Lady of Gold — Paige Brantley

After her mistress's cortege is attacked by marauders, servant Amalie Michaut is forced to assume the identity of her dead mistress and, accompanied by Fabien de Rais, a counterfeit priest, embarks on a perilous masquerade to rescue an imprisoned cardinal.

As marauding freebooters ambushed the Countess de Bar's cortege, the royal charette toppled into a swiftly moving stream, drowning all but one. In that instant, Amalie Michaut was swept from the raging stream by the countess' newly appointed confessor, Father Fabien de Rais. Gone was the countess, chosen by the king to negotiate the ransom of a cardinal in Calais. In her place was Amalie, her servant, indebted to the handsome priest who risked hellfire and damnation to save her life, then demanded that she assume the role of the dead mistress -- or they both would die...

He donned the robes of a churchman in order to enter Calais and free an unjustly imprisoned man, but now Fabien de Rais is left with only his wits and a counterfeit countess to save his skin. When a company of English soldiers arrives to rout the bandits and escort them to Calais, Fabien and Amalie are trapped in their dangerous masquerade. And soon Amalie becomes the price for the cardinal's release, promised to the English commander even as she and Fabien risk everything for a love that is perilous, forbidden...and fated to be.