Chapter One
North of Castle Erith, Cumbria, England
The month of August
She could hear the screaming.
Like a dagger through the chest, physical pain bolted through her slender body at the sound. She knew it was her daughter; it could be no one else.
They were quite alone out in the wilds of Cumbria, harvesting fat purple berries from a bumper summer crop.
All had been peaceful this morning, a warm summer day that had dawned soft and sweet upon the land, and she had allowed her daughter to separate from her in search of additional edibles.
As another scream pierced the air, she was coming to regret that decision immensely.
“Brooke!” she screamed in return. “Brooke, where are you?”
The woman began to run; she wasn’t even sure which direction the screams were coming from, but she began running nonetheless.
Panic bubbled in her chest as she heard screamed words off to her left; they were incoherent but unmistakably urgent.
The woman plowed through the heavy foliage that stood between her and the screams; the branches scratched and the grass was wet with humidity, causing her to slip in her haste.
She charged through the bushes, bleeding scratches on her arms, as she emerged into the clearing on the opposite side.
She drew closer to the towering falls of Erith, an oasis of crystal pools and roaring water about a dozen yards away.
The thunder of the falls grew louder as she raced towards them, the piercing screams of her only child penetrating the mighty roar.
The woman could hear the cries but she couldn’t see her child; only the green, moist foliage surrounding the falls and the spray of the water greeted her. Heart pounding, she yelled again.
“Brooke?” she cried.
“Mama!” came the call. “Help me!”
Lady Gray de Montfort Serroux could hear the cry again, like a nightmare, but she still didn’t see anything.
“Where are you?” she began to move towards the falls, a towering thunder of water that emptied into a crisp pool some fifty feet below its zenith. “I cannot see you!”
“Here!” came the cry. “I slipped! I am here!”
Gray raced to the edge of the falls, as close as she dared, seeing her slip of a daughter dangling from a ledge about ten feet below her. She couldn’t help the terrified yelp that escaped her lips as she fell to her belly, struggling to reach out a hand down to her daughter.
“Take my hand!” she stretched as far as she could go, reaching, begging. “Grab my hand, Brooke. Take it!”
Brooke was terrified, clinging to slippery rocks as the falls roared behind her. She was weeping hysterically, lifting a hand but too terrified to reach too high. After a half-hearted effort, she stopped trying altogether and clutched at the rocks again.
“I cannot,” she wept. “I will fall.”
Gray was biting back tears, having no idea how she was going to reach her child.
Her heart sank as she realized that the girl was just too far out of her reach.
All she could think to do was to untie her apron and yank it over her head, trying to use it as a rope as she awkwardly tossed it in her daughter’s direction.
“Sweetheart,” she tried to keep the terror from her voice, knowing calm heads would better prevail. “Try to grab hold of my apron. I will pull you up.”
Brooke was sobbing, terrified, clinging to the wet rocks. “I cannot!”
“Aye, you can,” Gray struggled to calm herself for her daughter’s sake. “Please, Brooke; grab hold of my apron.”
Brooke shook her head, crying, but eventually lifted a wet hand in the direction of the lowered apron.
Gray tried to feed it down to her, lying on her belly and reaching over as far as she could go without slipping herself.
The seconds were ticking. As Brooke reached up and took the tail-end of the apron ties, she lost her grip on the wet rock and she screamed, sliding another foot or so away from her mother down the slippery, grassy rocks.
“I am falling!” she screamed. “Help me!”
Gray’s tears returned, filling her eyes as she hurried to gain a better position now that her daughter had slipped further. She lay on the wet grass, trying to lower the apron to her, struggling against panic to coax her daughter into making another try for the apron.
But Brooke was paralyzed with fear, clutching the wet rocks and weeping hysterically.
Gray couldn’t get her to look up at her or even make another attempt at the apron rope.
As the great falls of Erith thundered only a few feet away, dousing them with spray, Gray sat up and yanked off one of her woolen hose.
It was full of holes but sturdy. With shaking, panicked hands, Gray tied the hose to the end of the apron and tossed it over the side of the cliff.
It hit Brooke in the head and the girl shrieked; any little movement had her terrified she was going to fall the remaining forty feet into the churning water below.
Gray lay on her belly again, trying to coerce her daughter into taking hold of the hose, when the wet ground beneath her suddenly gave way.
Gray let out a piercing scream, positive she was going to go crashing down on her daughter and, in turn, sending both of them to their death.
The ground was sliding and dirt was falling, and Gray struggled to pull back, away from the sliding earth.
But she was caught in the avalanche and there was nothing she could do.
Just as she neared the edge to the point of no return, someone grabbed her ankle.
Whoever it was yanked hard, sliding her back along the wet grass that was now more like mud.
Stunned, and slightly numb that she wasn’t already in a watery grave, Gray looked up to see a fairly big knight bolting past her, dropping to the edge of the cliff to peer down the side of the rushing falls.
As she watched him, bewildered, a soft, deep voice from behind caught her attention.
“My lady?” he asked. “Are you injured?”
Gray turned in the direction of the voice; a knight was kneeling beside her, his handsome face glazed with concern.
He was fair, his blond hair cropped close and graying at the temples, and his square-jawed face held an intelligent, angled edge.
He was perhaps ten or more years older than her twenty-nine, but he wore his age well upon his striking features.
He was average in height but he was very broad; she could see the thickness of his arms and legs, heavily muscled from years of warring.
All in all, he was a big, handsome man, something she hadn’t expected to see out here in the wilds of Cumbria, and she struggled to find her tongue.
“I… I am well,” she suddenly scrambled to her knees. “But my daughter has fallen. I was trying to pull her up when the ground gave way.”
The knight rushed to the edge of the cliff, beside the other knight, and as Gray joined them, the three of them peered down at the very frightened young lady about twelve feet down. Gray’s amber eyes filled with tears as she gazed down at her frightened daughter.
“Please,” she turned to the men. “Please help her. I fear I have done all I can.”
The words hadn’t even left her mouth before the knights were swinging into action.
She didn’t even have to ask, truly; they had already decided they were going to assist. They had heard the screams, too, and had followed the cries until they came across the source.
Even now, the older knight was directing the younger.
“Take your mail off,” he instructed quickly as the man hurried to do his bidding. “This ledge cannot take the additional weight.”
The mail coat came off and the younger knight, a lean and attractive man with shoulder-length blond hair, fell on to his belly and slithered to the edge. The other knight got in behind him and grabbed his ankles.
“I will lower you down,” he said. “Tell me as soon as you have hold of her and I will pull you up.”
The younger knight nodded, waiting until his liege had him by the ankles before plunging forward. Muddied, wet and terrified, Gray leaned over the edge of the cliff, as far as she dared to go.
“Brooke!” she called over the roar of the falls. “Take hold of his hand!”
Brooke was clutching the rocks, her eyes closed and face pressed into the wet granite. But when her mother called to her, she dared to open her eyes, looking up to see that someone was descending towards her. She started to scream.
“Nay!” she wept loudly. “He will make me fall!”
Gray tried to soothe the terrified girl. “Nay, sweetheart,” she assured her. “He is here to help. Take hold of him.”
Brooke sobbed loudly as the knight was lowered.
Gray glanced over at the older knight; he had a good grip on the younger man’s ankles but it was taking all of his strength to lower him.
Just as it looked as if he was having a rough time of it, more men burst through the foliage and the older knight snapped orders to them; a tall, red-haired knight went to his aid, grabbing hold of the legs of the other and helping to lower him while two men-at-arms stood by the man who was now lowered over the edge of the cliff by about three-quarters of his body length.
The knight dangling over the side called back to the others.
“She is too far out of my reach,” he called. “I need another seven or eight feet to get to her.”
Gray suddenly remembered the apron and hose rope in her hand and she thrust it at one of the men-at-arms.
“Here,” she gave it to him. “He can use this. She can grab hold of it.”
The soldier took it, handing it down to the knight as the others struggled to hold him. The knight wrapped one end around his forearm securely as he dangled the end to the girl.
“My lady?” he called to her, oddly formal under such peculiar circumstances. “Take the rope. Grab hold!”