His Forbidden Lady

By Nicola Davidson

Tudor England, 1542

When beautiful widow Lady Annabelle Benton-Hayes is ordered to court, she is terrified. Henry VIII desires a sixth queen for his bloodstained throne, and her scheming family cares not for her wishes. Annabelle yearns for love, but there is no escaping her fate: escorting her is Rafe de Vere, the man who abandoned her to become England's most loyal and brutally successful soldier.

Rafe is utterly weary of war and its impossible demands. Thankfully, his final task is the easiest: accompany a wellborn lady to London for Henry's perusal. Until he discovers she is Annabelle, the woman who swore to wait for him but married another. Rafe isn't permitted to care, yet time hasn't dulled their sizzling attraction and his orders are increasingly difficult to obey. To love her, he would have to risk all and cross his king to secure the ultimate prize - Annabelle's heart.

A Scandalous Novella

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Aug 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781633750500

Book preview

Their love is treason...

Tudor England, 1542

When beautiful widow Lady Annabelle Benton-Hayes is ordered to court, she is terrified. Henry VIII desires a sixth queen for his bloodstained throne, and her scheming family cares not for her wishes. Annabelle yearns for love, but there is no escaping her fate: escorting her is Rafe de Vere, the man who abandoned her to become England’s most loyal and brutally successful soldier.

Rafe is utterly weary of war and its impossible demands. Thankfully, his final task is the easiest: accompany a wellborn lady to London for Henry’s perusal. Until he discovers she is Annabelle, the woman who swore to wait for him but married another. Rafe isn’t permitted to care, yet time hasn’t dulled their sizzling attraction and his orders are increasingly difficult to obey. To love her, he would have to risk all and cross his king to secure the ultimate prize—Annabelle’ s heart.

His Forbidden

Lady

Nicola Davidson

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Nicola Davidson. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Scandalous is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Kate Fall

Cover design by Libby Murphy

ISBN 978-1-63375-050-0

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition August 2014

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Are you feeling Scandalous?

The Irresistible Miss Peppiwell

The Wager

Once Upon a Wallflower

Her Wicked Sin

Norse Jewel

The Seduction of Sarah Marks

An Unexpected Sin

Romancing the Rumrunner

For Sherilee Gray: author, friend, and cheerleader extraordinaire.

Chapter One

Essex, England, March 1542

The folded cream parchment sat atop the library’s polished oak side table like a coiled snake poised to strike.

Lady Annabelle Benton-Hayes didn’t dare touch it. In fact, she was trying to forget the missive existed. Unfortunately, the words were already seared in her mind.

Henry the Eighth, by the grace of God, King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland in Earth Supreme Head, desires the pleasure of the company of…

No. She would not torment herself with the words, not when there still might be a way out of this summons masquerading as an invitation to court. It was still a week hence, after all. Just because Henry Tudor commanded her to be paraded in front of him like a banquet platter didn’t mean it would happen. Just because he sought a sixth queen to birth a passel of sons and secure his throne didn’t mean she would be the one fated to grant his fervent wish.

Her fists clenched so hard she hid them in the heavy folds of her green velvet gown. The King of England always got what he wanted. And his people well knew it.

Annabelle!

She jumped at the sharp tone. Her father and his illustrious guest had been discussing her great fortune in the sparsely-furnished manor library for over two hours now, neither expecting nor encouraging her participation. Until the moment she allowed her thoughts to wander, naturally.

Yes, Papa?

Charles, Baron Mayberry, resettled his slender frame in a high-back chair and shot her a look of extreme displeasure.

Your uncle asked you a question, girl, and you’d do well to answer him.

Guilty anger churned her stomach, but she forced herself to look directly at Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford. Not actually her uncle but her father’s younger cousin, yet undoubtedly head of the family. Save the king, no man in England held more power, and it was thanks to him she’d come to Henry’s attention in the first place.

Beg pardon, my lord. You were saying?

Sit, lady, Hertford replied gently, but his dark eyes held no warmth. I’m not certain you comprehend the enormity of the opportunity ahead of you. In your appearance, you hold a significant advantage over the other ladies attending His Majesty’s festivities.

Reluctantly obedient, Annabelle perched on an embroidered chaise. Only a halfwit wouldn’t understand what it meant to be connected to the all-powerful earl. Or to bear a striking resemblance to their revered kinswoman Queen Jane Seymour, the king’s third wife, who had died after birthing his long-awaited heir. Never in all her twenty-five summers had she cause to loathe the combination of wide brown eyes, fair complexion, and flaxen curls so well.

Yes, my lord.

His Majesty has bestowed much upon us because of young Prince Edward. But if Henry fell in love again, made you his wife, and you in turn presented him with another son…we would be assured of favor and position for always.

She gritted

Reviews for His Forbidden Lady

[sarah_gruwell · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

After reading this work, I’m vividly reminded about why I don’t usually read novellas. There are some great ideas here, and I could get a glimpse of the author’s talent within what I had. I went in thinking to treat it as a short story. But boy, this could have been so much more!I liked the author’s ideas. It smacks of the grandeur of the Tudor court and the extreme danger for those that found love in an era when such was dangerous to life and limb. I enjoyed Bella and Rafe in the beginning and throughout, for the most part. I thought their star-crossed romance was sweet and a very romantic idea, given the setting. So gold star there, Davidson.Yet, this is where the curse of the novella strikes. So much is crammed into such a short frame that I felt lost in the deluge of events. Everything happens in a timespan of only a few days which makes most of the timeline very unbelievable, at least to this reader. A focus on just a section of this timeline might have worked out better.And I have to take serious issue with the characterization of Henry. I find it very hard to believe that he would react the way he did at the end in real life. Given his track record in similar circumstances, I feel that his pride would outweigh any other softer emotions. I’m sorry to say I feel like “Off with their heads!” would have been the more realistic event to happen.So some very great ideas and some talent as a writer were shown in this short work, but it fell from the curse of the novella. I liked the leads and their romance; it was a great idea for a romance novel. But the sheer amount of events that were crammed in and the characterization of some of the parties fell short for me. If this novella were fleshed out and brushed up, I think it could be a superb romance novel; the author definitely has the skill for it. But as is? I’d pass.