Jenni Fletcher - Besieged And Betrothed

Bound to her enemy

Ruthless warrior Lothar the Frank has laid siege to Castle Haword, but there’s a fiery redhead in his way—and she’s not backing down!

More tomboy than trembling maiden, Lady Juliana Danville would rather die than lose the castle. When she’s caught on opposite sides of a war, a marriage bargain is brokered to bring peace. But is blissful married life possible when Juliana has a dangerous secret hidden within the castle walls?

‘You’re fortunate that I’ve no desire for a wife either. Especially one who looks more like a stablehand than a woman!’

Lothar rubbed his jaw gingerly with his knuckles as Juliana stormed away. In retrospect, he supposed he might have handled the situation better. She was right—their marriage was a greater advancement than any he could have expected—but her accusations had undermined his self-control to the extent that he’d finally lost his temper.

He’d meant to say that he’d accepted the offer because he wanted to help her keep her inheritance—not to steal it for himself. He’d meant to say that he was a soldier—that when it came to managing a castle she was a far better person for the job. He’d meant to reassure her that it would be a marriage in name only, at least insofar as she wanted it to be one. Most of all, he’d meant to tell her that nothing about this was a game.

Instead he’d told her she looked like a stablehand. That had definitely been a mistake.

Author Note

I first became interested in the Empress Matilda as a child, after reading about her escape from Oxford Castle during the siege of 1142, dressed all in white for camouflage in the snow. Unfortunately that story is often all that gets told about a woman whose incredible biography has been largely—and ironically—whitewashed out of history. The daughter and mother of kings, wife of an emperor and then a count, Matilda was a strong woman for any age, and yet she never managed to regain the birthright that was usurped by her cousin Stephen.

Matilda’s problem—as Helen Castor’s brilliant book She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth points out—was not that she was a woman, but that she was expected to behave like one: to be Queen and yet not assert her own individual authority—a contradiction that the Medieval mindset seemed unable to overcome, and that I find fascinating.

This story, whilst not directly about Matilda, is partly about the roles women were and weren’t allowed to hold in twelfth-century England—four centuries before Elizabeth I came to the throne. Despite my bias, however, I do have a soft spot for Stephen, who was more merciful than the majority of Medieval kings, and did actually pardon some of those who rebelled against him. At a distance of almost nine hundred years, it’s impossible to judge who was the hero and who the villain...but, for the purposes of this story at least, I side with Matilda.

Besieged and Betrothed

Jenni Fletcher

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Jenni Fletcher was born on the north coast of Scotland, and now lives in Yorkshire with her husband and two children. She wanted to be a writer as a child, but got distracted by reading instead, finally writing down her first paragraph thirty years later. She’s had more jobs than she can remember, but has finally found one she loves. She can be contacted via Twitter, @jenniauthor.

Books by Jenni Fletcher

Mills & Boon Historical Romance

Married to Her Enemy

The Convenient Felstone Marriage

Besieged and Betrothed

Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk.

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To Andy, again, and my family as always (that includes you, Hilary!)

Also a huge thank-you to Kim, Christine, Emma and Sharon, without whose help I’d still only be halfway through.

And to Claudia, who could give any empress a run for her money.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Historical Note

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

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Extract

Copyright

Historical Note

In 1147 England had been in the grip of Civil War for twelve years.

The tumultuous period now known as The Anarchy was triggered by the death of Henry I in 1135.

After the drowning of his only legitimate son in the White Ship disaster of 1120, the only direct heir to the throne was Henry’s daughter, Matilda, although at twenty-eight she’d spent comparatively little of her life in England, having been sent abroad at the age of eight to marry the German Emperor Heinrich V. Widowed at twenty-six, she’d then been married to Geoffrey, the young Count of Anjou, with whom she had three sons—the great-grandsons of William the Conqueror.

Henry’s wishes regarding the succession are evidenced by the fact that he made his nobles swear two separate oaths of allegiance to Matilda.

When he died, however, his nephew Stephen travelled immediately to England to have himself crowned King in her place. Unable to leave Anjou due to her third pregnancy, and lacking the support of the nobility, many of whom doubted a woman’s ability to rule, Matilda had to wait another four years before pursuing her claim.

By the time she finally arrived in England Stephen’s grip on power was already too strong to be broken. As a result, her influence was mainly confined to the south-west of the country, with her base in Devizes in Wiltshire. Despite several victories—most notably the Battle of Lincoln—she was unable to gain a definitive upper hand and the power struggle descended into a lengthy and lawless war of attrition.

By 1147, when this story is set, the majority of the fighting was over. Stephen remained the stronger power in England, but had lost the entirety of Normandy to Matilda’s husband. As a result, barons with lands on both sides of the Channel were forced to make peace treaties with both claimants. Most, however, were weary of fighting and simply wanted an end to the war.

In 1153, the ageing Stephen finally agreed to a treaty ceding the throne to Matilda’s eldest son—later Henry II—after his death.

Ultimately Matilda lost the battle but won the war, founding the Plantagenet dynasty that was to rule England for the next three hundred years.