The Queen of Croy
Princess Opal crossed an ocean to sit the throne in Croy—a throne previously held by her mother before she became a revolutionary, fell out of favor with the king, and was shipped to another country to become merely a second wife.
The path to the palace won’t be an easy one, however. Opal will have to defeat the current queen, an exiled prince, evil cultists, and the rugged country of Croy itself to gain the crown.
And she’s not completely sure she’s up to the task.
"Cinematic! Captures the reader from the first breath to the final exhale. The details and timing are flawless. And the romantic tension is a perfect balance of fun and sentiment. Readers will love this believable and well-written medieval adventure."
Prologue
“What is this, mother?” Millicent looked up from the dress she was sewing to find her little blond daughter Opal pulling one of her older pieces of clothing from the bottom of an old trunk.
She held up the tunic Millicent had donned for her trip across the sea a decade ago, never to be worn again. Though only having seven years, the hem barely swept the floor as Opal held it up in front of her.
Millicent put down her sewing and rose to cross the room, taking the mottled green and brown tunic from her hands and holding it to her own still-slim figure. “This was mine once upon a time.”
Opal’s blue eyes flew wide. “But ‘tis so short!”
Handing it back to Opal, Millicent went to her knees before the trunk and dug until she pulled out a pair of slim trousers. “These went underneath.”
Opal’s eyes stayed wide. “You dressed like Papa?”
Millicent sat back on her heels. “I’ve told you about the revolution in Croy.” She swept a hand down the bodice of her finely embroidered gown. “We could not have fought in something like this.”
Opal crossed her legs and sat on the floor in a way that would make her father fume, the tunic now wadded up on her lap. “Did you really fight like knights?”
“No,” Millicent said without hesitation. “We fought more honorably than knights and with far less bloodshed.” She refolded the trousers and put them back in the trunk. “Because men are stronger, women must be more clever.”
“I can be clever!” Opal declared. “Sometimes I am so clever, Master Leonard sends me to my room in the middle of our lessons.” She grinned. “Which is exactly where I wanted to go.”
Millicent raised an auburn brow. “’Tis not clever to avoid learning.” She pushed up and went back to her chair, picking up her sewing. “Although had you done it to avoid stitching, I would heartily agree.”
Noticing the angle of the sun due to the shutters flung wide on this fine summer day, she set her sewing back down. “Come. It’s nearly time to dress for supper.”
Opal got to her feet, still holding Millicent’s decade-old tunic. “Can I wear this? On me ‘twould be a gown.”
She extracted it gently from her hands. “No, my dear, that would not please your father.”
Millicent refolded it and laid it back in the trunk as Opal put her hands to her hips. “You are always saying that. What <em>does </em>please him?”
Her daughter’s exasperated expression brought on a chuckle. “Your father would be pleased if you grew up to be nothing like your mother.”
Chapter 1
“How can I help?!” Princess Opal yelled into the wind as the cold rain slashed
at her face. The bobbing of the ship had sent her to the slick ship’s deck more than once in this storm that had come up quickly in the middle of the night, and all hands were attempting to keep the ship upright.
“I told you to stay in your cabin!” Penelope called back from the bow’s upper deck.
Opal pulled herself along the rail on the central lower deck, her teeth chattering. “Th-there must be something I c-can do!”
“Nah! You are not trained for this!”
And though she had trained with the Croyan women in archery and all their throwing weapons—though she could now fight with a dagger and a short sword passably well—she felt once again as if she were being sent to her room to stitch a hem. “Tell me what to do, and I will do it!”
A huge swell sent her to the deck once more, and she slid to the side. Lightning split the sky as she hit the rail hard. She put a hand to her head, blinking, as her stomach took that moment to turn over. Pulling herself to her feet, she leaned over the edge as her last meal joined the thrashing waves.
Arms clamped around her waist and attempted to pull her from the edge. “Nay!” she shouted, holding on, “I wish to help!”
“Princess,” the man’s voice sounded well above her head. “No one has time to help you learn the workings of a ship at the moment. You will only endanger others.”
She released the rail, allowing whoever had taken it upon themselves to reprimand her to have his way. She pulled out of his grip, however, determined to make it back to her cabin without assistance. “I need not your help!” She swiped at the rain-soaked hair in her eyes.
In the next moment, she hit the deck again, and this time, the man scooped her up. “I think you do.”
She didn’t fight him this time, and she was amazed at his surefootedness as he made his way across the lowest central deck toward her cabin that sat below the stern’s upper deck. He breezed past the railing surrounding the stairs going down and around the short wall that hid the entrance to her cabin.
He set her on her feet in front of the door, and to her consternation, just stood at her elbow. “Th-thank you. I can f-find my own hammock.” She reached for the latch, shivering violently.
“I’m sure you can.” He waved a hand. “Lead on.”
“I do not require c-company,” she said as she opened the door to the dark cabin. She wished for light, but with the ship being tossed to and fro, no lanterns could be lit. Why was this man still behind her?
After stumbling over the threshold, and once again feeling his hands on her, she spun to give him a few words on manhandling a princess. Unfortunately, a wave of dizziness hit her, and she grabbed onto his heavy mantle instead.
“Steady now.” His hands gripped her elbows.
All the shaking was giving her a headache—or perhaps it was the blow to her head when she hit the rail. “Just g-give me a moment to—”
“Strip out of those wet clothes,” her guide said with a nonchalance she would have never expected with those words.
She looked to his face, feeling more sure of her footing, though she could see not one feature. “With y-you in the r- room?” Her teeth were nearly chattering out of her head.
“Can you see me?” It sounded as if he threw off his mantle.
She released him and stepped back, straining her eyes toward his voice but saw nothing but black. “Nay, but—”
“Then I can’t see you.”
Though her head was throbbing, and the cold went clear to her bones, she could not allow a man to remain in her cabin
while she got undressed. “I am a p-princess of Roan!” she spouted, “and I will n-not—”
“And I am the healer for this ship. If I don’t get you warmed up, you could catch your death, and shortly after, I would find myself in the stocks or worse for allowing you to die.”
“It would n-not be your f-fault,” she insisted, even as she was finding it difficult to order her thoughts and keep her feet.
He took two steps toward her. “I will get you out of them if need be,” he said low.
She put hands out to give him a shove, meeting his ribcage but moving him not an inch. “Get back, or I’ll scream!”
Hands caught her wrists. “Princess,” he breathed out, “while I am here with you, there is a vacancy on deck among those trying to keep this ship afloat. Allow me to assist you, lest we all die.”
She ceased her struggle, and he released her. The weight of his words had her turning around as she reassured herself. <em>He’s the healer. </em>“I c-cannot untie the lacings myself.”
While he worked on the sodden laces, she put hands to her temples and tried to keep her thoughts from skittering away—bits and pieces of her life in Roan mixing up with the completely new ship life she’d endured for more than a month. She winced with the man’s hand on her head.
“You are bleeding.”
“’Tis possible,” she whispered, feeling weak. “I hit my head.”
“I know. I saw.” He pushed her tunic over her shoulders and tugged on her form-fitting sleeves that, when wet, did not want to be removed.
The ship pitched, and a wave of dizziness hit her. Her head reared back into his chest, and her knees gave out. He caught her before she hit the floor. “Princess!”
She tried to answer. She tried to straighten her knees and her spine, but the ship was now spinning along with the up and down thrashing. She tried to think her way through, but her thoughts were impossible to grab onto, and she found herself clinging to the man trying to move her across the room, with no words forming. Then she slid into a dark hole from which she could not escape.
“Princess, can you hear me!” She had gone completely limp. Cursing, Eryn wished for an actual bed to lay her on, rather than a hammock, even though, with the turbulent waters, he would be hard-pressed to keep her in it.
Sweeping a hand to his left, he found the table and set her in the chair next to it. Folding her over the table, he used extra care with her head. He had no idea yet, the extent of her injuries. The fact that she was shaking and passed out was not a good sign.
He needed to see.
Despite the rules about lighting a lantern in these conditions, he felt along the wall until he found it and had it lit in a few moments. Her blond head was indeed bleeding, although it looked to be mostly stopped. The main thing was to get her out of her soaked clothing and warmed up. A hot bath would have been ideal, but he’d have to make do with his own body heat plus the fur in her hammock. He hoped he truly wasn’t needed on deck, as he couldn’t leave her.
He pulled the knife from its sheath on his belt and cut down the sleeves on each arm, a precarious act with the current tossing of the waves. Once accomplished without nicking her pale skin, he pulled the fur from her hammock to cover her as he worked underneath it to free her from the wet fabric.
As he cursed the tight trousers, he pondered this wisp of a woman and the daft plan they had to put her on Croy’s throne. Though he’d had very little need to speak with her since she’d come aboard, and Penelope and Astrid kept her from the men as though they considered them all possible ravishers, he’d watched her from afar. She certainly had the bearing of a queen—even in the Croyan dress that was anything but queenly—but he wasn’t yet convinced of her ability to hold the throne, even if she were able to acquire it. The current monarch, Queen Verity, was half a foot taller with a buxom figure. She made this one look but a child.
Finally deciding he’d need to turn her to get the leggings off, he pivoted her on the chair while easing her head back against the cabin wall. After struggling with the soaked leggings, he worked the fur more fully around her before parting her hair to look at her head wound. She had a gash that needed to be stitched. It was no longer bleeding, however, so he cleaned it with some ale and was glad when she sat forward with a gasp from the sting of it.
“There she is, the feisty Princess of Roan. I was beginning to wonder where she had gone.”
She seemed disoriented but not so much that she could not pull out a sputtering, “What have you done?” as she struggled to pull the fur tighter around her, her rich alto voice full of indignation.
“What had to be done, Princess, to keep you alive.” He squatted down to better look in her eyes. “And fear not, I have not even looked upon you.” He sought to turn down her horror with a smile. “You have had a very hard knock to the head, which means. . . ” Her eyes were sliding closed again. He put a hand to her shoulder, and they popped back open. “Which means I can’t let you sleep for very long at a time.”
“That’s good,” she said, her eyes fluttering closed, “because I am not tired.”
He chuckled, but the ship rocked, setting him back on his butt and sending the princess pitching forward on top of him. She didn’t move. “Princess?” He put fingers to her neck and found a pulse. She was just out again. Reaching to the side, he found his beaver skin cloak and pulled it over them both. He’d wake her in thirty minutes, which was just about fifteen rounds of the bawdy drinking song, “All Through the Night.”
He supposed he shouldn’t sing it out loud.