Margaret Moore - Bride of Lochbarr

“Margaret Moore’s characters step off the pages into your heart.”

—Romantic Times

“When it comes to excellence in historical romance books, no one provides the audience with more than the award-winning Ms. Moore.”

—Harriet Klausner, Under the Covers

“Ms. Moore…will make your mind dream of knights in shining armor.”

—Rendezvous

“Her writing is full of humor and wit, sass and sexual tension.”

—Heart Rate Reviews

“Margaret Moore has a captivating writing style…that lends itself to pure, fluid prose and vivid characterizations.”

—Heartstrings Reviews

“…an author who consistently knows how to mix just the right amount of passion and pageantry.”

—Old Book Barn Gazette

Dear Reader,

I’m delighted to be part of HQN Books, and thankful for this opportunity to write longer books for Harlequin. I’m especially thrilled that my first HQN novel is set in the medieval time period, my particular favorite.

Why does that time period appeal to me so much? My usual answer to this question is, “There’s just something about a man with a broadsword.” However, what really appeals to me is the emphasis on honor and duty.

If you’re familiar with my Harlequin Historicals books, you know I generally hang my medieval heroes’ helmets in Wales. So why go to Scotland with Bride of Lochbarr? I wanted to venture into what is relatively new territory for me—and I can no longer ignore the allure of men in kilts.

So now you know why that time and place. What about the story? How did I come up with that? I thought, What if a hero comes riding to the rescue and the heroine says “Are you nuts? Go away and leave me alone.” A chivalrous yet flummoxed hero, a defiant woman and a rescue gone awry. I was off and running.

But I don’t write just for myself or my editors. I write for you, the readers. Every time I sit at my computer, my goal is to tell a story that entertains you. As always, I hope I’ve succeeded.

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

With special thanks to

Amy Wilkins and Melissa Endlich

for their excellent editorial suggestions,

and to Tracy Farrell for another

wonderful opportunity.

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

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Scotland, 1235

MARIANNE WAS in purgatory.

Or so it was easy to believe as she looked out over the sodden landscape from the arched window in her brother’s fortress.

Of course it was raining again, the downpour effectively hiding the jagged hilltops surrounding Beauxville like a veil, making the courtyard a mess of mud and puddles, and soaking the scaffolding erected around the half-completed walls of the castle. It had rained every day since she’d arrived in this wilderness at the edge of the civilized world.

If she were in Normandy now, the sun would be shining and the leaves of the trees would be bright green. She’d be beneath their shading branches, whispering with a gaggle of young women her own age, trying to stifle her laughter as the farm laborers went past the convent walls heading home after a day working in the fields. The young men would be singing their bawdy songs, well aware that behind the white walls of the convent, girls would be listening. The nuns would be scurrying about and twittering like a flock of startled birds, chiding their charges and trying to get them to go inside.

If she were back in Normandy, she would be warm. Here, even wearing a linen shift, a gown of indigo blue wool, a bliaut of light red with gold trim and with a bright green woolen shawl wrapped around her shoulders, she was still cold.

If she were in Normandy, she would be warm and happy, not lonely, cold and utterly, completely miserable.

She should have asked more questions when her brother arrived at the convent and told her he was taking her to his estate. Instead, she’d been too happy to be free of the confines of the religious house and too proud of her noble brother and impressed by his bearing and arms to question him. Even the Reverend Mother had seemed intimidated by Nicholas, and Marianne had believed the pope himself couldn’t intimidate the Reverend Mother.

Yet if the Reverend Mother had known Nicholas was going to bring his sister here, to this mass of unfinished stone and masonry, where she would live among savages with wild hair and bare legs, surely she would have said that Scotland was the last place on earth suitable for a young Norman woman of noble birth and education. She would have suggested to Nicholas that Marianne be allowed to remain in the place that had been her home for the past twelve years until a suitable husband could be found.

The door to her chamber crashed open. Startled, she turned from the window and watched as her brother, new-made lord of Beauxville, strode into the room. As always, Nicholas was plainly attired in black wool without a bit of embroidery at cuff or collar. His only ornamentation was the bronze buckle of his sword belt. His scuffed boots were caked with mud, his hair was damp, and his taciturn expression gave no hint as to why he’d decided to visit her here, where he rarely ventured.

“Ah, here you are, Marianne,” he said, as if he honestly expected her to be somewhere else. He scanned the small room with its simple, crude furnishings and her painted chest, his gaze lingering for a moment on the embroidery frame neglected in the corner. “What are you doing?”

“I was thinking about the convent.”

His response to that was a dismissive sniff, his usual reaction when she mentioned her life there, or spoke of her companions or the sisters. Yet why shouldn’t she think of the past and her life in Normandy? Did he think she could forget it? Did he think she wanted to?

Some of her annoyance seeped out. “Shouldn’t you be supervising the masons at the south wall? Or entertaining that elderly Scot who arrived this morning?”

“The masons are waiting for drier weather, and Hamish Mac Glogan has taken his leave.”

“If the masons need the weather to be dry, they may never finish your castle,” she remarked as she glanced out the window again. To her surprise, it wasn’t actually raining at the moment, although heavy gray clouds still lingered, like a bad smell. “The delays must be costing you a pretty penny.”

“I didn’t realize you knew anything about building castles.”

“Masons sometimes came to work at the convent, and I once heard the Reverend Mother complaining about the cost,” Marianne replied. “You’re doing much more than repairing a few loose bricks, so I can only assume—”