Free Awakening His Lady by Kathrynn Dennis

ONE
    Bouvines, France
July 26, 1214
    A knight wearing nothing but his bloodstained, padded shirt and ragged leathers drew closer to the evening campfire. He stroked the ring on his little finger with the pad of his thumb and stared at the flames. God but he was tired, and after two days without sleep, could barely think. He struggled to recall the scent of the wild English roses and the periwinkle that once bloomed in his lady’s much-loved garden. But he’d been gone two long years from home—and when he drew a deep breath, the acrid smoke from the fire stung his eyes and filled his lungs.
    He coughed and took a step back.
    Hell to the devil. With each passing day, he worked harder to remember England, the softness of her gentle rain, the sound of the village peasants singing at the harvest feast, the taste of good English beer. These things he missed, nay he longed for, but the fading memory of his beloved Lady Meriom was most painful—his Meri, her young face an image he once vowed he would never forget. Bright blue eyes and high cheekbones, framed by hair the color of the earth…but was the tiny scar on her chin on the left side or the right?
    He winced. His heart thumped so hard against his chest it hurt to breathe.
    Damnation.
    Was there no room in his mind for anything but war and fighting—images of an unhorsed soldier, blind, staggering across the field and gasping for air, his dented helmet too misshapen to remove, another man with, his limbs flailing, skewered through his middle, pinned to the ground by French lancemen?
    He closed his eyes and rubbed the ring.
    By the saints, send me thoughts of my Meri and give me peace.
    A low voice called from the fireside. “What’s that yer rubbing, le broyeur ?” Edward Galvon, a swarthy knight from Salisbury asked, keeping his gaze on the small charred carcass at the end of his roasting stick. The man killed for pleasure and without repentance. He’d chopped off the head of the squealing squirrel he’d captured for his dinner with more flourish than was necessary.
    â€œI say, le broyeur , what is that?” Galvon repeated. “A talisman from the witch of Gruen?”
    Le broyeur , the crusher. The words penetrated slowly, rousing Thomas.
    God in heaven, how he hated that name, given to him by his garrison because he’d felled more Frenchmen in a single battle than most English knights had in the whole of the fighting season. But it was not a skill he’d perfected for the sport. It was necessary to survive. It was his duty, performed in the name of King John of England, defending English properties in Flanders against that traitor, Philip of France. When this conflict was over, as it would be after tomorrow’s battle, in victory he, Sir Thomas Addecker, heir to a baronet, would leave le broyeur here with the rest of the misery that was war.
    He kicked a stone away and stretched out before the fire. “Not le broyeur, Galvon. I answer to my Christian name. And it’s your turn for the night watch.”
    Nodding, Galvon squatted beside him and took a bite of charred squirrel. “Then Sir Thomas,” he sputtered out the words while he chewed. “That ring you are always rubbing ’afore we go to battle, where did you get it?”
    Thomas drew a deep breath but did not answer. He watched the stars flickering against the dark sky and rested his hands on his chest. The ring was given to him by his Lady Meri. A simple gold band, it bore her family’s coat of arms. Passed to her from her grandfather, it was her most precious possession. He could not forget the forlornness in her eyes as she pressed the ring onto his finger, or the taste of her tears on his lips when he kissed her goodbye.
    â€œI’ll wager your ring’s a lucky piece, Sir Thomas,” said another campmate stretched out a few feet away. “Blessed by the Pope himself. That explains why you’ve not been wounded or