The Ballad of Brave Janet

By T.J. Deschamps

A retelling of a medieval Scottish ballads, with lush worldbuilding, endearing characters, and an ending that satisfies.

The servants and cottars of Carterhaugh whispered caution to all the young maidens, forbidding them to enter the woods.  For a fae knight roamed those words, seeking maidenheads or wealth as tithes to his queen. 

Lady Janet of Carterhaugh, neither modest nor chaste never card for the rumor. She did as she pleased in all other matters. However, for her widowed father's sake, she ventured no further than the bower. 

Until, one fateful evening when a horse covered in blood and no rider galloped onto her family's ancestral lands...

Janet ventures into the woods on the horse's back to seek it's rider, fearing the worst has come to one of her father's Samhain guests. There's something peculiar about her mount and the place where she indeed finds a wounded knight.  

 

Nursing him back to health, Janet falls for the handsome Tam Lin. However, there love was not meant to be. He's made a vow and must return to faerie.

Will Janet accept that Tamlin is the property of the queen of the faeries, or will she fight to win his freedom?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: T.J. Deschamps
• Release date: Jun 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781961715998

Book preview

Chapter 1

Beyond the Bower

Women of Lady Janet's circle sang songs forbidding entering the forest of Carterhaugh. The servants of her father's keep whispered fairy stories of wild shades and stolen maidenheads. Her clansmen steered clear of it on their hunts. Janet possessed little tolerance for their fear. She spent many an hour gazing at the wood from her bower, imagining a fae knight snatching her up, freeing her from her dull life.

Since no elven prince came to whisk her away and have his way with her, she led the stable hand into the bower of her gardens—a spot unseen from all the castle’s prying eyes. Some knew of her exploits, but she’d rather not suffer another lecture about keeping herself pure for her husband. All the servants feared her father’s wrath even more than they did the wood.

The Laird of Carterhaugh intended his daughter to marry a laird, but lairds were old men with sour breath and drooping arses. If she must marry one, Janet would have her fun now with the stable hand. The lady had decided some time ago that if her future husband wasn’t pleased she no longer possessed a maidenhead to bestow, he could seethe in his own bed chamber alone and do without an heir. 

Face flushed and blue eyes bright with anticipation, the dark-haired lad of eighteen or nineteen was bonnie. Bonnie enough for Janet’s intentions, at least. The lad might not be brave or smart, or even handsome, and the cloying smell of hay clung to his tunic, but he cut a fine figure. All that sinewy muscle felt so good against her soft flesh. Besides, he possessed a tarse larger than of any of the other lads she'd tupped.

Tell me all the naughty things ye want to do to me, she commanded, twirling a bit of her flaxen locks around her finger.

Er, the lad cleared his throat. Anything ye wish, milady.

She hid her disappointment with a grin and fluttered her eyelashes. No. Be absolutely lascivious. Tell me what ye think of when ye pull yer tarse.

His eyes widened and his flush deepened.

Janet drew closer. Take me to the wood and ravish me. Pretend you’re a Highland warrior who has fought all my father’s vassals for the right. 

Nay. The lad’s gaze darted to the place where Janet’s lovely gardens ended and the forest began. The copse grew so densely packed that no light entered the wood. He swallowed hard. "I shall not play yer games with ye here so close to the haunted wood. The fae knight who lives there will ask us a price if we venture too near, milady. Let us go to the stable, I’ll make us a nice bed of hay like the last