Baron of Blackwood Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Tamara Leigh Novels

  Copyright Page

  Note To Reader

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Excerpt AGE OF FAITH: Book Six (Durand's Tale)

  Excerpt LADY EVER AFTER

  Tamara Leigh Novels

  About The Author

  For new releases and special promotions, subscribe to Tamara Leigh’s mailing list: www.tamaraleigh.com

  BARON OF BLACKWOOD

  Book Three in The Feud Series

  TAMARA LEIGH, USA Today Best-Selling Author

  THE FEUD

  England, 1308. Boursier, De Arell, Verdun—three noblemen who secretly gather to ally against their treacherous lord. Though each is elevated to a baron in his own right and given a portion of his lord’s lands, jealousy and reprisal lead to a twenty-five-year feud, pitting family against family, passing father to son.

  THE PRIZE

  England, 1333. When Lady Quintin Boursier leads an army against the Baron of Blackwood to demand the release of her abducted brother, she finds the same fate awaits her. Now she must free herself and discover where Griffin de Arell holds her brother before her family’s lands are forfeited. But as the long winter nights unfold and those prowling the black wood move the feud nearer its deadly end, Quintin realizes she may have wronged her captor. And he is as much a captive to her—she whose secret will spoil the prize others seek to make of a woman no man should want.

  THE VICTOR

  Baron Griffin de Arell protects those who belong to him, and now that the tempest who dared put a blade to his throat is his, he intends to protect her—if only from herself. However, Quintin Boursier yet has games to play. Though Griffin resists her wiles, when it appears her family’s lands are forfeited, a glimpse of her woman’s heart tempts him to make the lady his in truth. Now with the enemy responsible for inciting the feud determined to claim her as his prize, Griffin must join his grudging allies in bringing peace to their lands and protecting the woman who first set herself at his walls—then his warrior’s heart.

  Join Griffin and Quintin in the third and final book in this best-selling medieval romance series as the Boursiers, De Arells, and Verduns seek the light at the end of their long, dark feud.

  TAMARA LEIGH NOVELS

  CLEAN READ HISTORICAL ROMANCE

  THE FEUD: A Medieval Romance Series

  Baron Of Godsmere: Book One 02/15

  Baron Of Emberly: Book Two 12/15

  Baron of Blackwood: Book Three 07/16

  MEDIEVAL ROMANCE SERIES

  Lady At Arms: Book One 01/14

  Lady Of Eve: Book Two 06/14

  STAND-ALONE MEDIEVAL ROMANCE NOVELS

  Lady Of Fire 11/14

  Lady Of Conquest 06/15

  Lady Undaunted 04/16

  Lady Ever After Fall 2016

  Dreamspell: A Medieval Time Travel Romance 03/12

  INSPIRATIONAL HISTORICAL ROMANCE

  AGE OF FAITH: A Medieval Romance Series

  The Unveiling: Book One 08/12

  The Yielding: Book Two 12/12

  The Redeeming: Book Three 05/13

  The Kindling: Book Four 11/13

  The Longing: Book Five 05/14

  INSPIRATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

  HEAD OVER HEELS: Stand-Alone Romance Novels

  Stealing Adda 05/12 (ebook); 2006 (print): NavPress

  Perfecting Kate 03/15 (ebook); 2007 (print): RandomHouse/Multnomah

  Splitting Harriet 06/15 (ebook); 2007 (print): RandomHouse/Multnomah

  Faking Grace 2015 (ebook); 2008 (print edition): RandomHouse/Multnomah

  SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT: A Contemporary Romance Series

  Leaving Carolina: Book One 11/15 (ebook); 2009 (print): RandomHouse

  Nowhere, Carolina: Book Two 12/15 (ebook); 2010 (print): RandomHouse

  Restless in Carolina: Book Three Mid-Winter 2016 (ebook); 2011 (print): RandomHouse

  OUT-OF-PRINT GENERAL MARKET TITLES

  Warrior Bride 1994: Bantam Books (Lady At Arms clean read rewrite)

  *Virgin Bride 1994: Bantam Books (Lady Of Eve clean read rewrite)

  Pagan Bride 1995: Bantam Books (Lady Of Fire clean read rewrite)

  Saxon Bride 1995: Bantam Books (Lady Of Conquest clean read rewrite)

  Misbegotten 1996: HarperCollins (Lady Undaunted clean read rewrite)

  Unforgotten 1997: HarperCollins (Lady Ever After clean read rewrite)

  Blackheart 2001: Dorchester Leisure

  *Virgin Bride is the sequel to Warrior Bride

  Pagan Pride and Saxon Bride are stand-alone novels

  www.tamaraleigh.com

  BARON OF BLACKWOOD: Book Three (The Feud) Copyright © 2016 by Tammy Schmanski, P.O. Box 1298, Goodlettsville, TN 37070, [email protected]

  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.

  ISBN-10: 1-942326-21-1

  ISBN-13: 978-1-942326-21-2

  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.

  Cover Design: Ravven

  NOTE TO READER

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the third book in The Feud series. As with all series shouldering an overarching plot, there will be some redundancy in storytelling. This is to orient the reader who read the first books months or years earlier and to ground the reader who enters the series out of sequence, allowing each story to stand alone. Of added benefit, pivotal events are experienced from a different—often more informed—point of view.

  In Baron Of Blackwood, the love story begins the day Lady Quintin Boursier first encounters Baron Griffin de Arell when she rides on his castle to demand the release of her brother. This event falls four days after the abduction of Bayard Boursier in Baron Of Godsmere. Since my stories are—above all and wondrously so—romances, the first half of Baron Of Blackwood focuses on the developing relationship between
Quintin and Griffin. Why did she draw a dagger on him? Why did he refuse to allow her to return to Godsmere with her brother? And what about Lady Thomasin’s observation of how often they did not kiss when they clearly wished to? Now there’s quite the tale…

  Enjoy!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Barony of Blackwood, Northern England

  Autumn’s End, 1333

  “Have a care, my lady. You are within range of their arrows.”

  So she was. But she did not fear them. Only a man not a man would order a bolt loosed upon a defenseless woman come unto his walls. True, the Baron of Blackwood was surely torn from the same foul cloth as his sire, but no word had she ever heard spoken against his behavior toward the fairer sex and few against his valor. Indeed, though it was much exaggeration, some said he was as formidable a warrior as her brother, The Boursier.

  As for being a defenseless woman, that was also exaggeration. Quintin Boursier was no trembling flower. She was not trained in arms—her mother would not tolerate that—but she could wield a dagger beyond the capacity to reduce tough boar’s meat to edible bites. After all, many were the idle hours in a lady’s day.

  “Pray, come away,” entreated her brother’s senior household knight where he sat his mount alongside hers. “Baron Boursier would not—”

  “Nay, he would not, but he is not here, is he?” She narrowed her lids at the immense stone fortress whose walls evidenced they had been white-washed months earlier, and which were all the more stark against the bordering wood.

  Sliding her gaze left and right, she searched for movement among the dense trees—a difficult undertaking. Even with all the leaves fallen, it was a dark wood, and when the weather warmed and a canopy once more spread over all, it would be a black wood, for which the barony was named.

  Returning her gaze to Castle Mathe, she said, “Nay, my brother is not here—at least, not on this side of the wall.”

  “Tell me what you wish told, my lady, and I will ride forth and deliver your words.”

  Beneath her fur-lined mantle, she squeezed her arms against her sides lest the shiver inside ventured out, making her appear weak beside the knight seemingly unaffected by the late morning chill.

  “I thank you, Sir Victor, but I shall deliver my demand to the Baron of Blackwood.”

  His cheeks puffed, and as he slowly blew out his breath, she guessed he was thinking of what her departed father had teasingly bemoaned—she would have fared better born a man.

  Quintin did not concur. She liked being a woman, though there were times the limitations of wearing skirts rather than chausses chafed. This was one of those times.

  She looked to Castle Mathe’s gatehouse and the battlements on either side, the openings of which were filled with archers whose arrows were trained on the score of knights and thirty men-at-arms who had reluctantly accompanied their lord’s sister to retrieve Bayard Boursier.

  She was certain her brother was here—that the Baron of Blackwood had captured and imprisoned his daughter’s betrothed to prevent the wedding two days hence. Thus, for defying the king’s decree that the three neighboring families unite through marriage to end their twenty-five-year feud, the lands held by the Boursiers would be declared forfeit.

  That Quintin would not allow. Somehow, she would bring her brother out of Castle Mathe.

  She moved a hand from the pommel of her saddle to the one at her waist. No meat knife this. And no ordinary dagger. She gripped its pommel, knowing that were she to gaze upon her palm, the impression in it would be that of the cross of crucifixion, pressed there by the jewels forming it.

  Though this dagger should not be on her person, before departing Castle Adderstone this morn she had gone looking for courage in the form of something better than a meat knife. At the bottom of her brother’s weapons chest, wrapped in layers of linen, she had found that which had belonged to their father.

  Having received his knighthood training from the Wulfriths at Wulfen Castle, a fortress centuries-renowned for training boys into men, Archard Boursier had been awarded a coveted Wulfrith dagger. And Quintin could not recall a day he had not worn on his belt what she now wore on her girdle.

  Sacrilege? Likely. But were her father living, he would forgive her this as he had forgiven her much.

  “Better born a man,” she whispered and tapped her heels to her horse.

  Sir Victor shouted over his shoulder, commanding the men of the barony of Godsmere to hold, then he followed.

  Knowing she could not dissuade him from accompanying her, and not certain she wished to, Quintin moved her gaze embrasure to embrasure in search of the Baron of Blackwood. As told, he would be taller and broader than most men. As did not need to be told, he would not be one of those whose bow was fit with a flesh-piercing arrow. Griffin de Arell was a man of the sword.

  Without warning shots or shouts, the castle garrison allowed Sir Victor and her to advance amid the sound of armored men shifting their weight, the breeze whispering of snowfall as it moved brittle grass at the base of the wall, the flapping of a flag that bore high the green and black colors of De Arell, and the shrill cry of a falcon overhead.

  Not surprisingly, the drawbridge did not let out its chains.

  If only Griffin de Arell were a fool, Quintin silently bemoaned. Of course, were he the one she was to wed to end the feud, that would not do. It would be disagreeable enough joined to an enemy without also suffering a dullard until death released her from one she could not respect.

  Recalling the argument with her brother the day before his disappearance, she grimaced. She had tried to convince him it was better she wed Griffin de Arell since he already had an heir, but Bayard’s choice of the man’s daughter for a wife meant Quintin would be bound to a different enemy within the next few months—Magnus Verdun, the Baron of Emberly. Also not a fool, but likely in love with himself for as handsome as he was said to be.

  Her long sigh misted the air. Her sharp breath cleared it when Sir Victor snatched her reins and jerked her mount to a halt.

  “Near enough, my lady. Far too near.”

  He was right. They were less than twenty feet from where the drawbridge would settle to the ground were it lowered.

  Fingers stiff from the cold despite thick gloves, she tugged to free her reins from the knight’s grip.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Aye,” she conceded, “near enough.”

  When he returned control of her mount to her, she raised her gaze to the roof of the gatehouse and looked from one archer-filled embrasure to the next. Just off center, she paused.

  It was no highly-polished armor that revealed Griffin de Arell, and no bearing of self-importance where he leaned forward as if to look out upon a day that held no challenge though fifty of his enemy were outside his walls. Instinct told her here was the Baron of Blackwood. And his eyes that captured hers. And the smirk upon his mouth.

  The hairs across her limbs prickled, but she did not avert her gaze, that being no way to preface demands.

  Slowly filling her lungs in the hope he would not notice she sought to breathe in courage the Wulfrith dagger did not sufficiently impart, she drew a hand from beneath her mantle, freed the ties cinching the hood about her face, and pushed back the covering.

  Something nearer a true smile, albeit crooked, moved Griffin de Arell’s mouth as her jaw-skimming hair celebrated its liberation by dancing in the breeze before her face—the same breeze that moved the baron’s dark blond hair back off his brow.

  Momentarily wishing she did not eschew troublesomely long tresses that would have remained tucked beneath her mantle, she squelched the impulse to drag the hood back over her head and called, “I am Lady Quintin of Castle Adderstone, of the barony of Godsmere, sister of Baron Boursier.”

  “Of course you are,” her family’s enemy said across the chill air. “Though you are not the one I expected.”

  It was Bayard who should have ridden on Castle Mathe to collect his De Arell bride, but t
he young woman’s father surely knew that was impossible. He but feigned ignorance. And not very well, for he had greeted Quintin’s entourage with a raised drawbridge and archers ready to loose killing arrows. Hardly the way to welcome the man who was to be his son-in-law. Griffin de Arell was found out and prepared for Boursier wrath.

  Returning his skewed smile, she said, “Come now, Baron. I may be the fairer sex, but I am no more fond of silly women’s games than you, a warrior, should be.”

  She could not be certain, but she thought his smile wavered, then determined it must have. She had questioned his prowess before all.

  “Ho!” he said as if with sudden understanding, though it was surely mockery. “Your brother has chosen to wed Elianor of Emberly rather than my daughter. And you are the bearer of tidings that could not please me more.”

  Quintin dug her nails into her palms. “That is not why I am here.”

  “Then since there must be a marriage between De Arell and Boursier, you deliver yourself.” He flashed white teeth. “A most eager bride.”

  Amid the sniggering of De Arell’s men, Sir Victor beseeched, “Lady Quintin!”

  Warmed by anger, she held her gaze to the man she had told Bayard it was better she wed, and not only because the Baron of Blackwood already had an heir. Because she had wished to spare her brother marriage into the family of his greatest enemy, Bayard having been made a cuckold by Griffin’s brother. Of course, Elianor of Emberly was nearly as unsavory, being the niece of Bayard’s first wife whom he had found abed with Serle de Arell.