”
“No.” What good was talk? She was chained to Alphonse’s
bargain and bound up in a torment wanting Simon de la Poer but knowing she
should not have him. Yet she would take him to her to please Alphonse. Aye, and
in the taking, she would also surely please herself. She snorted, stepped fully
into the cosy apartment and shut the door to the world below.
“You need to know—”
“I want to know nothing.”
“That,” he whispered as he stepped close to her and threaded
his long, supple fingers under her wimple up into the coil of her hair, “is a
lie.”
She flinched backwards, wrenching to escape his reach. “You
must do as I say. Agree or this will not happen at all.”
September 6 WITH HER KISS, the 3rd in my Swords of Passion series, debuts! You know you need it!
September 6 WITH HER KISS, the 3rd in my Swords of Passion series, debuts! You know you need it!
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