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Duke and Dutchess Isles are not especially well-loved. They gained the port keep of Botwulftun through force, chasing the Dubhghall clan into hiding. Childless themselves, they took the clan heir as their own. Marian Isles, once Maura Dubhghall, was raised in a sheltered, though well-read life.
Roughly siting this on the borderlands of the English Pale in Ireland, Giovanna Rizzoli has little stake in either side. She is good with any weapon you can name, by foot or by horseback, and she is glad to take a job that pays. Someone has to feed their family, given their merchant ship was long gone, dashed on the rocks of the Irish Sea.
She’s skilled enough she works her way up in the Isles household, discreet enough the Dutchess trusts her with the young heir, and pious enough to take serious her oaths before God. She swore she would protect this Lady Isles, and by God, she would keep her promises.
When you’re a mercenary, you know all kinds of people and hear all kinds of things. It’s a necessary part of the job. She had long heard murmurings that the lady was really Dubhghall’s, though it had never been more than a murmur. Not her business, not relevant to the job of keeping the lady safe.
However, when she heard an uprising was brewing, that did become her business.
Of course her brothers got involved in the fight. When someone else was putting food on the table, they were free to chase their ideas and passions. It had been a brutal winter, the people were hungry, but the Duke and his English court never lacked for food. When your children are hungry while the Duke puts on lavish feasts, well. It was the kind of thing that made people hungry for more than just food.
Giovanna’s brothers and the people they ran with saw her as a great asset, an inside woman to let them attack from the inside. She herself could easily throw the Lady Isles to the crowd. It was a perfect plan.
Only, Giovanna had made an oath before God. And of course she detested the woman, with her jewels and gowns and beautiful golden hair. Who smiled at her, read aloud to her from her endless books, who pouted so prettily when caught trying to sneak into the city. Giovanna should have been glad to turn her pampered English behind over to justice.
So she did help, she did. She helped the rebels sneak into the keep, drew them maps to get around, showed them the servants passages that would get them where they needed to go. But when the fight began, Giovanna was nowhere to be found.
Instead, immediately regretting her choices, she found herself half-dragging a particularly stubborn fancy lady out the servants’ kitchen garden, cursing at her to keep quiet and stop fussing.
She swore before God she’d keep this cursed, spoiled woman safe, and by God’s grace she would. She just hoped she’d survive the ordeal long enough to earn her reward from the Tiarna-in-hiding Patrick Dubhghall
Fill this void here with bickering, Jane putting her life in danger for Maura without a thought, soft wound tending, bedroll sharing, dramatic Doyle family reveals, Rizzoli family infighting, conflicts of loyalties, and smoochin
But Giovanna made her oaths to protect Marian Isles, not Maura Dubhghall. When she delivers Maura to safety with her father, more than one person protests when she wants to go back to Botwulfston to help her brothers. Jane sneaks out in the night, but she forgets Maura is even more stubborn than she is. Turns out Giovanna’s ‘spoiled princess’ learned fast than she realized and she chases after Jane