FOR HER HONOR, Cerise's #2 in Swords of Passion #medieval #series, #99cents Excerpt!

Nibble on Cerise’s medieval?

Copyright 2015, Cerise DeLand. All rights reserved.

1210, The Western Marches, England

Men did not mesmerise her. Ever.

Yet, William Dunwick, the Earl of Greystone, was so much more man than Blanche Bergeron had been told to expect that she had to snap her mouth shut at his appearance. Indeed, he was so huge, so much more handsome than the rumours of his glory that she found herself agog at his appearance here in her great hall.  To collect her dignity, she had to sit taller, smile like a gracious hostess and bid him approach her. Amazement—she scolded herself as she settled back into in her dais chair—was not the emotion she wished to convey to this emissary from their ruthless King John. True, she’d heard it said that their regent’s loyal adviser was tall and broad. Blond and ruddy. Impaired by the loss of his left eye. Yet suave as a troubadour with men, and seductive as an oriental sultan with women. Blanche had steeled her mind against him. After all, he was sent by that tyrant John to carry her off to marry a man she was too wise to want and too old to need.

But to gaze upon John’s emissary—this legendary Crusader and adviser—was to admit to herself that, in some things, her assumptions could be wrong. And her tactics to save herself from Greystone’s charms, she knew now, must change from obstruction to some other course that might escape this wise man’s piercing sight and perception.

“Good day, my lady.” Greystone walked forward with the magnetic self-possession that truly powerful men exuded. Clad in his black tabard emblazoned with his own stag crest and Crusader cross on one shoulder, he wore on his chest the Anjevin leopards rampant to denote the sovereign he served. He filled her vision with the breadth of his shoulders, the symmetry of his jaw, the black leather patch over his left eye and a dancing light in his remaining sea blue one. “You do us honour.” He bent a knee to her.

“My lord, you are welcome,” she lied as she extended her hand.

He took her fingertips with his warm ones and led them to his mouth.

Book 1, Out now!
https://www.totallybound.com/book/at-her-service

Debonair bastard.

At his familiarity, she held her breath as he reverently brushed his soft lips upon her nails. She shivered in the warmth of September. Such frivolities are for younger women, Blanche. Women who sigh at a comely man’s regard and know not how boring they will be in bed.

Book 3, Out August 18!

He smiled up at her, his one blue eye assessing her as if she were a sweetmeat. “I am most grateful for your kind reception of me and my men,” he told her in a voice so low she felt her breasts bead in silly long–dead desires.

She tore her gaze from him towards the four men arrayed behind him. Like their lord, they were of enormous size. Meaty hands and arms, they had impossibly huge chests in black tabards bearing only Greystone’s chest and, underneath, chain mail. With tree trunks for thighs, they flanked their master, standing astride like giant Norsemen. Surely, she could not allow the five of them to carry her off to London for she would never escape their strength. Or their determination.

“I am happy to welcome you, Lord Greystone. We are simple people here in the marches but we do try to match the etiquette of London.”

“I have been told of your hospitality, my lady Bergeron.” He rose to his full height. Even now, one step below her, he was taller. Such presence she had never seen in a man. Her dead husband had been a head shorter than she. Shorter still in other myriad ways. An unsatisfying collection of skinny bones, thin intellect and tiny wit, Mortimer Bergeron had also possessed a penis of such insignificant size that she marvelled she had conceived two children. What does your's measure, William of Greystone?

About the Author - Cerise DeLand

What's a gal to do to if she lives deep in the heart of Texas, travels often everywhere, and adores Paris, Florence, London, Tokyo and all points east and west?

Ah.

She becomes an author who can write about those romantic places. With a passion for cowboys, spies, rakes, knights in shining armor and their gutsy women, Cerise DeLand is an author who adores an alpha male with a tender heart and a need for a smoldering erotic love affair with the right woman!

Cerise is a Top 20 Best Selling author on Amazon with more than three dozen works published in erotic romance, and she is also an award-winning author of mystery, mainstream and romance with St. Martin's Press, Pocket Books and Kensington. Her books are on numerous book clubs, including Featured Selections of The Mystery Guild, Doubleday and Rhapsody. And when she isn't dreaming up fiction or traveling? Cerise is a fabulous cook and an avid history buff.

Busy lady. Happy writer.

Visit her website for info on all her books.

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Go to her blog for headline news, ~ and email her at cerise.deland@ymail.com too! You can also follow Cerise on twitter

AT HER SERVICE, Cerise's #medieval in reign of that dastardly dude, King John! Out today! #2 next week! #3 following!

https://www.totallybound.com/book/at-her-service

AT HER SERVICE out today! New and expanded and here is your nibble of my cherry!

Autumn, 1190.

Cumbria, The Marches, England.

   Elise picked at the rope wound tightly around her wrist. Lashing her to the iron ring on the wall in her nurse’s alcove had not been wise. Yet her father had commanded it. Little did he know of her perseverance. Because she was small in stature and slight of build did not imply she was weak of mind or ingenuity.

   She smiled to herself as she plucked at the fraying hemp. She would not—nay, could not—miss Simon’s departure. He would take it amiss if she failed to wish him Godspeed on his journey to join their good King Richard in Italy. Simon de la Poer was her life, her breath. Only months older than she, Simon had fostered with her family. He’d learned the arts of swordsmanship and the finer points of archery from her father’s men. A friendly boy, Simon had won the loyalty of her only brother, Maurice, and the two had grown to consider each the other’s shadow. When that was cut by the cruel death of Maurice from dysentery last spring—and Simon’s own estates had been gobbled by raiding Welshmen—all in the family had thought enough tragedy had befallen them and de la Poer. God would not take more from them.

   But they were wrong.

   Tears dribbled down her cheeks as she remembered the horrors of the last few months. Her mother’s death days after Maurice’s. Her father’s rage when he discovered Elise in the arms of Simon. His decree that Simon leave their castle. And then the worst, when he betrothed her to an ancient man.

   She caught back a sob, wiped her tears from her cheeks and returned to working the strands of hemp.

   She cocked an ear. She heard them in the courtyard, the horses’ hooves clattering on the cobbles, the shouts of men hailing each other.

   “Hurry, hurry,” she urged herself.

   Her fingers sore from the pricking of the rough hemp, she bit back the pain.

   And the rope came free.

   She pushed to her feet. Headed for the door.

   And stopped.

   Her head spun. She’d risen too quickly. A hand to the stone wall, she shut her eyes and prayed for strength to go on. She’d been ill these past few days. Morning until midday, she’d not been able to eat or drink. And she had worried that her nausea came not from a flux that had killed her brother and mother—but from the rapture of lying in Simon’s arms.

   She swallowed her fear of her father’s censure and focused on her despair of missing Simon’s departure.

Debuts August 11!

   Putting an ear to the wooden door, she heard no sounds on the stairs. Slowly, she pulled the heavy thing open and peered out.

   No one.

   Smiling, she eased her slim body out the door and listened again for anyone who traveled the stone steps.

   She glanced down. No, she dare not hurry down these main tower stairs. Her maid, her father’s retainers would travel them. She must take the set hidden in the far corner of her mother’s solar. The secret ones few knew of would be best. Quick too.

   She picked up her skirts and took the winding steps at a run.

   At the next landing, she pushed open the solar door and slid inside. No one was here. Her father refused to sit here since her mother had died. Only she had found any comfort in this room since that day her mother had breathed her last.

   She pushed the door shut and rushed to the far corner. The slim door creaked as she pulled it open and she winced at the sound. But no one came—and she flew down the sharply winding stairway as if the devil pursued her.

   At the bottom, she halted again. Her back to the wall, her ear to the crevice, she listened for sounds in the buttery. No laughing maids, no surly baker, no irritable cook seemed in evidence.

   Were they outside, too, bidding adieu to her Simon?

   She pressed her forehead to the cold stones, inhaled and yanked open the door.

   No one was about.

   And she scampered through the kitchen and the scullery to skid to a halt at the threshing room.

   Two, three, four men talked together in the yard. Their voices were young, lacking timbre—save for one. She peered around the edge of the door.

   There he stood. Taller than the others, broader of chest and kinder, sweeter than any boy she’d ever met. Even her brother Maurice could not compare to the beauty of her stalwart Simon.

   Dare she run to him now? She maneuvered this way and that to view as much of the courtyard as the slit through the door might permit, but chance was everything.

   And so was valor.

   She flung wide the door and grabbing up her skirts, she ran like one afire.

   “Simon! Simon!”

   She hurled herself into his open arms.

   Still, he put her back to her feet. “Don’t, Elise. Your father will come soon.”

   “I care not,” she told him and did not temper her tone. She loved him and her father was sending him away. “I had to see you. Bid you farewell.”

   “I am humbled by your kind wishes, my lady.”

   Oh, he was so courteous. But then he’d always been in the presence of others. Aware of her status as his liege lord’s daughter, he had often told her he could not compare. He’d told her that as a lowly baron’s second son, he’d been proud to be fostered here in her family as companion to Maurice.

     “I want you to return to me, Simon.” She clutched his wool tunic. The black of it matched the glistening black of his hair and contrasted with the bright silver in his eyes. “Promise me.”

      “I fight the Infidel with Richard, my lady.” He grasped her hands and tore them from his garment, but in his gaze stood fierce tears.

     “Kill them. Take Jerusalem. Come back to me.”

   “Listen to me, my lady—”

   “Call me by my name, Simon. None of this politesse for us.”

Debuts AUGUST 18!

   “Aye.” He shook her, his expression gone to stone. “I know not when I return.”

   “But when you do, I will be here.”

   “You are promised to another, my sweet girl,” he whispered, but his voice broke.

   “I will not go.”

   Simon set his jaw. All compassion in his demeanor died. His friends strode away, looking back at them, frowning and feigning care of their horses’ bridles.

   “I tell you, Simon, I will not wed him.”

   “You must. You will.”

   “Nay. Return to me and take me as your bride.”

  “Sweet girl, your father will not allow it, and I would not defy him. Not any more than I already have when we…”

   She sank against him. The warm wall of his chest was a bulwark against all horrors of this world.   “What if I carry a babe? Yours?”

  His silver eyes stared into hers. “Say this is not so. I would curse myself if this were true.”

   “What’s this?”

   The bellow of her father’s voice echoed around the courtyard.

  “Leave her, de la Poer! “

   Simon’s tight grip on her wrists numbed her hands. “Tell me you lie.”

   “I cannot.”

   He grimaced. “Then marry the man your sire names for you, Elise. Do it quickly. Never think of me again.”

   Shocked at his dismissal, she stood helpless, hopeless. What had she expected him to do? Carry her away to the Crusade?

   She stared while he turned to do his duty and bowed to her father.

   Her sire was a burly man of round belly and staunch constitution. Always jovial, he’d become somber of late. Deaths and illnesses in the castle had robbed him of his good nature. Discovering his fifteen-year-old daughter naked in the arms of the seventeen-year-old whom he loved as well as his natural son had robbed him of the remaining cheer in his soul.

   Elise stepped backward.

   He stood before the four young men and nigh unto sneered at Simon. “Get you gone, de la Poer. Our good king needs your audacity to reclaim Jerusalem. May you fight like a heathen and reclaim the purity of your soul. But as you value your life, never come near my daughter nor me again.”

   Simon glanced from her father to her and back again. “Aye, my lord. For your kindnesses to me lo these many years, I thank you, sir. Someday I hope to assuage your anger toward me with a good deed you may applaud.”

   “I doubt it, Simon. Go. Your name is henceforth banned in my home.”

Love #history? Mixed with #romance? Based on real events? King John was an evil dude!

#3 in my SWORDS OF PASSION series
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Defying his king, Geoffrey St. Claire invades a dungeon to save the woman he loves from cruel death. This time, he vows, he will save her and make her love him—or die trying.

Countess Katherine Harleigh knew her refusal to become King John’s lover courted his punishment. But she never thought he’d try to starve her. Cast into a dungeon—widowed, alone and disgraced—Kat fears no one can save her. Not even the one knight who always promised to love and protect her.

Geoffrey St. Claire serves his Sire as loyally as a sane man can. But when John imprisons the one woman Geoff has always adored, he risks his lands and his life to ride to her rescue. Yet, he knows she will never welcome his aid. She hates him too much for deserting her years ago. But he will not leave her this time.

Now, Geoff plans to save her from death and despair, nurse her back to health and then persuade her to love him as wholly as she once did. Seduction in her bath, her bed, her chamber is his only method and he prays he can restore her love for him before John appears with an army to take her from him once more…this time, forever.

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Need a nibble of my cherry? Of course you do!

Copyright 2013, Cerise DeLand. Excerpt, All rights reserved.

         

Grey walls of stone surrounded her. Ah—she fought tears—another dungeon. Yet…it was not. This one seemed sweeter. In truth, light streamed from a small window in the far wall. Candles glowed upon sconces. Flashes of warmth and hope radiated through her.

She licked her cracked lips, curiosity besting her disappointment and outrage. In tiny increments, she opened her eyes wider and caught her breath at the sight of a man’s corded arms, two stalwart hairy legs and huge feet pressed along the planes of her own and braced at the curve of the wooden tub in which they sat.

No man bathed a woman like this.

Not husband. Surely, not abductor.

She bent forward, the effort costing her heartbeats of fear.

Strong hands cupped her shoulders, stroked her arms and grasped her wrists. Firm lips pressed to her nape. “You have no need to fly from me, ma cherie. You are safe. I merely wish to help you wash away the remnants of your imprisonment.”

Geoffrey. She had not conjured his voice, had not hallucinated that he had saved her. Her heart picked up a fierce tattoo. Her panic sapped her. She fell back against him, drained of tension and yet consumed by doubts. She had no strength to fight him, had no wish to try. His presence, his embrace was too enchanting, too welcome to her feeble mind and body. And he felt too marvellous, too solid and secure, for her to repel him.

She examined his large hands upon her, his muscular arms enfolding her. Huge in his youth, he was now brawny as a warhorse. She had never been a match for his height or power. Now? She had not the strength to lift a pin, let alone fight him. Indomitable, he was at this moment the only sturdy comfort in her world. Her weak body could not run. She let him embrace her, awed by his tenderness as he hugged her backwards more firmly into his care. Trembling with joy at his succour, she wanted to cry. In relief or surrender, she could not decide.

With one shaking hand, she covered her mouth to stop the tremors.

“I know not what you can recollect of your imprisonment and rescue. I tell you each day. Now, in this tub today, you seem more aware. Shall I repeat my litany?”

She nodded, her muscles tight with expectation of what she’d hear, what she’d feel in his arms.

“I came three nights ago to the hellhole where those nuns had thrust you. I arrived with a retinue of my men and we escaped with you across the channel to Chepstow. Here, we are with friends who have welcomed us into their gates and drawn the bridge.”

Friends. Chepstow. Her thoughts dissolved and formed anew. She had noble friends at Chepstow. So did Geoffrey. He had been born here. She turned her head to one side, as much a move of endearment and thanks as it was a caress of her cheek against the wall of his chest.

She heard him sigh, revelled in the way he squeezed her to acknowledge her sign of gratitude.

He dropped a kiss to her wet scalp. “I have been a pest, I know, to make you sip and drink. But it was the only way to save you, slowly and in small measures.”

“Starved,” she said, the word more sob than statement.

He cupped her jaw, his fingers stroking her cheek. “I know, my dearest. Word has it the nuns earned a fee. They will all rot in hell. But they failed and you recover. We shall soon hear what earthly reward they earn for that.”

“The King?” she managed, horrified at the ghostly sound of her own voice.

He snorted, his disdain suffusing his torso as once more he cuddled her nearer to him. “John? You must not think of him. Only of you.”

She summoned every ounce of strength and twisted her face up to him. With her eyes wide open, she gazed upon him. So close, so alive, so dear, so hated and forbidden to her, Geoffrey St Claire appeared hazy and ethereal, a phantom of her past. Blinking, she examined him more closely. She had last seen him in London more than a year ago, but here in his arms, naked and vulnerable, ill and needy, she saw what he had been and what he had become. His auburn hair was still curly and bright, but along his temples, threads of grey appeared. His sultry eyes were still verdant green, large and sweet, but lines crinkled the corners. His cheeks were ruddy, sharp and stern, kissed by the wind and cold. His jaw was rigid, his teeth clamped tight as she surveyed him. He was Geoffrey, her Geoffrey, serving kings, fighting their wars and today, saving her.

As much Norman as Saxon, Geoffrey sprang from a line of cousins loyal to the Conqueror. The St Claires had intermarried at the first William’s orders, combining their blood with Saxon princesses and bringing forth men known for their extraordinary height and heft and loyalty to the English kings. Aye, this is Geoffrey.

Marvelling at her deliverance and that it should be by him, she reached up to curve her palm against his cheek.

He smiled at her as she held him, then pressed a kiss into her palm. “I am real, and you are alive and improving in health, I see, by the minute.”

Swallowing hard, she fought tears. Pride would not let her show him such weakness. He was her saviour, but to what end? He was at core, by lineage and temperament, John’s man. Despite occasional breaks with their Sovereign and frequent stays in the dungeons of the White Tower, Geoffrey had pledged his fealty to John Plantagenet. How could she believe Geoffrey’s words that she was safe? And how long did she have before he changed his mind and ransomed her to his ruler?

She leaned away. Tried to sit. To stand.

He pulled her back. “Kat, to test your strength is not wise. Nor even necessary.”

She elbowed him. To no avail.

Grasping her wrists, he bound her arms across her bare chest and clutched her to him. His words blew hot against her ear. “Stop this! We have no idea how strong your bones are. You are not whole, not yet! Do not fight me!”

She writhed.

But he clamped her to him. “You have no need to run from me. Do you not see that I have condemned myself in John’s eyes by abducting you?”

“Or you could ransom me.”

“Bah! If you fear I took you only to offer you up to him, I ask you, what folly would that be? John would not pay me for such a service.”

She was too weak, too weary to argue.

“I am not your enemy, Kat, nor ever was.”

Fatigued beyond words, she shook her head to object.

“I know you think otherwise. Let me prove my devotion. We’ll start with the fact that I have you here with me safe, and soon you will be wholly returned to health. For me, with me, you will eat and drink and indulge in this water. I will talk with you. Tell you tales of my life without you. And I will wash you and savour you, here, naked in my arms the way you should have been from the age of sixteen, when three men ripped us apart. And now, two of them are dead. The last, my King, is now my eternal enemy for what he has done to you.”

He ran his fingers along her jaw and tipped her head to give him access to the tender flesh behind her ear. “You are mine.”

“Never,” she whispered.

“In spirit, you always were. You cannot run from me. And have no need to go. For where you are, there I am also. You are mine, Katherine.”

He bound her to him, one arm around her waist, tucked tightly beneath her breasts. With his other hand, open and warm, he lifted her jaw and encircled her throat. “You live because of me. I yearn to make you live for me. And I will.”

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