A Puritan woman's loyalties are tested when her husband is imprisoned by the Royalist lover she was forced to surrender through duty.
Drummond Castle, home of staunch Puritan Silas Drummond and his beautiful wife Elizabeth has been besieged by Royalist forces. In a bargain to spare her husband's life Lady Elizabeth has agreed to spend the night with the commander of the hated King's Men.
Second in command Charles Trethveyan has other ideas. He's planned this moment since Elizabeth chose to marry Silas eight years before.
When Elizabeth discovers that her former Cavalier lover has taken the place of his superior, she must decide whether Charles is motivated by love or revenge.
Either way, her response will have devastating consequences.
General Release Date: 16th July 2012
On the eve of battle between King Charles' Cavaliers and a Puritan stronghold
The acrid smell of smoke made Elizabeth's eyes water as she shaded them against the setting sun and watched the enemy make camp on the other side of the beech wood. The chirping of sparrows preparing to nest for the evening reminded her of previous, less dangerous summers, but the beads of sweat that had gathered on her brow and upper lip were as much owing to fear as to the heat.
"They'll attack at first light." Silas' hand was heavy on her shoulders as he stood beside her on the battlements. "We must get some rest while we can, for there'll be heavy fighting tomorrow. Come to bed, wife."
It was an order Elizabeth could not refuse, though she'd have rather remained and kept the King's Men in her sights.
She glanced at the ravens that roosted on the stone ramparts nearby. Shivers of dread twisted themselves about her entrails. Before nightfall the following day, the ordered world she knew would be gone and the undulating patchwork of tilled and forested land over which she and Silas now gazed would be theirs no longer. Forfeited to the Crown.
As to their own fate... Well, that was in the hands of Almighty God.
Slipping her hand into the crook of her husband's arm, Elizabeth glanced up at his harsh, uncompromising profile, his mouth hard, his eyes as cold as stones. Even as he contemplated the death and destruction ahead, Silas' expression was not so different from his usual look, she reflected. For once, she almost envied him his lack of emotion.
She kept her voice steady. "Dorcas says you have briefed the household on what's expected of them." Elizabeth was glad Silas did not remark upon the trembling of her hand as he led her down the twisting stairs from the south tower. Courage was a requirement of a wife. And loyalty. Loyalty to the death, as Dorcas, her maid, had unsurprisingly told her was the master's uncompromising dictate to his servants. It was the return Silas expected on the security he provided those who lived under his roof at Drummond Castle—his minions and his wife.
He grunted. "They've always known what is expected of them and they will put up a good fight. Drummond Castle is the only home they have."
It was also the only home Elizabeth had. Although she inhabited it reluctantly, she had nowhere else to go. The King's Men were on a mission to crush all resistance from the Parliamentarians, men like Silas who abhorred the corruption of Royal power. Not even her mother's sister—a lapsed Puritan now married to one of the King's courtiers—could save them, she reflected, wishing she'd spoken to her Aunt Anne of the simmering danger and her fears in greater depth when her aunt had visited the previous year.
"God is on our side." Silas ushered her into their bedchamber. "We will fight them, wife, for God would expect nothing less."
"And if we don't win?" She did not look at him as she removed the linen cap that bound her long pale hair, exiting briefly into an antechamber where Dorcas was waiting to help her out of her dress. His harsh voice followed her. "If we do not win the fight, we will win the battle."
Once Dorcas had laid aside her dark green gown with its modest trimming of lace at the collar—a fitting ensemble for a Puritan of rank who must appear sober yet distinguished from the lower orders as God ordained—Elizabeth returned, wearing her night shift.
She pulled back the counterpane and lay down, tensing as she prepared herself for what would follow.
Historical Romance Author Beverley Oakley took her passion for handsome rogues and worthy heroines to new heights when she worked in the back of low-flying survey aircraft over Greenland and French Guyana in the 1990s.
Her imaginative forays into the ballrooms of Regency high society, scribbled on paper during long and turbulent survey lines, were counterbalanced by the efforts of her mostly male fellow crewmembers to teach her an appreciation of a cold Windhoek Lager or fiery KWV Brandy; so three-month contracts away from home were borne with as much enjoyment as fortitude.
While Beverley’s broad repertoire of fictional heroes was fine-tuned through years of working in the male-dominated safari and airborne survey industries, her mostly nineteenth century heroines, by contrast, live very sheltered lives.
Beverley now lives with her family in Melbourne, Australia, twenty years after hitching her star to the Cessna Caravan (now a Boeing 777) of the handsome Norwegian bush pilot she met around a campfire in Botswana’s beautiful Okavango Delta where she ran a safari lodge at the time. She teaches creative writing, makes historical costumes and works as a Disaster Events Researcher.
Beverley’s latest project is set in Colonial Lesotho where she was born and where her father prosecuted medicine murder and illegal diamond buying cases in the African kingdom’s rugged mountains during the 1960s.
Beverley loves hearing from readers. You can contact her or find out more about her books here:
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Reviewed by Two Lips Reviews
intriguing historical piece, giving a great deal of insight into the war in which the Cavaliers and the Puritans participated...the characters are well-delineated, and their aims and desires equally...
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