Medieval Romance (mostly light) (seeking male)

[Ariabella]

Male character:

Max was orphaned at the age of five. Escaping the orphan’s child catcher, he made his way into a gang of street rats. He learned quickly how to defend himself and fight and by the time he was ten, he had reached the upper tier of power. Any child needing assistance came under his guidance. When he was twelve, he began to develop feelings for a young girl who had been running with them for some time. At her assistance, he went to school with her and learned to write and cipher. Since she was five years younger, he didn’t act on his feelings and then he was arrested for stealing food to feed the children. After a few months in prison, a knight came along and paid for his release from the prison.

Grateful, Max agreed to be his squire but he requested that he be able to bring along the young girl. Something was broken in her and he felt if he got her away from her home life, she would become whole again. The knight agreed but when Max went for her, the girl was long gone. No one knew what had come of her. Max traveled Europe with his mentor, learning to fight correctly among other things, until the knight passed on.

Max became a man for hire, working for food usually, because he sought to help the downtrodden and those who couldn’t help themselves. When his journeys took him back home, he sought out the girl’s mother, who, on her deathbed, revealed she had sold her daughter when she was seven. That would have been while Max was in prison. Devastated, he asked for the name of the man who had bought her but the woman claimed he had never given a name.

His latest project found Max on the trail of someone who is attacking tavern wenches, leaving a trail of injured and broken women in their wake, along with some bodies. Most of the guard couldn’t care less about these lost souls, but Max vowed to gain justice for them. The trail has led him to Whiteport.

My character:

The girl in question, Sileas Smythe. When she was 7, her mother (a tavern wench) sold Sileas to a man she met in the bar. He was highly abusive to her. When she was 12, he tried to sell her as a child bride. She thought she had killed him and fled to Whiteport, where the Captain of the Guard and his wife, a childless couple, happily gave her a home. But Sileas has never told them of her past, and now she's 18 and her past is catching up to her. Her believed to be dead guardian (who, ironically, was the abusive first beau of her adoptive mother) has shown up and found Sileas. He intends to take her back, but instead, take her for himself. He is the man that Max has been trailing.

Meanwhile, Sileas had lost her heart to a man she believed in, that she thought was like her father, but he walked away from her, leaving her feeling dead inside. She has vowed to never trust again, but her mother has tried to tell her not to close off her heart, because the man her heart needs could be right around the corner,just like had happened for her parents years before.

The beginning: I see this starting out with Max riding into the village and meeting with the Captain  to see if they have had any such trouble with their tavern wenches. Hearing they had, he settles in at the inn. As he is acquainting himself with the the village, he hears a scream and finds the former guardian trying to attack Sileas and he breaks it up. Imagine his surprise when he discovers the woman in front of him is the girl he had lost. And her surprise when she realizes her oldest and dearest friend, her protector has saved her.

Max would have to break through the barricades she has placed around her heart and teach her how to trust again while trying to catch the former guardian. This can be a one shot as they finally begin to build their relationship or an ongoing story with them getting into all sorts of adventures.