Welcome to
the candlelit courts of Europe!
Uninvited guests at a secret wedding.
A frozen
River Thames.
May Day
celebrations to remember.
The young
Henry VIII, with the aid of his chief advisor, Thomas Wolsey, and against the
counsel of Thomas Howard, the Earl of Surrey, is hellbent on a so-called holy
war with France. This puts him at odds with his Scottish brother-in-law, James
IV of Scotland, and his older sister, Margaret.
Both Tristan and Nicolas know that time is running
out for them before they have to…enter the Church - and into an arranged
marriage, respectively. In the meantime, they remain at loggerheads over pretty
Ysabeau de Sapincourt, the spoilt young wife of the hapless Robert.
At La Colombe, near Ardres, in Picardy, spirited
little Valentine is still making mischief as she sees fit.
Across the Narrow Sea, Cecily is perfectly content
in her beloved Zennor Castle, in Cornwall.
None of them know what Dame Fortune has in store for
them. Will she allow them to follow their own paths…or has she got other ideas?
EXCERPT
The
following passage is the first time Valentine de Fleury appears in Beware the
Lizard Lurking, up to mischief as usual. The eldest daughter (with four sisters) of Charles, a baron,
nine-year-old Valentine is aware that her father is in desperate need of a male
heir. If not, the entire family estate will pass to a distant male cousin. Close
neighbours of the Ardres family at the nearby Castle, Valentine enjoys nothing
more than bating Tristan, the younger son who is destined for a cloistered life
in the Church.
Saint
Valentine’s Day, 1513.
La Colombe.
Picardy, France.
Valentine
was bored. She’d sought out Béatrice but now she was being shooed into the
garden, and told to go and find Bonne and her little sisters.
‘I need to
go the kitchens and ask Maître Jacques for some soft-boiled eggs for your
mother,’ said the housekeeper. ‘Her food was too salty yesterday. Everyone
knows that an excess of salt in a woman’s diet results in a babe born without
nails.’ She gave Valentine a gentle push. ‘Vas-y,
ma petite. And don’t take your
mittens off. You’ll catch a rheum.’
Valentine
shuddered at the thought of this latest little baby brother being born without
nails. Poor Maman. Preparing for a babe
seemed very tiresome, especially as you spent your days sore ailing. And all
that for a babe who was born sickly and ended up in the churchyard of
Notre-Dame de Grâce. <<I’m quite
sure I never want to be with child>>
Wandering
down to the herb garden, from the steps above, Valentine could see two of her
sisters but they were with Barbe, the pastry cook’s young daughter, not Bonne.
Knowing there would be little likelihood of Barbe wondering where she was,
Valentine decided to seize the opportunity to go off on an adventure.
<<I’ll go to the Castle to see what Tristan’s
up to. It’ll vex him and give me some sport. Everyone here’s been far too busy
to remember it’s Saint Valentine’s Day, as well as my name day>>
Even though
it was still early in the morning, Valentine had convinced herself there’d be
no gifts for anyone this year. She was quite certain she’d have more luck
chasing a moonbeam in May than waiting around at La Colombe. All of a sudden,
she brightened at the thought of going over to the Castle. <<Who knows, they might be giving each other
gifts and I might get some marchpane from their cook>>
*
Deciding to
take a short cut, she hurried across several frost-gilded fields, and up a very
long winding path to reach the Castle. She could feel her spirits lifting the
moment she set eyes upon Tristan’s magnificent family home, nestled comfortably
on a hill high above the banks of a lake. She and her father often passed it on
one of their many walks so she knew that it was several hundred years old, and
each successive member of the Ardres family had inherited it from his own
father.
<<Unlike our home. And poor Papa who might
have to suffer a distant cousin coming to live at La Colombe, just because all
of his children are girls>>
Although
this thought made her chest feel very tight, Valentine allowed the scene before
her to soothe away such unwelcome thoughts. She turned to look back down at the
lake. Pretty blue turrets, sunlight playing on the walls, various trees and, in
particular, a nearby overhanging weeping willow, were all reflected quite
spectacularly in the water lapping against the sides.
She knew
all about the Castle’s history from her father who delighted in teaching her
facts from far-off times. Tristan’s family home dated back five hundred years:
to when the first Comte d’Ardres, commanded by Duke William of Normandy to
visit the Abbot of Saint Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, England, with the Abbot
of the Mont Saint-Michel (who lived near the original family seat, not far from
Saint-Malo) had taken a fancy to the green, fertile countryside, and decided to
build his principal dwelling there. Ever since that time, the black and golden
eagle of the Ardres coat-of-arms - with its outstretched wings signifying
protection - had been proudly displayed above the entrance to the Castle.
“And,” her father had told her, “every single lord and master who’s ever
lived there has tried his best to
live up to the family motto: ‘Verum animi et robore mentis’.”
*
Skipping
across the drawbridge as she’d done so many times before, Valentine walked
under the arch, past the heavy studded gates and entered the large courtyard.
Half-expecting to find Tristan there, she was slightly crestfallen when she
came across his brother, Gilles, and the Count’s ward, Nicolas, engaged in a
noisy sword fight. Nicolas was obviously much more accomplished than the Ardres
heir (a worthy claimant to the family fortune, like the one her father was
longing to appear at La Colombe), and as light on his feet as one of the
acrobats who’d performed at her home on Twelfth Night.
Both young
men were comely but Nicolas was by far the more eye-catching, she decided. With
his dark eyes, curls as black as a pail of tar, and a well-shaped mouth, now
pressed tight in concentration, she could see why all the maids at La Colombe
admired him. They were both so engrossed in their game that she stood there for
several long minutes before they noticed her. Holding up his sword straight in
front of him to signal to Gilles that he was taking a break, Nicolas gave her a
sweeping bow.
‘Bonjour, ma petite Valentine. Have you
come to watch two knights in training?’
‘Ou—’
‘Non!’ interrupted Gilles, mopping his
brow with a large white handkerchief. ‘She’s come to smile prettily at our
cook, knowing he can’t resist her charms. He’ll probably make her some tasty
titbit, such as a necklace of dried fruit and almonds that’s been caramelized
using the heat of the fire. C’est vrai, n’est-ce pas, Valentine?’
Nicolas
smiled at her. ‘And why shouldn’t the cook give her something? As it’s your
name day today, it’s only fitting that you should have a gift.’
‘Merci, Nicolas!’ exclaimed Valentine,
jumping up and down in the air, clapping her hands together. ‘Everyone at La
Colombe is far too triste to bother
with any of that.’
‘Then we
must make amends right away,’ he replied. ‘Come, let’s go to the kitchens.’
‘What about
your fight?’
‘Oh, don’t
trouble yourself about that,’ said Gilles, looking quite relieved, she thought.
‘Nicò has got the better of me as usual.’
Valentine
watched Nicolas reach out and slap Gilles on the shoulders. ‘Bravissimo, mio amico! We’ll make a
swordsman out of you yet.’
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¸.•*´¨)✯ ¸.•*¨) ✮ ( ¸.•´✶
Vivienne Brereton
Born between historic Winchester and Southampton in the
UK, Vivienne has been passionate about the Tudors for as long as she can
remember. This led to a degree in Medieval History at university, and the
growing desire to write a novel.
However, life took over somewhat and only after stays,
short and long, in six countries she called home did she finally settle down to
finish her novel.
Words have always played an important part in her life,
whether it's been writing, editing, teaching English, or just picking up a good
book.
Having three sons came in very handy when she had to
write about squabbles between the male characters in her novel. Not so handy
when she took her boys to Hampton Court and one of them got lost in the maze!
Seeing 'A Phoenix Rising', the first book in the series
'The House of the Red Duke' in print for the first time was a moment of great
joy for her. She very much hopes that anyone reading ‘Beware the Lizard
Lurking’, the second book in the series, will enjoy the end result as much as
she enjoyed writing it.
Connect with Vivienne
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