The Captive Heart (Kathleen Kirkwood HEART Series) Read online

  THE CAPTIVE HEART

  by

  Anita Gordon

  writing as

  Kathleen Kirkwood

  © Copyright 1995, 2013 Anita Gordon

  Revised Edition, 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  License Notes:

  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. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents, other than those in attributed quotations or references, are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All characters are fictional and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Cover art: edhGraphics

  Cover image of models Jimmy Thomas and Lacey Hannan licensed from Romance Novel Covers at www.romancenovelcovers.com.

  ISBN-13: 978-1624540080

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Author’s Appreciation

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Author Biography

  Also Available

  Coming in Late 2013

  THE CAPTIVE HEART

  “Each sentence is a finely polished jewel. Anita Gordon is a marvelous writer with a rare ability to weave historical research into an action-packed romance.”

  — Julie Beard, bestselling author of Lady and the Wolf

  THE DEFIANT HEART

  “A rich and sumptuous feast of romantic historical adventure . . . I read all night.”

  Bertrice Small, author of To Love Again

  “A wonderful story of grand adventure and enduring love I thoroughly enjoyed it!”

  — Anita Mills, author of The Fire and the Fury

  “From the first page to the last, Anita Gordon’s THE DEFIANT HEART is totally captivating.”

  — Linda Abel, publisher of The Medieval Chronicles

  “A masterpiece of fiction! Five stars!”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  THE VALIANT HEART

  Winner of the Golden Heart Award

  “Wonderful historical fantasy; I read it with avid enjoyment!”

  — Roberta Gellis, bestselling author of Fires of Winter

  “Exciting and heartrending, touched with warmth and humor. One of the best novels I’ve read in years!”

  — Rene J. Garrod, author of Passion’s Endless Tide

  “Anita Gordon joins the ranks of the finest Medieval novelists..”

  — Romantic Times Magazine

  Dedication

  For my critique group

  — never shy to share an opinion

  and always generous in their support

  — thank you, my friends:

  Susie Brack, Dee Gordon, Christine Hyatt

  And for a dear friend and the inspiration for Héricourt’s nursemaid, Felise

  — Jenny Jones, bookseller extraordinaire!

  Author’s Appreciation

  Once again, a very special thanks to Jim Shellem for his nautical expertise.

  Deepest appreciation to Suzanne Parnell for her guidance, aid, and advice on Anglo-Saxon England.

  More thanks to Sand Toler for the geographical details of Ireland’s Buren and peat bogs.

  For my son, Scott Gordon, who, over the Heart trilogy, has helped “stage” many of the action scenes: a heart full of gratitude.

  Author’s Note

  We met the Frankish king, Charles the Simple, and Normandy’s first duke, Rollo, in the pages of THE VALIANT HEART. Now, two decades later, both men are dead. Charles’ throne has been usurped, his young son and queen dwell in exile across the Channel at the Anglo-Saxon court, and a revolt has just been quelled against Normandy’s new duke, William Longsword.

  Garreth and Ailénor’s story is woven through this time of shifting loyalties and dangerous alliances as an old adversary returns from the past. I hope you enjoy the tale.

  “ . . . love knows no cost, nor faith any detriment,

  and no distances on earth separate

  those whom the bond of true love binds . . .”

  — Fulco

  Ninth Century

  Prologue

  West coast of Ireland, 933 A.D.

  You have found her, then?”

  Rhiannon rose in a fluid movement from her highseat and slid her gaze over the two men who stood before her.

  “You have seen her with your own eyes?” she pressed, anticipation welling in her breast.

  “Aye, Princess.” The man with the pock-ravaged face stepped forward. “We located her as you directed, across the sea in the duchy of Normandy.”

  Rhiannon smiled, her nostrils flaring as she drew a breath and sensed her triumph near at hand.

  “At last.” The words hissed from her lips.

  Rhiannon averted her gaze and looked with satisfaction to her well-muscled companion, Varya, who stood beside her highseat, his gold-cuffed arms crossed over his bare chest, a curved sword gleaming at his side.

  She gave him a purposeful nod, then began to pace the chamber, exultation swirling through her veins.

  What great fortune to have found word of her old adversary so soon upon her return to Ireland. She expected the she-dog to yet be enslaved in some distant land, conceivably dead. But according to accounts, she had lived these years past a free-woman in Normandy.

  Rhiannon stayed her step and rounded abruptly, her eyes slicing back to the two hired men, Grimbold and Wimund, incising them with her gaze.

  “You are sure it is her? There must be no mistake.”

  “There is none,” assured Wimund, the shorter man with large bulbous eyes and receding chin. “She abides at Héricourt with her husband, the lord baron, and with their brood of children. Lady Ailinn — ”

  “Lady?” Rhiannon crowed a laugh. “She is no lady. She is naught but the lowly dropping of the Érainn, whose mother bewitched my uncle’s heart and gained a place for herself and her wretched daughter among my people. The bitch displaced me, presenting herself as my own person the morn we were seized by the Danes in their raid on Clonmel, eighteen years past.”

  Rhiannon steadied herself, her pulses pounding as she moved to the highseat and grasped the elaborate carved back. She inhaled deeply and elevated her chin as grim memories rekindled in her breast.

  “I, daughter of the ruri ri, Mór, princess of the Casil Eóganachts, was fouled by their hands and enslaved that day — my wedding day.”

  Her jaw hardened and her choler rose.

  “‘Tis she they should have defiled. But instead, posing as myself, she was spared their brutal hands and rutting loins. Later, during our transport to the East, I was abducted by the barbarians of the Steppe. That I lay upon her head as well,
as I do all I suffered, including this . . .”

  Rhiannon swept back the veil that partially covered her face to reveal three bloodless lines, slashing straight and parallel across her left cheek. Her mouth twisted with a hard smile as she watched the men’s predicted reaction, their eyes widening and their jaws slackening at the sight.

  “Yes, look upon my scars, one gained for each attempt I made to escape those who sought to master me.”

  She drew off the veil completely then, exposing dark hair with a shock of white, and upon her neck a thick, puckered line, curving from beneath her chin to back under her ear.

  “This last was meant to kill me and would have, had Varya not saved me.”

  Once again, Rhiannon waited on the men’s reactions, which came as expected, their eyes flitting to her exotic companion and back again to the disfiguring marks that forever despoiled her beauty.

  “I have suffered much because of that conniving bitch. But now I am returned,” she ground out, venom saturating every word. “And I shall have my revenge.”

  She moved off to her highseat, her back as straight and rigid as a rod. Yet when she turned and lowered herself to the broidered cushions, a narrow smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

  “‘Tis why I engaged your services. And why I have further need of them still.”

  With a nod of her head, she bid Varya to bring forth the small, ornately carved chest he held in his hands. Then, drifting her gaze back over Grimbold and Wimund, she measured them closely as expectancy fired their eyes.

  With great care she had chosen them. And while she trusted fully in their ability to carry out her dictates, she trusted them not at all where her treasure was concerned.

  Presumably they knew the stories — how, upon her father’s death, she had seized his riches, long hidden in an ancient, underground souterrain. Likely these two cutthroats hoped to gain the full of it — once they verified its existence — intending to use her as much as she intended to use them.

  Rhiannon continued to gaze on them coolly. Varya would prevent any treachery attempted on their part. Meanwhile, she would bait them to her purposes. Both were familiar with the land, customs, and tongue of Francia. That assured they could travel with relative ease and gain entrance where needed. Both were unprincipled. That assured they would see her plans through without question or conscience.

  She favored them with another smile. “You have done well in locating my stepcousin, and as promised, you shall enjoy a handsome reward.”

  At her gesture, Varya placed the chest on a narrow table beside her highseat, then repositioned it to sit between Rhiannon and the hired men.

  Leaning forward, Rhiannon slid the elegant jeweled dagger from the brass fittings that secured the chest. Setting it aside, she opened the lid and reached for the leather pouch that lay within. This she held in Grimbold’s and Wimund’s view as she began to fill it with gleaming coins and a few sparkling jewels.

  Rhiannon lifted a brow at the men’s avid looks. Grimbold’s was intent, while Wimund appeared ready to salivate. Her lips curved, and her hands stilled to torment them a touch further.

  Tell me. How fares my stepcousin?” she drew out the last word with unsubtle distaste, then dropped a bright sapphire into the pouch, toying, tantalizing. “Have the fires of her hair dulled with age, and her waist thickened with childbirth? I’m amazed the chit was able to produce at all.”

  She suppressed the mental image of Ailinn coupling with the handsome Norman lord, Lyting Atlison. Ailinn had bewitched him, Rhiannon knew. ‘Twas why he had chosen Ailinn and spurned her own self, years ago, upon the banks of the Dnieper. Ailinn, the low-birthed sow, was just like her mother to bind a man so.

  “In truth,” Grimbold spoke with some hesitancy as he watched several more jewels slip from Rhiannon’s fingers into the growing purse, “your stepcousin is much as you described her as a younger woman. The dark red of her hair is indeed an exceptional shade. She is slender enough, I’d say.” He shrugged, watching Rhiannon’s hand dip once more into the chest. “More comely than expected . . .”

  Rhiannon retracted her hand and stood to her feet, her mood shifting, tempest-quick. Jerking the drawstrings closed, she tossed the purse at the men.

  “Enough! If you find my stepcousin so appealing, then return to Normandy and seize her from her pampered perch. Pleasure yourselves upon her to your content and consider it part of your reward. But do not tarry overlong. When you deliver her to me, the remainder of this treasure shall be yours.”

  Rhiannon reversed the chest, turning it around to fully expose its glittering contents.

  Wimund’s huge eyes distended. Overcome by the vision of such wealth, he lunged forward and thrust his hand into the chest, seizing up a fistful of jewels and coins.

  Instantly Varya manacled Wimund’s wrist in an iron grip. Fixing Wimund with a fierce glare, he increased the pressure, threatening to snap the bone. The precious booty trickled from Wimund’s hand back into the chest.

  Grimbold started forward, his hand seeking the knife in his belt. But before he could take another step, Varya freed his sword and shifted his stance to block him.

  “Do not think to betray me,” Rhiannon clipped out icily. “I did not survive the Steppe without guile. And take heed. Varya is an Avar. Completely loyal to me.”

  The men’s eyes shifted to Varya, taking in his dusky skin, the purplish-red birthmark covering the right half of his face, and his shaved head with its long swatch of jet-black hair hanging down at the back in a tangled mass. The Avar stood to a better-than-average height, his build hard, muscular, unclad above a wide leather belt that cinctured his waist tightly, making his shoulders and chest appear all the wider. He watched them with eyes as keen as a serpent’s and as black as death.

  ‘Tis wiser to fear him above any Norseman, I assure you.” Rhiannon’s voice broke through the men’s concentration. At her look, Varya released Wimund, though he did not resheathe his blade.

  “Be certain,” she began again, “I intend for my stepcousin to pay for her misdeeds and suffer all I have suffered in her stead. When she is in my possession, the treasure shall be yours. Fail and I shall find another who won’t disappoint me.”

  Rhiannon grasped the chest’s lid and slung it closed, shutting off the men’s view of the prize.

  “Return now to Héricourt and bring her to me.”

  Grimbold gave a curt nod, drawing Wimund back. “As you will, Princess, but we shall not take her from Héricourt.”

  Rhiannon’s chin jutted upward, and she started to argue, but he stayed her with a hand.

  ‘Tis too well garrisoned. Besides, the barons are to convene at Rouen in the coming weeks, a celebration of some order, devised around the anniversary of William Longsword’s installment as duke. All of Normandy’s noble families are to attend. With the press of people and distractions at the ducal court, it will be easier to snatch our prey right from beneath the noses of the proud Norman warriors.”

  The thought roused Rhiannon. She envisioned her stepcousin’s entrapment at court. Envisioned the chit delivered into her hands at long last, then savored images of the retribution she would exact, slowly, painfully. The anticipation of it all swirled through her anew, pulsing in her veins and welling in her breast. All she had suffered, all she had lost, would soon be avenged. The triumph would be hers.

  Exhilarated beyond patience, Rhiannon’s gaze swept to Grimbold and Wimund. “Why do you tarry? Be gone with you,” she snapped, suddenly annoyed by their idleness.

  Snatching up the jewel-hilted dagger from the table, she gestured them away.

  “Bring her to me,” she commanded with a burst of emotion, then stabbed the dagger downward into the lid of the chest, defiling its rich carvings. “Bring me Ailinn of the Érainn!”

  Chapter 1

  Rouen, Normandy

  Ailénor’s dark red hair tumbled from her shoulders as she tipped back her head and looked straight upward into the canopy of leaves spread ove
rhead.

  High in the old pear tree, a fluffy white ball of fur clung tenaciously to a twiggy branch, its round golden eyes staring back at her as it gave a plaintive mew of distress.

  “Cricket’s going to fall,” young Michan fretted at his sister’s side and gave an anxious tug to her skirt.

  Adelis, Brietta, and little Ena huddled beside him, each gasping in alarm every time the kitten lost her back footing or the bough swayed with the feline’s shifting weight.

  Nine-year-old Lucán stood tall and erect to Ailénor’s left, his gaze fixed on the kitten, his brows drawn into the semblance of a scowl as he contemplated the animal’s predicament.

  “Really, Michan,” Ailénor whispered. “I do think Cricket can manage. She climbed up without difficulty, did she not? And her claws are quite sharp. She will back herself down. You will see.” Ailénor sent up a quick mental prayer that the kitten was bright enough to do so.

  As they continued to monitor Cricket’s plight, the kitten edged, bit by bit, along the branch, toward the tree’s trunk. Ailénor smiled. Minette calée. Smart kitty, she applauded silently.

  Just then, a small purple finch flitted into the tree and perched on the branch, startling the kitten. Cricket drew back and tensed her fur spiking. She swatted at the intruder with a tiny forepaw, only to upset her own balance.

  Unimpressed with the show of aggression, the bird flittered off, leaving the kitten clutching the limb, her hindquarters dangling midair.

  The girls squealed fitfully, jumping about, clasping one another, and squinching their eyes shut. Ailénor’s heart flipped several times over. Blessedly, Cricket regained her hold, pawing her way onto the branch with her back legs.