Tess and the Highlander (27 page)

In The Enchantress, we introduce Sir Wyntoun
MacLean, who also appears in The Firebrand...

In The Firebrand, we also introduce Gillie
the Fairie-Borne, who may just have a story of his own one
day...

Colin Campbell and Celia (from The Thistle
and the Rose) also make a 'cameo' appearance in The
Firebrand...

Alec Macpherson and Fiona (from Angel of
Skye) have three sons. The youngest, Colin Macpherson, is the hero
of Tess and the Highlander (a young adult novel published by
HarperCollins in November 2002)

Arsenic and Old Armor (Love and Mayhem) By
Nicole Cody is a retelling of Arsenic and Old Lace. Reference made
to Angel of Skye.

Our 18th Century Books

In The Promise, Samuel Wakefield, the Earl
of Stanmore, and Rebecca Neville/Ford are the hero and
heroine...

In that book we also introduce Stanmore's
friend, Sir Nicholas Spencer, who becomes the hero of The Rebel,
which is set in Ireland...

Stanmore and Rebecca also appear in The
Rebel...

In The Promise, we also introduce Rebecca's
friend, Millicent Wentworth, who becomes the heroine of Borrowed
Dreams...

Borrowed Dreams is the start of a new
trilogy about three Scottish brothers, starting with Lyon
Pennington, Earl of Aytoun. We also meet a new cast of characters
who show up in the trilogy. Violet, from The Promise, plays a big
role in this book, too. She will show up again in the third book in
the trilogy, Dreams of Destiny.

In Captured Dreams, we see Lyon and
Millicent and the entire household of Baronsford in Scotland, along
with wonderful heroes and villains that David Pennington meets in
colonial Boston. 

In Dreams of Destiny, the mystery of Emma's
death is solved...

Stay tuned...

Complete Book List as of 2012

Writing as
May McGoldrick
:

GHOST OF THE THAMES

MADE IN HEAVEN

DREAMS OF DESTINY

CAPTURED DREAMS  

BORROWED DREAMS   

THE REBEL  

TESS AND THE HIGHLANDER  

THE PROMISE

THE FIREBRAND

THE ENCHANTRESS

THE DREAMER

FLAME 

THE INTENDED

BEAUTY OF THE MIST

HEART OF GOLD

ANGEL OF SKYE

THISTLE AND THE ROSE

Writing as
Nicole Cody & May
McGoldrick

LOVE AND MAYHEM (Arsenic and Old Armor)

Writing as
Jan Coffey
:

AQUARIAN

THE BLIND EYE

THE PUPPET MASTER

THE DEADLIEST STRAIN

THE PROJECT

SILENT WATERS 

FIVE IN A ROW 

TROPICAL KISS 

FOURTH VICTIM 

TRIPLE THREAT 

TWICE BURNED

TRUST ME ONCE 

NIKOO and JIM McGOLDRICK have spent their
lives gathering material for their novels. Nikoo, a mechanical
engineer, and Jim, who has a Ph.D. in sixteenth-century British
literature, wrote their first May McGoldrick novel in 1994. Since
then, they have taken their readers from the Highlands of Scotland
to the mountains of Kurdistan in bestselling, award-winning
historical romance and contemporary suspense novels under the names
May McGoldrick, Nicole Cody, and Jan Coffey.

You can contact us at
[email protected]

Please like May McGoldrick author page on
facebook to receive the latest updates

Here's an excerpt from May McGoldrick's
latest Historical Romance

Ghost of the Thames

CHAPTER 1

“It is not time, Sophy. Take my hand. Wake
up.”

The voice was in her head. A dream. A woman,
calling to a stranger.

“Sophy,” the voice persisted. “Take my hand.
Come with me.”

She knew no Sophy. She knew no one.

She opened her eyes, immediately stunned by
the thick cold surrounding her. She was under water, sinking in a
long, black funnel. The weight of the water crushed her. She opened
her mouth to cry out and swallowed filth.

A hand reached for hers. She took hold of
it. A lifeline of hope, pulling her upward. Kicking her feet, Sophy
burst through the surface, sputtering, gasping, and coughing up the
foul water.

As her coughing subsided, she became aware
of chill air slapping her face. She was in a river, floating with
the icy current. Wiping slime from her eyes, she glimpsed a distant
embankment through the fog. Shadowy openings of stairs and rickety
docks led from the river to dark alleys. Far above the hulks of
boats crowding the water’s edge, the dim light of a lantern shone
for a moment in a dingy window high up in a dark building. A moment
later, the current had taken her past it.

“Swim ashore, Sophy. Come with me . . .
come.”

There was no one else in the water with
her.

“Where are you?” she croaked.

“Here! Come toward me, Sophy. Follow
me.”

Sophy turned in the water and saw her.
Golden hair floated around the young woman’s shoulders. Her face
was bright, like a full moon breaking through the clouds.

“Come, Sophy. I need you. I need your help.
Come.”

Sophy kicked her feet and swam toward her.
She seemed to get within an arm’s length of her guide’s
outstretched hand, but could not reach her. Sophy’s lungs were
burning, her arms and legs leaden with exhaustion. Her head felt
ready to explode.

“I . . . cannot.”

One foot, then the other, touched the muck
at the bottom of the river. Holding herself firm against the
current, she looked up to see the girl was already ashore, a few
yards away, standing by the rotted piling of a decrepit pier,
waiting for her. Boats lay side by side along the muddy bank, lines
running up toward the river’s edge and disappearing ashore.

A couple of unsteady steps and Sophy was
standing waist deep. The blast of cold air cut through the thin
knit shirt plastered to her skin. She fought the urge to sink back
down into the murky river.

“Here. This is for you.” A dark cloth lay
half submerged.

Sophy forced her legs to travel the last few
steps to the water’s edge. Her body shivered and her fingers
trembled as she wrapped herself in the coarse rag of what was once
a blanket. Climbing onto the dock, she sat heavily. Her head was
pounding, and she pulled the makeshift cloak around her.

Sophy tasted blood and grime in her mouth.
The aching pain in her head didn’t ease, but grew worse as moments
ticked by. She wanted to sleep.

Huddled beneath the wet blanket, her body
wracked with the cold, Sophy looked up at the young woman standing
not ten feet from her. She appeared to be dry, dressed in a flowing
white gown, totally unaffected by the cold. She was young, little
more than a girl. Too young to be moving about in a city all
alone.

“You cannot stay here, Sophy. We must keep
going.”

“Is that my name?”

“Your friends call you Sophy.”

“I don’t remember anything. My name . . . or
any friends. Or what I was doing in the river.”

“You will, in time, remember all of it. But
now we need to be on our way.”

“Why? Where are we?” Sophy asked,
shivering.

“You are in London.”

She knew of the city, but she could not
recall if it was her home or not. The name evoked no memories, at
all. The sudden realization that she knew nothing of her past was
paralyzing.

“Who are you?”

“That’s not of any importance.”

“Are you my relation?”

"No. Tonight, in this river, was the first
time we met.”

“It was dangerous for you to come after me.
Why did you save me?” Sophy asked.

“It was not your time.”

Her questions skipped like pebbles over
smooth water. Sophy’s head throbbed. The blanket did little to warm
her.

“You know my name. Can you take me to my
people?”

“No.”

Where to go? Whom to seek? Was anyone out
there who could help her? These questions and so many others were
piling up, a mountain of confusion crushing her.

“We need to go now. Follow me.”

Her rescuer was backing away. Leaving her.
Sophy didn’t know how she was able to find the strength to push
herself to her feet, but she somehow managed. Clutching the blanket
around her shoulders, she slipped into the shadows behind her
guide. Buildings loomed above her. The stones were slick beneath
her feet, but her new friend stayed ahead of her. Sophy soon found
herself moving through winding alleyways she was certain she had
never seen before.

Dark riverfront warehouses soon gave way to
lanes lined with shuttered shop windows and faded signs. As the two
women moved farther from the water, Sophy began to see people
huddled around doorways and sleeping in corners. No one even looked
at them twice.

Sophy was out of breath
and feeling faint by the time her guide paused on the gleaming
stone pavement of a wider street. The byway was empty of people,
and the upper floors of shops and houses jutted out over the lane.
Some had signs hanging above doors, and most were in darkness. The
flicker of candlelight glimmered in one window of a house at the
corner.

“Where are we going? To whom are you taking
me?” Sophy asked, trying to focus.

“I’m taking you to a person who can help you
and keep you safe.”

The girl looked untouched by their travels.
Her clothes appeared unblemished, in spite of the mud and slime of
both river and alley.

“Who will help me?” Sophy asked, trying hard
to believe there could be such a person.

Then, right before Sophy’s eyes, like a
candle suddenly snuffed out, the young woman disappeared.

Before she could even utter a cry, Sophy
heard the clatter of horses. As she turned, the driver’s shout rang
out, but it was too late.

The carriage was upon her.

*

“
Ho!
The devil! Look out there!”

The shout of the driver was accompanied by
the neighing of his horses, and Edward Seymour felt the carriage
clattering to a stop.

“What is it, man?” he called, throwing open
the door and climbing out.

“She went under the blasted horses,
Captain.”

“A woman?”

“Aye, sir. Is she dead? Can you see
her?”

Edward glanced up the dark street. There was
nothing visible on the pavement behind the carriage. The door of a
house opened. The light of a candle appeared. Some late night
revelers staggered into the street. One was pointing under the
carriage. Edward looked and saw her—a heap of blanket, dirty arms
and legs sticking out from under it. The blanket had caught on the
underside of the carriage and dragged the woman. The restless
horses’ hooves stamped inches away from her head.

Edward yanked the blanket free and pulled
the woman clear. He crouched next to her.

“Like a ghost she came, Captain.” His
driver, looking down from the carriage, was still shaken. “She
appeared out of nowhere. I couldn’t stop.”

“She just rolled up outta the dark,” someone
chimed in.

“No one in the street, to be sure, gov, or
we’d ’ave seen her.” Everyone had something to share. The crowd
around them was growing. Someone held a candle over the body.

She wasn’t moving. Edward looked at the wet,
matted hair and touched her head. His hand came away, covered with
blood. He pulled the blanket from her face. An open gash was
visible at the edge of her hair, bleeding profusely. Her face was
covered with dirt.

“Don’t!” She tried to lift her head, but it
sank again to the stone pavement. “Wait–I–p”

The driver sighed audibly. “Well, the bloody
chit’s alive, at least.”

“If we’re to keep her that way,” Edward
said, “we need to get her to a doctor.”

“The hospital at Lincoln’s Inn Fields is
close enough, sir,” someone standing near was quick to suggest.

Edward knew the place. That was where
medical students of King’s College practiced. That hospital sat
squarely in the midst of poverty and disease.

“
Bachao
,” she murmured, stirring.

“She’s addled, Captain,” the driver said
darkly. “The chit’s talking nonsense.”

Weakly, she tried to raise herself off the
stone pavement. She didn’t have enough strength, though, and she
sank down again.

She was dressed in a man’s shirt and ragged
breeches with no stockings or shoes. She had the distinct smell of
the river to her.

“Open the carriage door. We’re taking her to
a doctor,” Edward ordered.

He tucked the wet wool blanket around the
woman and lifted her off the ground. Even soaking wet, she was no
heavyweight.

The crowd separated, and someone held the
door as Edward settled the injured creature inside the carriage on
the seat across from him. She mumbled words under her breath as if
she were carrying on a conversation. Edward couldn’t make them out.
She was mixing a language he couldn’t identify with English
words.

“Where are we taking her, Captain?”

“Urania Cottage in Shepherd’s Bush,” Edward
ordered.

He’d learned about the home for destitute
young women a fortnight ago. Set up as charity by his friends
Charles Dickens and the heiress Angela Burdett-Coutts, the place
was intended to be a refuge for young fallen women wishing to
improve their sordid lot in life. Edward had stopped there and
shown his missing niece’s miniature to the matron this past
week.

For weeks now, searching for the sixteen
year old Amelia had been occupying every minute of Edward's
time.

“
Kotaai
,” she moaned.

“Go!” Edward shouted to his driver. Settling
into his seat, he peered through the darkness at the pile of rags
across from him. He could smell the muck of the river from here.
What she was and why she was dressed in sailor’s rags was not
difficult to guess. He wondered if she’d intentionally put herself
in front of his horses.