Knights Divided

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Copyright

“Unhand me!” Emmeline tried,

futilely, to escape.

“Not just yet, Emma. First we are going to talk.”

“Emmeline.”

Jamie turned her and sat her down on one muscular thigh. “That name does not suit you. ’Tis too formal and stuffy for a lady with your spirit and passion.”

Emmeline’s mouth gaped open. She snapped it shut. “You know naught about me,” she sputtered.

“You forget, I’ve sampled that fire you seem so determined to hide.” He glanced briefly at her mouth, a subtle reminder of the devastating kiss they’d shared. When his gaze returned to hers, its intensity was anything but subtle. Blatant desire flared in that single midnight eye.

Emmeline gasped sharply as an answering heat streaked through her. It sank deep, touching some hidden core of herself. like a sleeping dragon, the seed unfurled again, spreading the flames. “Nay,” she whispered, denying the rush of sensation….

Dear Reader,

With this month’s Knights Divided, Suzanne Barclay again returns to her award-winning Sommerville Brothers series. Emmeline Spencer kidnaps Jamie Harcourt, believing that he is responsible for the death of her sister, but the innocent Jamie escapes;. turning the tables on her and bringing Emmeline along as his captive. Don’t miss this exciting story where lovers must battle evil before they find true happiness.

On the trail of a gang of female outlaws. Federal Marshal Clay Chandler doesn’t realize that he’s falling in love with their leader in Judith Stacy’s heartwarming Western, Outlaw Love. Haunted by their pasts, a gambler and a nobleman’s daughter turn to each other for protection against falling in love in Nina Beaumont’s new book, Surrender the Heart. And in Bogus Bride, by Australian Emily French, spirited Caitlin Parr must convince her new husband-that although he had intended to marry her sister, she is his true soul mate.

Whatever your taste in reading, we hope you’ll find a story written just for you between the covers of a Harlequin Historical novel. Keep a lookout for all four titles wherever Harlequin Historicals are sold.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell,

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Harlequin Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Knight’s

Divided

Suzanne

Barclay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SUZANNE BARCLAY

has been an avid reader since she was very young; her mother claims Suzanne could read and recite “The Night Before Christmas” on her first birthday! Not surprisingly, history was her favorite subject in school and historical novels are her number-one reading choice. The house she shares with her husband and their two dogs is set on fifty-five acres of New York State’s wine-growing region. When she’s not writing, the author makes fine furniture and carpets in miniature.

Prologue

Derry, England September 4, 1386

“Mistress? There’s soldiers come into the shop asking for ye,” Peter whispered from the door of the workroom.

Emmeline started, scattering the costly saffron threads she’d been transferring to a parchment packet for a customer. “Did they say what they wanted?”

Her apprentice shook his head so violently blond hair whipped across his fear-filled eyes. “Th-they s-said they had to tell ye something.”

Something bad. “Did they mention Cedric?”

“Nay, ’twas ye they asked for, not yer sire.”

“I see.” Drat. Six months ago she’d nearly lost the shop paying up his gambling debts, and he’d promised…Emmeline sighed. She’d learned early that Cedric le Trompour’s promises were seldom more than a puff of breath. And that usually stinking with sour ale. What had the old reprobate done now? And how much was it going to cost her to extricate him?

Through the open doorway that separated the shop from the back room where she stored the more costly herbs and made creams from her mother’s recipes, Emmeline glimpsed the three men who’d invaded her establishment. Two were obviously soldiers, hard-faced men in dark livery with watchful eyes and huge swords.

The third stranger was a rumpled little man who prowled the shop’s interior, poking a pudgy finger into the bunches of dried herbs with the air of complete absorption. His face” was round and wrinkled as the old-fashioned brown gown he wore. A rim of frizzy gray hair lapped at the edges of his bald pate like moss on a shiny rock. He didn’t look like the sort of man who’d demand she sell the apothecary shop she’d inherited from her mother just to satisfy a drunken old fool’s gaming debts.

Emmeline drew in a steadying breath. “I’ll see what they want. Please finish packaging this saffron for Dame Wentworth, Peter, and mind no more than three threads per packet.”

“Mistress…” Peter caught at the sleeve of her gown, his thin fingers stark against the brown wool. “Let me go with ye. If there’s trouble, I can help.”

Despite her trepidation, Emmeline smiled. Though he was only three and ten, Peter was a good lad and likely to make a fine apothecary. Providing she didn’t lose the shop before his training was completed. “I’ll be fine.”

“I beg ye leave the door open,” he whispered as she left the workroom. “If they threaten ye, I’ll come running.” And he would, too. They were closer than apprentice and mistress, more like the only family either of them had. Peter was an orphan, and Emmeline nearly so. Her mother had died a year ago after a long illness, and her father…well, Cedric had been dead to Emmeline ever since she’d found out what he was.

More to salve Peter’s pride than out of any actual fear, Emmeline left the door ajar and stepped into the store. The soldiers tensed; the little man looked up. His eyes were brown, large and sleepy-looking in the gentle folds of his face. He resembled an old hound roused from his warm spot by the fire.

That comfortable comparison gave her the courage to answer his sad little smile with a tentative one of her own. “May I help you?” she inquired past the lump in her throat.

“Mistress Emmeline Spencer?” he inquired, bowing from the hips, for his belly precluded anything else. “I am Sir Thomas Burton, come up from London to speak with you on a matter of some—” his fleshy features tightened —some delicacy.”

“London”. Emmeline’s heart sank. Whatever trouble Cedric had gotten into would be expensive. “What has he done?”

“Who?”

“My…father,” she admitted. “Cedric le Trompour.”

“Le Trompour is your father?” Sir Thomas pursed his lips. “I had not realized he had chil…oh.” A flush stained his jowls as he made the obvious leap.

“My sister and I are Cedric’s natural daughters.” A prettied-up way of saying they were bastards.

Sir Thomas coughed. “Then Alford is your grandfather.” At her nod, his frown deepened. “I wished I had known. I’d have taken my news to Cedric, or to Old Alford.”

“Grandfather disowned Cedric years ago and won’t give you a farthing to repay his debts.” She, however, was more vulnerable. Though he’d failed to wed her mother, Cedric was her father, and could dispose of her as he wished. Thus far, she’d managed to forestall any marriage plans by keeping him in coin.

“I am no usurer come to collect my due.” His gray brows knit together. “I hate to presume on your hospitality, but is there a place where we might speak in private?”

“In private?” Belatedly Emmeline looked out the large window that faced Market Street. Bunches of dried herbs, rosemary, thyme and mint hung from the open shutters. The wide sill formed a counter on which sat baskets of pepper, black and white, both ready to be weighed up for sale. Most days she had a modest flow of customers. Today the opening was crammed with people absently fingering the merchandise while staring at the unfolding drama.

Emmeline felt the color rise in her face. No matter how hard she worked to erase the stains of her own past and the continuing stigma of Cedric’s debauchery, she was ever the object of the town’s pity, scorn and ridicule.

“My men could give your apprentice a hand in closing the shop,” Sir Thomas suggested.

Oh, it must be very bad. Emmeline’s fists clenched a little tighter in the folds of her gown as she called, “Peter.”

The boy popped out of the storeroom like a rock launched from a catapult. Brandishing the large pestle she used to crush peppercorns, he flew at Sir Thomas.

“Peter!” Emmeline grabbed her protector by the arm before the blow landed. “Please, do not hold this against him.”

“On the contrary. I find his defense of his mistress quite a tribute in this day of deceit, murder and betrayal,” Sir Thomas said so forcefully Emmeline wondered who or what he was.

She found out soon enough. Leaving Peter to deal with the flood of customers—under the watchful eye of the two soldiers—she led the way up the stairs to the small solar.

“Er, can I offer you wine?” Emmeline asked, not at all used to entertaining men. Cedric’s perfidy had made her ’distrust men, and she avoided them as much as possible, except for Toby, who’d been with the family forever, and Peter, who was just a lad.

“Tis most kind,” Sir Thomas said. “We’ve had a long, dusty ride.” The sturdy chair by the hearth, the best piece of furniture she’d inherited from her mother, creaked as he lowered his bulk into it. “But only if you’ll join me.”

Stiff with dread, Emmeline forced herself to walk to the side table and fill the two cups that stood next to the pitcher. Her neck prickled, but when she turned, Sir Thomas was looking around the room, not at her. No doubt gauging the worth of the furnishings. She wished she’d never brought him up here to see the few things she’d thus far managed to keep. The trestle table and stools her greatgrandfather had made, the tapestry and pair of silver plates.

Angry now at her own helplessness, she thrust the crockery cup at her visitor. He accepted it with a gracious smile, then gestured to the smaller chair that had been her mother’s. “Won’t you sit?” he asked.

Nay. She wanted to stamp and scream and throw things. She wanted to kick the stools and hurl the plates against the whitewashed walls. Impotent rage warred with her mother’s strictures. “You have a strong will, Emmeline,” she used to say. “Use it to overcome the base emotions you inherited from Cedric.”

Emmeline’s fingers knotted behind her back. “If you will kindly state your business, sir.”

“Mayhap we should send for your father.”

“Ha! So this does concern him.” Inside her, something cracked. Like a kettle set too long to fire, her anger boiled over. “This time I will not pay. I don’t care if you throw him in debtor’s prison. I don’t care if you—”

“I spoke truly when I said I haven’t come to collect money,” Sir Thomas said gently. “It…it is about your sister.”

“Celia?” Her anger evaporated. “What has happened now?”

“Now? Has she been having trouble of some sort?”

All her life. Beautiful Celia with the laughing eyes and insatiable appetite for self-indulgence inherited from their sire. She was Emmeline’s opposite in all things—pretty, popular, irresponsible. Though their mother had constantly harped about her younger sister’s frivolous ways, Emmeline loved her dearly.

“Not trouble, exactly,” Emmeline said. “But sorrow, surely. Two years ago she wed Roger de Vienne.” Proving herself as susceptible to a rogue as their mother had been, but he’d given Celia the one thing she wanted more than anything, a chance to leave Derry for the gaiety of life in London. The prize had not come without a heavy price. “Roger was killed six months ago.” Run through by a husband who’d returned home at a most unexpected and inopportune moment Celia had retired to Derry briefly till the scandal had died down, but declared she couldn’t work in the apothecary or bury herself in the country. “Is it money?” Like Cedric, Celia never seemed to have enough.

“Nay.” Sir Thomas set aside his cup and scrubbed a hand over his face, rearranging the fleshy folds into a mask of regret. “I am so sorry to bring you this news, but your sister is dead.”

“Dead!” The air whooshed out of her lungs, taking with it the starch in her knees. She sank into the chair. Tears blurred her vision; a dozen questions whirled in her brain. “H-how?”

“She was murdered,” Sir Thomas said softly. He handed her a linen handkerchief and went on, the explanation falling like hot acid on her aching heart. Two weeks ago, Celia’s maid had gone to awaken her mistress and found her dead. “I apologize for the delay, but it took me that long to conclude my investigation and locate you…through some letters in her possession.”

Emmeline battled her tears. “H-how did she die?”

“She was strangled.”

“Strangled?” Emmeline’s throat contracted. “By a thief?”

“No one had forced their way in, and naught was missing. Nor did Lily see anyone, for Mistress Celia had sent her off to bed. Despite the late hour, Lily says she was expecting a visitor.”

“A lover who killed Celia in a passionate rage.”

“Do you have proof of that?”

“Nay.” She was appalled she’d spoken aloud. “I am given to fanciful musings, I fear.” She’d tried so hard to break herself of such nonsense, to be practical and logical like her mama. But Cedric came from a long line of minstrels, and the urge to weave romantic tales seemed to be bred into her.

Sir Thomas nodded. “Small wonder. The minstrels fill women’s heads with songs of love and passion. Actually, we do believe Celia’s visitor was a lover. She had undressed and donned her bed robe. Do you know if she was involved with someone?”

“I had a letter from Ce-Celia a month ago. She mentioned a man.” Emmeline rushed to unlock the chest where she kept her receipts and papers. A rare letter from Celia was tucked along the side. As she took it out, she saw the ledger wedged into the corner, and a pang of guilt went through her. It contained the verses she’d penned in secret With her mother gone, there was no longer any reason to hide them, but it seemed unfaithful to Mama’s memory to flaunt a skill she’d detested.

Emmeline returned to the chair and unrolled the letter. Celia’s scrawl was as erratic and impetuous as her personality. Oh, Celia, I shall miss you so. Tears blurred her vision. She blinked them back. A Spencer did not cry in public. “’I have met the most…’” She squinted. “’Wonderful,’ I think this says. ‘Wonderful man. Lord Jamie Har…Har-something.’”

“Harcourt”. Sir Thomas grunted in what sounded like disgust.

“What is it? Do you know him?”

“Aye, and I’ve questioned him, too. I said naught before because I did not want to put words into your mouth, but Lily said Mistress Celia was having an affair with Lord Jamie. Though she was not certain ’twas he your sister expected that fateful night. Do you know how long she’d been involved with him?”

“I—I don’t. Celia seldom wrote or came to Derry, and I…I never cared for the city, so I didn’t visit her.” Reaction trembled through her. “I should have. I should have—”

“Humph. No sense flaying yourself over that, mistress. What else does she say about James Harcourt?”

Emmeline looked down, frowning. “He owns a ship…and is always sailing off on some…adventure or another, but when he comes back this time, I’m certain he’ll wed me.’”

“Humph.”

“I take it Lord Jamie is not the marrying sort”.

“He’s said to have been through more women than three men.”

Emmeline wasn’t surprised. Like mother, like daughter. “Do you have any proof he killed her?”

“Nay,” he said slowly. “But there’s one more thing you should know. Lily suspected your sister was carrying a child. Though Lady Celia hadn’t named the father—”

“My God! Celia tried to use the child to force him to wed her and he…he killed her.”

“We cannot know that,” he said gently. “Lord Jamie was out to sea when your sister was killed.”

“Then he had her killed.”

“Of that, I’ve no proof.”

“But…you mean he’ll go free? He’ll get away with murder?”

He sighed. “Without proof, my hands are tied. ’Tis possible she was also, er, involved with another,” he murmured.

Emmeline stiffened. “My sister was not like that.”

“Life in London is more, er, free than it is here.”

“Bother that. What about justice? Does Celia go unavenged?”

“I cannot prosecute a man like Lord Jamie, a wealthy lord from a powerful family whose friends number among them John, Duke of Lancaster, without proof.”

Emmeline’s chest tightened, and with it, her resolve. Sir Thomas’s hands might be tied, but hers weren’t. She didn’t know how, just yet, but one way or another, she’d prove this James Harcourt had murdered Celia and make certain he was punished.

Chapter One

Harte Court September 18, 1386

It was dark by the. time Jamie Harcourt drew rein at the crest of the knoll. Not that he needed the light to guide him, for this was the land of his birth. He’d explored these fields and forests from the time he could walk, and every square inch was indelibly engraved on his mind.

Yet a thrill went through him as he looked across to the keep built high on the opposing bluff. Harte Court was as vast as a small city, its four sturdy towers and countless dependencies tucked safely behind twelve-foot-thick walls. Fierce and intimidating, some called it the impregnable fortress, but to him it was home. Or had been once.

Home. A pang of longing struck him, swift, sharp and totally unexpected. After seven years in exile, he’d hoped he’d gotten over his attachment to this place. Now he knew he never would. As the eldest son, Harte Court was his birthright, yet he could never claim it. The familiar bitterness rose up inside him. Impatiently he shoved it away. His time here was short, too short for useless regrets.

“No sense borrowing trouble when we’ve plenty enough, eh lad?” He patted Neptune’s glossy black neck and kneed the stallion back onto the road. The air smelled sweet indeed to a nose more used to the tang of the sea. ’Twas fragrant with the mingled scent of ripe wheat and the wildflowers nodding in the hedgerows separating the fields into neat squares. Prosperous and well tended, he mused. There seemed to be more cultivated land than he recalled from his youth, but then, he’d been more interested in chasing the maids and learning to wield a sword than overseeing the estate that would one day be his.

Now he could not afford to care.

Resolutely pinning his gaze to the ribbon of dusty road, he thought instead of the things he must do after he’d paid his duty call. Return to London. Meet with Harry. Sail quickly back to Cornwall. Tight schedule. No time for lagging or sentimentality.

“Who goes there?” demanded a gruff voice.

Jamie looked up, startled to find the moment he’d been anticipating and dreading was nearly at hand. The drawbridge had been lowered over the moat, but was manned by a guard of twenty. Not surprising in these troubled times. “Jamie Harcourt, come to bid my mother well on her name day.”

“The hell ye say.” A stout soldier in Harcourt green and gold strode forward and held a torch aloft. “Jesu, it is ye.”

Jamie laughed. “I know. George of Walken, is it not?”

“Ye’ve a good memory, milord.” The old warrior grinned. “Yer sire said ye’d come to honor yer lady mother, but—”

“No one thought I’d dare show my scarred face.”

George looked at the patch covering the ruins of Jamie’s left eye, then away. “There was some who thought ye’d not come…considering that murder business, but I wagered on ye.”

The reference to Celia made his stomach lurch. Would that mistake haunt him, as well? “How much did you win?”

“A pound, all told.” George chuckled. “New men. They don’t know ye as well as I do.” His smile dimmed. “I was always sure ye’d be back. I just didn’t know ’twould be so long.”

“Ah, well, black sheep are never certain whether they’re welcome or not,” Jamie replied with a cheeky grin.

“Ye were never that,” George said stoutly. “Just a high-spirited lad who pulled his share of pranks, ran off to sea and found he liked the adventuring life better than all this.”

A few pranks…like getting himself maimed, his brother crippled and breaking his parents’ hearts. How he wished he could go back and live his life over, but that was impossible. “Fortunately my brother isn’t cursed with my wild nature.”

“Sir Hugh’s been a fine lord in yer stead. Fair and honest and as hard a worker as any under him. But…but he can never be the warrior ye are. What if we are invaded by the French?”

“I doubt the French will come, but if they do, good old Hugh will do what’s needful. He always rises to the occasion.”

“Aye, that he does.” George glanced at the patch again, no doubt recalling the day that had changed Hugh’s and Jamie’s lives forever. “Ye just missed him, rode down to settle some trouble in the village not half an hour past. I could send someone to—”

Jamie shook his head. “Unless Hugh has changed greatly, he’d not thank either of us for dragging him from his duty for so frivolous a thing as greeting his errant twin. I’m certain he’ll return before I leave. Thanks for wagering on me, George.” For believing in me where others have not, Jamie thought to himself.

Kneeing Neptune into a trot, Jamie passed under the teeth of the portcullis and up the road that cut through the outer bailey. Here were the barracks for the soldiers, the stables and the training field. A wave of nostalgia assailed him as he recalled the many hours spent in the tiltyard learning to wield a sword under his father’s exacting eye. The memory was tainted by the fierce competitiveness between himself and Hugh, the strife that had ended in a blood-spattered glade seven years ago.

Look ahead…never back, he warned himself.

All hope of slipping within, seeing his mother and leaving without causing a stir vanished when he rode through the gatehouse and into the inner ward. The courtyard was washed bright as day by the hundred torches fixed to the massive stone towers and packed with those who’d come to celebrate the forty-third anniversary of Lady Jesselynn’s birth. From inside drifted the sounds of music, laughter and general merrymaking.

The ringing of Neptune’s shod hooves on the cobblestones brought several heads around. The crowd in the courtyard fell silent quickly, as though they’d all been struck mute at once.