SILVERSWORD (DE LOHR DYNASTY) by KATHRYN LE VEQUE BLOG EVENT & GIVEAWAY

BOOK & AUTHOR INFO:

Silversword (de Lohr Dynasty Book 7) by USA Today and Amazon All-Star best-selling author Kathryn Le Veque

Publication date: June 17^th, 2016

Genre: Medieval Romance

ABOUT SILVERSWORD:

266 A.D. – Chadwick “Chad” de Lohr, son of Daniel de Lohr (SHADOWMOOR) is a hero at the Battle of Evesham. Saving the hostage Henry III from Simon de Montfort, he is riding high on a wave of royal praise at the conclusion of the battle. But that favor with the king is short-lived.

Henry, once again in power after the death of de Montfort, is determined to rid his country of the de Montfort-supporting rebels once and for all. This includes a campaign of harassment against the nobles who supported de Montfort through the years, namely, the House of de Shera (THE LORDS OF THUNDER TRILOGY). The House of the de Lohr and the House of de Shera are linked by blood, and when Henry orders that a de Shera heiress be removed from Newington Priory and placed in Henry’s custody as a hostage to ensure the House of de Shera’s behavior, Chad races to Newington to remove his distant cousin from the abbey before Henry can take her hostage.

Chad’s noble act to save Alessandria de Shera is the first step in a chain of events that sees the House of de Lohr increasingly turned against the king. He is determined to take Alessandria back to Isenhall Castle where she can be protected by her warlord cousins, the LORDS OF THUNDER. It’s a race through England as Chad and Alessandria stay one step ahead of Henry’s men in their pursuit to capture her. Aided by Davyss de Winter (LESPADA) and Bose de Moray (THE GORGON), the journey of Chad and Alessandria takes them through life, death, great hardship, fear, and finally passion beyond what they could have ever imagined.

It’s an eventual showdown between Henry, the LORDS OF THUNDER, and the House of de Lohr once Chad and Alessandria are cornered. Will Henry finally claim Alessandria? Or will Chad ultimately defeat the man he once saved?

SILVERSWORD EXCERPT:

Someone had her by the hair, pulling her up into the smoky air above. As Alessandria sputtered and tried to beat away the hand that held her, she could hear Chad’s voice.

“Are you well?” he demanded. “My lady, are you injured?”

He sounded panicked. Alessandria’s eyes were closed, water rushing in her face. “I am fine!” she shouted. “Let go of my hair!”

Chad instantly let her go and rushed to help Rhun and Jorden, who were pulling the burning blanket away from the door so Liselotte and Veronica could escape. He ushered his mother and sister out of the room, quickly, pausing in the chamber beyond to grab a bucket that was usually used to piss in. It still had some urine in the bottom of it but he didn’t give it a second thought. Rushing back into the chamber where thick, black smoke was gathering near the ceiling, he went straight to the copper tub where Alessandria was trying desperately to cover herself.

“Sorry, my lady.”

He said it swiftly, apologetically, as he dunked the bucket into her bathwater. Alessandria shrieked as some of the urine backwashed into the tub, watching as he threw the bucket onto the burning blanket, creating clouds of white steam and smoke from the doused flame. Meanwhile, Jorden had grasped a second bucket and also apologized to Alessandria before dropping the bucket into the bath and tossing the water onto the burning blanket.

Horrified at the fact that her bathwater was being depleted and her nakedness would be all that more apparent, Alessandria looked around with desperation for something to cover herself with and spied the stack of garments that Veronica had brought for her to wear. The closest thing she could get her hands on was red, and silk, and she yanked it into the tub with her, trying to cover herself up from the eyes of the men in the room.

But the attempt to cover herself made the situation go from bad to worse. With the water splashing and the silk in the tub with her, the dye ran and began to turn the water pink. Holding it up against her body as she was, the dye also ran onto her skin, turning it a lovely, blotchy shade of red.

Unfortunately, Alessandria didn’t notice any of this right away; she was too involved watching the knights put out the fire on the blanket. More than half of it had burned. Jorden and Rhun were still stamping on it as Chad stood over them, watching the situation with a critical eye.

“For a blanket, that put out a hell of a lot of smoke,” he muttered. “I thought the entire building was burning down.”

Jorden stamped down the last of the embers, coughing as he did so. He tried to keep his head down, out of the fog of smoke overhead. “We are fortunate the entire room isn’t ablaze,” he said. “I have seen that before.”

“So have I,” Rhun said, pulling at the blanket to make sure all of the embers were out. “I have seen something smaller than this burn out entire keeps.”

Chad, too, coughed as the smoke swirled around his head. “Now to get the smoke out of here,” he said. Then, he turned to Alessandria. “My lady, if you….”

Startled that the attention was back on her, and struggling to cover her naked breasts, Alessandria cut him off, screaming.

“Cover your eyes!”

Startled, Chad did as he was told. Jorden and Rhun, also startled by the lady’s scream, naturally turned to see why she had shouted and she screamed at them as well.

“Cover your eyes, all of you!”

The knights immediately complied, now the three of them standing in the middle of a smoke-filled room with their hands over their eyes. Covered from her neck to her pelvic region with silk that was bleeding red dye all over her, Alessandria had never been more mortified in her entire life.

“Now,” she cried, “get out of here!”

The knights weren’t sure what to do. They couldn’t very well leave without seeing where they were going but when Rhun attempted to remove his hand so he could see, Alessandria screamed again.

“I told you to cover your eyes!” she yelled. “Get out of here, all of you!”

“My lady,” Chad said, struggling not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. “We cannot leave with our eyes shut. We have to see where we are going.”

“You do not have to see anything,” Alessandria snapped fearfully. “Turn around and walk out.”

Chad sighed heavily and did just that, turning around with his hand still over his eyes and then when his back was turned, peeping through his fingers so he could see where he was going. Rhun was doing the same thing but Jorden was too far away to do it and not be seen. Still, he tried to turn away and walk, tripping over the blanket and crashing into Chad. Chad grabbed the man to steady him, pushing him through the chamber door. But he stopped short of going through himself when he suddenly heard soft sobs behind him.

He pretended to shut the door but he couldn’t help but look and see what had Alessandria so distressed. She was looking down at herself now, still seated in the tub, which at this point was barely half-full. She was holding a red garment of some kind over her chest that had leaked red dye all over everything. He could see her hard nipples through the fabric, which was very alluring, but the water was red and so was Alessandria. He could see the dye on her skin.

As the woman sat there and looked at the mess, she was weeping. Chad felt just as bad as he possibly could. He was about to say something to her when he heard his mother and sister behind him.

“Is it safe to go back in now?” Liselotte asked. “The fire is out?”

Chad nodded. “The fire is out,” he said. “Mother, it looks as if her tub needs to be refilled and she needs more clothing. Whatever you brought her has been ruined.”

Liselotte started to move into the chamber to assess the situation but Chad stopped her. “Go and get her something else,” he said in a low voice. “Make it warm and durable. Father has instructed me to take her to Isenhall so she will need something that will travel well.”

Liselotte looked at him with some surprise. “Isenhall?” she repeated. “Why are you taking her there?”

Chad couldn’t explain the entire thing. It would only upset her. “It is a long story,” he said. “Please do as I ask, Mother. And if you would be so kind as to give her a few more things, ladies clothing and mayhap a comb, I would be grateful. She has absolutely nothing.”

The lure of packing a bag for the lady’s travel had Liselotte suitably distracted. “Of course,” she said. “Your sister, Angelica, left some things behind when she was married. I believe there is something serviceable for the lady to take with her.”

Chad grinned. “You mean that she had so many possessions her husband would not let her take them all.”

It was a dig at his mother for spoiling her girl children, and Liselotte swatted her son on the buttocks as she turned to leave. Veronica, standing behind her mother, also turned around when her mother did.

“We will see what we can find,” Liselotte said, escorting Veronica from the chamber. “I will send servants with more water for the tub. We will return shortly.”

Chad watched his mother and sister leave before returning his attention to Alessandria. She wasn’t weeping as loudly as she had been but he could hear her sniffling. He knocked on the door softly.

“My lady?” he called gently. “If I promise to cover my eyes, may I speak with you? It is important.”

He could hear more sniffling. “I need something to dry myself with,” she said. “I cannot reach it.”

“I can.”

“How will you see what it is I need with your eyes covered?”

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ABOUT KATHRYN:

KATHRYN LE VEQUE is a USA TODAY Bestselling author, an Amazon All-Star author, and a #1 bestselling, award-winning, multi-published author in Medieval Historical Romance and Historical Fiction. She has been featured in the NEW YORK TIMES and on USA TODAY's HEA blog. In March 2015, Kathryn was the featured cover story for the March issue of InD'Tale Magazine, the premier Indie author magazine. She is also quintuple nominee (a record!) for the prestigious RONE awards for 2016.

Kathryn's Medieval Romance novels have been called 'detailed', 'highly romantic', and 'character-rich'. She crafts great adventures of love, battles, passion, and romance in the High Middle Ages. More than that