Highlander Unchained
Contents
Excerpt for Highlander Unchained
To Penny and Tracy, for one
long
afternoon of plotting. And as always to Nyree and Jami, for your encouragement, enthusiasm, and unerring brilliance.
Acknowledgments
Publishing a trilogy in back-to-back months is an enormous undertaking and requires a special effort on the part of everyone involved in editorial and production. My heartfelt thanks to all, especially my fabulous editor Charlotte Herscher, Signe Pike, and the copyeditor who worked on all three books.
A special thanks to Barbara Freethy, Candice Hern, and Carol Culver who thought the story of Lady’s Rock would make a great prologue. And also to my Golden Heart finalist buddy Kalen Hughes for her invaluable costuming resources.
None of this would have been possible without my wonderful agents Kelly Harms and Andrea Cirillo, my husband Dave, and my understanding (most of the time) kids Reid and Maxine. Thank you!
Prologue
“I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her grief,
I dreamt that her lord was a barbarous chief:
On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem;
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!”
—From “Glenara,” by Thomas Campbell, 1777–1844
The Firth of Lorn, a Rock Between Lismore and Mull
On a cold winter’s day nearly a hundred years gone past, a curse was born….
Lady Elizabeth Campbell Maclean wouldn’t beg. Not for his love, and not for her life. But she was scared. More scared than she’d ever been in her preciously short life. Six and twenty was far too young to die.
With each minute that passed, Elizabeth had to fight to hold to her vow. But her pleas she knew if uttered would go unheeded. And that more than anything prevented her from dropping to her knees and begging for mercy.
He had none.
He wouldn’t even look at her. Lachlan Cattanach Maclean, Chief of Maclean. Her husband. The man she’d been fool enough to love. Her eyes fastened on the familiar handsome features. The rough, battle-scarred face, the piercing blue eyes, the wide mouth and hard implacable jaw. Her chest squeezed. Even now, in the face of this ultimate betrayal, she could not deny his appeal.
Lachlan Cattanach was a fortress of masculine strength. A powerful Highland chief. And an unwavering one. The very qualities she’d once admired—his decisiveness, his steely determination, his single-minded purpose—had now conspired against her. He’d made his decision.
She was as good as dead.
One of her husband’s
luchd-taighe
guardsmen took her hand and helped her from the
birlinn
with a courtesy that belied his murderous task. She would have laughed at the absurdity if she didn’t fear that laughter would send her spiraling into a descent of hysteria from which she might never return.
An involuntary shudder coursed through her as her foot touched the hard, unyielding rock. The impulse to retreat back to the safety of the boat was strong, but she knew they would only drag her back. Resolve forced one foot after the other. Her heart might be in tatters, but she would not give him the satisfaction of doing the same to her pride.
Taking a deep breath, she allowed the guardsman to bind her wrists. With an uneasy glance that hinted of an apology, the clansman tied the other end of the rope to the buoy intended to alert passing boats to the danger posed by the rock. Mooring her to the rock was an unnecessary precaution. She couldn’t swim. There was nowhere for her to go…but under.
Fear slid down her spine. Her senses seemed unnaturally heightened, and she felt everything with a painful raw intensity, from the tiniest droplet of icy sea spray to each prickly fiber of rope that bit into the tender skin at her wrists. But most of all, she felt the agony of her breaking heart.
Dear God, how could he do this to her?
How could he leave her to die like this? To be buried alive by the merciless rising tide? Her heart clamored in her chest as she struggled with the horrible truth.
Her husband didn’t want her anymore. He’d already found another to take her place. But he would not risk angering the powerful Campbell clan—including her brother, the Earl of Argyll—by putting her aside. So he’d devised his barbarous plan.
She wished he would take a blade across her neck. But he wanted it to look like an accident. A drowned wife was much easier to explain than one whose throat had been cut.
A sharp gust of wind blew across the sea, freezing everything in its powerful wake. She had to fight to keep her footing on the slippery rock. Her teeth chattered; with only a thin cloak for added warmth, she was cold—painfully so. But it would only get worse. Much worse.
They were almost done. The men climbed back into the boat and started to pull off. Tears ran down her cheeks as she stared at the retreating faces of the men who’d once called her their lady, and then at the man she’d loved.
The man who’d forsaken her. Though she’d raised his two sons as her own, her doom had been in providing none of her own.
They were almost out of view. The thought of being left all alone finally broke her. She couldn’t bear it any longer. “Please, don’t—”
At the sound of her cry, his eyes shifted toward hers. He met her plea with stony indifference.
—
leave me,
she finished silently.
In the flat of his eyes, all hope was extinguished. He had no mercy. It was over.
But she wouldn’t let him go so easily.
By all that was holy, he would pay for the cursed deed done this day
.
Anger and terror forged a powerful weapon. Her voice shook as she called down her promise of vengeance. “A curse upon you, Lachlan Cattanach, and all who shall come after you. As you have murdered me for barrenness, so your lands shall suffer in kind. As you have tied me to this rock, so too will the fortunes of your clan be tied to a Campbell. No Maclean chief will prosper without a Campbell by his side. This will be your legacy until the wrong you’ve done is atoned and a Maclean life is given in love for a Campbell.”
His eyes flickered. She felt a rush of satisfaction, seeing the spark of alarm.
The power of her curse reverberated with an unmistakable ring of prophecy, conjured not from sorcery, but from injustice. A power that not even her husband could deny.
The misty wind pelted Elizabeth like icy nails as the water covered her feet…her ankles…and then her knees. She clutched the rope that was now her lifeline as the surge of each wave tried to knock her off the quickly sinking rock.
It was pitch black, but she could feel the water moving closer. Rising. Inch by torturous inch.
How long would it take? She prayed it would be quick. Every nerve ending in her body poised for what would happen next. She couldn’t breathe. It was as if she were drowning already.
Her gaze lifted to the moonless sky.
Oh God, please help me!
In cruel heavenly response, the next wave knocked her down, pulling her under. Drenched, she wiped the sodden tangle of hair from her eyes as she struggled to keep her hold on the rock. She tried to stand, but another wave came and pushed her down again.
She slumped forward, losing the strength to fight.
Please, just let it be done
.
She started to close her eyes, intending to allow the water to take her. Her eyes flickered and then snapped open again.
What was that?
A light, she realized. The soft glow of a torch appeared out of the darkness. She held her breath and listened, hearing the unmistakable lap of water off an oar.
Her heart soared.
It’s him. He’s come back. He still loves me. I knew he couldn’t do it
.
Using the rope for leverage, Elizabeth found the strength to pull herself to her knees and finally to her feet.
“Here!” she yelled. “Husband, help me, I’m here!”
The sounds of the oars quickened as the boat headed toward her. The excited exchange of voices grew louder and louder until the small fishing boat—
Realization struck, followed hard by crushing disappointment.
It wasn’t him
. Her husband had not returned.
As her eyes scanned the shocked occupants of the boat, she realized her life had been spared by fishermen.
“My lady?” one man asked with surprise.
Not just any fishermen, she realized.
Her
fishermen. Campbells.
She laughed then, giving in to the hysteria that had threatened in the darkness. With tears streaming down her face, she laughed until she thought her sides would tear apart. The irony was bittersweet. A life had indeed been taken tonight, but it would not be hers.
Elizabeth Campbell—for she would never call herself a Maclean again—did not drown that day. She lived long enough to be returned to her brother’s house and to see the surprise on her husband’s face when he arrived at Inveraray Castle to break the news of her “unfortunate death” to her family. But there was precious little satisfaction in defying death on Lady’s Rock—as the place of her attempted murder became known. For it found her not long after. She died not from the rising tide, but of a broken heart. With the amulet that had been ripped from her husband’s neck as her brother took his life clutched in her hand.
But Lady Elizabeth Campbell’s legacy lived on, passed down with the amulet from generation to generation.
Chapter 1
