Noble Hearts 03 - The Courageous Heart Read online

  Praise for The Noble Hearts….

  The Loyal Heart

  An engaging historical romance

  I could not put this book down, in fact I devoured it in one sitting and then immediately bought the second book too!

  -The Kindle Book Review

  Four and a Half Stars

  This is a really entertaining book with love, lust, action, intrigue, humour, stress, happiness and sadness and is well worth taking the time out of your day to read.

  -Lindsay and Jane’s Views and Reviews

  The Faithful Heart

  Entertaining and informative

  As with the first book in this series, it is un-put-downable! The characters are real, the action is realistic and you really care about it all! … Not your ordinary bodice ripper!

  -Amazon Review

  A rollicking, lighthearted adventure

  There is enough adventure, romance, and moments of genuine heartbreak here to keep readers glued to their e-readers for the duration.

  -InD’Tale Magazine

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright ©2012 by Merry Farmer

  Smashwords Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Pehr Graphic Design

  www.facebook.com/pehrdesign

  [email protected]

  Romance Fatal Serif font used with permission from Juan Casco www.juancasco.net

  Tower of London on cover: © Stephen Finn | Dreamstime.com

  The Courageous Heart

  By Merry Farmer

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks once again to my wonderful editor, Alison Dasho. I always say that I couldn’t do this without her, but that’s more true of this book than any other so far. Her help made this story what it is.

  Thanks also to my dear friend, Jonathan Longstaff, for creating yet another gorgeous cover design. Very special thanks to my beta reader extraordinaire and best friend, Kristine Medley, and all of my fabulous friends online who have given me encouragement and who remind me why I love writing so much.

  For my brother, Brian Kelly Farmer,

  who died suddenly as I was writing this book. Like Joanna, I am lucky to have had a brother who was so loving, so selfless, and who lived every day of his life to care for the people he loved.

  You will never be forgotten.

  Table of Contents

  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 TwentyTwo

  Chapter TwentyThree

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  The Courageous Heart

  Chapter One

  Derbyshire, 1194

  Joanna paced through the rows of headstones in Windale church graveyard, a bundle of simple wildflowers clutched to her stomach. The ache that hadn’t left her heart for two and a half years throbbed as she reached the end of the third row. She stopped but couldn’t look at the stone. She bit her lip and stared off over the hills and fields of her home, Windale Manor, instead.

  The winter chill had gone. Spring was in the air. A promising breeze wafted the rich scent of the orchard blossoms from Kedleridge, on the other side of the hill. The rhythmic melody of the farmers singing as they furrowed sleepy rows through the fields should have cheered her, today of all days.

  She swallowed and forced her eyes to the name carved on the stone where she stood.

  Toby Dunkirke.

  Two and a half years and still she expected to hear her brother’s gentle voice in the manor halls, to see him waving to her as she walked through the fields. Her handsome, hopeless, wonderful fool of a brother.

  She knelt beside his headstone and squeezed her eyes shut to keep her emotions at bay. Toby had been all she had, the last of her family. They’d shared a womb, shared everything, from the day they were born to the day Toby left home with Ethan to fight in King Richard’s crusade. She swallowed, opened her eyes, and lay the bundle of flowers at the foot of the headstone.

  “Happy birthday, Toby,” she told him, blinking back tears. “I miss you. I’ve been so lonely without you. I-”

  There was so much more she wanted to say to him, so much that had been left unsaid. Too much. Toby had been wrenched away from her long before his tragic death. In the five years since he had left for the crusade she hadn’t had one rambling conversation with him. They hadn’t had a chance to stay up all night sharing their secrets, laughing over the futility of their dreams until they cried in each other’s arms. They hadn’t had each other to keep the loneliness at bay. And she knew full well whose fault that was. Her grief coalesced into bitter resentment.

  “Joanna?” A small hand tapped on her shoulder. Joanna blinked and pivoted to face the black hair and solemn blue eyes of little Wulfric Huntingdon. “Joanna?”

  “Yes, my lord?” She cleared her throat, blinking to banish her tears, and forced a smile.

  Her little lord, a sweet replica of his imposing father, stared up at her, chubby cheeks giving him the frown of a stoic cherub. “There’s a man at the house.”

  “Oh?” Joanna squatted to look the boy in the eye. “Is it your papa?”

  Wulfric shook his head.

  “Is it Uncle Jack?”

  He shook his head again.

  “Uncle Tom?”

  “It’s a stranger.”

  “A stranger?” Joanna repeated, brushing an unruly strand of hair away from Wulfric’s face. “What kind of stranger?”

  “He told Mama his name is Ethan.”

  Joanna’s heart plummeted. She shot to her feet, hands balled into fists at her sides, turning towards the manor house. Her pulse roared when she saw an unfamiliar horse standing near the edge of the common. Aubrey stood talking to a man in a traveler’s cloak.

  “I’ll murder him!” she hissed, out of breath after just those words. How dare he show up today, after all these years. What gave him the right to disappear for years and then just walk back into her life at random? “Come on, my lord.”

  Joanna scooped Wulfric into her arms, resting him against her hip and charging out of the graveyard and up the road to the manor. She would strangle Ethan with her bare hands. She would gouge his eyes out with a red-hot iron. She would slice his balls off with a rusty dagger. Ethan would regret the day he walked out on Windale, walked out on her, stealing Toby with him.

  Her rage fizzled when she reached the common and the cloaked man turned to face her. He was in his middle years with graying hair and a scar on his cheek. He was not her Ethan.
r />   “Oh,” she stuttered, glancing past the man to Aubrey.

  Aubrey looked as confused as Joanna felt. She softened at the sight of her son. Wulfric held out his arms to his mother and Aubrey crossed in front of the stranger to take him from Joanna.

  “Joanna, this is Sir Ethan Eversham.”

  “Sir.” Joanna curtsied, straightening and sending Aubrey a questioning look.

  “Sir Ethan has come from London.” Her voice was thready and puzzled.

  “I’ve been sent by the crown, my lady, to bring word to the nobles of Derbyshire,” Sir Ethan said. He continued as if he had already been making an explanation before Joanna arrived. “King Richard has returned to England. He has taken up residence in London, in the Tower.”

  “The king is back?” Aubrey shuffled Wulfric in her arms as he poked at the netting holding her hair back. “We hadn’t heard he’d been released.”

  “Emperor Henry released him last month, my lady. King Richard arrived in London last week and is eager to resume complete control of his kingdom from his rebellious brother, Prince John.” He shifted his weight, glancing back towards the manor house. “I have a specific message for your husband, my lady. Is he at home?”

  “No.” Aubrey pushed Wulfric’s hand away from her ear where he was now trying to stick his finger. “No, he and Jack, that is, Lord John, are in Derby today.”

  “Ah. Lord John of Kedleridge?”

  Aubrey nodded.

  “This message concerns him as well. It is a message of utmost urgency.”

  “I could ride into Derby to fetch them,” Joanna offered. Heaven only knew that she needed something to take her mind off her troubles.

  “Thank you, Joanna, but I need you here,” Aubrey said.

  “Joanna?” Sir Ethan blinked and looked at her as though just seeing her. “Not Joanna Dunkirke?”

  Joanna’s eyebrows rose. She glanced to Aubrey who seemed just as surprised. Then she turned back to Sir Ethan. “Yes. That’s me.”

  “I have something for you,” he said as though he couldn’t quite believe it himself.

  He walked back to his horse and unfastened the portmanteau. Joanna and Aubrey followed him and stood waiting as he sorted through its contents. He took out a bundle and stepped towards them, presenting Joanna with a thick packet of battered old parchment tied with dirty string.

  “I’ve been charged with delivering a backlog of missives that have accumulated in the court offices these last few years. So many letters arrived in the court offices in London at various points as soldiers returned from the Holy Land that we haven’t been able to deliver them all.” Sir Ethan held up the packet. “We’ve had these particular letters for over three years. I have stacks of the things to deliver all across Derbyshire, but yours are the only ones not addressed to a noble. To tell the truth, I didn’t think I’d actually find you.”

  Joanna took the bundle. Her curious frown tumbled into a look of shock at the writing on the top letter of the pile. Joanna Dunkirke, Windale Manor, Derbyshire. The lump in her throat squeezed and all color drained from her face.

  “What’s wrong?” Aubrey put a hand on her shoulder.

  Joanna’s stinging eyes flew up to meet Aubrey’s. “They’re from Toby.”

  “What?” Aubrey stepped to her side and craned her neck to look at the letters.

  “That’s his handwriting,” Joanna explained. She picked at the string holding the letters together with trembling hands. Her heart fluttered. The feeling that Toby was standing just behind her, that she could touch him, hung heavily over her. She separated the top letter, tucking the rest under her arm, and turned the letter over to break the seal.

  “Dear Joanna,” she read aloud. “We’ve reached Marseille at last. The journey was long and uncomfortable and I don’t think my backside will ever recover. Ethan is in good spirits though.” She lowered the letter and stared at Aubrey, eyes round. “It’s dated June, 1189.”

  “Five years ago,” Aubrey whispered.

  “I do apologize for taking so long in delivering them,” Sir Ethan said. “I suppose by now this Toby has told you all about his adventures in King Richard’s crusade.”

  Joanna shook her head. She tried to read more but tears blurred her eyes. Her moment of joyful hope squeezed to the pain of loss. “Toby was killed two and a half years ago. He … he never had a chance to tell me about his time in the Holy Land. We were never together long enough once he came home.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Sir Ethan lowered his head in respect.

  He shifted his attention to Aubrey. “My lady, it is imperative that I speak to the earl as soon as possible. The king’s business cannot be delayed.”

  “I’ll send a messenger to Derby to fetch them.” Aubrey took charge, leaving Joanna’s side to start towards the stable.

  “If I may, my lady,” Sir Ethan stopped her. “I will ride into Derby myself. This cannot wait.”

  Aubrey frowned. “Fine, then we’ll take the carriage and come with you.”

  Joanna cleared her throat and pushed her pain down to focus on her duty. “I’ll see to it, my lady.” She folded the letter, kissed it, and slid it and the others into the pocket of her kirtle.

  She couldn’t think about her brother now. She didn’t have the strength. His first few words had sounded so cheerful, so like Toby. She couldn’t bear to hear them. Instead she did what Toby would have done and pushed everything else out of her mind but duty.

  The War Room in the dungeon of Derby Castle had taken on an almost festive feeling. A fire roared in the hearth and several candelabras had been set around the edges of the room. Crispin had ordered the servants to keep the rushes on the floor fresh and someone had brought boughs of blossoms from the castle garden’s fruit trees to hang on the walls and lend their scent to the air.

  “So that’s three new permits to build shops.” Tom Tanner gave his report while Crispin and Jack listened from their seats at the room’s large table. “With the growth along the south side of town there should be about an eight percent increase in city revenue by the end of the year.”

  “Good, good.” Crispin nodded. “What about the cathedral? I’ve seen a lot of activity at the site, but have they started building again in earnest after the winter?”

  Tom’s answer was delayed by the cry of a fussy baby. “They have, my lord. Brother Robert tells me they’ll need to hire at least a dozen more workers this year, which should increase the population even more.”

  Jack hopped up from his chair and circled around the table to the fireplace where Madeline sat cradling their daughter. “Do we have room for them?” he asked, trying to pay attention to two things at once, “Or should we plot out another residential street over by the cathedral? Here, let me take her.”

  He switched from business to smiling at his wife. His eyes lit up as he scooped his daughter into his arms. The wriggling red-headed baby stopped fussing almost at once. Jack beamed at her, completely in love. Crispin watched them, warring between sentimental approval and concern. Madeline had been more pale than usual all winter, ever since Meg was born. Her health was not improving anywhere near as fast as Aubrey’s had when Wulfric was born, yet Madeline kept pushing herself to be a part of things.

  “I think we should plot another street,” Tom resumed the conversation where they’d left off. Jack leaned over and kissed Madeline’s forehead before returning to the table with his daughter. “The market has increased two and threefold in the last two years and every indication is that now that the weather is improving it will continue to increase.”

  “Oy, bully for us then,” Jack cooed to Meg. She grinned and gurgled back at him.

  Crispin frowned to cover the warmth in his chest. There was an apple that had fallen close to the tree. God help him if Wulfric developed an interest in the girl in a decade or so.

  “Plotting a new street is simple.” Crispin sighed, sitting back in his chair. “Increasing spending for the construction of new public buildings without
the consent of the Council of Nobles is not.”

  Tom frowned. “Let me guess. Matlock is causing trouble again?”

  The ridiculous faces Jack was making at his daughter flattened.

  “No,” Crispin answered. “His crony Lord Gerald of Wyndham is though.”

  “Lord Gerald is a pompous fool.” Madeline joined the conversation, rising from her chair and walking towards the table, a hand on her back.

  “Oy! You need to sit down and rest.” Jack arched an eyebrow at her in mock scolding, echoing the concerns Crispin felt.

  “I’m fine.” She brushed off his concern. “Why is Lord Gerald blocking the construction of new buildings in Derby?”

  “God only knows,” Jack muttered.

  “He says it’s because it encourages peasants to settle in the city instead of becoming a part of a manor,” Crispin explained.

  “Not like it matters to him.” Jack continued to frown and speak to Meg. “His manor is all the way out near Leek.”

  “Which is why it’s clear that he’s lobbying on Matlock’s behalf.” Crispin frowned. He sighed and pushed his chair back, standing so that he could stretch his legs.

  Tom rose as well. “Wouldn’t we rather have Lord Gerald pestering us than Matlock?”

  Crispin and Jack exchanged wary glances.

  “My father hasn’t been seen in Derby since well before Christmas,” Madeline took up the explanation. “The only thing worse than having your enemy breathing down your back is having no idea where he is.”

  “Good riddance, I say!” Tom crossed his arms.

  As much as he wanted to agree with Tom, he couldn’t afford to. “Matlock is important, but so are many other things. Right now we need to concentrate on improving Derby City’s infrastructure. I think that we can safely-”