Conquest (The Montbryce Legacy Anniversary Edition Book 1) Read online

  Conquest

  Anna Markland

  Contents

  Conquest

  More Anna Markland

  1. A New Year

  2. A Cursed Year

  3. Homecoming

  4. A Wrong Righted

  5. Our Seigneur Is Dead

  6. Who Will Weep?

  7. Treasured Possession

  8. A Betrothal

  9. Exploring Montbryce

  10. First Meeting

  11. The Right Decision?

  12. Ruffled Feathers

  13. He Does Not Want Me

  14. Regrets

  15. Discreet Meddling

  16. She Knows Her Worth

  17. Duke William's Visit

  18. Building The Fleet

  19. Stamford Bridge

  20. The Invasion Begins

  21. The Patriot

  22. Preparing For Battle

  23. Carnage

  24. Aftermath

  25. The Healer

  26. Farewell

  27. Blindsided

  28. Confrontation

  29. Ascha

  30. Dire Tidings

  31. Alensonne

  32. A Wedding

  33. Allegiance

  34. Wedding Night

  35. A New Dynasty

  36. Flight

  37. Ellesmere Takes Shape

  38. Rebellion

  39. Morwenna

  40. Sons

  41. Accident

  42. Recovery

  43. Conspirators

  44. Poison

  45. In Need Of Protection

  46. Normandie

  47. Plans Laid

  48. Abduction

  49. Cadair Berwyn

  50. Ransom

  51. The Dream

  52. A Perfect Match

  53. Amber

  54. No Future

  55. Yuletide

  56. Birth

  57. Death

  58. Negotiations

  59. Don't Go

  60. The Bridge

  61. For Wales

  62. A Fortunate Fool

  63. Sequel

  64. Postscriptum

  65. Defiance ~ Book Ii

  66. Anna's Story

  Conquest

  The Montbryce Legacy

  ANNIVERSARY EDITION

  BOOK ONE

  By

  ANNA MARKLAND

  Copyright © 2018 by Anna Markland

  The ruling passion conquers reason still

  ~Alexander Pope

  For Don, my Conqueror.

  Conquest by Anna Markland

  Book One, The Montbryce Legacy, Anniversary Edition

  (Parts of this story were originally published under the titles Conquering Passion and Defiant Passion)

  © 2011, 2012, 2018 Anna Markland

  www.annamarkland.com

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It 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 book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  For permissions contact: [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by Dar Albert

  More Anna Markland

  The Montbryce Legacy Anniversary Edition (2018)

  I Conquest—Ram and Mabelle, Rhodri and Rhonwen

  II Defiance—Hugh and Devona, Antoine and Sybilla

  III Redemption—Caedmon and Agneta

  The Montbryce Legacy First Edition (2011-2014)

  Conquering Passion—Ram and Mabelle, Rhodri and Rhonwen (audiobook available)

  If Love Dares Enough—Hugh and Devona, Antoine and Sybilla

  Defiant Passion-Rhodri and Rhonwen

  A Man of Value—Caedmon and Agneta

  Dark Irish Knight—Ronan and Rhoni

  Haunted Knights—Adam and Rosamunda, Denis and Paulina

  Passion in the Blood—Robert and Dorianne, Baudoin and Carys

  Dark and Bright—Rhys and Annalise

  The Winds of the Heavens—Rhun and Glain, Rhydderch and Isolda

  Dance of Love—Izzy and Farah

  Carried Away—Blythe and Dieter

  Sweet Taste of Love—Aidan and Nolana

  Wild Viking Princess—Ragna and Reider

  Hearts and Crowns—Gallien and Peridotte

  Fatal Truths—Alex and Elayne

  Sinful Passions—Bronson and Grace; Rodrick and Swan

  Series featuring the stories of the Viking ancestors of my Norman families

  The Rover Bold—Bryk and Cathryn

  The Rover Defiant—Torstein and Sonja

  The Rover Betrayed—Magnus and Judith

  Novellas

  Maknab’s Revenge—Ingram and Ruby

  Passion’s Fire—Matthew and Brigandine

  Banished—Sigmar and Audra

  Hungry Like De Wolfe—Blaise and Anne—Kindle Worlds

  Unkissable Knight—Dervenn and Victorine

  Caledonia Chronicles (Scotland)

  Book I Pride of the Clan—Rheade and Margaret

  Book II Highland Tides—Braden and Charlotte

  Book 2.5 Highland Dawn—Keith and Aurora (a Kindle Worlds book)

  Book III Roses Among the Heather—Blair &Susanna, Craig & Timothea

  The Von Wolfenberg Dynasty (medieval Europe)

  Book 1 Loyal Heart—Sophia and Brandt

  Book 2 Courageous Heart—Luther and Francesca

  Book 3 Faithful Heart—Kon and Zara

  Myth and Mystery

  The Taking of Ireland —Sibràn and Aislinn

  The Pendray Papers

  Highland Betrayal—Morgan and Hannah (audiobook available)

  Clash of the Tartans

  Kilty Secrets—Ewan and Shona

  Kilted at the Altar—Darroch and Isabel

  Kilty Pleasures—Broderick and Kyla

  A New Year

  Arques, Normandie, New Year’s Day 1066 A.D.

  Lady Mabelle de Valtesse removed her grease-spattered apron with a weary sigh, rolled it up, and gathered a meagre blanket around her shoulders. Exhausted, she sank onto the stale rushes strewn on the hard stone floor, tucking the apron under her drooping head. Her snoring father, the exiled Seigneur of Alensonne, lay sprawled across the space allotted to them both in the Great Hall.

  She had been careful not to step on the slumbering forms—human and animal—in the communal sleeping area of the castle at Arques, a task rendered more difficult by the half-light of the early morning hour. A pall of blue smoke from the long dead fire in the hearth hung in the air, irritating her tired eyes. She startled when her unpredictable father asked loudly, “Why are you so late to bed?”

  Mabelle gritted her teeth and stiffened her shoulders. Waking him was the last thing she wanted. “I was not allowed to leave the kitchens until everything had been tidied. The banquet for the New Year was larger than usual. I’m tired to the bone.”

  “It’s intolerable,” he replied, making no effort to keep his voice down. “The only daught
er of Guillaume de Valtesse working like a peasant in the kitchens.”

  “Papa, please, not now,” she whispered. “The castle steward made it plain we must contribute if we want to avail ourselves of their hospitality.”

  Her irritating father considered it beneath him to contribute anything.

  “Hospitality,” he sneered. “Where is the chamber I should have, as befits my rank?”

  “Hush there,” someone called. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  Valtesse bristled and shouted back, “Don’t tell me to hush. I am Guillaume de Valtesse, the Seigneur d’Alensonne.”

  The retort came quickly. “We don’t care if you’re the King of the English.”

  This sentiment was quickly supported by the complaints of others awakened after a day spent toiling for their master. Dogs yapped. Startled cats scurried away, screeching displeasure at having their nightly foraging disturbed.

  Mabelle well knew the potential for the argument to escalate. In their wanderings, she had seen her father thrown out of many a hall because of his inability to control his tongue and his temper. She squinted at him. “This is why we are exiled. If you hadn’t lashed out and blinded the Seigneur de Giroux during the argument six years ago, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

  Her father spat into the rushes. “If your bastard half-brother had not aided the Giroux family in their quest for revenge, they would never have captured Alensonne and cast us out.”

  Mabelle rubbed her weary eyes. “Well, Arnulf rules there now, while we—”

  “I will not sleep with ignorant serfs,” her father began, fumbling to retrieve his sword.

  A dull ache began in her temples. “Papa, hush, please. I must sleep. You never cease complaining.”

  He sat up. “You are too impertinent, daughter. Young noblewomen don’t speak to their fathers so rudely.”

  Mabelle rolled her eyes, itching to point out that her impertinence and resourcefulness had saved his miserable skin many times. She had told him often enough she believed the only person with the power to end their exile was their overlord, the Comte de Montbryce.

  Muttering, Guillaume gathered his blanket over him, turned onto his side and seemed about to fall back to sleep, but suddenly rasped, “Be ready at first light. We leave for Montbryce.”

  “Oui, Papa,” she murmured, trying not to sound surprised. It would be a mistake to get her hopes up. In the beginning, when she was three and ten, she had followed her father without question, learning quickly which servants to befriend. If she couldn’t coax leftover food from a kitchen wench when a lord’s hospitality was meagre, she filched it. She shared food with hungry stable boys and was rewarded with oats for their horses. Aiding laundresses in their tasks provided her with clean clothing. She listened to gossip, and used what she learned to her advantage.

  Living by her wits had been easier when she was a young girl. There was always something to trade. Six years later, it was more difficult. The drab peasant garb she wore concealed the body of a woman, despite her efforts to hide it. Men now wanted something in return that she had no intention of trading. In a constant game of cat and mouse, Mabelle rarely felt like the cat any more.

  For all his faults, her father had shown he was aware of the growing dangers and was quick to protect her, but his volatile temper often led to confrontations and a curtailing of some of her freedom. She appreciated his protection, but was afraid of his inability to control his temper. For the past year he’d repeatedly ignored her attempts to set him on the path to his liege lord. She sometimes fretted he was happier in his misery.

  Now he had agreed to go. What had made him change his mind? Perhaps the rumors concerning the recent death of Edward, King of the English, had prompted him to take note of the winds of change blowing in Normandie. Every Norman knew their Duke William had been promised the Confessor’s throne usurped by Harold Godwinson. The Comte de Montbryce might be willing to be the instrument to help regain her dowry, lands lost to Arnulf, and now of strategic importance to the duke.

  Her father’s loud snores indicated he was not lying awake worrying. She wrinkled her nose, pressing a finger and thumb over her nostrils, shutting out the unpleasant odors emanating from the rushes. Tucking her knees to her belly, she hoped sleep would come quickly and that on this night she would be too tired to dream of fine clothes, rich food and the comfortable bedchamber that had been hers at Alensonne—before Arnulf had usurped the castle.

  Despite her exhaustion, sleep proved elusive as her restless mind thought of the journey to Montbryce. Would this be the means to at last regain the life of respected nobility to which she had been born? She pushed away the insistent notion that if her dowry couldn’t be won back, then marriage to a nobleman would be the only solution. How to accomplish such a thing? Did she truly want to exchange one overbearing noble for another? She could only pray the Year of Our Lord One Thousand and Sixty-Six would bring a change of fortune for her as well as their duke.

  She curled into a tighter ball and covered her ears against the grunts of a peasant who had taken advantage of his unexpected awakening to rut with his bedmate.

  A Cursed Year

  Alensonne, Normandie 1066 AD

  A thin sun heralded the first day of the year, its rays barely penetrating the hovel wherein Simon Hugo sat, staring at his daughter’s body. If he needed further confirmation that this would be a year cursed by God, he had only to shift his reluctant gaze to the tiny bundle lying atop his daughter’s lifeless frame.

  “At least his soul is preserved,” the village midwife had muttered before wrapping the stillborn child in an old rag. “Such are the wages of sin.”

  Then she’d left him alone with his grief and anger.

  Estelle was the one precious thing he had, a living reminder of his wife, dead in childbirth fifteen years before. His daily life was a hard grind, ploughing a few acres with his ox, planting and reaping. His sole pleasure at the end of a grueling day, the only thing that sustained him, was the sight of his daughter’s angelic face.

  Then his Seigneur, the greedy Arnulf de Valtesse, Lord of Alensonne, had filled her with a bastard.

  He’d failed as a father. Why had he not paid heed to the whispers among his fellow peasants? Arnulf was known to prey on young maidens, yet Simon sent his daughter to the castle to deliver turnips, grown on the meagre plot of land he tenanted. Arnulf was debauched and decadent, though not cursed with the fiery temper of the father he had ousted from the castle. At least with Guillaume de Valtesse peasants had been able to prosper if they avoided angering him.

  Simon’s gut twisted when he remembered the night his daughter returned to their hut, disheveled and sobbing. He had known the awful truth before she told him and had relived that night over and over, the words haunting him. Eventually he found his voice, averting his eyes from her dirty, tear-streaked face. “We’ll tell no one,” he muttered.

  For a long while the only sound was Estelle’s sobbing. Simon clenched and unclenched his fists, his heart broken. “You’ll never have to go to the castle again. Arnulf is a pig.”

  What words could he have uttered? How could he have comforted her? “It’s not your fault, daughter. I’ve failed to protect you.”

  Her silence worried him more than her wrenching sobs. He wanted to rush to the castle and kill Arnulf, but could only pound the crude table with his fists, knowing such vengeance would result in his being hanged and Estelle left alone. He was a powerless cottar, a peasant. His lord owned the ox and plough. He could do nothing.

  Eventually, it became evident she had conceived. Village gossips heaped censure on her, intensifying his anger.

  Now she was dead. Coward that he was, he’d crouched outside the hut, pressing his cloak to his ears, unable to shut out her screams while the sour-faced midwife kept up a steady commentary of dire predictions.

  He resolved now to make a promise of his own. Someday Arnulf would pay for his crime.

  Homecoming


  St. Germain de Montbryce, Normandie, April 1066

  Rambaud de Montbryce stood in the stirrups and rubbed his hard saddle muscles. “After the years I’ve spent on horseback, my backside shouldn’t ache as it does,” he complained to his brothers.

  Antoine and Hugh chuckled their agreement. They had ridden out from their father’s castle to welcome him home as he approached with a large contingent of Montbryce men-at-arms.

  Ram smiled, always happy to see his siblings. “When did you arrive with your brigades? You must have been more anxious to get home than I.”

  “Yesterday,” Antoine replied. “But we didn’t have as far to come. We were in Caen.”

  Ram wiped the dust from his lips with the back of his hand. “I hope you have a tall tankard of ale ready. It’s been a long ride from Rouen.”