Married for the Warrior's Revenge

By Lisa Torquay

Spain, 1147
Fatimah Al-Zahar is visiting the Alcaide, her brother, in his new lands, Moncaster. The same he conquered, defeating its duke, and for which he married the former duke’s sister for a smooth transfer of power. Only the former duke saw fit to abduct the Alcaide’s sister in a bid to snatch his lands back. Ensconced with the man in his cramped donjon is not helping Fatimah with the attraction she feels for him since the first time she set eyes on the unforgiving warrior. Despite floundered attempts to break free, she can’t decide if she wishes her brother to give back the lands and her freedom; or never to show up again so she can stay with the fallen duke in any capacity he finds for her.
Rodrigo De la Torre, the former heir to the Duke of Moncaster, sees it as his duty to recover the lands he grew up to inherit. After having done everything to achieve it with no success, the only resource left to him is to take the Governor's sister and exchange her for his rightful inheritance. The problem is that he did not count on the feisty woman to get under his skin and other unmentionable parts as she takes more and more room in the donjon and in the hollow place where his heart should be.

Epub page count: 230
Word count: 84,000

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisa Torquay
• Release date: Dec 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005340957

Lisa Torquay

Lisa Torquay comes from a multi-cultural family. She graduated in History and earned a Master’s Degree in British Empire. She has worked as an English and History teacher at high schools. She married a Norwegian and moved to Norway, where she has lived for three years. Writing has been her passion since she was thirteen. When she’s not writing, she’s messing up in the kitchen because she loves cooking as much as she’s clumsy. She hopes you enjoy her books and would love to know your opinion about them. Just go to www.lisatorquay.wixsite/main

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Copyright

Married for the Warrior’s Revenge

Copyright 2022 Lisa Torquay

Published by Lisa Torquay

Edition License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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

Editor

Bob Ross

Cover Art

Jo Singleton

Table of Contents

Married for the Warrior’s Revenge

Copyright

Table of Contents

About this book

Dedication

Foreword

Maps

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Preview of Married for the Warrior’s Pleasure

Series to Die For

About the Author

Connect with Lisa Torquay

Other Books by Lisa Torquay

About this book

Spain, 1147

Fatimah Al-Zahar is visiting the Alcaide, her brother, in his new lands, Moncaster. The same he conquered, defeating its duke, and for which he married the former duke’s sister for a smooth transfer of power. Only the former duke saw fit to abduct the Alcaide’s sister in a bid to snatch his lands back. Ensconced with the man in his cramped donjon is not helping Fatimah with the attraction she feels for him since the first time she set eyes on the unforgiving warrior. Despite floundered attempts to break free, she can’t decide if she wishes her brother to give back the lands and her freedom; or never to show up again so she can stay with the fallen duke in any capacity he finds for her.

Rodrigo De la Torre, the former heir to the Duke of Moncaster, sees it as his duty to recover the lands he grew up to inherit. After having done everything to achieve it with no success, the only resource left to him is to take the governor’s sister and exchange her for his rightful inheritance. The problem is that he did not count on the feisty woman to get under his skin and other unmentionable parts as she takes more and more room in the donjon and in the hollow place where his heart should be.

Dedication

To all open-minded people who do not buy into preconceived ideas.

Foreword

Dear reader,

Those who have already come across my books know that I usually reside in the realm of Regency Romance. But I must confess that when I visited Spain and wandered through its magnificent heritage, the sight of so much beauty inspired me to write this series. No, sorry, that's not completely true. It was more than inspiration; it was a veritable tidal wave of ideas pressing to come out. So, I suppose I should put them to paper.

Or die trying.

I hope you enjoy these rather off-the-beaten-track romances because all my love of writing and history is crammed into it.

Cheers!

Maps

The Moors established themselves in the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century, ruling nearly all of it. Several Spanish kingdoms took back part of it only to lose it again. But a surge of extra energy coming from North Africa in the form of the Almohad Empire, whose Caliphate sat in Marrakesh, regained large portions of Spain. It is against this changeable backdrop that this book is set.

Evolution of Moorish Presence in Spain

Chapter One

Somewhere south of Toledo, Spain, 1147

The first wind of autumn blew over Moncaster’s lands as Fatimah rode along the road that Rashid, her brother, had built in recent months. He owned these lands and sat in his palace as the Alcaide, governor, together with his Spaniard wife Jimena. When the Alcaide retrieved Moncaster and won it from its duke, he married his sister. The former duke, Lord De la Torre, had to take refuge in Spaniard lands to the north.

Fatimah sighed at a breeze that she’d not call cool, just fresher than the warm summer one. In the few months since she’d arrived to visit her brother, she’d fallen in love with Moncaster, its palace, and the villages that dotted the vast lands. On her Arab chestnut mare, her favourite sea-blue veil ruffled with the breeze over her tunic and loose pantaloons of the same shade.

Do not stray too far, Ezter Benady called from behind her. She and her husband Jakob worked here as agriculturalists and were on their way to check on the villages’ crops about to be harvested. Both husband and wife belonged to the Sephardi, the Spaniard Jewish community.

Fatimah half-turned to her friend. Do not worry, she soothed Ezter. Moncaster has been safe since Rashid and Jimena shunned her brother. The three of them rode with half a dozen soldiers assigned by Rashid Al-Zahar to protect his sister and the agriculturalists. The movement made Jawhara, Jewel, give a faint huff.

The former Duke of Moncaster hadn’t taken well to losing his lands and had attempted to regain them. With no success as the villagers had joined in to deflect De la Torre’s ambitions. Since then, peace had prevailed over these lands.

But Fatimah would never forget the day the duke galloped to the fortress—army and armour in place—intent on attacking it. Accompanied by a handful of men he’d gathered from the Count of Linares, whose donjon he inhabited at present.

That day, Jimena's brother had stationed his mount about fifty yards from the walls, sitting on the saddle tall and proud, as though he owned the entire world. He'd clad in his armour, only part of his face visible beneath the helmet. His stance had struck her like lightning even from upon the battlements, which she'd climbed, unaware that there'd been the threat of war outside. Just as she'd been about to go back to her chambers, warned that she'd been by the soldiers, his gaze had turned to her. He hadn't looked at her. No, nothing so prosaic. Those dark eyes had fairly plundered her in a few quick sweeps. Even in the morning's freshness, her body had heated with some alien reaction. She'd frozen on the spot, mesmerised, incapable of moving to save her life. As she held his gaze for sheer lack of a choice, her heart had raced, her breath sped, and his eyes seemed to touch her in an intense physical sense. It had been strange. More than that, it had been soul-searing. That had been months ago. Even so, her memory re-lived those brief moments with vivid clarity, and it bloomed with some kind of yearning she couldn't explain.

And you think the duke will accept this state of affairs that easily? Ezter asked, wrenching Fatimah from her ruminations.

I am not present when the Alcaide discusses strategic issues with his people, so I couldn’t say. And preferred not to interfere.

Before autumn turned to winter, she and her friend Isabelwould travel back to their hometown, Gharnatah, which the Spaniards called Granada. Both women had been born in that huge and bright city. Isabel Ruiz, a Spaniard coming from a family of shoemakers, had lived in a close neighbourhood. Their proximity afforded them to meet and grow up together in a friendship that solidified over the years. After months, Fatimah deemed it time to return and resume her life at home with her parents in their merchant’s neighbourhood.

These days she’d been riding everywhere in a kind of farewell ritual. She’d miss it here. Together with her brother, and his wife, who’d just discovered she was with child. A nephew or niece on the way. Two days’ journey from Gharnatah wouldn’t be too far. Fatimah might ride to Moncaster again, she allayed herself, her gaze scrolling to the surrounding fields, quietness bedecking the air.

The first thing that assailed her senses was the pounding of horse hooves on the ground, fast and inexorable. She looked in the direction it came from to be flooded by the sight of a horseman fairly flying in her direction. The certainty that he wouldn’t stop flashed in her mind with the need for her to duck out of his way. That, however, had nothing to do with his intentions because he almost collided with her mare. At the last second, he wheeled his horse to the side of hers, his arm reaching out to grab her waist. And pulled her off her mount like a bird of prey, diving with unperturbed intent towards its victim. She had zero chance of reacting as her legs flailed in the air before her backside met the rider’s saddle as he placed her at his front, keeping the breakneck speed. The wind rushed all around her, almost tearing her veil from her head. The world blurred in melting colours at that speed.

At the back, she registered Ezter shouting, the commotion of the soldiers inciting their horses to follow. But the group fell behind in a matter of seconds.

Let me go! she protested. It fell on deaf ears. Worse, her will seemed to play no role in this mad dash.

In the periphery of her gaze, she detected a chain-mail suit and a red tunic. That frantic memory of hers recalled them with unabashed clarity. Her astounded face turned to the rider to meet hazelnut eyes streaked with sunlight. Ones her mind had been refusing to forget. In those eyes, she detected traces of harshness and raw intent. They glanced at Fatimah and snapped back to the road, unmoving. The hazelnut depths hardened with a determination that nothing and no one would budge. Just like the taut muscles flexing at her back.

Rodrigo De la Torre, former Duke of Moncaster, was in the act of kidnapping the Alcaide’s sister.

A close-up of a flag Description automatically generated with low confidence

Of all the desperate and reckless things Rodrigo had done in the name of gaining back his rightful lands and title, this ranked top. In the past few months since that damned Moor, who’d become kin by marrying his sister, snatched Moncaster from the De la Torres, Rodrigo had tried everything. He ambushed the alcaide for Al-Zahar to neutralise him to dust with shameful easiness.

He imprisoned his stalwart brother-by-marriage in the donjon that offered an inferior lodging compared to his lofty dukedom. Jimena, the outstanding Alcaidess, rescued her husband from under his very blade of a nose.

Last, but not the proverbial least, he gathered an army, also inferior to his title, and marched to Moncaster. But the Count of Linares’s men proved to be mere ruffians in it for the fun. After Al-Zahar installed himself in the palace that belonged to the dukes of Moncaster, De la Torre took refuge in the count’s derelict donjon on the borders of Linares’s lands, with the man’s permission.

As a De la Torre coming from a lineage of powerful dukes commanding vast lands, the setback hit hard on his pride. And he wasn’t ready to give up his privileged title as yet. Or ever. So, he resorted to kidnapping the alcaide’s younger sister.

He came to know of her existence by chance, as he’d been short of spies after the death of Juan Sanchez, one of his most loyal men. Upon leading his failed skirmish to Moncaster, Rodrigo spotted the Moorish lady standing on the guarded walls.

Spot was one lame manner of putting it. Once his gaze found her, he’d forgotten his surroundings as the view of the most stunning woman took him by storm. She’d stood on the battlements, tunic billowing in the sunrise breeze, with her enormous eyes and the hint of ebony hair peeking from under her veil. He had to make a conscious effort to unclasp his eyes from her and return his attention to the fiasco of a siege. But the impression that one of the heavy stones jammed on the walls hit him right on the chest remained ever since.

Now his arm clamped around the very woman’s slim waist, her robes flapping like a flash of sea-blue in the rocky landscape set in shades of brown. Her breath heavy, it pressed against the arm around her and see-sawed out from her as she looked ahead. He kneed his horse, pressing for more speed. El Audaz, the audacious, did not disappoint, good boy.

And then her breath stalled. Her arm moved a fraction of a second before her hands grabbed the reins. They pulled with the firmness and force of someone familiar with riding. El Audaz gave a loud neigh as he screeched to a stop, his front hooves rearing.

Rodrigo’s arm tightened around the petite woman. "Estás loca?" Are you mad? The exclamation mixed with a questioning of unexpected development escaped him unbidden.

By then, El Audaz had returned his hooves to the dusty road. The woman sitting at his front took advantage of the momentum and jumped from the saddle with surprising agility, her robes favouring free movements. In a heartbeat, she dashed in the general direction of Moncaster to the south. Her boots hammered the ground, gaining terrain with his momentary shock.

But not for long. Rodrigo pulled at the reins to turn El Audaz as the chestnut Arab sprang after her. She did not follow along the road, though. She made a beeline through the bushes and low trees to the roadside, the smart chit. Even scarce, the vegetation would hamper a clean gallop. The lady was not mad at all. Her sea-blue robes waved behind her, fairly serving as a flag to the people who must be racing after her to take her back.

He couldn’t allow it.

Another fiasco would fail in bringing his birth right back. Not to mention it would transform him into a bad-taste laughingstock from here to the County of Portugal.

Al-Zahar’s sister represented his last resource to take back what he lost and he wouldn’t let her spoil that. He planned to use her to bargain his way back to his rightful standing in this world. If possible, a retribution in the pack. And give the Alcaide hell while he was at it.

He led the stallion on a zigzag through the dusty terrain, keeping the blue flag fast becoming a dot in sight. Two hundred yards away on the road, a cloud of dust announced the soldiers that had accompanied the group. Rashid would have their heads when, not if, they arrived empty-handed at Moncaster. Because this was going the duke’s way.

El Audaz manoeuvred around a low tree, the Moorish woman running through the vegetation. Between them, only small bushes easy to deal with. Rodrigo kneed the horse and made the most of his advantage. The Al-Zahar chit peered back, her mouth forming a distressed ‘oh’ as she looked ahead and ran faster.

She showed agility, he’d give her that. One of these days, he’d invite her to play hide-and-seek in the wilderness, but not today. The horse closed the distance, and he laced her by that slim waist for the second time in as many hours. Right ahead sat a gnarled tree. He stationed his horse behind it as the cloud of dust of horsemen galloped along the road farther from them now. She could scream if it suited her. No one would hear her amid the hooves pounding and the distance. But the woman did not even try as her open mouth strived to catch her breath, her midriff inflating and deflating in quick movements.

When everything quieted and the surrounding area became as desert as it used to be, Rodrigo turned to her. I thought Moorish women were docile.

The sound of his voice prompted her head to swivel at him. And that stone that hit him when he first saw her did it again. This close, her beauty revealed itself in all its glory. The veil covering her face had fallen at some point. Those huge almond-shaped eyes were so light-brown that they almost rivalled the surrounding landscape. The perfect velvety light-olive skin. And the pouty, dusky mouth. Beneath the veil, was a hint of ink-black straight hair. He became as breathless as she was.

And I thought fallen dukes were chivalrous. Add her melodious voice to the list of assets. With a drop of temper and tons of fighting spirit, it hit him with nothing short of lethality.

Those eyes fulminated him just as that sharp tongue lashed at him. Rodrigo forced himself to produce a chuckle. The fallen does not apply. El Audaz shifted on his legs and brought them a mere four inches apart. And chivalrous is only a bit of nonsense for the men not to kill each other instead of killing the enemy. A waft of sandalwood reached his nostrils. Oh, yes, it suited her, poignant and memorable. The luxury that the merchants brought from Asia abounded in the Moorish world, and the Spaniards took full advantage of its availability in the Peninsula.

That pouty mouth pursed to one side. Would it be too ungallant if he smashed his mouth to hers? His body said no, but he preferred to side with his mind, dull as it seemed. He cared nothing for ideal knights but he wasn’t about to violate the codes of excellent treatment of women, in special this one. She would be a valuable chip in this game.

So, he pulled at the reins and headed north.

A close-up of a flag Description automatically generated with low confidence

With the man’s command, the horse jerked into movement, forcing Fatimah to look ahead before she drowned in those liquid hazelnut eyes that seemed to see through every layer of silk covering her from head to toes. And through the layers of the resistance she owed not only her brother but also herself. Because if Rodrigo De la Torre looked striking from up a thirty-foot-high wall, up close he was a weapon whose hardened monumentality might demolish every single layer she recognised and even more the ones she did not.

The firm arm around her, clad in chain mail, prevented any wide movement, or a reckless one like she'd just tried. It also brought her flush to an unforgiving male body. Her legs hang to the side of the purebred her people brought to these lands. Even so, she directed her gaze ahead rather than falling into the silliness of looking at the armoured man scoring her shoulder.

Fatimah Abd Al-Zahar did not grow up among warriors or nobility. On the contrary, she came from generations of merchants. Her paternal grandparents lived in Tripoli, north of Jerusalem. When the hordes from the First Crusades broke through the walls and decimated everything in their wake, they forced her merchant grandparents to flee and seek refuge in Gharnatah, which the Spaniards called Granada. Her mother, Mariyam, had been born and bred in that great city to the south of this Peninsula. Married to her father Youssef, they led a thriving merchant’s business.

Her brother, Rashid, joined the army that retrieved these lands he now governed as the Alcaide. A few months ago, she and her friend Isabel came to visit him and had been staying in his palace ever since. About to return to Gharnatah, Fatimah contemplated a future married to a young merchant from the same circle as her parents. At least, she hoped she still had a chance at that, being scooped away from everything familiar to her as she was at that moment.

Fear did not dominate her, dire as her situation appeared to be. She harboured no doubt that Rashid and this Spaniard would reach an agreement and she would be on her way home soon enough. The question in her mind, however, spelt when. And her life sat on hold until the men solved their squabbles.

You are taking me to your donjon, I suppose, she said without looking at him. Even covered in chain mail from head to ankle, together with the helmet, he pulled at something in her, something she could not allow to blind her wits.

De la Torre's leather gloved hands steered the horse around a low tree before he answered. It's not mine. She detected a note of self-derision in it. But yes, we are heading there. His voice bathed not only her ears but every nerve in her. Low, strong, and deep, it triggered a shameful response from said nerves.

According to Jimena, the man’s sister, the Count of Linares’s donjon lay a few hours’ ride from Moncaster. The heir to the Duke of Moncaster had sought refuge there when Rashid and his army won the battle. His father died fighting, leaving the son a title that did not exist in true effect.

They did not return to the road as they weaved their way through the bushes. Her captor wished to steer clear from a confrontation, she understood. The soldiers that accompanied her and Ezter might still find her. The open landscape did not allow for camouflage. Fatimah should keep her hopes up and her expectations down, hard as she found it.

The horse progressed at a trot, having to carry two people, one of them a man in heavy chain mail under a tunic, plus an iron helmet, tear-shaped shield, and long sword. The fallen duke did not take chances and dressed to face the worst, by the looks of it.

The sun angled into the afternoon, dispensing a pleasant heat.

Are you hungry or thirsty? The deep voice shook her out of her musings again. He spoke in the Castilian language, which she also learned. The consonants conferred a potent ring to his voice that set well in the way of melting her every time he uttered anything. I have a small provision in my saddlebag if you wish for it.

She felt no fear towards him but asking her to be in a disposition to eat or drink was a little too much. No, thanks, she replied to the terrain ahead. What I wish is for you to let me go back to Moncaster.

Sad as it makes me. His voice sounded anything but. My plans do not allow for such.

Ha! When everything else fails, use a woman, Fatimah scorned. They are just chattels, one way or the other.

I'm not about to disagree if that is what you intend. Coldness seeped into his retort. I feel relieved you know your place in the grand scheme of things.

He could think whatever he wanted. She, for one, would bide her time until she devised a way to disentangle from this situation.

What Rashid's detachment of soldiers to protect her did, she did not know, because they came nowhere near De la Torre and his booty. After hours of negotiating bushes and small trees, the horse crossed a watercourse, the Guadiana River, if her calculations were correct. Said river had become the de facto border between Spaniard lands to its north and Moorish lands to its south.

They neared a building in the distance. Fatimah peered at a tall construction in the dullest of styles. It loomed at about ninety feet of height in a square shape of a fifty yards of robust sandstone. Topped with battlements and corner towers, she saw only one door at ground level and a window below the battlements. These people did not need fresh air.

As they neared the fortification, soldiers came to receive them. The fallen duke got down from the horse and turned to her. You do not need help to dismount. Those hazelnut eyes clasped on her from under his helmet and head chain mail causing her heart to skip a beat. But I will show you my chivalrous side and do it, anyway.

Before she could answer, his hands bracketed her waist and pulled her to the ground. All the way here, she'd been swaying on the saddle, rubbing at his solid muscles. At that minute, however, both stood in front of each other with not a foot between them, her head falling back to meet his tallness. The poignant feel of his heat reached her together with the closer scent of him, horse, leather, and something else that had to be the essence of him. Her insides did not flip as they did at the first sight of him from up Moncaster's wall. They bloomed with heated shamelessness while her intake of air said so much; she did not wish to think of it. And all she saw of him was part of his features. Those penetrating eyes, the blade of his nose, and the mouth.

No, that mouth defied a simple description. It boasted a hue that called to mind the colour of a ripe fig skin, dark, succulent and impossible to resist. The upper and lower lips complemented each other in a soft, generous shape that invited hers to taste it. Her head bent to a bashful angle. That she harboured such unbridled thoughts towards her captor told a tale about her she preferred to keep well hidden from the world.

The moment of stillness vanished when he turned to someone at the door. Inés. A middle-aged woman in peasant attire approached them. Take the Lady Fatimah to the private chambers. He let the