The Faithful Heart (47 page)

“I wouldn’t be either.” She squeezed his
arm.

“I dunno.” He shrugged, sniffing in imitation
of some of the more obnoxious nobs he’d known. “It might be
fun.”

“Content with being a noble after all, are
we?” she laughed, sitting beside him and holding his hand.

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed
it. “I could get used to it.”

The story concludes this spring with…

The Courageous Heart

Derbyshire, 1194

Joanna paced through the Windale church
graveyard, smoothing her fingertips along the tops of the
headstones. The lump that never left her throat save for when it
settled in her heart choked her as she reached the end of the third
row. She stopped, biting her lip and staring off over the hills and
fields of her home manor.

The winter chill was leaving Windale. 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,
towards her. The rhythmic melody of the farmers singing as they
furrowed sleepy rows through the fields should have cheered
her.

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

Toby Dunkirke.

Two and a half years had passed and still her
heart was shattered with grief over the loss of her brother. Her
handsome, hopeless, wonderful fool of a brother.

She pressed her palms to the top of 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 Lord Ethan to fight in King Richard’s
Crusade.

She straightened, sucking in a breath, her
grief twisting to anger. Her brother had loved Ethan, loved him
with his whole heart. He had loved Ethan with a passion Ethan could
never return. His devotion had wrenched Toby away from her, flung
him halfway around the world, and eventually gotten him killed.

“Joanna?” A small hand tugged at her skirt.
Joanna blinked and pivoted to look down at 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 his frown
the look 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. “It’s a
stranger.”

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

“Ethan.”

Joanna’s heart plummeted. She shot to her
feet, hands balled into fists at her sides, glance shooting back
towards the manor house. Her pulse pounded when she saw an
unfamiliar horse standing near the edge of the common. Aubrey had
just come out of the house and was marching towards a man in a
traveler’s cloak. Fury burned in her gut.

“I’ll murder him!” she hissed, out of breath
after just those words. Ethan would pay for everything he’d done to
her. “Come on, my lord,” she couldn’t soften her voice as she
addressed Wulfric. She scooped him into her arms, resting him
against her hip and charging out of the graveyard and up the road
to the manor. She would strangle him 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. Lord Ethan would regret the day he walked
out on Windale, stealing her brother with him.

Joanna’s rage abruptly 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 Ethan.

“Oh,” she stuttered, glancing past the man to
Aubrey.

Aubrey wore a confused frown on her face. It
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,” she
made the introduction.

“Sir,” Joanna curtsied to him, 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,” Sir
Ethan said and continued on as if he had already been making an
explanation before Joanna arrived. “King Richard has returned to
England. He has taken up residence 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. He arrived in London last week and he 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. “This is really a message for your husband, my lady. Is he
at home?”

“No.” She pushed Wulfric’s hand away from her
ear where he was now trying to stick his finger. “No, he and Jack,
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.”

The man looked as surprised as she and Aubrey
did. “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 found what he was looking for
and stepped towards them. He presented Joanna with a thick packet
of battered old parchment tied with dirty string.

“I’ve had these in my possession for over
three years,” Sir Ethan said. “They arrived in the court offices in
London at various points as soldiers returned from the Holy Land. A
clerk was going to throw them out but I took them. I knew I’d
travel this way someday. I just didn’t expect to stumble across you
this way.”

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

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

Joanna knew the handwriting too well. Her
stinging eyes flew up to meet Aubrey’s. “They’re from Toby.”

About the Author

Merry Farmer lives in suburban Philadelphia
with her two cats, Butterfly and Torpedo. She has been writing
since she was ten years old and realized one day that she didn’t
have to wait for the teacher to assign a creative writing project
to write something. It was the best day of her life. She then went
on to earn not one but two degrees in History so that she would
always having something to write about. Today she walks along the
cutting edge of Indie Publishing, writing Historical Romance and
Women's Sci-Fi. She is also passionate about blogging, knitting,
and cricket and is working towards becoming an internationally
certified cricket scorer.

You can email her at [email protected]
or follow her on Twitter @merryfarmer20.

Merry also has a blog, http://merryfarmer.net
, and a Facebook page, www.facebook.com/merryfarmerauthor , and
loves visitors.

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