Age Gap Lovers III: Dangerous Liaisons (KLN Medieval Romance Boxed Set Collections #19)

Chapter One

Isenhall Castle

“He is in Coventry being pursued by de Montfort’s agents. We must ride.”

The quietly muttered statement came from Tiberius de Shera.

Extremely tall, with a crown of soft, dark curls and enormous shoulders, he was the youngest of the de Shera brother trio.

He spoke to his brothers, Maximus and Gallus, as they gathered in the small, vaulted-ceilinged solar of Isenhall’s enormous block-shaped keep.

Tiberius’ brothers, however, seemed a bit perplexed at Tiberius’ hurried statement.

“Who is in Coventry?” Gallus, the eldest of the three, asked. “Whom do you speak of?”

Tiberius appeared quite serious, unusual for the usually jovial knight.

He was young, that was true – five years younger than middle brother Maximus, who himself had seen thirty-two years – but Tiberius had always been a mixture of knightly maturity and boyish charm.

It was an unusual combination because the knight in him was the best England had to offer.

The boy in him was one who could easily find himself on the painful end of a brotherly beating.

But the older de Shera brothers had learned long ago to trust Tiberius’ knightly instincts, which is why when he spoke of a serious matter, they listened closely.

“De Moray,” Tiberius answered. “There is a young man in the bailey who has raced all the way from Coventry. Garran sent a boy with a message – Garran, his father, and a sister were traveling south to their home in Dorset and realized they were being followed by de Montfort men. Now they are barricaded at Coventry and we must save them. They are in trouble.”

De Moray is in trouble. That brief explanation clarified the situation quite a bit and the older de Shera brothers began to move.

Already, they were heading to the entry of the keep where beyond, in the small and crowded bailey, were located the stables and the armory.

There was a sense of urgency as the battle lords, men known as the Lords of Thunder, moved with purpose.

“Were they traveling alone?” Maximus de Shera, the middle brother, demanded.

He was a forceful man, curt and to the point at times.

“De Moray knows better than to travel without an escort, especially in these times and especially that close to Kenilworth. Did he not think de Montfort men would be about and not recognize him?”

Tiberius was concerned for his close friend, Garran de Moray, son of the great knight Bose de Moray.

Up until a few months ago, Garran had been sworn to the House of de Shera and, consequently, Simon de Montfort’s cause as the man wrested the power of the nation from Henry III during these dark and turbulent times.

But Garran’s father, Bose, had been the Captain of the Guard for Henry when the king had been very young.

It was a bond that had formed way back then. Henry had even saved Bose’s life once.

Therefore, during this conflict, there was no question which side the great de Moray would support and the father had asked the son to ride with him, as he did not want to lift a sword against his own son in battle.

Garran, even though he disagreed with Henry’s politics, agreed to support his father.

It had been a sad parting with the House of de Shera.

But Garran was still one of their knights as far as the de Shera brothers were concerned, which meant that they would ride to his aid no matter what.

“I have no idea what Bose de Moray was thinking as he passed through Coventry,” Tiberius answered his brother’s question.

“Mayhap he was coming to Isenhall to visit us or mayhap he was simply heading home. Whatever the reason, we must put our questions aside and extract the man and his family from Coventry before de Montfort’s assassins get to them. ”

They all agreed on that point. Out in the tightly-packed bailey, it was early morning and the sky above was already crisp and blue.

The past week had been rather warm and this day promised to be no different.

The weather had been quite wonderful and the ground was dry, free from the usual mud that plagued it.

As Maximus headed to the knights’ quarters to rouse the stable of de Shera knights, Gallus and Tiberius headed to the armory to dress for the occasion.

The air in the armory was stale and warm, so by the time Gallus and Tiberius finished dressing in their usual protection of mail and pieces of plate, they were sweating rivers.

Tiberius also smelled rather bad because he tended to sweat quite a bit and he hadn’t bathed in a while, so he was sure that noxious odor wafting upon the air was him.

He kept sniffing the air and making faces, which eventually prompted his brother to push him out of the armory altogether.

Stumbling out of the door, Tiberius turned to his brother, perplexed and insulted.

“Why did you do that?” he demanded.

Gallus shook his head, waving a hand at him. “Because you smell like a rotted corpse,” he said. “Why do you not bathe once in a while?”

Tiberius cocked a dark eyebrow. “What for?” he asked. “I do not have a woman in my bed like you and Max do. I do not need to smell sweet for anyone.”

Gallus fought off a grin. “Someday you may want to attract a woman,” he said as he pulled on his heavy gloves.

“All you will manage to do is chase her off with that terrible stench. Besides, you know that certain smells make my wife nauseous in her current state. If you make her vomit because you refuse to bathe, I will take a stick to you.”

Tiberius eyed his beloved eldest brother.

Gallus de Shera was the Earl of Coventry and the Lord Sheriff of Worcester, a title he had worked hard to achieve.

He was a man in his prime, the eldest of the most powerful trio of brothers, and Tiberius adored him.

More than that, he believed him when Gallus said he would take a stick to him if he upset his pregnant wife.

With a grin, Tiberius moved away from the armory.

“Then I shall stay away from her,” he said to Gallus as he walked away, “but I will stick close to you to make sure you smell me until the bitter end.”

He could hear Gallus calling after him. “You shall drive the enemy away without even lifting your sword,” he shouted. “One smell of you will knock them on their arses!”

Tiberius laughed softly as he headed towards the stables.

His middle brother, Maximus, was just emerging.

Baron Allesley, otherwise known as Maximus de Shera, was a very big, very powerful man who had recently married.

His wife was a lovely woman who seemed to have the ability to tame the savage beast in Maximus because Tiberius had never seen his brother so content or so happy.

Or calm, for that matter. The usually curt, rude, and aggressive man he’d known all of these years was now tempered by a slip of a woman.

But the fighter in him, that warrior that men feared so much, was still as deadly as ever.

“We are taking a light force with us,” Maximus said as he drew near Tiberius. “Both de Wolfe brothers and du Bois are already saddling their horses and I’m having twenty soldiers mount up and ride with us. That should be enough.”

Tiberius moved past the man, heading into the stables. “The sooner, the better,” he said. “There is no time to waste.”

Maximus, who was heading towards the keep, kept walking as he let out a hissing sound.

“God’s Bones, Ty,” he said, putting his fingers to his nose.

“There is a cloud of lethal odor following behind you, engulfing everything in its wake. If you do not bathe upon our return, I will put you in the tub myself and scrub you until you can no longer offend anyone.”

Tiberius didn’t say anything but he made a face at his brother as he entered the stable, his stench mingling with the smell of horses and hay.

He was coming to think that, perhaps, he should bathe at some point soon because he knew Maximus would follow through on his threat.

But he pushed those thoughts aside as a groom brought forth his big, gray dappled, Belgian charger.

In a time when war horses were not commonly used for travel, Tiberius rode one horse and one horse only, even though he personally owned several.

But the big Belgian stallion had two attributes that Tiberius liked best – he was oddly calm for a war horse until he was in the heat of battle and he had a pleasing traveling gait that was quite comfortable.

Those two factors made him Tiberius’ favorite horse.

He affectionately greeted the big gray steed with the black mane and tail.

“Storm,” he addressed the horse, scratching the animal on the ears because he liked it. “Did you have your morning gruel, old man?”

The groom who had brought the horse nodded to the question. “He likes his cold gruel, my lord,” he agreed. “He ate a bucketful of the stuff.”

Tiberius grinned and slapped the animal on the neck before mounting the beast. The horse loped from the stables and out into the bailey where men were gathering and Tiberius quieted the soldiers down, explaining what they would soon be doing.

Garran de Moray was in trouble and needed assistance.

Tiberius presented the boy who had brought the news and had the young man repeat the message, his youthful voice echoing off the old, circular perimeter walls of Isenhall Castle as he told the hardened de Shera men of the situation.