Ironheart
Destiny Wore Many Disguisesbut Lady Brenna, pledged as bride in a match more alliance than love affair, saw true when Caer Llion rode up to her castle gates. This valiant knight was surely her mysterious betrothed, for he was her past–and Fate decreed he be her future…!An elfin girl upon the high battlements had once given him her favor–and eased his aching soul. Now Leon FitzWarren, famed as Caer Llion–the Ironheart, had returned to Wales, to those very battlements, and faced again the bewitching Brenna–the elfin sprite become woman–and holder of his heart…!
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This was her betrothed! He was the man of her dreams! In truth, he was here!
She’d heard him laugh, a black-velvet ripple, sweet as the honey of the southlands, and felt something deep within her move, open. She’d looked wildly about, and her heart was like an arrow hurtling through space. Then eye met eye. A spark leaped in the meeting, and the newcomer had laughed no more. He gazed at her with…recognition, it might be, for she had felt it, too.
This is the one!
Brenna swallowed hard. There had never been any other like this man. She could not suppress a heated sensation welling deep inside. His hand, heavy on her shoulder, seemed to have the strength of iron. She wanted to tuck herself closer against that strength…and yet she did not know why…!
Ironheart
Harlequin Historical #580
Praise for Emily French’s previous works
Bogus Bride
“An exciting, realistic, steamy romantic adventure.”
—Rendezvous
The Wedding Bargain
“The story is packed with continuous excitement and such marvelous characters, you’ll be sorry to reach the end.”
—Rendezvous
Illusion
“…witty and fast paced…just enough mystery to keep you guessing.”
—Affaire de Coeur
#579 A WESTERN FAMILY CHRISTMAS
Millie Criswell, Mary McBride & Liz Ireland
#581 WHITEFEATHER’S WOMAN
Deborah Hale
#582 AUTUMN’S BRIDE
Catherine Archer
Available from Harlequin Historicals and EMILY FRENCH
Capture #214
Illusion #306
The Wedding Bargain #336
Bogus Bride #361
Ironheart #580
To Emily Ninnis, travel agent par excellence.
“He, who the sword of heaven will bear Should be as holy as severe.”
—William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
Contents
Prologue
Northern Marches, Wales, 1188
The night was dark and full of menace. Leon shivered, struggling to stay awake. It was the joining point of the night. The hour of beginnings and endings. It was an unholy hour to be out of bed; the black watch before cockcrow when men most often died, and demons walked.
“Are you a knight?”
A thin little reedy sound it was, echoing somewhere from the right. At first Leon thought he had imagined it, for there was something about old piles of stone like this that accumulated shadows and odd sounds, creaks and sighs of wind.
Then it came again, eerie, alien, disembodied, drifting across the battlement, a voice soft as reeds twisting in the wind.
“Are you a knight?”
The point of his sword lifted a little.
It was an intrigue. It must be. Soon it would be dawn—the hour for murder and mayhem. He exhaled softly. It was comforting that the gray of his cowl and cloak bled into the gray of the battlements, leaving no shape for the eye to catch. There was only the shine of captured light from his naked blade as he waited, listening.
Glancing over his shoulder, Leon saw no movement, suspicious or otherwise, but his back prickled as if several thousand insects crawled up and down it. He swallowed hard.
It took courage to ask calmly, “Who is this?”
Silence.
It was some rotten trick. None had played such since he was nine years old and he’d dared the raven in the hayloft that the other pages refused to face. It had known better than to meddle with him, and fled with a great rustling of straw and a clap of wings.
“Is anyone there?” he asked the shadowed air and held his breath waiting for an answer.
Nothing changed. No voice responded. No figure appeared from the doorway. He swallowed loudly. No harm was near. A very little light came up from below, not enough to light the steps. If any spirits dream-danced there, none spoke.
He gave that some thought, then cleared his throat. He had been speaking French; he shifted to Latin. Nothing. “Who?” he demanded in Anglo-Saxon, and last of all, with fading hope, the old Gaelic of his childhood.
“I am here.”
That rocked him on his heels. The voice came from behind him now, the same voice, as if it were stalking him. He spun around, hands out, at hearing a light skipping step from the direction of the parapet. Closer, came the high piping tone of a child.
“I said, Are you a knight?”
Leon stared a moment, heart thumping. Shadows shifted and took substance. A glimmer. It was a girl, a highborn little girl in a white night rail, but lace dragged about one ankle and her lips and hands were muddied. She tilted her head to one side, studying him.
“No,” he said, to humor her while he tried to think. The girl had a pixie face, and the dark, shining hair that bounced about her shoulders was black as only an elf’s can be. But she looked real, a babe scarce weaned. There was no magic. There was nothing to fear. Her gaze remained steady. He felt heat flare in his ears, so he added, “When I am a man I will be.”
A frown touched her brow, as if he had said something curious. “Is that not the way of things?” she said, edging closer, as though they already shared one secret, and might share another, in time.
