Wastrel

By Constance Kent

King John is on the throne and Lord Sebastian Redford's gambling, drinking and womanizing is legendary at court. However, his brazen affair with the wife of the most powerful man in England has put his life in danger. In an attempt to ward off disaster, Lord Redford's man hastily arranges a marriage of convenience to a mouse of a girl named Beatrice Fall. Sebastian's bride proves to be anything but convenient when he consummates their marriage. Beatrice Fall is not who Sebastian believes her to be and quite suddenly, their marriage of convenience becomes a dangerous wedding of illicit love.

Wildly wicked. Sensual and steamy. Dark Redeemer Medieval Romance is a series of sinfully erotic adventure tales set in the High Middle Ages. Packed with action, swords, horses, skullduggery and romance, Wastrel contains racy, intimate love scenes not for the faint of heart. Sensitive readers are strongly cautioned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Writewood Creations Publishing
• Release date: Apr 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9780993896309

Book preview

WASTREL

Dark Redeemer Historical Romance

CONSTANCE KENT

Copyright 2014 Constance Kent

Writewood Creations Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-0-9938963-0-9

All rights reserved.

This publication remains the copyrighted property

of the author and may not be redistributed for commercial

or non-commercial purposes.

Cover image by liievgeniy

Cover design by Writewood Creations/Canva

Table of Contents

Copyright Page

From the Publisher

WASTREL

About the Author

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Wildly wicked. Sensual and steamy. Medieval lovers in a dangerous time. Dark Redeemer Historical Romance is a series of sinfully erotic adventure tales set in the High Middle Ages. Packed with action, swords, horses, skullduggery and romance, Wastrel contains racy, intimate love scenes not for the faint of heart. Sensitive readers are strongly cautioned.

Titles in this Series

Wanton

Traitor

Soldier

Christmas Rose

WASTREL

Do nothing but eat and make good cheer,

And praise God for the merry year;

When flesh is cheap and females dear,

And lusty lads roam here and there,

So merrily,

And ever among so merrily.

—Shakespeare

Chapter I

THE GIRL lay facing the wall of her cell, asleep. The late winter night penetrated the stone walls. The jailer shifted this way and that trying to stay warm. The hour was late and lengthening. He longed for a bowl of warm ale and his bed but he was waiting up for a gentleman who had sent word he would arrive before dawn to liberate the prisoner. The jailer was informed the fine was to be paid and the girl could be released into the gentleman’s custody.

That was all very well and good, thought the jailer irritably. He did not see why the transaction had to take place in the middle of the night. The girl’s hanging was scheduled for noon, not first light. There was plenty of time in the morning to whisk her away. There was no need for secrecy at all if it came to that. No one wanted to see the girl hung for poaching a stag. Keeping a man up past the hour was poor practice, the jailer grumbled. He would make note of it to be sure. Allowances must be made for a man’s rest.

There was a rap at the door. At last! The jailer rolled to his feet and moved to open it. A gentleman, dressed in a fine velvet cloak and leather tunic embossed with the crest of Redford Hall stood in the torch-lit hall.

Good evening, sir, the jailer said with a tug on the brim of his cap. The prisoner is ready. Do you have the fine, sir?

I do, said the gentleman and pushed into the room. His eyes fell on the girl who had been awakened by the sound of their voices. She sat up on the bedroll, blinking sleepily and gazing at them with wide dark eyes.

Get up, girl! That’s right! A fortunate turn of events has transpired while you slept. The good gentleman here has paid your fine and offers you safe escort from these walls so on your feet and away with ye. Here now, look you to it!

What does he want with me?

"What does he want with ye? thundered the jailer. He wants to save your miserable hide, ye ungrateful wench! Gather your things together before he changes his mind or by my faith you’ll be climbing the scaffold steps at noon this day!"

The girl crossed her arms over her narrow chest and frowned as though weighing which fate she would prefer.

Good God! the gentleman protested. Do I look like a man bent on mischief? I am manservant to Lord Sebastian Redford to whom your father owes his livelihood. On his orders, I am to pay your fine and return you to your parents. We are to travel by horseback to Brademere Inn where we will take our rest and continue our journey in the morning. I have been awake for hours as it is, my lady. Do not try my patience further!

To the jailer’s relief, the girl rose obediently to her feet. She was a sensible girl for the most part, though prone to rebellion. He was surprised to hear Lord Redford was behind the reprieve as it was his lordship who’d put the girl’s neck in the noose in the first place. The young lord must have had a change of heart. Perhaps he had sobered up in time to realize his mistake.

Still, it was a good result and the man was glad to be quit of her. Hanging the maid would have made her a martyr to the rebel cause. The stag she had poached had gone to feed a starving family in the village. He had not relished facing the peasant uprising that inevitably would have transpired following the hanging. Thanks to Lord Redford, he would not have to.

The jailer saw his visitors out and shambled off to his rooms where bed and a bowl of warm ale awaited.

*

A BLACK FORM slipped between the shadows that concealed the frozen moorland and startled the horse. Its rider, a knight newly returned from the Crusades, had taken the path to prove to his drinking companions at Brademere Inn that the Wraith of the Moor was a myth and that he, Sir Mortimer would not be thwarted by godless superstition. Besides which, the path was by far the shortest route to the next village. His baggage train consisted of one terrified servant and a wagon load of finery plundered from the last raid on Saracen. His manservant (blast his hide!) hid between the trunks when the horse grew skittish. Sir Mortimer peered into the black night that had fallen over the moor as a cloud covered the moon.

Who goes there? he bellowed gruffly. Come out of the dark and show yourself, you gutless coward, if you be man. If you be ghost, then away with you for you are of less worth to me than a gutless man!

The moor was glittering with hoarfrost as January clung to the land and yet he could not make out his foe in the shiny feeble light. A cool breeze crossed his face and a shadow, darker and denser than the others, suddenly darted across the path. Sir Mortimer’s horse reared up on its hind legs, throwing its rider. The gentleman scrambled to his feet, whirling this way and that, his sword drawn. His eyes strained against the night.

A voice whispered close into his ear. You shall not pass.

Sir Mortimer spun around and lunged, stabbing into air. Who are you? he screamed. His voice had lost its bravado.

You know who I am. I am your doom.

His hair stood up on the back of his neck. The apparition had a voice like the prick of a blade, like Death itself. High and ethereal, as though coming from another world.

Sir Mortimer dropped his sword with a ghastly shriek and stumbled back. Do not kill me! I can pay—take it all!

He reached into the cart for the trunks of finery he’d fought so hard to bring home from the Holy Land. Sir Mortimer and his servant tossed the baggage to the path, and then he snatched at his horse’s lead lest the Wraith seize the animal too. Sir Mortimer leapt astride its back. From his perch and in the clearing of the moon, the brave knight expected to see the ruffian making off with his ill-gotten gains. But there was no one. No thing. Not even the shadow that had alarmed his horse at the beginning of this enterprise. The superstition was true—it must be a wraith that had attacked him. The terror of the moor.

Go, said a voice that sounded eerily far away and yet near at hand.

Frightened out of his wits, Sir Mortimer did not wait for a second command. He dug his heels into the horse’s flank and took off at a hard gallop while his servant hung onto the sides of the cart for dear life. Later in the safety of his manor home, the knight lamented the loss of his possessions. The silks, the scabbard, the jewelled mirror, the exquisite gold chains—treasure he had intended to secure his position with King John and increase his estate. Of what possible use were these costly things to the Wraith of the Moor?

He had escaped with his life and Sir Mortimer tried to thank God for the blessing, though he could not help but feel that God had been on the side of his assailant this night.

*

WESTON LED the horse into the village with the girl on its back. The maid was light and small and the journey was comfortable for horse and rider. Her village was a packed earth and straw grouping of five or six families. Her parents were nowhere to be seen. Did they not care for their daughter’s safe return? Weston glanced up at her. The wind whipped raw across her face, lifting her hair and pulling it free of her braid. The day was clear and cold, caught in the fullness of winter. Curls of smoke from the hearths of peat fires and small children straggled after his horse.

Which is your cruck? Weston asked.

It is not necessary to be taken the balance of the way, sir. She slid down from the horse and retrieved her bundle from the saddle bag. I shall make my way home from here. My father and mother will be in the village to market.

On the hour you were to be hung?

They still need to eat whether I am hanged or no. Good-bye, sir. I thank you for your civility. I enjoyed my night’s rest at Brademere Inn tolerably well. She smiled at Weston. Be sure to thank his lordship for his gracious hospitality.

The girl was certainly impudent, thought Weston. At her trial, the sheriff had insinuated he had captured the Wraith of the Moor—a charge Weston rejected. For one thing, the Wraith did not exist. It was a ghost story mothers told their children to frighten them off venturing onto the moorland. This girl was not a phantom but she was most definitely a nuisance. Her exploits had made her popular with the tenant farmers and smallholders but those self-same exploits would get her killed one day. A man emerged from one of the mud huts, clearly not pleased to see a nobleman’s emissary in his midst.

Thomas Fall, said Weston. I am returning your daughter to your care.

The smallholder’s eyes flicked uneasily between Weston and his daughter. You can do as you like, sir. By my troth, she will not stay. Her poor mother and me have done as we ought by her and yet still she runs off, causing trouble and bringing shame on our heads.

A husband could control her. How is it she is not married? She is above the age for marriage is she not?

Aye, that she is. Nineteen is Beatrice and we could make her a match if we had a dowry to set on her. But how are we to obtain a dowry? The girl has rejected the suitors willing to take her without it and we liked not to force her, sir. We have done right by the girl. If it could be understood at Redford Hall, sir, that it was for lack of a dowry that she came to ruin.

Ruin?

Aye, sir. A girl with so few prospects....

Thomas Fall’s eyes were sly. Weston understood what that man was intimating though he feigned a look of guilelessness. Beatrice chatted with the children who had gathered around her and did not witness the exchange.

It would not be for a lack of dowry she would be ruined, Weston thought, but for Thomas Fall’s laziness and greed. The manservant recoiled from the prospect of entering into negotiations with this lout for his daughter’s chastity.

I will consider the matter and bring it before his lordship if I believe we can be of assistance. But it is very likely Redford Hall will consider its obligation discharged with your daughter’s safe return. You must take pains to see that Beatrice does not cause his lordship any further embarrassment. Do I make myself clear?

He did indeed. The smallholder was alarmed and well he might be. His daughter was no ordinary girl. Thomas Fall would be wise to remember it.

*

LORD SEBASTIAN Redford’s screams echoed down the hallways and corridors of Redford Hall, curdling the blood of those who were not so far gone in sleep that they could not be roused.

Roused they were. Five servants leapt up, wide awake and gathered in the great hall prepared to do battle, for surely their lord must be murdered in his bed.

Sebastian Redford’s manservant arrived in haste in the front hall to reassure them there was no cause for alarm. Weston knew his lordship had suffered from night terrors as a boy. Though as a young man of six and twenty, he grumbled privately, he ought to have outgrown them by now. They were less frequent since he came of age, but there were still some nights when Redford was severely afflicted. All of which Weston kept to himself even as another scream ripped through the hall and the servants eyes darted, terrified, to the west wing where his lordship resided.

Lord Redford is in no danger, announced Weston. Nor is your master ill. He sleeps—it is only a dream that plagues him—brought on, no doubt, by the rich meats and abundant wine at the Christmastide feast. I will see to him myself. You must to bed. All of you—to bed!

His authority was not to be questioned. Weston had come to Redford Hall when Sebastian was a whelp, and he acted in his stead when his