Knights
KNIGHTS
$6.99 U.S.
$8.99 CAN.
LOOK FOR THESE THRILLING NOVELS BY
Linda Lael Miller
BANNER O’BRIEN
CORBIN’S FANCY
MEMORY’S EMBRACE
MY DARLING MELISSA
ANGELFIRE
DESIRE AND DESTINY
FLETCHER’S WOMAN
LAURALEE
MOONFIRE
WANTON ANGEL
WILLOW
PRINCESS ANNIE
THE LEGACY
TAMING CHARLOTTE
YANKEE WIFE
DANIEL’S BRIDE
LILY AND THE MAJOR
EMMA AND THE OUTLAW
CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER
PIRATES
AND DON’T MISS HER NEXT BREATHTAKING TIME-TRAVEL ROMANCE
MY OUTLAW
Praise for Linda Lael Miller’s
KNIGHTS
“With a few highly original and new twists, Linda Lael Miller followed
Pirates
with another ingenious time-travel romance…. Using her many talents and her special storytelling abilities, she spins a magical romance designed to capture the imagination and the heart with wonder.”
—
Romantic Times
“As her readers will expect, Linda Lael Miller whips her fiery characters into yet another clock-bendingly happy ending.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“Charming!
KNIGHTS
entertains and enthralls from beginning to end with a clever plot and memorable characters!”
—
The Literary Times
“Ms. Miller’s talent knows no bounds as each story she creates is a superb example of exemplary writing. By the end of one of her masterpieces, the reader will know that not only have they enjoyed the story but lived intimately with the characters through all their journeys—be it love, joy or pain. Keep it up, Ms. Miller, your stories are just one of the many reasons we love romance.”
—
Rendezvous
“
KNIGHTS
is a fun-to-read weaving of elements from a time-travel romance into a magnificent medieval romance. Dane and Gloriana are superb characters deserving the empathy of the audience. Linda Lael Miller’s ability to paint a bygone era so vividly that it appears to be more a video than a novel makes this work a one-of-a-kind reading experience.”
—
Affaire de Coeur
Books by Linda Lael Miller
Knights
Pirates
Princess Annie
The Legacy
Taming Charlotte
Yankee Wife
Daniel’s Bride
Caroline and the Raider
Emma and the Outlaw
Lily and the Major
My Darling Melissa
Angelfire
Moonfire
Wanton Angel
Lauralee
Memory’s Embrace
Corbin’s Fancy
Willow
Banner O’Brien
Desire and Destiny
Fletcher’s Woman
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Linda Lael Miller
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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:
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.
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Copyright © 1996 by Linda Lael Miller
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 0-671-87317-2
eISBN-13: 978-1-439-10812-3
ISBN 978-0-671-87317-2
First Pocket Books paperback printing December 1996
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.
Cover art Danilo Ducak
Printed in the U.S.A.
For my mother, Hazel Bleecker Lael, with love and gratitude for a thousand stories and snickerdoodles, among other things.
This one is all yours, Mom.
I love you.
Prologue
Not so long ago, and not so far away
…
T
here was magic in this place. Not the pretend stuff, either, but the real thing.
The child Megan stood a little apart from her boarding school classmates, forgetting her loneliness for the moment as she clasped the magnificent doll in her arms and gazed in fascination at a gap in one of the abbey walls. No one else seemed to notice that the space was shimmering with specks of blue and gold and silver, and abuzz with an odd, silent music all its own.
As she looked on, the rusted iron bars of a gate shaped themselves out of nothing. Behind her, the other students chattered, pleased to pass a sunny spring afternoon outside the high, thick walls of Briarbrook School, oblivious to everything but this brief escape from their studies.
Megan took a step nearer to the gate, inexplicably drawn, though she supposed she should have been frightened. Her hold tightened on the doll as she advanced.
Just then, a fairy-tale princess appeared on the other side of the gate, smiling and beckoning. She was beautiful,
in a gown of sapphire blue, with golden hair trailing down over her shoulders and past her waist. Her skin was very white, her eyes the same vivid color as her clothes.
“Megan,” the lady said, in a sweet voice that reminded the child of the wind chimes on the neighbors’ back porch, far away in America.
Five on her last birthday and wise beyond her years, partly because she was an only child and partly because she was very bright, Megan Saunders knew better than to speak to strangers. She glanced back, seeking permission or rebuke from one of her teachers, but as usual no one was paying any attention to her. Sometimes, she actually thought she was invisible.
Holding her doll, all she really owned except for her uniforms and books and a box full of playclothes left from her old life in America, she took another step toward the gate.
The lady crouched, her long dress pooling around her, her white hands grasping the bars loosely, for balance. She spoke again, but her words sounded strange, like another language, and Megan frowned in confusion.
“I mustn’t speak to people I don’t know,” Megan said, addressing the doll in her arms, rather than the princess. It was not a toy, really, but an exquisite model of Queen Elizabeth I, of England, who was sometimes called Gloriana. Or so the saleslady in the toy department at Harrods had said when Megan’s parents had bought it for her, as if to say they were sorry for leaving her.
Though they hadn’t been, of course. They could hardly wait to get rid of Megan and go their separate ways, and they’d made no secret of it.
They were getting a divorce, her mommy and
daddy, and they’d signed papers in the headmistress’s office, before going away. According to one of the older girls at Briarbrook School, Megan was an orphan now, because Mommy had gone back to America forever—Erica Fairfield Saunders was the sole heiress to a large fortune and liked to play—and Daddy, a native Englishman who preferred to be called Jordan, even by his own daughter, didn’t want to be “tied down.” He had his career in the London theater to think about.
He also had a large chunk of Erica’s inheritance.
Somewhere, too, there was money set aside for Megan, not that she cared. She was, after all, only five years old.
Raised in lavish neglect, Megan did not particularly miss either Erica or Jordan, but she knew that other girls and boys were loved, even cherished, by their mothers and fathers, and she yearned to be like those children. To belong somewhere.
“Don’t be afraid,” the lady said, and Megan was somewhat startled to realize that she’d understood.
“I’m all right,” she replied, puzzled but still not afraid. “How do you know my name?”
“By a kind of magic,” came the answer, which Megan readily accepted. She had spent a lot of time alone, before coming to England, and she’d gotten very good at imagining things. Princesses and princes, castles and dragons were among her favorites.
“What is your name?” Megan demanded.
“Elaina,” was the reply. The gate creaked on unoiled hinges as she opened it, but the sound wasn’t spooky at all.
Megan looked back to see if anyone was watching, and no one was. She held out the doll for the lady Elaina’s inspection. “This is Gloriana,” she said.
The gateway widened. “Lovely,” said Elaina, in a wonderfully gentle voice, warm as a hug.
“There are five Megans in my class at Brianwood,” the child confided, close enough now that she could touch the lady if she wanted, see the weave in her splendid dress and the texture of her flowing hair. “I think that’s too many, don’t you?”
Elaina frowned, as though working something through. “Perhaps we ought to call you Gloriana instead,” she decided. She stepped back, and Megan, more than willing to be Gloriana, passed over the threshold,
“I like that much better,” the little girl said solemnly. A deep quietness had settled over the grounds, and turning, she saw the other schoolchildren as if through a dense, silent rain. They looked like ghosts, gradually fading from shadow to vapor to nothing at all.