CAMLOCHLIN CASTLE THE ISLE OF SKYE SUMMER 1714

 

Melusina de Arenburg ground her jaw, closed her eyes, and prayed. She hoped that since she was in a chapel, God would hear her request and grant it, even if she was a bastard. A royal bastard, but a bastard nonetheless.

 

She prayed this wasn’t truly happening. That she hadn’t been taken from her bed in Kensington Palace and brought to the Highlands. And oh, Lord, please that she wasn’t about to be forced into a marriage with an outlaw.

 

Where was her father when the queen’s men had carted her off to marry Adam MacGregor, son of a proscribed chief?

 

She opened her eyes and looked around the chapel at the faces of people she didn’t know. People she didn’t want to know. Barbaric in appearance. Nothing like the men at court, who dressed appropriately, tied back their hair, and covered their knees.

 

She knew she didn’t look much better with her long blond tresses messily plaited over her shoulder, her ears and neck unadorned, and her body covered in a wrinkled gown.

 

“I wish to speak to my father!” she demanded, though it sounded more like a plea echoing throughout the chapel. “He is the prince elector, George of Hanover, heir to the throne. He would not agree to this! ’Tis a mistake,” she called out, hoping, praying someone would listen. “I cannot wed this man. I am already betrothed to Lord Standish.”

 

Someone behind her gave her a gentle shove to get her moving along. Her throat closed up. Her heart rang in her chest like an alarm, dire and urgent. Run! her head screamed. Run the other way! Where would she go? She didn’t know where she was. She wiped her tears but they continued.

 

Why? Why her? She thought the queen loved her. Why would Anne wed her to a Highlander? They were savages who frightened the blazes out of her. Why had she been sent so far away from everything she knew?

 

She heard the sounds of women weeping and men swearing under their breath. Everything sounded louder. Everyone seemed bigger, including several enormous, deadly-looking hounds at the feet of their masters. She crossed herself and wondered if it was too late to pray because she was already in hell. She stopped and was shoved again, a bit more forcibly this time. She couldn’t move. She refused to move. “I . . . I will not wed this man.”

 

Her eyes swept to the man to whom she had to promise her life on the whim of a queen.

 

“’Tis the queen’s order,” a man behind her, the one who’d prodded her onward, whispered. “MacGregors are loyal to the queen.”

 

The queen’s order. Sina’s eyes filled with more tears, blurring her vision of the groom. When she reached the end of the aisle, she was supposed to kneel beside him, but her knees locked together.

 

A deep, low growl drew her eyes to a black hellhound bent at his side, twice the size of the others, its lips curled over its white fangs, its dark eyes fixed on her.

 

Sina gathered every last ounce of courage she possessed not to faint at the sight of the beast. Oh! How could Anne have done this to her? Her anger at the betrayal kept her on her feet.

 

“No.” Its master’s command was low and deep, resonating through her. He said something else, and the hellhound lifted its haunches and moved to the other side of him.

 

He commanded devils. She closed her eyes and bit her lip to keep from crying. When the man behind her rested his hand on her shoulder, gently urging her to her knees, she went, dipping her head to weep into her hands.

 

Through her sobs she heard her soon-to-be groom mutter something angrily. Her heart skipped. Was he ill-tempered? She wiped her eyes and dared a glance at him up close. The first thing level with her eyes was his mouth. She caught her breath at the full, relaxed decadence of it. He was draped in darkness and light, with lightning in his storm-filled eyes. His coal-black hair fell to his shoulders and was swept away from high, chiseled cheekbones and a strong jaw shadowed by a dusting of dark hair. His ivory complexion was almost flawless—a strong contrast against his raven hair. His beauty was captivating, bewitching.

 

She followed his angry stare to an older man standing to her left.

 

Sina turned to look at him. She knew who the man was— the chief of these people. He was as huge and deadly looking as the rest of them. The one who’d read the letter she’d delivered from the queen. The groom’s father.

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She offered him her angriest glare. How did a man like him even know the queen? And who was he to give her to his son? She was already promised to Lord Standish, son of the Earl of Chesterfield.

 

he priest began speaking. God help her. A woman she loved and trusted had ordered this. Sina had no choice but to obey.

 

After a long benediction that gave her time to consider how horrible her life was going to be from here on in, here in this wilderness with these mountain men rumored to be so savage that they had to be proscribed. Her heart hammered in her chest, her throat. There was nowhere to run. What would poor William do without her? Would she ever see her dear friend Poppy again?

 

The benediction stopped, and silence descended for what seemed an eternity before the man beside her finally spoke. He looked as miserable as she while he promised to be her husband.

 

Would her father dissolve this marriage when he became king? Did he even give a damn? William did. Hadn’t he told her every day since they were eight and eleven that he needed her? Hadn’t he just told her what she meant to him when he returned from the grand tour? But what could he do when the queen had ordered this?

 

The priest set his stern gaze on her next.

 

She glared at him, refusing to wipe her eyes again. “I would like to know—”
 

“Just yer consent will do,” the priest said, cutting her off.

 

“Well, you don’t have it!” She swallowed and looked around at the brooding faces watching her. “I don’t love him.” It was all she could manage.

 

"Adam’s being forced into this too,” a woman called out.

 

“She defies the queen,” a man grumbled.

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Did she? Would she defy the queen for the life she’d always dreamed of? One with a family of her own, to a man she loved?

 

“Your consent,” the priest prodded.

 

“Yes,” she managed, hating herself for it.

 

A few more words and a blessing, and it was over.

 

Her husband pushed off his knees with an angry growl— or the sound could have come from his hound. Sina couldn’t be sure. He rose to his feet, at least two heads taller than her when she rose. She tilted her neck to take in the full sight of him. She crossed herself.

 

Tightly leashed muscles stretched his léine across his chest. His large hands were balled into fists at his sides. Her gaze traveled upward to his face, dark and angry, beautiful.

 

She wouldn’t consummate this marriage. She’d find a way to hold him off until someone came to help. Her father would come . . . or William . . . someone. The marriage could be annulled.

 

If any of these Highlanders thought her meek and mild, they would soon discover that they had misjudged.

 

She pulled a bit of her fortitude up now and girded it around her.

 

“I demand to know why this terrible thing has happened to me,” she said in a soft voice on the verge of shattering.

 

Refusing to tremble, she raised her brow at her husband when anger flashed across his silvery-blue eyes. She was angry too! She met his gaze head-on, waiting for his reply.

 

“It has happened to me as well, woman.” His voice burned across her ears. “I’ll leave it to my faither to explain why.”

 

She thought she was prepared to meet his anger straight on, but his deep, growling baritone and the bite of reply made it hard to stand.

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