TITLE – The Vow
SERIES – The Lady Quill Chronicles
AUTHOR – D.D. Chant
GENRE – Historical Fiction
PUBLICATION DATE – July 2014
LENGTH (Pages/# Words) – 107,500
PUBLISHER – Self Published
COVER ARTIST – D.D. Chant
Dear Reader,
My next story begins with Valrek, where Lord Rafe and Lady
Adele’s arrival was cause for much celebration and rejoicing.
However, Finan of Gourney, Rafe’s foster brother and the
captain of Valrek’s army, could not help a lingering feeling of worry.
Were Rafe and Adele truly safe from Lord Kyule’s hate?
As Finan fights the shadows in his past, he must face the
added problem of Lady Esme, Rafe’s sister. Used to keeping his distance from
the ladies of Valrek, circumstance forces him to bear Lady Esme constant
company.
As danger and treachery envelops them both, Finan and Esme
find themselves drawn together to fight for their loved ones.
What secrets will they unearth in their search for the truth?
Will they find their stories to be more closely linked than
either of them ever knew?
Allow me please to answer these questions.
Lady Quill
Why couldn’t she just leave him in peace?
She sat completely unconcerned and carefully set feathers to
the wooden shaft of arrow after arrow. He was thankful at least that she was
accomplishing some task more useful than garish embroidery.
The sound of the spiting flames made him restless. Every pop
caused him to tense and the acrid smell of smoke brought a gagging sensation to
his throat. He wondered vaguely if he would ever be able to sit beside a fire
and simply enjoy its warmth ever again. Would the nightmares continue to plague
him?
He shuddered involuntarily remembering the fear for Rafe’s
safety and the overall impression that something was wrong. He had tried to
ignore the memories, pushing them to the edges of his mind, but they refused to
be quelled.
Finally he had faced the fear and realised that the
consequences of the night he was injured were far from over. He thought back to
the fiery room, closing his eyes and forcing himself to relive every horrible
detail.
There could be no denying the truth; the fire had not been
an accident.
Even that night, with worry for Rafe taking up almost every
thought, he had seen the truth. There had been no trailing flames from the
fire, they had be concentrated around Rafe’s bed in a very suspicious manner.
The furniture in the room had been moved to block in the bed, as though someone
had been trying to make sure that even if Rafe did wake, he would not be able
to escape.
Who within Valrek’s wall would lift their hand against their
master?
It was not possible that an enemy had breached Valrek’s
defences, he would stake his life on his men’s conscientiousness. Nothing
passed through Valrek’s wall without detection, not so much as a mouse.
Was it possible that it had been Rafe that, through his own
carelessness, had started the fire?
He had been the worse for wear, having imbibed more freely
than was his custom of the mead served at the feast. Finan shook his head, he
couldn’t believe it. Rafe was far too competent a soldier to make such a
mistake, however drunk he might have been. Years of admonitions drilled care
within a soldier when it came to dealing with fire.
That meant it had been deliberate. As unthinkable as it was,
someone with Valrek’s wall wanted Rafe dead.
“What is it?”
Esme’s voice held a slightly exasperated note and Finan
pretended sleep. He had no wish to speak to her, in fact he was fast coming to
the conclusion that she was the most irritating of her sex. Had he been in a
more generous frame of mind he would have realised that he knew several far
more unpleasant woman. However Finan was feeling out of charity with the world
in general and Esme most especially.
“I know you are awake, Finan, is there anything you
require?”
Finan gritted his teeth against the retort that sprang to
his lips and forced himself to remain calm. He was an easy tempered man
usually, but the constant pain had shredded his tolerance completely. However
losing his temper had not helped him so far and it galled him to let Esme know
how badly she affected his equilibrium.
“I need nothing, my lady.”
Cool fingers touched his brow and he opened his eyes to find
her beside him. A worried frown touched her face and her lips formed the
thoughtful pout that was becoming so familiar. It was an endearing habit he
remembered from her childhood, but it irritated him horribly now.
More worrying was the fact that he hadn’t heard her move. A
man that prided himself on his ability to hear even the stealthiest of
approaches and he had not been aware. He blamed lady Esme’s addiction to the
manly pursuit of hunting for the silence with which she moved.
“You do not seem fevered,” she mused aloud, transferring her
hand from his brow to his cheek and then to his neck. Finan felt and
uncomfortable churning in his stomach, as though Brute had almost succeeded in
unseating him.
“I am well enough, you need not concern yourself with me.”
Esme grinned.
“What an odd sort of healer I would be if I did not concern
myself with my patients comfort.” She smoothed the hair back from his brow.
“What troubles you, Finan?”
For the first time Finan noticed the dark circles around her
eyes and the tired stiffness pervading her body.
Had she slept at all last night?
He had very little recollection of his nights rest, but he
clearly remembered hearing her soothing voice each time he had regained some
lucidity of thought. An uncomfortable guilt washed over him. Lady Esme had seen
to his wounds and tried to make him as comfortable as possible. That he had not
wanted her help did not excuse the rudeness of his behaviour.
“Is it Evoric?”
Esme gazed forthrightly in to his eyes, her words as
unadorned as Rafe’s always were. The only sign that she was uneasy with her
question, was the way her work roughened finger traced the edge of the furs
covering the bed.
“Why do you ask that?”
“You spoke of him last night when you were feverish.”
“I did?”
Panic raced through his veins. What had he said? Worse, what
unmanly feelings had he betrayed?
“You still miss him as violently as though his death had
occurred just yesterday, do you not?”
“He was my brother.”
“He was my brother too.”
“Tis not the same.”
Esme gazed at him unwaveringly for a few moments, chewing
her bottom lip.
“Perhaps that is so, but it does not change the fact that I
love and miss him as well.”
Finan did not answer her, his heart had begun to thump
uncomfortably in his chest. He did not wish to talk of Evoric, to remember his
pain.
It was still too raw, over the years he had managed to bury
his memories so deep he could almost believe on occasion that he had rid
himself of them completely. Concealing his hurt from the world gave him some
relief. Yet ever since Rand had re-entered their lives, forcing them to revisit
old wounds, the protective wall he had built had begun to crumble.
After last night it lay in ruins about him, freeing his
agony to consume him once more. The years that had passed had not provided him
with any more defences against its onslaught than he had possessed in youth. He
worried had no strength to pull himself from the mire of his despair a second
time.
It had been years since he had dreamed of Evoric. Years of
precarious, uneasy peace that he had grown accustom to, that had been his
salvation as a boy. Now it was gone and Esme was prodding the festering wound
it had exposed.
“Finan, will you not tell me? Perhaps I can help?”
“Why? Why should I tell you? Why should I rip my soul apart
just so that your curiosity can be appeased?” demanded Finan, sitting up and
swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Who wants you to understand? Who
wants your help?”
As he spoke, he stood, advancing on her slowly. Apprehension
danced in her eyes but she remained defiant, her eyes never breaking contact
with his. Every step she retreated before him was diffident, until he had her
backed against the wall.
“Why must you always seek to interfere in my affairs? You
have no right and you are greatly mistaken if you suppose I welcome your
meddling.”
Esme lifted a hand and carefully placed it against a healthy
and undamaged patch of skin on his chest. He looked down, surprised at her
touch and the firmness with which she pushed him back a step. For a long while
they looked at each other in silence, her large eyes filled with compassion. It
shook him, for he had expected, wanted, to scare her, hoping she would run from
him as she had once before.
“I only wish for you to heal, Finan. Evoric would not want
you to be alone and filled with misery and sadness any longer. I cannot watch
you despair and suffer like this. Your grief is a poison spreading through you,
an agony you bear in silence. You must learn to let it go.”
“How am I to let it go? Must I forget Evoric? Would you be
able to let go if you were to lose Rafe?”
An inflection of pain crossed her features but he steeled
himself against the regret burning through his veins.
“I would hope there would be a friend with whom I could
share my sadness, someone who would comfort me.”
“Am I to gather that you wish to be such a person to me?”
taunted Finan coldly.
Anger simmered in her eyes but she refused to be bated.
“I think that Rafe or Leofric would be more suitable friends
to choose. You can at least bear their company.”
Her bracing words were free from accusation but for some
reason he still felt as though he’d been slapped.
Hi everyone!
My name is Dee Dee, I’m twenty seven and I live in a
beautiful part of Devon, England, with my family. I have a younger sister, Amy,
who is a brilliant guitar player, some chickens, duck, geese, pheasants, a cat
(that adopted us when we moved in!!!) dogs and some Koi.
The Lady Quill Chronicles is one of three series that I'm in
the middle of writing. I have a post apocalyptic series (the Broken City series,
I released the 2nd book in February of this year) and a dystopian series (The
Chronicles of Discord). I also have a series of humorous shorts, the Claire
series.
I really hope you enjoy reading my books as much as I enjoy
writing them.
I love reading and have a kindle: I'll read almost anything
with adventure and romance in it! I also like to cook and wear impractical high
heels!!! And as you might have noticed I have a horrible addiction to
exclamation marks!!!
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