All the Painted Stars, page 1
‘All the Painted Stars is wonderfully romantic and heartbreakingly tender. I wanted to stay in Emma Denny’s world for another thousand pages.’ Cat Sebastian
‘A delightful friends-to-lovers slow burn romance.
I absolutely loved meeting Lily and Jo, watching them explore their feelings, find their voices, and discover what happiness can truly be like!’ M.N. Bennet
Praise for Emma Denny
‘Road trips and secret identities … a beautifully thoughtful and deliciously sweet romance about getting lost in order to find oneself. I loved every moment spent with Penn and Raff.’ Freya Marske
‘A heartwarming tale of forbidden love that captured my heart from its opening page. Unputdownable.’
Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York
‘One Night in Hartswood is a thrilling, heart-stealing historic romp and achingly romantic.’ M.A. Kuzniar
‘A beautiful love story and journey of longing until your heart is torn apart and rebuilt.’ Liz Fenwick
‘A heart-wrenching, spellbinding love story, and I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to find out if Raff and Penn would get their happy ever after.’ Cressida McLaughlin
‘One Night in Hartswood is an utterly bedazzling novel, a compulsive page-turner rich in historical detail, and a heart-stopping debut romance.’ Kirsty Capes
EMMA DENNY submitted her first manuscript to a publisher when she was eight and a half, and was astonished when it was rejected. Thankfully, that didn’t put her off. After completing a degree in English & Creative Writing, Emma became a professional copywriter and now spends all day – literally – writing. Living on the edge of a forest, Emma enjoys exploring the wilderness while thinking through her latest plot tangle, scouting out exciting craft ales and indulging in historical romances. One Night in Hartswood was her debut novel, followed by the heart-stealing All the Painted Stars.
Copyright
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HarperCollinsPublishers
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Dublin 1, D01 C9W8, Ireland
This edition 2024
1
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2024
Copyright © Emma Denny 2024
Emma Denny asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008673390
Ebook Edition © November 2024 ISBN: 9780008686635
Version 2024-07-15
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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008622435
For everyone who took a little while to figure it out.
With thanks to all the Mabels of the world.
To me it seems that man has the fortune
of gods, whoever sits beside you
and close, who listens to you
sweetly speaking
and laughing temptingly. My heart
flutters in my breast whenever
I quickly glance at you–
I can say nothing,
my tongue is broken. A delicate fire
runs under my skin, my eyes
see nothing, my ears roar,
cold sweat
rushes down me, trembling seizes me,
I am greener than grass.
To myself I seem
needing but little to die.
Yet all can be dared, since …
SAPPHO
(TRANS. DIANE J. RAYOR)
Contents
Cover
Praise
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 13
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Extract
Chapter One
About the Publisher
Prologue
My Jo,
You must stop apologising in your letters. I do not find them dull. I find them very interesting, in fact, because they are from you.
I miss you very much. I know it has not been so long since you were last with us, but it seems as if an age has passed. The blackberries growing near the lakes are so close to ripeness: if you were here, we could walk to the water’s edge and pick them. Perhaps there may still be some berries left after your brother’s tournament.
I must once again ask you to pass on my displeasure to your steward at his refusal to invite my family. Does he fear that we will cause even more scandal? Have we Bardens given ourselves such a fearsome reputation in the South?
The tournament would have given us an opportunity to fix that. Ash is passable at the joust and very good with a sword, although no doubt he would have caught the eye of some southern beauty and then caused even more scandal when he inevitably cursed at her to leave him alone. Raff was fair with the sword, but with his arm as it is I am quite sure he will never duel again. He refuses to take better care of himself, and is always off wandering up mountains or through forests with Penn. I am often forced to remind him that if he does not do as the physician says then his arm will fall clean off.
I told him that when this happens and it is eaten by wild dogs I shall laugh at him. I do not think he found it amusing.
I could ride in his stead. I have always wished to take part in a tournament, ever since I was small. It sounds thrilling. And I would not have cursed at any southern beauties. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I wish I had more exciting news for you; although nothing rivals the excitement of a tourney, I am sure. I eagerly await your next letter, and even more eagerly await your return to Dunlyn Castle.
Yours,
Lily Barden
*
Dearest Cecily,
Thank you a hundred times for your latest letter. I, too, wish that I could visit Dunlyn Castle once more. I would love to return to the lakes and pick berries and enjoy the sunshine. I cannot imagine anything I would like to do more.
But I cannot, even after the tournament is over. I have discovered at last why the steward, Edmund, has been behaving so peculiarly. He took me yesterday morning to my father’s brother’s solar to inform me that they intend to find me a worthy husband amongst the tournament’s attendees.
I suspect Edmund feared that I would react strongly, but in truth I felt very little. I know that I cannot remain in the keep forever, and now the time has come when I must leave.
I should not allow myself to slip into doubt or worry. Certainly, I do not have time to do so. It is not as if I am being married today.
I do not wish to burden you with these thoughts. It should be a time to celebrate Ellis’s new title. This is what I remind myself every day: that all my pains are for him. When he is a man grown, I hope he will remember, and be a better earl than our father was, God save his soul.
Please send my love to Penn, and tell him I miss him every day. Please also send my regards to your brothers, and inform Raff that I quite agree with you on the matter of his arm, and that if he loses use of it (I do not agree with you that it will fall off and be eaten by wild dogs), then that is his own fault for not taking better care of himself.
I hope I will see you again soon.
All my thoughts and regards,
Johanna de Foucart
Chapter 1
Oxfordshire – 1362
Long strands of vibrant red hair caught on the brambles of the blackberry bush, snagging in the thorns and twisting in vivid dashes across the
Lily lowered her knife and shook her head, sending yet more strands flying. They floated up and over the bramble she’d camped behind, spinning upwards like the folks of the seelie court in their woodland groves. Beside her, shoved haphazardly beneath her pack and unravelling swiftly, were two long red plaits.
She tugged her remaining hair over her shoulder and set to hacking at it again with the knife. It was horribly uneven, but better to be uneven than long enough to raise suspicion. No knight sported waist-length hair, and certainly not a knight in attendance at a tournament. It was also far too risky: too easily grabbed in a fight.
When she was finally done, she placed the blade atop her pack then combed through her hair with her fingertips. From the other side of the clearing, her dun palfrey peered up at her where she was drinking from the stream, her ears twitching as hair floated past.
‘Do not look at me like that, Broga,’ Lily said, standing and stretching out her arms. ‘It is better than being recognised as a woman or tumbling during a tilt after getting entangled.’
The horse did not respond, simply ducked her head once more. Lily dropped to the bank beside her and cupped her hands in the cool, clear water. She splashed it messily over her face, slicking back her hair. Cutting it was a small sacrifice, and she was already enjoying the feeling of the breeze on her now-bare neck. She had never been overly attached to her hair, and had often envied her eldest brother’s short, messy crop.
As a child, she had been subject to her nursemaid’s daily hairbrushing, and while she had enjoyed the tingling feeling it elicited, she had resented how long the process had taken. When Lily had demanded her hair be cut short like her brothers’, the nursemaid had lectured her about beauty and glory, and she had not asked again.
When she had taken the first of her thick plaits in hand and sliced through it with her knife, her only regret had been that she hadn’t sharpened the blade beforehand. She had expected to grieve as her long hair, grown since she could walk, tumbled to the ground and slipped away on the breeze. But instead she felt relief – like releasing a breath held for too long.
Without a mirror to see herself in and with the water too fast to reflect her face, she would have to hope that her work was acceptable. Truthfully, it was unlikely anyone would question her dishevelment, but she needed to be seen as a travelling knight or squire, not a runaway noblewoman.
As she stood, rolling up the sleeves of her stolen tunic, she wondered if her family in Dunlyn Castle had realised she had vanished yet. The younger of her two brothers, Raff, was beyond the Scottish border with his companion, Penn. They were visiting the family of the Barden siblings’ late mother before carrying on north and would likely be gone for months. No doubt they were halfway up some blasted mountain, entirely unaware that she had gone.
She was less certain about her father, Earl Griffin Barden, and her eldest brother, Ash. After finally embracing the role of heir that he had managed to shirk so effectively for so many years, Ash was travelling across Barden lands with their father, visiting neighbouring vassals and allies. Where Raff had headed north, they had headed east, and with any luck would be away for several more weeks.
She had even seen to the steward and servants, telling them that she wished to visit the local convent to pay her respects to the women who lived there. The steward had found this perfectly acceptable. It had been assumed that Lily would one day enter the convent herself, a common fate for any woman deemed unmarriable. This was no great hardship: she could certainly think of a worse fate than living amongst only women. She had no desire at all to be married, and being publicly jilted the morning of her own wedding had granted her a freedom she had grasped with both hands. Nobody wanted a forsaken bride whose first failed betrothal had brought so much scandal with it.
Perhaps her brothers would not even return to an empty keep and a well-placed lie. With any luck she could see out the tourney and be back home before anyone else. She had certainly made good time: by her estimations, she would arrive at the de Foucart keep before midday, and the tournament would begin the day after.
She reached mindlessly towards the brambles, pulling off a plump blackberry and popping it into her mouth. It exploded on her tongue, rich and flavourful. As she grabbed for another, her fingers caught on the tiny thorns and with a curse she snatched her hand back, squeezing the berry too hard. It burst beneath her fingertips, staining them a vibrant, bloody red.
She stared at her fingers. The sunshine turned cold. She wiped her hand on her stolen breeches, staining them, too, the marks clinging to the wool and to the pads of her fingers.
Forcing the unsettled feeling away, she reached for her pack and pulled out Jo’s letter. She’d read it dozens of times – hundreds – since the messenger had handed it to her at the gates of Dunlyn Castle. She was sure, now more than ever, that Jo’s measured, polite words hid terror beneath.
I hope I will see you again soon.
It was a cry for help which Lily was determined to answer.
While she had met Jo several times, much of their friendship had been built on these letters. Lily herself had written the first: a sincere message that expressed her sorrow that they would not be made sisters. Penn – the man with whom her brother was stomping around Scotland – was Jo’s brother, and Lily’s once-intended. After their betrothal had fallen apart, she assumed she would never see Jo again.
But she had seen her again, even if it was not as often as she would have liked, thanks to the unexpected union of their brothers.
Lily carefully folded the letter, now smudged with pink fingerprints, put it away, then swung the pack onto her shoulders. At her feet the pair of plaits tangled on the dry earth like an accusation. Before she could move on, she would need to hide the evidence of her transgression. She certainly couldn’t leave them where they lay, easy for anyone to find, but there was scant room in her pack as it was, and anyone who looked inside would surely question why a lone knight carried such trophies with him.
She could burn them, but while she had been lucky thus far to meet very few people on the road, the stink of burning hair would be sure to rouse the suspicion of anyone who did pass. She reached down, picked up the plaits without bothering to shake the dirt from them, and looked around.
Beside the stream, Broga snorted at her, apparently just as keen to move on as she was.
And then an idea struck her.
The breeze blew against Lily’s neck, ruffling the oversized collar of her tunic, kissing her nape. Broga tossed her head as they picked their way back towards the path through the brambles, still adorned with strands of long hair, floating upwards in a slow, twisting dance.
Tossed on the surface of the turbulent water behind them, rushing downstream and picking up speed, were two vivid red plaits. They drifted for only a moment, before vanishing silently beneath the deep, dark water.
*
Johanna stood with her arms folded in the middle of the armourer’s yard and regarded her tiny half-brother.
Earl Ellis de Foucart was seven years old, painfully stubborn, and gripping a shining sword nearly taller than he was in both hands.
‘But it’s my sword,’ he whined.
Marshal Brice lingered nervously beside him with the young earl’s nursemaid. Both were frozen with indecision: the earl was still the earl, even if he was only a child.
Jo had to concede that Ellis was correct. The sword had been forged for their father – taken to war with him in service of the king – and had been but one of several heirlooms Ellis had inherited along with the title when Earl Marcus de Foucart had died. It was an enormous, two-handed broadsword, the steel glinting dangerously in the sunlight.
