Duff looked to Brodee. “Yer husband takes yer safety verra seriously. He said he had to be certain I did nae mean harm to ye before he’d let me approach ye. Can ye forgive me for failing ye? For nae getting here in time to save ye from yet another unwanted husband?”
“Forgive ye?” Patience burst out laughing. “Oh, Duff! I should thank ye! Brodee is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
“God’s teeth,” Duff said as he squeezed her. “I’m glad to hear it! Ye must be happy. Ye feel as if ye are finally nae just bone anymore,” he teased as only a brother would.
She met Brodee’s intense gaze, which she could feel upon her suddenly like a bright ray of sun.
“Patience?” he asked, his tone husky and hopeful.
She broke away from her brother then and went to Brodee, took his hands, and laid them on her stomach. “Aye, my love. We have a bairn coming.”
He pulled her to him and pressed his lips to her ear. “Ye are the savage one,” he whispered. “Ye have enslaved my heart.”
“That,” she said, kissing him, “was my secret plan all along.”
If you loved myHIGHLANDER VOWS: ENTANGLED HEARTSseries then I think you will love my new Historical Romance series,RENEGADE SCOTS! The first book in the series,OUTLAW KING, is now available.
She’s the weapon intended to destroy him. He’s the key to her freedom.
Dark days have come to Scotland, and fierce warrior Robert the Bruce would do anything to release his country from English rule—and not just because he’s the rightful heir to the Scottish throne. As the bloody war rages on, enemies on both sides of the fight surround him, and Robert must dance a dangerous line between truth and deception. One misstep could topple his nation and cost him his life, yet one woman tempts him—and threatens his mission—as no other ever has.
Elizabeth de Burgh longs for freedom in a time when women have none. So when she finds herself ordered by her ruthless father and her godfather, the King of England, to seduce the leader of the Scottish rebellion and reveal his secrets, she yearns to fight back against their cruel plot. But they threaten to kill her beloved cousin, leaving her no choice but to comply. As she grows close to Robert and the mask that hides the man who would be king is peeled away, she cannot imagine aiding in the destruction of the noble Scot bent on liberating his people.
Bound by duty and honor but ensnared by passion, Robert and Elizabeth must determine if they are each other’s biggest threat or greatest source of strength. And moreover, they must decide how much they are willing to risk for the one thing neither ever imagined they’d find with the other—extraordinary, boundless love.
Prologue
1296
Northern Scotland
Revolt had its own scent. It was one of burning wood and flesh, fetid wounds and rancid sweat, and it lay heavy in the air. Robert the Bruce, Earl of Carrick, smelled it with every breath he took.
“Rebellion surrounds us,” Laird Niall Campbell said, pride ringing in his voice.
Bright-orange flames leaped into the sky from the destroyed guard towers that flanked the raised drawbridge to Andrew Moray’s castle, which Robert had been commanded to invade.Commanded.The word reverberated in his head, making his temples throb. He glanced to his friend who sat mounted beside him. Perspiration trickled down Robert’s back beneath his battle armor, and the moans of captured men reached his ears. Gut-hollowing guilt choked him. “We’re on the wrong side of the fight,” he said low, acknowledging out loud what they both knew.
Niall hitched a bushy red eyebrow as hope alighted in his eyes. “Dunnae tease me, Robbie,” he whispered, ever careful, though they were far enough away from Richard Og de Burgh that the King of England’s man would not be able to hear them. “Dunnae say such a thing unless ye are ready to disregard yer father’s dictate.”
“I’m ready,” Robert replied, meaning it. The desire to follow his heart and defy his father, who demanded blind obedience to a plan that no longer had worth, had been building for months. Now, in this moment, it felt as if it would cleave him in two, it beat so strongly within him.
The time was not yet ripe to act, his father kept claiming. It was, and it had to be, now. Today. He could not take up arms against his own countrymen. He could no longer submit to his father’s foolish order to remain aligned with King Edward in hope of gaining the Scottish throne, which had been stolen from their family by the usurper John Balliol.
“I’m a Scot, for Christ’s sake,” he muttered.
“Have nae I been reminding ye of that verra fact for nigh a year?” Niall’s hand lay on the hilt of his sword revealing the danger of what they were about to do.
“Ye have, my friend, ye have,” Robert said, his mind swiftly turning. His father should now rightfully be King of Scots, but instead Robert sat here ordered by the ever reaching King of England to destroy a stronghold in the land he loved, while his father seemed perfectly content to stay in England amid the comfort of the Bruces’ plush English holdings rather than venture back to the wilds of Scotland to rise against King Edward and risk losing everything. Robert could no longer deny the truth—his father lacked the iron will to do what was right.
War meant blood, strife, and possibly death, but subjugation to an English king was a different sort of death, one of the spirit. He could not live that way. “We’ll no longer be safe if we rise against Edward this day,” he said, accepting it, but wanting to give Niall, who was married and had a daughter, one last chance to change his mind and keep his submission to Edward intact.
Niall snorted. “I thrive on danger.”
God knew that was true enough. Niall had always been right there with Robert at the front of every battle, even on the day the Scot’s daughter had been born. Still…
“We will be hunted,” Robert added.
“Let them try to catch us,” Niall said with a smirk. “The devil English king will nae stop until he sits on the throne of Scotland. He will kill all who continue to rebel, and that includes our people. I’d rather be hunted than aligned with King Edward.”
