Praise for the romances of New York Times bestselling author Virginia Henley
Infamous
“Few authors combine historical personages and events with a passionate love story as brilliant as Henley.”
—Romantic Times (41/2 stars, Top Pick)
Unmasked
“Once again Henley has brought history to life—and another couple to true love.”
—Booklist
“A merry chase…historical romance layered with a healthy dose of intrigue makes for a book that will keep readers unable to stop turning the pages.”
—The Romance Reader’s Connection
“Unmasked treats the events of history in a way that keeps the reader wrapped up in the story.”
—Roundtable Reviews
“Henley’s gift for bringing remarkable women to life in colorful, turbulent times is what turns her romances into keepers. Henley heats up the pages with her love scenes, and her skill at portraying actual historical personages with humanity while maintaining historical accuracy wins our minds. Henley knows what historical romance is all about and always gives the readers what they want.”
—Romantic Times
Insatiable
“Dangerous games, Machiavellian manipulations, and political maneuverings…. Lusty and lavish.”
—Booklist
“As twists of fate contrive to keep the two apart—intrigue, backstabbing, the bubonic plague—readers will hanker for them to live happily ever after.”
—Publishers Weekly
“If you like history-rich characters that come to life in your own imagination…then Ms. Henley is one author you cannot dismiss!”
—Romance Designs
Undone
“Heartstopping excitement, breathless tension, and tender romance.”
—Rendezvous
“All the sensuality and glitter of a more traditional romance, but enriched by the plot’s complexity and the heroine’s genuine growth.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A gently suspenseful tale…filled with satisfying historical detail and actual characters from this intriguing period.”
—Booklist
“Extraordinary characters, rich historical details, and a romance…[set] the pages on fire.”
—Romantic Times (Top Pick)
Previous Books by Virginia Henley Available from Signet
Infamous
Unmasked
Insatiable
Undone
Ravished
NOTORIOUS
Virginia Henley
A SIGNET BOOK
SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright © Virginia Henley, 2007
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
ISBN: 978-1-1012-1098-7
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Dedicated to the memory of my mother, Lilian.
She was wise, shrewd, blunt, witty, and brave.
I miss her every day.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Author’s Note
After a thirty-five-year reign, King Edward Plantagenet dies, leaving his only living son, Edward II, to inherit the throne. Under the father’s rule, England grew and prospered. Wales and Scotland were conquered and subdued. Peace was achieved with France through several strategic marriages, including the new king’s own marriage some ten years earlier to his child bride, Isabelle, princess of France. But King Edward II is not his father. He cannot control the country with the fierce authority his father wielded. Early in his reign he loses Scotland to Robert Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn. Edward’s distractions are infamous and numerous, and he allows his favorites to gain wealth and power at the expense of his nobles and barons. In the year 1322, far from London, at the vast de Beauchamp holdings in Warwick, it is becoming increasingly clear that the monarchy is in peril.
Chapter 1
“I cannot believe you are a woman grown, Brianna de Beauchamp. When I was last at Warwick four years ago you were a child.” Roger Mortimer clasped the young girl’s hands and kissed her brow, then held her away from him so he could have a good look. “I was present when you were born. I never would have believed such a scrawny little scrap would turn into a rare beauty.”
Brianna raised her lashes and smiled at the darkly handsome Mortimer. He was easily the most charming male she had ever known, and her heart began to beat wildly. Her older brother, Rickard, was married to Roger’s sister, Catherine, and was a captain in Mortimer’s army.
“Your eyes would melt a heart of stone and render a strong man weak as water.” Mortimer spoke with complete sincerity.
Brianna had the soulf
ul, soft brown eyes of a doe, fringed by thick dark lashes tipped with gold.
“Mother doesn’t think me a woman, nor does Father. They think at sixteen I am still a child.”
“Nonsense! I was wed at fourteen and a father at fifteen. Your mother attended my wedding.”
“You had your boy Edmund when you were fifteen?” Brianna asked in amazement.
Roger threw back his head and laughed. “He wouldn’t be pleased to be called a boy. Edmund is a man of twenty-one and his brother, Wolf, is twenty. They patrol the Welsh Marches when I’m in Ireland.”
Brianna’s eyes lit with curiosity. “Wolf?”
“He found a motherless wolf cub a few years back and kept it. He’s had the name ever since.” Mortimer grinned and shook his head. “I can’t believe it’s been more than sixteen years since that night at Windrush. Where have the years gone?”
I was born at Windrush? Why the devil wasn’t I born at Warwick Castle? Brianna wondered. Her thoughts were interrupted by her mother’s arrival.
The elegant Countess of Warwick swept briskly into the hall. She encountered a servant bringing ale to their guest and lifted two tankards from his serving tray. “Well come, Roger! It’s lovely to see you again.” She handed him a tankard and lifted the other one to her own lips. “Is Lady Mortimer not with you?”
“Nay, she remained in Ireland. She has vast landholdings there and lives on a grand scale. I believe she prefers it to Wales.”
“We’ve all heard of your victories in Ireland. Rickard corresponds regularly. You look every inch the conquering hero.”
A year after Robert Bruce had defeated young King Edward and his English army at Bannockburn, Scotland’s king had sent his brother, Edward, to Ireland to free the Irish from English rule. The King of England had chosen his fiercest Welsh Border Lord, Roger Mortimer, to put down the Irish insurgency. Mortimer was an outstanding military leader and within four months he had taken back Dundelk, then taken Ulster. He had remained there for the past four years as Ireland’s justiciar.
Roger grinned, while his light gray eyes took in every detail of her beauty with frank male appreciation. “You have a knack for making a man feel like a conqueror, Jory.” He took her fingers to his lips. “Your husband is a lucky devil.”
Jory de Beauchamp rolled her eyes. “Here comes the devil now.”
Warwick, now in his fifties, was still an imposing figure. The white at his temples contrasting with his black hair, and the deeper lines of his dark face were his only signs of age.
“I’ve put your men in the barracks beside the armory. Your capable sons have taken charge of stabling the horses and don’t need my interference. Let’s sit by the fire, where we can be comfortable. There is much to discuss.”
Brianna, displaying good manners, withdrew from the circle, but she had no intention of leaving the hall. She sat down in a window embrasure where she could hear everything her elders said. I shouldn’t…but I shall!
Mortimer stretched his long legs toward the fire. “I was surprised to learn you had withdrawn from court.”
“The Despencers are the only ones with access to the king. Father and son are determined to gain political supremacy over all the earls and barons in England.” Warwick’s features hardened. “Our presence there became untenable.”
“It broke my heart to leave Isabelle. I have been a lady of the queen’s court since she arrived from France when she was thirteen. As you well know, we became dearest friends. She adored Brianna, and they became like sisters. Then Hugh Despencer dismissed me, along with the queen’s other loyal ladies.”
Mortimer clenched his fists. “It is beyond belief that Edward has another degenerate favorite after what happened over Gaveston. That the queen is forced to accept him would gag a maggot.”
“When we rid Edward of Gaveston, the king turned to Isabelle and fathered her children like a normal husband. At that time the elder Despencer, head of the King’s Council, stood firmly with the barons. Then, last year, the avaricious swine spied his chance and made his son chamberlain of the king’s household, and parliament appointed him to the council. After that it didn’t take Hugh Despencer long to become the king’s new favorite,” Warwick said with disgust.
“Once a pederast, always a pederast!” Mortimer bit back a foul oath.
Pederast? I know not the meaning of that word, but I warrant it means something bad. Brianna decided she would ask her mother, but not in the presence of her father. He would keep me innocent forever.
“The avaricious Despencer is the reason I returned from Ireland. He stole two manors from young Hugh Audley by registering them in his own name, and is doing his best to appropriate certain estates that were granted to me. Hugh Despencer covets the lordship of Gower, which lies along his lands in Glamorgan. Gower belongs to John Mowbray, but Despencer claims he never got a license from the king. He’s urged Edward to declare it forfeit and grant it to him.” Mortimer flung out his arm in a flamboyant gesture. “Since when did a Welsh Marcher baron ever need a license from the King of England for his land? Marcher barons have had the privilege of Welsh land for centuries!”
Roger Mortimer has such a commanding, royal presence. He is exactly what a king should look and sound like, because he is a descendant of King Brutus from the Arthurian legends. She sighed.
“Obviously Despencer is trying to build a large lordship for himself in what has always been the Marcher barons’ power base.” Warwick made no effort to hide his contempt for the Despencers.
“Exactly!” Mortimer said grimly. “His aggrandizement is a direct threat to all the Marcher lords. Our independence and even the lands and castles we own are at stake.”
“Mowbray didn’t surrender his land, surely?” Warwick asked.
“He adamantly refused, so the king sent men to take it by force. I immediately went to Westminster to persuade the king from the folly of a direct attack on Marcher privileges. When he would not listen, I sought audience with the queen to ask if she would use her influence. It was then that Isabelle told me all the power is in the hands of Edward’s catamite!”
“The barons hate and detest the Despencers,” Warwick declared.
“They are brutal and greedy and Hugh has an insatiable desire for land and wealth,” Jory added.
“The earls of Hereford, Mowbray, Audley, and d’Amory have joined with us Mortimers to form a confederacy against the Despencers. I have come to rally the barons to join us. Together we can and we must utterly destroy them.”
Warwick nodded. “We’ll go to Lancaster and enlist his support.” He looked up as a tall youth fashioned in his own image entered the hall. “Here’s Guy Thomas. He must have been only ten or eleven the last time you saw him. He has grown apace.”
Brianna took advantage of the distraction of her brother to slip from the hall unnoticed. Her feet carried her in the direction of the stables. If a score of mounts belonging to Mortimer’s men were being accommodated, she wanted to make sure that her palfrey, Venus, was kept safe from the other horses.
She got only as far as the courtyard when the sight of two snarling, growling canines who looked as if they were about to kill each other filled her with dread. “Brutus! No!” she screamed, and without hesitation threw herself between the combatants and flung her arms about her father’s black wolfhound. Her eyes widened in horror as she looked at his opponent. “Hell’s teeth, it isn’t a dog at all, it’s a wolf!”
A male descended upon her and roughly dragged her away from the two animals. “You stupid girl! Have you no common sense?”
Furious, she drew back her hand and slapped his dark, arrogant face. “How dare you bring your wild beast to Warwick?”
He grabbed her hand, forced it behind her back, and stared down at her with fierce gray eyes. “My wolf is tame, which is more than I can say for you. They are only challenging each other to test the boundaries. Let nature take its course,” he ordered.
To Brianna’s amazement the two long-legged animals
circled each other with their lips drawn back to show their fangs; then they stopped and stood eye to eye, growling in their throats. When both stood their ground and neither backed away, it was a standoff. She raised her eyes to stare at the intense, dark face of the male who held her in his iron grip. “Take your hands from me, Wolf Mortimer.”
“You know my name.” He let go of her wrist. “You have me at a disadvantage, mistress.”
She raked him with a haughty glance. “And always shall.” How in the name of God could this uncivilized lout be the son of Roger Mortimer, who is the epitome of chivalry?
“Brianna, is that you?”
She swung about to look at the tall young man who spoke her name and realized he must be Edmund Mortimer. He had been a gangling youth the last time she had seen him. “Indeed it is, Edmund. Welcome to Warwick.” She gave him a dazzling smile, hoping it would affront his loutish brother. “They are serving ale in the hall. You must be parched. Come, Brutus!”
The wolfhound trotted to her side and Brianna turned and said coldly, “Keep your wild beast in the stables. He is not welcome in the castle.”
“She is a bitch,” Edmund corrected gently.
“She is indeed,” Wolf Mortimer declared. “A bitch who needs taming.” He touched his cheek where she had slapped him, then threw back his head and laughed insolently.
Brianna took Edmund’s arm and walked briskly toward the castle. “Your brother is uncouth.”
He looked down at her apologetically. “I’m afraid it is a Mortimer trait.”
“I don’t believe that. Your father is one of the most charming men I have ever met, and I’m not the only female to think so. He is renowned for his fatal attraction.”