For generations, the mages of England have hidden from and secretly protected their normal, or unGifted, countryman.  Now a renegade mage has altered the country’s history to create a dictatorship of the mageborn.  Against him stand a handful of the Gifted led by Miranda Willoughby, a tavern maid with magical power and no training, and Richard Mainwaring, Lord Hawkstowe, an earl under a blood curse because an ancestor misused his magic.

Their quest to save their country takes them from the glittering court of Charles II to the foot of the gallows tree and beyond, to a shadowy realm between life and death where a final battle will decide not only England’s course but the fate of their love.

Read the Excerpt…

Nothing.  Nothing and more nothing despite an afternoon of trying to scry in the fire.  Seated in Lady Hawkstowe’s parlor, Miranda bit her lip in frustration.

Lady Hawkstowe said, “Let’s try a new exercise.  Move your chair closer to mine, so you’re facing the hearth.”

Miranda complied, and the older woman said, “Take my hand.”

Doing so felt presumptuous, but disobeying seemed more so.  Miranda laid her hand in the older woman’s outstretched one.

“Now, child, I’ll scry, and I want you to feel what I do.”  An image appeared in the flames, Hawkstowe and another man sitting in the library.  “Extend your perceptions until you can feel mine.  Open your senses and then try to reach farther.  Close your eyes if it helps.”

Miranda shut her eyes and opened her mind.  The ticking of the mantel clock and the crackling of the fire grew sharper.  She reached outward, and her power brushed someone else’s.  It created a tingling at the nape of her neck.

“Very good,” Lady Hawkstowe murmured.  “Now trace my power and align yours with it.”

Miranda tried, but the tingle vanished.

“Don’t try so hard, child.  Let the power flow.”

Flow?  Trace?  There was something . . . like that?

“Very good,” Lady Hawkstowe breathed.  “Hold your power there and open your eyes.”

Miranda obeyed.  The image in the flame remained steady.  The tingle faded.  The image flickered.

Miranda caught her breath.  Was she doing that?

The older woman released her hand.  “Now change it.”

The image wavered.  Faded.  Lady Hawkstowe had said no one could scry into a warded place, like Winton house, except the one who’d placed the wards, so Miranda thought of Lucy, back at the inn.  Nothing happened.

“I’ll help you,” Lady Hawkstowe murmured.

As the other woman’s power joined hers, nudging it, the tingle on the back of Miranda’s neck grew stronger.  Lucy’s face appeared in the flame.  She stood chatting with the scullery lad.  Miranda smiled.

“Good,” her teacher said.  “Now hold it steady.”

The tingly prodding died.  Miranda reached for the image.

“Steady, child.  You’re losing it.“

The image died.  No!  Miranda reached, throwing her perceptions outward.  The image flickered.  Died, then surged into one of a great city.  London.  The East End, she somehow knew.  Where she had once lived with Father and Johnny and Father’s brother.  But with streets nearly empty.  Houses marked with the red X of the plague.  Men with cloths over their lower faces stood guard outside.  Stooped men, also covering their mouths and noses with cloths, pushed carts laden with corpses.  A man seized a cat.  Raised a knife–

“No!”  She sprang to her feet.  Heart pounding, she turned to Lady Hawkstowe.  “How can that be?  There’s no plague now.”

The older woman looked grave.  “If you have the Seer gift, you perhaps could scry the past, the plague of 1665, but aside from the fact that’s now impossible, the buildings are wrong.  They’re brick.  Stone.  Not the wood of the plague year.”

“But–“  Miranda swallowed hard.  “Was that . . . the future?”  Pray, no.

“We must look again to find out.”

“If it is, I don’t want to know.”  Men had killed stray animals during the plague, fearing them as carriers.  Had sealed afflicted families into their homes to die.

Lady Hawkstowe’s solemn gaze stopped further protests.  “If plague is coming, the mageborn can prepare for it.”

Reluctantly, Miranda sat before the fire again.  With Lady Hawkstowe’s power bracing her own, she tried scrying.

An image formed, then turned nightmare gray with swirling mists.  Her heart leaped into her throat.

“Hold,” Lady Hawkstowe urged her.  “Stay with it.”

The mists thinned.  A dark-haired man crumpled on the ground.  Around him darted ghostly shapes with ghastly faces, some with gaping wounds and others bones with no flesh.  He curled his arms over his head, shielding it, but in vain.  With each raking touch of the spectral hands, his body jerked as if in pain.

He was Lord Hawkstowe.  Miranda couldn’t have said how she knew, but she was certain.  Her chair crashed backward.  She hadn’t realized she’d stood.  “I can’t–can’t stop it.”

“Let it go.”  Lady Hawkstowe stepped in front of her.  “Miranda.  Look at me.”

She couldn’t.  Power surged through her, a link from somewhere else to her head to the fire.  “Make it stop,” she panted, heart pounding.

Lady Hawkstowe yanked the bell pull, then rushed into the corridor.  “Fetch Lord Hawkstowe at once,” she ordered someone.  She hurried back into the room.

Power surged against the link.  Miranda scarcely felt it.  In the flames, the horrifying torment continued.  Hawkstowe writhed, helpless against it.

Then he stood before her, his face real and solid in front of her own.  “Look at me.”

“I am,” she choked, but she couldn’t shut the vision from her mind.  It lay over his face like a transparent painting.

He caught her against him.  With a gasp, she burrowed into his shoulder.  He was here, not in some eerie shadowland.  Safe and strong and sturdy, not writhing in pain.  He was safe–but for how long?

His lips brushed her temple–or did she imagine it?  Power rolled into her mind, a wall inching up between her and the hearth.  In her mind, silver flickered against the fire, smothering it.  As the sense of it ebbed, so did the strength in her knees.

“The fire’s out,” a man’s voice said from behind him.

Supporting her with one arm, Hawkstowe reached around her to right the chair.  She sank into it, suddenly cold and queasy.

He stripped off his coat and wrapped it around her.  Kneeling in front of her, he took her icy hands in his warm ones.  “Breathe slowly.  Deeply.”  Over his shoulder, he said, “Jeremy, you know what to mix?”

“I’ll borrow Lady Hawkstowe’s herbs, if I may.”

Shivering, Miranda huddled in Hawkstowe’s coat.  “You can’t–“  Her teeth chattered.  “You–I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“Don’t worry about it now.”  His eye grave, he brushed her hair gently out of her face.  “Just breathe.”

“But–I think–you might be in–in danger.”  Her teeth clacked together so hard they hurt.

“The flames do not lie,” Lady Hawkstowe said quietly.

“Later for that,” he snapped.  “Ah, Jeremy.”

Holding a goblet, the solemn-faced man they called Jeremy leaned over her. “Drink it swiftly, mistress.”

Her shaking hands banged the goblet against her teeth.  Hawkstowe cupped his fingers around hers and guided it to her mouth.  “All of it,” he said, “and hurry, so as not to taste it.  Jeremy believes in nasty medicine.”

He truly did.  The bitter, acrid taste made her stomach churn, but she would drink anything to stop the shivering.

Most of the brew went into her mouth.  Some dribbled down her chin.  Hawkstowe gently wiped it off with his fingers.  “That’s it.  Breathe.”

Slowly the shivering subsided.  “What was that?” she asked.

“Herbs.”  Jeremy glanced at Hawkstowe.  “Your power escaped your control.  Unpaced, it drained you and trapped you in the vision.  The herbs will let you rest and recover.”

As she nodded her thanks, Hawkstowe said, “Think of something pleasant.”

“But shouldn’t we talk about my vision?” she asked.  “It was ghastly, and it was about you.”

His eyes wintry, he said, “It can wait.”

He knew what it was, or he had some idea.  That horrible truth lurked in the depths of his eyes.  She had to help him.  She reached for him, but his face flicked in and out of focus.  Words failed her.  Through a drug-induced haze, she stared at him, trying to speak.  Her fingers tightened on his shirt front.

He covered her fingers with his.  His face blurred.  Receded into darkness.  From a great distance, his voice reached her faintly.  “Think of something pleasant.”

How could she, if such horrors awaited him?  But she couldn’t manage to say so before the darkness swallowed her.

Geoffrey Armstrong, a spy for the Crown, infiltrates a nobleman’s guard to find traitors plotting against King Edward IV.  Uncovering them will restore the rank and respect he lost when his father disowned him. Unfortunately, he’s falling in love with his chief suspect’s lovely, compassionate daughter.

Set free by her abusive husband’s death, Lady Maud Greville resolves never to marry again.  Her heart, however, yearns for Geoff, her tall, brave guard captain.  His low birth separates them, but his courage in defending her from disappointed suitors touches her scarred, guarded heart.  After an attempt on Maud’s life drives Geoff to flee with her, the social gap between them disappears.  Fighting to survive creates a deep bond of trust between them and brings their passions to the fore.

When circumstances force them into a marriage of convenience, Geoff sees their union as his only way to protect her from lurking danger, but will his secrets shatter their growing love?

Read the Excerpt…

Shouts rang in the dell, then the clash of arms.  The column was under attack.

God’s blood, Geoff thought.  He’d left his bow under a tree.  The armsmaster had issued him a shortsword, though.  Charging forward, he ripped it from the scabbard.  It had less reach and power than a broadsword but would have to serve.

He dashed into a scene of chaos.  The attackers had already closed.  Archery wouldn’t serve at such close range, so he forgot about his bow.  Men in Lady Maud’s green and orange livery struggled with others in black and gold.  In the midst of it all, her face dark with fury, a re-mounted Lady Maud struggled to hold her horse steady while brandishing her dagger.

God’s feet, that puny weapon would do her no good.  There was no sign of Sir Robert Penrith, and someone had to take command.  “Pikemen to my lady,” Geoff bellowed.  “Pikemen to Lady Maud!”  If they cleared a path, she could gallop to safety.

Other voices took up the cry.  The men pushed toward her.  Geoff ducked a big man’s slashing swipe, stabbed the man’s gut under it, and ran forward.  Slowly, her guard’s green and orange swelled the melee around Lady Maud.  Her lips moved as though she shouted, but her voice couldn’t penetrate the din.

Another voice roared above the crowd, coarse and harsh.  “Get her, you bastards!  Don’t let them reach her!”

Geoff looked toward the sound.  Sir Edmund, surging in on a roan charger.  Of course.  Son of a bitch.

A chill at the back of Geoff’s neck warned of new danger.  He twisted sideways, swinging upward to parry a downstroke that would’ve taken off his shoulder.  He kicked the attacker in the knee, stabbed him, and rushed toward the renegade knight.

The din of shouts and clashing metal faded.  The world narrowed to the edge of his blade.  Cut.  Block.  Duck.  Slash.  His arm tensed from the shocks of contact.  His breath rasped in his throat.  Yet he gained ground.

So did Sir Edmund, pressing ever nearer to Lady Maud.  Geoff angled to intercept him.

Almost there.  Almost . . . duck, slash, roll.  Where–hellfire, she was surrounded.  He took a vicious swipe at the nearest attacker’s arm.  The blade bit deep, and the man dropped to his knees, opening the way for Geoff to pass.

With a roar of triumph, Sir Edmund jerked Lady Maud from the saddle.  Her arm darted forward, dagger in hand.  He lunged aside and fell.  Together, they landed on the ground in the midst of the fight.  The frightened horses shied away.

If the whoreson killed her, Geoff would flay him by inches.

“Fall back,” someone shouted.  A trumpet sounded retreat.

Oh, no, they didn’t.  Not with the woman Geoff had sworn to protect, but the attackers were mounting again.  In moments, they’d ride away, opening the range for archers.  Where was his bow?  He looked wildly for it.  There, under that elm with his arrow bag.  He flung the sword aside, grabbed the bow and snatched an arrow.

He nocked it.  In sudden silence.  Why?

Straightening, he faced the fight.  His fellow guardsmen stood still, scowling, while their assailants mounted.

“Hold, or she dies,” Sir Edmund’s voice bellowed from somewhere in the crowd.

“Kill hi–”  Lady Maud’s shriek stopped abruptly.

Geoff’s jaw set.  No power under the sun would save the knight now.  Bow at half-draw, he elbowed the nearest of his comrades.  “Let me through.  God’s wounds, move!”

The men parted slowly, giving him a clear view.  A clear shot.  Some thirty feet away, down a lane of guards in green and orange, the knight held Lady Maud by the throat with one hand and gripped her wrists in the other.  Her eyes still blazed with anger.  Good for her.

Sir Edmund glanced over his shoulder, toward a groom holding his horse.  “I’ll have what she promised me.  You men stand down, and you won’t be hurt.”  He dragged her backward.  She kicked him, then choked as though his grip on her neck tightened.

Geoff’s body stilled with icy resolve.  “Halt,” he ordered.  He had the range now, could feel it in his shoulders.  In the elbow that would draw the string.  As though an invisible line tied his point to the knight’s left eye.  Yet he stayed his hand.  The slightest move by Sir Edmund, the least shift by Lady Maud, could put her in the path of his shot.

Sir Edmund’s lip curled.  “This time, knave, you lose.”

“Take another step, and I’ll put this shaft in your brain.”

“You’re bluffing.  You’d as easily hit her.”

Too true, or the knight would be dead already.  Thinking fast, Geoff shrugged.  “I can take you.  I’d as soon avoid all the trouble that would follow, though.”

“You didn’t–see him shoot,” Lady Maud wheezed.  Hard and angry, her eyes met Geoff’s.  “Shoot,” she wheezed, then choked again as her captor’s grip tightened.

An angry mutter burbled through her armsmen.  Understandable, but deadly if they charged this larger force.

“I’ll make you an offer,” Geoff said.  “You release the lady, and I drop my bow.  Then we settle this with steel.”
“I don’t fight common curs.”
“Except when they’re unarmed.”  He let contempt sear his words.  “You’re a coward, fighting only women and unarmed men.”

Crimson with rage, the knight jerked his head toward Lady Maud’s men.  “What d’ya call this lot?”

“Outnumbered.  We fight or I shoot.  Choose.”

“You might shoot anyway.”

Geoff bared his teeth.  “I’ll let the arrow fall, but remember, I can nock it and shoot you before you can mount.”

“Lady Maud must agree to abide by these terms.”  The knight released his hold on her neck.  “What say you, woman?”

Triumph bloomed in her eyes.  Her gaze steady on Geoff’s, she said, “I trust my guardsman.  I agree.”

Trust.  The most seductive word of all.  Vowing to justify her faith, he dropped his arrow.

Sir Edmund released Lady Maud, whose grandmotherly, concealing wimple had come loose, revealing the long line of her neck.  Red marks from his fingers marred her smooth skin, and Geoff scowled.

Watching the knight, Geoff thrust his bow to the side.  “Someone hold this and give me a proper sword.”

The archer he’d met earlier, Will, took the bow.  Geoff flicked his glance at the arrow, then at Will, who gave him a slight nod, a promise to watch Geoff’s back against cheating.

A soldier handed Geoff a broadsword.  He stalked toward his foe, and the men of both sides silently formed a circle.

Sir Edmund had what Geoff’s own birth could have given him, all Geoff’s naive honesty had cost him, yet the knight dishonored his rank.  For that, too, he would pay.

“Wait!”  Lady Maud ripped a strip from her wimple.  “Master Armstrong fights as my champion.  He’ll have my favor.”

Although Sir Edmund snorted, he rested his sword point against the ground, waiting, while she tied the linen scrap around Geoff’s upper arm.

Her graceful fingers moved swiftly and surely.  She drew the knot tight and raised her grave, shadowed eyes to his face.  “Whatever happens, I do thank you.”  Her lips quivered.  Pressing them together, she touched his arm lightly and stepped back with her head high.  Her erect posture denied the fear those trembling lips betrayed.  Any man would be proud to champion such a woman.

“You honor me, milady.”  Their gazes locked, and the surprise and pleasure in hers caught him off guard.

Footsteps pounded toward him.  Wheeling, he met Sir Edmund’s slashing attack with an upward stroke that sent a shock along his arm.  He twisted the blade, disengaging, and kicked Sir Edmund in the gut.  With a whoof, the knight stumbled back.

Geoff charged.  Sir Edmund deflected the blade.  His left fist shot across it.  Geoff ducked.  Circling, he studied his foe.  Sir Edmund had strength but perhaps little stamina.  Geoff aimed a swiping blow at the knight.  Sir Edmund blocked.  Dropped his blade to stab.  Geoff twisted aside.

Back and forth across the circle they moved.  Slash, block.  Kick.  Duck.  Parry.  Geoff moved without thought, old habits surfacing.  The August sun beat through the trees.  Sweat trickled down his back and slickened his palms.  He had no time to wipe them.  Block.  Dodge.  Parry.  More used to archery than swordplay, his arm burned.

Sir Edmund’s face was scarlet.  “You fight–well, for a knave,” he huffed.  “But–not for long–”  His blade arm drooped.

Geoff stabbed over it, ripping a slit along the knight’s side.  “Bastard,” the knight roared.  He pulled his arm close but not before blood welled in the cut.  His blade hissed past Geoff’s ear.  Geoff leaped backward, out of range.  Stumbled.  Fell flat on his back and lost the sword.  It landed in the dirt inches beyond his reach.  God’s wounds.  He groped for the hilt.

Murder blazed in the knight’s eyes.  Rage contorted his face.  He jerked his blade upward for a down stroke, a dangerous move that left him exposed.  At last, Geoff grabbed his own sword.  Rolling onto one knee, he stabbed deep into Sir Edmund’s chest.  The knight’s eyes widened.  With a gurgling sound, he fell forward.  Geoff scrambled backward and jerked his blade free.  Sir Edmund’s body hit the ground.  Blood seeped from under the knight’s face and belly.

An ugly murmur rose from Sir Edmund’s men.  Panting, his arm burning with fatigue, Geoff hurried to set himself before Lady Maud.  “Any other comers?”

A stocky, fair-haired man in a black and gold surcoat stepped forward, his square face hard.  “You’ve murdered a knight.  I’ll see you hang.”

At Geoff’s back, Lady Maud murmured, “Sir Edmund’s brother, Sir Lionel.”

Sir Lionel turned to his men.  “Bring my brother’s body.  We’re for the sheriff.”  He cast a scathing glance at Maud.  “He wasted his life for a contrary, barren bitch.”
A pained hiss broke from her.  The shot had gone home.  New anger strengthened Geoff’s tired limbs.  He took a single step forward.  “A scoundrel who tries to kidnap an unwilling woman deserves what he gets.”

“As will you,” Sir Lionel snapped.

Geoff and his comrades watched in silence as Sir Edmund’s men lashed his body across his horse and led it away.  When their procession vanished over the hill, the armsmen dispersed, gathering scattered gear and tending the injured.  Geoff turned to Lady Maud.  She looked pale, hurt lingering in the smoky, blue depths of her eyes.

“We should tend the wounded,” he said.  “Where’s Sir Robert?”

“Struck down in the first charge.”  She pressed her lips together.  Her throat worked as though she fought nausea.  At last, she added, “I pray he lives.”

“I’ll let you know straight away.”  He tugged his forelock.

As he stepped back from her, she whispered, “Sir Lionel was right.”  She stared into his eyes with despair darkening her own.  “I’m not worth all this.”

“Sir Edmund knew what he risked.”  Geoff paused.  An archer shouldn’t make personal remarks to a lady, but ladies didn’t ordinarily confide in guardsmen.  Besides, he couldn’t just walk away from her pain.  “Milady, I’ve never seen a woman display such courage as you did today.”
“You mean when you threatened to shoot him.”  A bitter smile twisted her lips.  “You’ve great skill, but if you’d missed, death would’ve saved me from marrying another brute.”

If Sir Edmund had taken her to his castle and ravished her, both her father and the Church would have counseled her to wed him.  “No sane woman would want to wed Sir Edmund.”

Old pain shadowed her eyes.  “He’s much like my late husband.  I couldn’t have borne another such man.”

Her first husband must have been vile indeed, then.  Geoff tamped a surge of new anger.  “You placed great faith in my skill with a sword, milady.  If I’d lost–”

“You shoot well, but you don’t brag of it.  Nor are you a fool.  You offered him the one bait he couldn’t refuse, another chance at you.  You don’t seem likely to issue a challenge unless you believe you can win.”

She spoke with admirable logic, especially for one who’d been through what she just had.  Dirt and grass stains marred her torn wimple and her gown, including a dusty handprint over her left breast.  Spotting it, Geoff bit back a curse.  He hadn’t had to kill anyone in a long time.  He’d been grateful for that, but he’d have no regrets about today.

Yet even as he jerked his gaze away, he noticed how the loose, old-fashioned gown draped her curves.  The sight stirred his blood and tempted him to touch her, to test the firmness under the silk for himself.  He wrenched his gaze away.  “I’ll see to the men, milady.”

Nodding dismissal, she didn’t seem to notice his improper glance.  Instead of the outrage he deserved for ogling her, the pain in her eyes had given way to respect.  He couldn’t savor it, though, for she didn’t know what a fool he could be.  Long ago, he had risked all for the sake of honor.  And he had lost.