This
week, we’re welcoming author Blythe Gifford, a regular Unusual Historicals contributor,
whose Brunson Clan trilogy launches this month with RETURN OF THE BORDER WARRIOR.
The series will continue with CAPTIVE OF
THE BORDER LORD, January 2013
and TAKEN BY THE BORDER REBEL, March
2013. Blythe will be here Sunday to talk about the series in more detail and
offer a copy to one lucky commenter.
RETURN OF
THE BORDER WARRIOR is set on the Scottish Borders during the early Tudor era
and centers on a family of Border Reivers. Here’s a glimpse of the story, along
with an excerpt:
WORD IN THE ROYAL COURT HAS SPREAD THAT THE WILD
SCOTTISH BORDERS ARE TOO UNRULY. UPON THE KING'S COMMAND, JOHN BRUNSON MUST
RETURN HOME...
Once part of a powerful border clan, John has not set sight on the Brunson stone tower in years. With failure never an option, he must persuade his family to honour the King’s call for peace.
To succeed, John knows winning over the daughter of an allied family, Cate Gilnock, holds the key. But this intriguing beauty is beyond the powers of flattery and seduction. Instead, the painful vulnerability hidden behind her spirited eyes calls out to John as he is inexorably drawn back into the warrior Brunson clan…
In this
excerpt from Chapter One, John has come across Cate, practicing her sword
fighting against her own shadow. He thinks to play with her, easily besting her
sword with his dagger, but the woman proves more capable than he imagined…
He jumped just in time
to escape a touch. Now was not the time for distractions. He had expected a
playful joust. Instead, he faced a warrior.
He swung high, but she
held up her sword, turned sideways, to block his stroke. A clever move, but
lifting the two-handed sword had strained her strength and when she lowered it,
her arms shook.
Seizing on her weakness,
he attacked and they crossed blades again.
Prepared now, he leveraged his strength against her sword. Though she
kept her grip, he pushed the blade away, coming close enough to feel her chest
rise and fall, nearly touching his.
Close enough that his
mind wandered, careless of the blades, thinking that under her tunic and vest,
she had breasts. Now he could see her face, the angles of it, sharp and cleanly
sculpted as her sword. Yet thick lashes edged her brown eyes, disguising some
of the hatred there.
“Surrender now?”
Panting, she shook her
head. Yet her lips parted, tempting him to take them. She was, after all, a
woman. A kiss would be mightier than a sword.
He pushed her sword arm
down, pulled her to him, and took her lips.
She yielded for a
breath, no more.
But it was long enough
for him to lose his thoughts, to forget she held a sword and remember only that
she was a woman, breasts soft against his chest, smelling of heather…
In a flash, she turned
stiff as a sword and leaned away, though her lips did not leave his, so he
thought she only teased.
When he felt the point
of a dirk at his throat, he knew she did not.
“Let me go,” she said,
her lips still close that they moved over his. “Or you’ll be bleeding and I’ll
leave you to it, I swear.”
He eased his arms from
her back and she pushed him away, wiped her mouth, and spat into the dirt.
He touched the scratch
she’d left on his neck, grateful she had not drawn blood.
Her eyes, which he had
thought to turn soft with pleasure, narrowed, hard with fury.
“It’s a Brunson you’re
facing,” he said, trying a smile. “Not a Storwick.”
She raised both sword
and dirk, the larger wobbling in her grip. “It’s a man I’m facing who thinks
what I want is of no consequence if it interferes with his privileges and
pleasures.”
Had he imagined the echo
of the bedchamber in her voice? No more.
He raised his eyebrows,
opened his arms and made a slight bow. “A thousand pardons.” Words as insincere
as the feelings behind them.
She frowned. “You are a
stranger here, so you know no better. And because you are a Brunson, I’ll let
you keep your head, but I’ll warn you just once. You will not do that again. Ever.”
She lowered her sword,
slowly.
You are a stranger. She
was the Brunson, besting him with a sword, displacing him at the family table. His
temper rose. “And what if I do?”
The blade rose, this
time, not pointed at his throat, but between his legs. “If you do, you won’t
have to worry about bedding a woman ever again.”
He swallowed, gingerly,
his body on fire. Only because she had challenged him. Nothing more. No man
could desire such a woman.
“Then have no worries on
that score, Catie Gilnock,” he said, flush with anger. “When next I bed a
woman, it most certainly will not be you.”
Blythe Gifford has been known for medieval romances featuring
characters born on the wrong side of the royal blanket. Now, she’s launching a
trilogy set on the turbulent Scottish Borders of the early Tudor era, starting
with RETURN OF THE BORDER WARRIOR, November 2012, Harlequin Historical. CAPTIVE
OF THE BORDER LORD will follow in January 2013, and TAKEN BY THE BORDER REBEL
in March 2013. The Chicago Tribune has called her work “the perfect balance
between history and romance.”
Visit her at www.blythegifford.com, www.facebook.com/BlytheGifford, or on Twitter @BlytheGifford.
Photo
credits. Cover used with permission. Author photo by Jennifer Girard
