Restoring Garnet's Heart [Elinor's Stronghold 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)
Elinor's Stronghold 3
Restoring Garnet’s Heart
Tragically widowed, Garnet is loved by two men. If a noble lady can have two men, why can’t a mere sewing woman? Garnet decides she’ll marry them both! Then she adopts two orphaned, starving little girls.
Garnet, Byram, and Carlysle are sent to repair the demesne. Can they achieve this huge task before the harvest is gathered in? First a high stone wall needs to be built to protect them from attackers. The buildings must be cleaned and repaired, the crops sown, weeded, cared for, and hopefully reaped. Is it possible to complete such a huge undertaking before the next vicious winter arrives? Will the peasants help them?
Meanwhile Lady Elinor gives birth to the heir of the stronghold, and Lord Rhys and Lady Rhyannon, with Alistair and Lord Devon, go to court to sort out her inheritance.
And what about Garnet’s threesome relationship? Will that be successful?
Genre: Historical, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 20,570 words
RESTORING GARNET’S HEART
Elinor’s Stronghold 3
Berengaria Brown
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
RESTORING GARNET’S HEART
Copyright © 2012 by Berengaria Brown
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-700-8
First E-book Publication: June 2012
Cover design by Jinger Heaston
All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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DEDICATION
For the inventers of Wikipedia. The information may not be totally accurate, but it’s sure as hell easier to find than in the days of paper-only resources.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This story is a fantasy. Although it is set in a medieval-type environment, it is not true historical fiction, and the land and time where the story takes place exists only in the pages of this series.
RESTORING GARNET’S HEART
Elinor’s Stronghold 3
BERENGARIA BROWN
Copyright © 2012
Chapter One
Lady Elinor stared at the two children in front of her. One, a girl, looked to be about six years old and dragged a cooking pot with a few possessions inside it. Her arms and legs were stick-thin, her hair was falling out in clumps, and her belly was swollen.
The child had been eating bark and leaves to try to stem her hunger, and her belly was full of air, assumed Garnet, who was standing beside Lady Elinor among the other sewing women of the castle.
The younger child, which could be either a girl or boy and maybe three years old, clutched the older one’s tunic in one hand and sucked hard on its other thumb. It, too, was painfully thin, though less bloated by starvation.
“You wish to become my slave?” Lady Elinor’s voice was even and mild, but Garnet knew she was shocked. Peasant men from the smallest of uncaring Lord Jeffrey’s hamlets had begged to become slaves of the castle in return for food during this terrible winter, but few females, and no one as young as this little child.
“Yes, Lady Elinor. I can scare birds from the crops when they’re planted and clean for you. Ysabel will stay with me. I’ve always looked after her since Ma died, and she won’t touch the seedlings. She’s a good girl and no trouble at all. And I will grow big and learn to fight for you and Lord Rhys, and then I’ll kill the men who murdered our pa and took all our hamlet’s food,” the child finished fiercely, almost in a shout.
Garnet felt her eyebrows rise and forced her face not to break into a grin. It was plain this tiny, starved child had the heart of a warrior indeed.
Lady Elinor rested her hand on her huge belly. It was almost time for the heir to the stronghold to be born.
“Well then, Nerida is already learning warrior skills, and if the heir to the stronghold is a girl, she will be a warrior, too. I see no reason why you can’t also be a warrior, if that is your desire. What is your name, and where are the other people from your hamlet?”
“I’m Ava, lady, and I promise to serve you forever. Most of the people left after the soldiers came raiding. Some have tried to help Ysabel and me, but I’d rather work for my food.”
Garnet watched Ava’s thin, little shoulders straighten as she spoke. At her age, Garnet would never have dared to approach the Lady of the Castle, and Garnet had never been a shy child. But this girl was truly a warrior born. She was that rare being who combined the ability to think of a solution to a problem with the courage to step outside any rules of society and do it, no matter what the consequences may turn out to be.
Without stopping to think, Garnet moved to stand where Lady Elinor could see her. “The two girls may share my room, lady, and I will supervise their activities.”
“It is decided then, Ava. You and Ysabel may join the stronghold. We will feed you, and you will work. You will obey Garnet in all things. Do you understand?”
“Yes, lady, thank you.”
Ava d
ropped to her knees and pressed her face to Lady Elinor’s feet. Ysabel copied her.
Garnet’s eyes flooded with tears. Peasants always died when there was trouble in the land, especially the very old and the very young. They weren’t strong enough to fight back or fast enough to run away. But this child deserved to live.
Garnet’s husband, Roldan, had been one of Lord Rhys’s soldiers and was killed in the battle that took the lives of Lady Elinor’s father and brothers and caused Lord Rhys to lose his demesne to Lord Jeffrey. They had been married only six months, not long enough for her to worry about not getting pregnant, but now he was dead, the parents of these children were dead, and Ava was a daughter any woman would be proud to call her own.
“I’ll take you both and feed you now, but you’ll be very, very sick if you eat too much at first. All the air in your belly has to come out before much food can go in. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Garnet. I’ll watch Ysabel and help her.”
Garnet led the children out to the kitchen and brought them each one half-filled cup of soup. “One sip only, then rub your belly to help the air get out.”
Wide-eyed and silent, Ava did as she was told, rubbing her bloated stomach enthusiastically. She then held the cup for her sister, ensuring the little one couldn’t gulp too much food at once. Ysabel’s huge brown eyes watched the cup, but she made no attempt to reach for it, obediently rubbing her swollen belly, then letting Ava rub it, too.
Both children belched and farted numerous times before the last sip of soup was drunk. Garnet hoped that was a beginning to clearing their bellies and helping them be well. She was about to suggest they go to her one-room hut inside the castle walls when she heard shouting and screaming outside the castle.
“Attack! Attack!”
Garnet grabbed Ava’s hand and picked up Ysabel, then ran back into the great hall of the castle. All the children were being herded into a corner protected by several upturned benches.
“Stay here,” she ordered.
Ava nodded solemnly and pushed through the other children to the solid stone wall, sitting there with Ysabel beside her.
Then Garnet rushed to do her duty, to take her place with the refugees and help protect the stronghold.
* * * *
Carlysle’s little hamlet, braced against the rear wall of the castle, facing the river, had grown larger as the winter had bitten harder and deeper. Lord Jeffrey and his men had systematically raided every tiny hamlet in the valley, taking their foodstuffs. As the people from the hamlets turned to their liege-lords in protest, the nobles had fought back by moving their people into their own strongholds and attacking Lord Jeffrey and his men whenever he left his own land.
Lord Jeffrey’s own peasants had nowhere to turn and had been raided so often they had absolutely nothing left. Everyone who had someone else to live with had left the valley long since. In desperation, some of the remaining peasants had enslaved themselves to Lord Rhys in return for his protection. Carlysle was their acknowledged leader. Now the hamlet had sturdy houses snug against the castle walls and fishnets in the partly frozen river’s deepest channel to catch any fish that came past.
Carlysle was meeting with a group of his people, trying to decide if it would be possible to begin sowing crops early by planting seeds in shallow trays of soil, kept inside where it was not so cold. The argument was going around and around, getting nowhere, and he’d just decided the only way to find out would be by doing it, when the screams of “Attack! Attack!” came.
Instantly men ran for weapons, and women and children fled to the castle keep.
The men, and some of the young women, had trained for attack. They were vulnerable here, outside the castle wall, but it would not be long before Lord Rhys sent soldiers to help them defend themselves, and at least the children and the elderly would be safe.
The men formed a long line across the field, about halfway between the ice-covered river, which still had just a narrow unfrozen area where it still flowed deep, and the stronghold wall. They had piles of rocks to throw, arrows to shoot, and wooden pikes and daggers to fight with up close. The pikes were also good for tripping horses and unseating soldiers. A soldier’s armor was so heavy it took him a long time to get back on his feet, and a team of determined peasants could take off his helmet and bash him unconscious first, if they were fast enough.
Carlysle didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. Only six soldiers on horseback raced toward the stream. Six, they could probably deal with themselves. He hoped. It meant the main attack would be at the front of the castle though, and it was unlikely Lord Rhys would send them any help.
“We’ve trained well. We’ll defeat them,” he told his men as he walked up and down the line.
Garnet, one of the castle sewing women and the most beautiful person he’d ever seen, said, “Besides, a couple of them will go through the ice and drown. They won’t know we’ve deliberately kept the middle open to fish and that it’s not just a narrow channel they have to jump, but a deep-flowing river.”
“I hope so. If they push back hard to leap, that may be enough to crack the ice even farther.” Carlysle stood side-on so he could rest his gaze on her glorious brown curls, her sparkling blue eyes, and her lush, rounded curves at hip and breast. He wanted her with all his being. But he’d given up his rights to his land by leaving it to save the people in his hamlet, and he’d sold himself into servitude here at the stronghold, so was no fit husband for a talented, free woman like Garnet.
He flicked his gaze back to the horsemen. “It begins,” he shouted. Carlysle ran to place himself in front of the rider he was certain was Lord Jeffrey. The man had a distinctive horse with four black feet and a white tail, and his helmet had a noticeable dent above the left ear that some said had come from a blow which had scrambled his brains. It was certainly true that there was no sign left of the clever and skilled warrior who’d defeated Lord Rhys. Lord Jeffrey had never tried to rule the lands he’d fought so hard to win.
Carlysle flicked a glance over his shoulder to see where Garnet was. She was standing a dozen paces behind him, a bucket of rocks at her feet and a long, wooden pike in her hand. A dagger rested in the girdle at her waist. He was honored she’d chosen to back him up but was determined to kill Lord Jeffrey himself for all the evil the man had brought into the valley, all the unnecessary deaths.
The six attacking horsemen rode straight at the ice-covered river, screaming their battle cries, just as four soldiers from Lord Rhys’s garrison appeared from around the side of the castle.
To a man standing on the ground, the armored soldiers and horses appeared huge, even at a distance. It would be almost impossible to hurt a soldier while he rode his horse, unless with a lucky arrow strike. The only solution was to unhorse him. But six of them was a real challenge. Carlysle could only hope his people remembered all they’d practiced and that Lord Rhys’s soldiers would catch and kill a few of the attackers for him.
At the sight of the horses and soldiers, the last of the six attackers drew back on his horse’s reins and turned tail, riding away from the battle as fast as he’d approached. One from the middle of the group decided to take a direct line toward the castle soldiers and rode on an angle up to the river. He was partway across and riding fast when the ice cracked loudly, and he and his horse sank into the water.
Carlysle heard shouts and cheers from around him but was concentrating on Lord Jeffrey. The man was an enigma. A mighty warrior in a battle and yet too stupid to hire someone to manage his new estates so everyone didn’t starve. Carlysle thought maybe he truly had been hit on the head and lost the ability to think and plan, but the man must have had no heart to be unmoved by the plight of his people. “Die, Lord Jeffrey!” he yelled.
His cry was taken up around him, but Lord Jeffrey and his three remaining men were now all crossing the river. Lord Jeffrey rode straight ahead, his horse leaped over the flowing water in the middle, and it looked as though he’d land safely i
n the field when the rider on his right went down and knocked into his horse. Both horses and men crashed heavily onto the ice, breaking it more and sending them all into the water.
Neither Lord Jeffrey nor the man who’d crashed into him appeared out of the water. It was deathly cold and very deep. Wearing armor as they were, the men had no chance of surviving more than a few minutes in such coldness. Carlysle watched closely, scanning up and down the river, but no men escaped from the river.
The final two attackers had no chance. They were surrounded by Lord Rhys’s four men and the refugees and were both killed very quickly.
Carlysle called his most reliable men over to him and set guards along the river. “It’s too cold for anyone to live who swims in this water and most unlikely anyone will attack us again soon, but now is not the time to make a tactical error. Watch. Guard. Our lives depend on your vigilance. The bodies of Lord Jeffrey and his two men will be caught in our fish nets. We’ll need to remove them for burial. And mend out nets.”
* * * *
Byram, steward of the stronghold, had fallen in love with Garnet the moment he saw her among the bedraggled remnants of Lord Rhys’s demesne. She’d been widowed that very day, but he still wanted her. She had the sweetest face a man could ever imagine, and over the past months, he’d come to learn she had a clever mind hidden inside her, too. Until he’d seen the design she’d sketched to mend Lady Rhyannon’s Court gown after Lord Coll ripped it in a fit of anger, he’d never understood how much skill was involved in such work.