Catherine Archer - Dragon's Daughter

She felt raw and exposed,

too aware of her own mixed feelings about this enigmatic stranger.

Without warning, he caught her wrist and she winced. Christian raised it up and examined the bruise. His voice was filled with regret as he spoke softly, “I did this last eve when I grabbed you, did I not?”

She nodded hesitantly, “I…Yes, you must have.”

He grimaced. “I am very sorry, Rowena. It was never my intention to cause you pain of any kind.”

Rowena could no more look away from that earnest and compelling blue gaze than she could fly. His hand seemed to near burn her where it rested on the delicate skin of her wrist. But when he broke the contact of their eyes to place his warm mouth against the spot, she gave a start at the streak of heat that flashed through her body….

Praise for Catherine Archer’s titles

Dragon’s Dower

“This is a nonstop read!”

—Rendezvous

Winter’s Bride

“A compelling, innovative tale…

with lush details and unforgettable characters.”

—Rendezvous

Fire Song

“This finely crafted medieval romance…

(is) a tale to savor.”

—Romantic Times

#639 LADY LYTE’S LITTLE SECRET

Deborah Hale

#640 THE FORBIDDEN BRIDE

Cheryl Reavis

#642 HALLIE’S HERO

Nicole Foster

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Available from Harlequin Historicals and

CATHERINE ARCHER

Rose Among Thorns #136

**Velvet Bond #282

**Velvet Touch #322

Lady Thorn #353

Lord Sin #379

Fire Song #426

*Winter’s Bride #477

*The Bride of Spring #514

*Summer’s Bride #544

*Autumn’s Bride #582

†Dragon’s Dower #593

†Dragon’s Knight #606

†Dragon’s Daughter #641

This book is dedicated to the most recent additions

to my family:

Steve Krug, Justin Bennett, Jimmy Bennett,

Marty Brace, Diane Brace, Kailynn Brace

and Christopher Brace,

with love and gratitude for you all.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

With a frown of pity, Rowena looked down at the man who lay on the windswept beach. His face, which she imagined might normally be handsome enough, was gray and lifeless. His dark hair was matted with seaweed and sand. His garments were in tatters, though because the fabric was a rich, dark blue velvet, she knew they once had been fine.

He was indeed breathing, as young Padriac had said when he came bursting into her cottage with the wild tale of finding a stranger on the beach. But just.

Urgently Rowena turned to the boy, who looked up at her with wide, fawn-colored eyes, his round cheeks flushed with concern and excitement. She spoke with deliberate calm. “We must get him to my cottage.”

But how? she wondered. The very reason Padriac had come for her was that all the men, including his own father, had already gone out in their fishing boats for the day. They were not due back for many hours.

The trail up to the village from the shore was steep and slippery. It would not be possible for Rowena and Padriac to move the man without assistance.

“We canna carry him.” The round-faced child echoed her thoughts.

Again she looked down at the stranger. There was no telling how long he had been lying here, but surely it could only have been since this very morn, for someone would have seen him the previous day. ’Twas a deserted stretch of coast indeed, with rocky cliffs jutting steeply above the narrow shoreline, but the village children did roam it searching for gulls’ eggs, as Padriac was surely doing when he found the man.

Rowena said, “Go to Hagar and tell her to bring some of the women here to help us. He is a big man, but methinks together we can move him.”

It was the way things were done in Ashcroft. The village being so remote and small, its occupants were more family than neighbors, for the most part. This fact had helped Rowena to get through the grief and loneliness of losing her mother some three years before.

As Padriac scampered off, Rowena felt a tug of melancholy. Her mother, sad and bitter as she was, had been the center of Rowena’s world. She had hardly a clear memory of anything before the two of them had come here to Ashcroft, when Rowena was not quite four.

One of the two memories she did have was of looking up at a high stone wall. So vivid was this recollection that she could almost feel the rough, cool texture of the stone against her fingers. The other was less clear a vision, but more compelling. She believed it was of her father, for she had a sense of being held close to a broad strong chest and hearing the steady and comforting beat of a heart as she inhaled the combined scents of sweat and leather and fresh air. The warmth she felt at the recollection brought up such feelings of love and safety that she was sure it could only be of her father.

The fact that her mother had become so disturbed each time they’d spoken of him, of the fact that he had been a knight, and in the business of making war to protect lands, always kept Rowena from asking about it. Agitated and distraught, her mother would lament the fact that he would still be alive if he were a common man, concerned with no more than his livelihood and family. When Rowena had grown old enough to wonder why they had come to Scotland rather than go to other relatives upon his death, her mother had become hysterical, blurting out that her family were all dead and her husband’s family did not want them. She had never been more than a servant in his home, she’d said, never his wife.

She had begged Rowena to let the past remain there. And she had seemed more disturbed by his position as a noble than by the one detail that troubled Rowena most: his failure to legitimate her.

Leave it in the past was what Rowena had done, though in her deepest heart she continued to wonder about the man who had fathered her. In spite of her own anger at his refusal to wed her mother, Rowena would have given much to know him. She wished to know if the memory that lived in her heart was truly of him. For it was the one thing she could not set aside. He may have been mistaken in his loyalties, may have failed to give her his name, but perhaps he had loved her to some extent.

That question would never be answered, for all who might have known had gone on to the next world, or were lost to her because of her illegitimacy.

Rowena looked down at the man before her. He might have someone, somewhere, who would grieve should he fail to return. Perhaps even nobles like her father, if his clothing was any indication. ’Haps it was this that had brought her these unwanted thoughts of things best left forgotten.

With determination, she knelt to run her sure hands over the man’s large form. There was an unnatural coldness to his flesh that told her he had been exposed to the elements for too long.