The Tempest: A Medieval Romance (The Blackchurch Guild: The Shadow Knights) by Kathryn Le Veque

Author:Kathryn Le Veque [Veque, Kathryn Le]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
Published: 2025-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

“We’ve delivered the bride,” Declan said, yawning. “Why do we remain? We should be heading back tae Combwich and our vessels. We’re not getting rich lingering at this place, are we?”

He had a group of men cheering behind him, the same men who had spent the night in the encampment behind the Black Cock and the same men who had been told not to raid the village. The problem was that there were almost two hundred of them and they outnumbered the villagers, but add the Blackchurch army and they would be decimated. That was the only thing keeping them from giving in to their normal pirate behavior.

Annihilation.

It was a fine line that Maude was walking.

“You stole enough on our way here that ye are amply supplied with food, horses, and anything of value from here tae Combwich,” she said loudly. “We’ll leave when I say we’ll leave.”

That was a direct shot at Declan, who had grown impatient. Watching his oldest brother marry that morning, taking the bride he wanted and carrying the title he wanted, had only exacerbated his restlessness. Maude was well aware of it, but she was also quite protective of her eldest son.

Truthfully, the one she was most proud of.

Watching Payne marry that morning had been something of a spiritual experience for Maude. She’d never thought that event would affect her so, but it had. Perhaps it was the fact that Payne was now the Earl of Lismore, the title no longer held by her husband.

It was the passing of the guard, as it were.

But Payne was more than ready for the position, and he was certainly more than qualified. He was everything his brothers weren’t, and there were times when Maude regretted not forcing Declan and Francis to foster in England. Declan had been too much of a Highlander and there was too much hatred for England in his heart to effectively learn from English trainers, but Francis, on the other hand, had never wanted to be a warrior in the first place. His chosen vocation would have been as a priest, hence the nickname of Pope Francis. He’d never cared much for warfare, and even now, as a pirate, he didn’t do much fighting or killing. He stood back with his mother and let the others do it, only acting if he was called upon. In Maude’s mind, Francis was the biggest waste of talent because he could have been a good priest, but his father would have disowned him had he tried.

Somehow, being a pirate was better than being a priest.

Now, the wedding was over, Payne was the new earl with a new bride, and there really wasn’t any reason for Maude and her men to remain at Blackchurch. Even Declan knew that. But Maude wasn’t so eager to depart, mostly because she wanted to spend a little more time with Payne, whom she hadn’t seen in ten years. Seeing him again had awakened that part of her heart that belonged only to him, only to the first child she’d given birth to and held in her arms as her very own.

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