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  KNIGHTS

  $6.99 U.S.

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  LOOK FOR THESE THRILLING NOVELS BY

  Linda Lael Miller

  BANNER O’BRIEN

  CORBIN’S FANCY

  MEMORY’S EMBRACE

  MY DARLING MELISSA

  ANGELFIRE

  DESIRE AND DESTINY

  FLETCHER’S WOMAN

  LAURALEE

  MOONFIRE

  WANTON ANGEL

  WILLOW

  PRINCESS ANNIE

  THE LEGACY

  TAMING CHARLOTTE

  YANKEE WIFE

  DANIEL’S BRIDE

  LILY AND THE MAJOR

  EMMA AND THE OUTLAW

  CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER

  PIRATES

  AND DON’T MISS HER NEXT BREATHTAKING TIME-TRAVEL ROMANCE

  MY OUTLAW

  Praise for Linda Lael Miller’s

  KNIGHTS

  “With a few highly original and new twists, Linda Lael Miller followed Pirates with another ingenious time-travel romance…. Using her many talents and her special storytelling abilities, she spins a magical romance designed to capture the imagination and the heart with wonder.”

  — Romantic Times

  “As her readers will expect, Linda Lael Miller whips her fiery characters into yet another clock-bendingly happy ending.”

  — Publishers Weekly

  “Charming! KNIGHTS entertains and enthralls from beginning to end with a clever plot and memorable characters!”

  — The Literary Times

  “Ms. Miller’s talent knows no bounds as each story she creates is a superb example of exemplary writing. By the end of one of her masterpieces, the reader will know that not only have they enjoyed the story but lived intimately with the characters through all their journeys—be it love, joy or pain. Keep it up, Ms. Miller, your stories are just one of the many reasons we love romance.”

  — Rendezvous

  “KNIGHTS is a fun-to-read weaving of elements from a time-travel romance into a magnificent medieval romance. Dane and Gloriana are superb characters deserving the empathy of the audience. Linda Lael Miller’s ability to paint a bygone era so vividly that it appears to be more a video than a novel makes this work a one-of-a-kind reading experience.”

  — Affaire de Coeur

  Books by Linda Lael Miller

  Knights

  Pirates

  Princess Annie

  The Legacy

  Taming Charlotte

  Yankee Wife

  Daniel’s Bride

  Caroline and the Raider

  Emma and the Outlaw

  Lily and the Major

  My Darling Melissa

  Angelfire

  Moonfire

  Wanton Angel

  Lauralee

  Memory’s Embrace

  Corbin’s Fancy

  Willow

  Banner O’Brien

  Desire and Destiny

  Fletcher’s Woman

  Published by POCKET BOOKS

  For orders other than by individual consumers, Pocket Books grants a discount on the purchase of 10 or more copies of single titles for special markets or premium use. For further details, please write to the Vice-President of Special Markets, Pocket Books, 1633 Broadway, New York, NY 10019-6785, 8th Floor.

  For information on how individual consumers can place orders, please write to Mail Order Department, Simon & Schuster Inc., 200 Old Tappan Road, Old Tappan, NJ 07675.

  KNIGHTS

  Linda Lael Miller

  POCKET BOOKS

  New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore

  The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons. living or dead, is entirely coincidental:

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1996 by Linda Lael Miller

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-87317-2

  eISBN-13: 978-1-439-10812-3

  ISBN 978-0-671-87317-2

  First Pocket Books paperback printing December 1996

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Cover art Danilo Ducak

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  For my mother, Hazel Bleecker Lael, with love and gratitude for a thousand stories and snickerdoodles, among other things.

  This one is all yours, Mom.

  I love you.

  Prologue

  Not so long ago, and not so far away …

  There was magic in this place. Not the pretend stuff, either, but the real thing.

  The child Megan stood a little apart from her boarding school classmates, forgetting her loneliness for the moment as she clasped the magnificent doll in her arms and gazed in fascination at a gap in one of the abbey walls. No one else seemed to notice that the space was shimmering with specks of blue and gold and silver, and abuzz with an odd, silent music all its own.

  As she looked on, the rusted iron bars of a gate shaped themselves out of nothing. Behind her, the other students chattered, pleased to pass a sunny spring afternoon outside the high, thick walls of Briarbrook School, oblivious to everything but this brief escape from their studies.

  Megan took a step nearer to the gate, inexplicably drawn, though she supposed she should have been frightened. Her hold tightened on the doll as she advanced.

  Just then, a fairy-tale princess appeared on the other side of the gate, smiling and beckoning. She was beautiful, in a gown of sapphire blue, with golden hair trailing down over her shoulders and past her waist. Her skin was very white, her eyes the same vivid color as her clothes.

  “Megan,” the lady said, in a sweet voice that reminded the child of the wind chimes on the neighbors’ back porch, far away in America.

  Five on her last birthday and wise beyond her years, partly because she was an only child and partly because she was very bright, Megan Saunders knew better than to speak to strangers. She glanced back, seeking permission or rebuke from one of her teachers, but as usual no one was paying any attention to her. Sometimes, she actually thought she was invisible.

  Holding her doll, all she really owned except for her uniforms and books and a box full of playclothes left from her old life in America, she took another step toward the gate.

  The lady crouched, her long dress pooling around her, her white hands grasping the bars loosely, for balance. She spoke again, but her words sounded strange, like another language, and Megan frowned in confusion.

  “I mustn’t speak to people I don’t know,” Megan said, addressing the doll in her arms, rather than the princess. It was not a toy, really, but an exquisite model of Queen Elizabeth I, of England, who was sometimes called Gloriana. Or so the saleslady in the toy department at Harrods had said when Megan’s parents had bought it for her, as if to say they were sorry for leaving her.

  Though they hadn’t been, of course. They could hardly wait to get rid of Megan and go their separate ways, and they’d made no secret of it.

  They were getting a divorce, her mommy and daddy, and they’d signed pa
pers in the headmistress’s office, before going away. According to one of the older girls at Briarbrook School, Megan was an orphan now, because Mommy had gone back to America forever—Erica Fairfield Saunders was the sole heiress to a large fortune and liked to play—and Daddy, a native Englishman who preferred to be called Jordan, even by his own daughter, didn’t want to be “tied down.” He had his career in the London theater to think about.

  He also had a large chunk of Erica’s inheritance.

  Somewhere, too, there was money set aside for Megan, not that she cared. She was, after all, only five years old.

  Raised in lavish neglect, Megan did not particularly miss either Erica or Jordan, but she knew that other girls and boys were loved, even cherished, by their mothers and fathers, and she yearned to be like those children. To belong somewhere.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the lady said, and Megan was somewhat startled to realize that she’d understood.

  “I’m all right,” she replied, puzzled but still not afraid. “How do you know my name?”

  “By a kind of magic,” came the answer, which Megan readily accepted. She had spent a lot of time alone, before coming to England, and she’d gotten very good at imagining things. Princesses and princes, castles and dragons were among her favorites.

  “What is your name?” Megan demanded.

  “Elaina,” was the reply. The gate creaked on unoiled hinges as she opened it, but the sound wasn’t spooky at all.

  Megan looked back to see if anyone was watching, and no one was. She held out the doll for the lady Elaina’s inspection. “This is Gloriana,” she said.

  The gateway widened. “Lovely,” said Elaina, in a wonderfully gentle voice, warm as a hug.

  “There are five Megans in my class at Brianwood,” the child confided, close enough now that she could touch the lady if she wanted, see the weave in her splendid dress and the texture of her flowing hair. “I think that’s too many, don’t you?”

  Elaina frowned, as though working something through. “Perhaps we ought to call you Gloriana instead,” she decided. She stepped back, and Megan, more than willing to be Gloriana, passed over the threshold,

  “I like that much better,” the little girl said solemnly. A deep quietness had settled over the grounds, and turning, she saw the other schoolchildren as if through a dense, silent rain. They looked like ghosts, gradually fading from shadow to vapor to nothing at all.

  “Do you want to go back to them, Gloriana? Back to that other world?” asked Elaina, lowering herself again, to look into her eyes. “The choice is entirely yours. You needn’t stay here, if that isn’t what you want.”

  Gloriana, it was wonderful to be called by that name.

  She thought of her lonely cot in the dormitory, her tattered books, and the desk in her schoolroom. Her parents had probably forgotten all about her by now; they’d been so anxious to get their divorce and get on with their lives. They hadn’t kissed her good-bye or promised to visit or even told her to be a good girl.

  She still cried every night, when all the lights were out, though she knew it was silly.

  “Could I live in a castle and ride a pretty pony like a princess in a story, and marry a prince when I grow up?” she asked.

  Elaina’s smile warmed her all the way through. “You shall definitely live in a castle and have a pony—and, well, if not a prince, might you not accept a very nice baron for a husband? You needn’t decide today, since it will be many years before you’ll make a proper wife.”

  Gloriana nodded, looked back through the gate, and saw with relief that the other children had not reappeared, nor had the world they inhabited. Now there was nothing to be seen but cobblestones and flowers, the gate and the high abbey wall.

  “I’m very hungry,” Gloriana said solemnly. She’d left her lunch, packed by the school cafeteria, aboard the bus. None of that seemed real now; it was all blessedly far away, on the other side of the rainbow.

  “Then you must come with me,” Lady Elaina replied sweetly, offering her hand.

  Gloriana accepted. “Are you a fairy godmother?” she inquired, as they walked along a narrow path weaving its way out of the courtyard and through a maze of high stone walls.

  “No,” Elaina said, “definitely not.”

  “But you did magic.” For just a moment, Megan was back, troublesome and too smart for her own good.

  “No, dear,” the lady argued cheerfully, hoisting the little girl up to stand upon a bench so that she might look straight into her eyes. “It is you who worked a spell, not I.” She frowned, assessing Megan/Gloriana’s field trip garb of jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers. “We must do something about those garments before anyone sees you.”

  “What’s wrong with them?” Gloriana asked, puzzled. Usually, the students at Briarwood wore uniforms, and to put on regular clothes was a rare treat.

  “None of them have been invented yet,” Elaina said thoughtfully. “There will be enough questions as it is, with you just appearing out of nowhere—”

  Gloriana felt a lump form in her throat and swallowed painfully. “Maybe I’ll be too much trouble,” she whispered. She was used to being in the way, a problem to be dealt with. She remembered how her mommy and daddy had screamed at each other, and thrown things, and referred to her as “your kid,” as though neither wanted to admit that she beloned to them.

  Elaina embraced her suddenly, almost squashing the doll between them, and when she drew back, there were tears in her eyes. “Of course you won’t be any trouble at all,” she said earnestly, after a few sniffles. “You are the answer to a thousand prayers. Now—come along, child. There are things we must do….”

  Chapter 1

  Dane St. Gregory, fifth baron of Kenbrook, raised one gloved hand in a gesture of weary command. At his back, the remains of his private army came to a clattering, snuffling, and decidedly graceless halt. His charger, Peleus, an agile, muscular beast with a hide as black as the deepest fold of Lucifer’s heart, planted wide hooves on the stony soil of the ridge and, nickering, tossed his massive head. Dane had bought the animal just a fortnight ago, at a horse fair in Flanders, and he’d spent a great many deniers in the process—so many that the purchase had all but emptied his purse.

  The expense was well justified in Kenbrook’s mind, for such sturdy mounts, full of stamina and thus ideal for fighting, were rare in England. He had only to breed the stallion to the best mares at Hadleigh, and over time, the enterprise would yield a herd of such steeds. The profits, he knew, would be substantial.

  Dane drew a long breath and released it slowly, fixing his attention on the landscape. Far below, the lake glittered pale green, like a misshapen jewel, capturing the late summer afternoon sunlight, sending it dancing over a windswept surface in glimmering shards. Hadleigh Castle, that grim and ancient fortress, boasting three baileys and twice as many towers, loomed upon the southern shore. At the base of its drawbridge, which spanned an empty moat, but still within the outermost walls, huddled the small, shoddy village, also called Hadleigh. It was a community of huts and hovels, with sheep and swine and chickens choking the narrow lanes, but there was an inn with a tavern and a humble church boasting one stainedglass window—a modest depiction of St. George slaying the dragon.

  The grand house of Cyrus the wool merchant stood a little apart from the others, a sturdy structure of red brick, with a tiled roof, gardens, and a small courtyard. Doubtless, Dane assured himself, his child-bride, Gloriana, would be eager to return to that gracious haven. Neither Hadleigh Castle nor Kenbrook Manor were half so hospitable, despite their august histories and their many rooms.

  Dane shifted uneasily, aching in all his old wounds. The merchant would be furious on hearing the news he bore, and not without cause.

  He set his jaw and leaned forward, resting one forearm on the pommel of his saddle and surveying the pleasant vista spread before him. The marriage to Gloriana was meaningless—the chit had been a mere seven years of age when their vows were said, after
all, and he a callow lad of sixteen. Neither of them had even been present for the ceremony; the little girl had stayed in London Town, attended by her doting mother, while Dane himself had already set sail for the Continent, there to learn the lucrative soldiering trade. The match was loveless on both sides, he reasoned, quite unlike the one he meant to make with Mariette, and therefore, Gloriana had no cause for heartbreak. Indeed, she might well be overjoyed to find herself free of him.

  The idea, for all its vast convenience, was somehow unsettling.

  He let his gaze sweep beyond the village gates, and there, of course, was the crumbling abbey, just a quarter mile along the rutted road that curved around the lake like the languid arm of a lover. The lane disappeared into a dense forest of oak and emerged, at length, before the gates of Kenbrook Manor.

  Dane smiled. Built on the site of a Roman fortress and boasting one squat tower, that forbidding pile of stones had been in steady decline for centuries. The roof had collapsed here and there, and in winter, icy winds swept the passageways, extinguishing lamps and torches. There were ghosts prowling about, it was said, truculent ones lacking all charms and graces. On occasion, the wolves got in and made a den of the place.

  For all its shortcomings, the manor was Dane’s by right, and he had always loved it. He would set about making the place habitable, and by the time he was free to take Mariette to wife, Kenbrook would be restored to its original glory. Dane meant to sire sons within its walls and raise the lads to be knights, stout fighting men to take up the cause of justice and make a father proud. He hoped for daughters, as well, pretty, accomplished girls who might make fortuitous marriages.

  With a sigh, he turned to look down into the exquisite face of the young woman beside him. Resplendent upon her small dapple-gray palfrey, fresh and unruffled despite several grueling days on the roads and the turbulent crossing from Normandy before that, Mariette de Troyes favored him with a sweet, demure smile. Then she lowered her eyes, lashes fluttering.

  Dane’s heart swelled with pride and an emotion he reckoned to be pure adulation. “Look, Mariette,” he bid her quietly, pointing toward Kenbrook Manor. “There stands our home.”

  Mariette adjusted her elaborate headdress, a pristine wimplelike affair that hid her hair, her crowning glory, from everyone except her servingwoman and Dane himself. Although he had not been intimate with Mariette—she was gently bred and had passed her tender years in a French nunnery—he had caught illicit glimpses of those lush ebony tresses on occasion. One day soon, when His Holiness had granted the proper decree, thus dissolving the sham marriage to Gloriana, it would be Dane’s privilege to see and touch that splendid mane of silk, to run his fingers through it and bury his face in its fragrant softness, night and morning.