The Highland Laird's Bride. Nicole Locke

cough and sudden death.

      They’d never suffered a winter like that again, but they never recovered from it either. Her father most of all.

      As the years went by her father took riskier chances. Desperation to recover what they lost engulfed his every action. The marriage to the Colquhoun clan was simply another attempt. When the letters of agreement occurred, when her father left to secure his bride, he regained some pride. His sense of purpose, of optimism, returning.

      But Clan Fergusson was cursed. For when her father returned from that fateful trip to Colquhoun land, he had no bride. Determined, desperate, he left again and never returned. Then Bram sent his letter offering help, but he never came. When the English garrison stormed the keep in July, they’d been too vulnerable to withstand the demands. The English caused far worse damage than an ice storm. They arrived just as the barley was harvested and they stayed to harvest the oats and wheat before burning the rest.

      The clan was gleaning for remains when the Colquhouns arrived. Lioslath had had enough.

      She was tired of being told she didn’t understand. She was sick of feeling as though she didn’t understand. She did understand. Laird Colquhoun wrote a letter saying he’d come with aid, but then days, weeks, months had gone by.

      So it was up to her to help her clan. She hunted; she provided food. She confronted the English until they left and she intended to confront Bram until he left as well.

      She thought closing the gates would be enough. She thought giving supplies to the English would be enough. She failed on both accounts. She wasn’t ruthless like her father, or gentle like her mother. Bram’s very presence was a bitter reminder of how inadequate she was.

      When they turned a corner and she saw her siblings playing with Donaldo’s children, she couldn’t go any further. She couldn’t walk through her land with the weight of Bram’s pity on her shoulders like this. It would only be worse if he saw she couldn’t talk properly to her siblings as well.

      ‘I’m leaving!’ she said, turning away from the villagers and their clans. Turning away from the decimated fields and the derelict keep, and a Colquhoun laird who noticed everything.

      His eyes widened in warning, but she marched around him. She didn’t need to see him to know he followed her. It was simply that awareness. Like when he spoke, the low timbre of his voice. It was something that curled inside her. She hated her acute awareness of him almost as much as she hated his accusations and pity.

      All day she walked beside him, answered his questions and talked to her clan. All day she watched him. As a huntress, she admired how a man his size strode so stealthily, so deadly and silently.

      She shivered. Why was she noticing him? Of everyone she had ever known, why did she feel this...desire for him?

      She couldn’t avoid it now. It wasn’t hunger and it wasn’t weakness. Her body was acutely aware of him. After all those weeks of watching him, she knew that her eyes were no longer filled with hate, but something like admiration. For Laird Colquhoun!

      * * *

      She was almost out of breath by the time they reached the forest on the south side. The forest was deeper and darker here. It was her favourite part of her land and one she could not see from the Fergusson keep.

      A few steps inward and she smelled the musty earth and the sharp bite of autumn’s leaves. The smell was freedom and home. Bram might have thought he trapped her in her home with his siege. In truth, he kept her away from her home, which she always found in her forest.

      Bram remained silent, but his will was a force she could feel and its force was ruining her sanctuary. Bram practically hovered as he walked beside her and he almost blocked the sky through the trees. He looked wrong in her forest.

      The brightness of his hair didn’t blend, the broadness of his shoulders and bulk of his build like a boulder that suddenly appeared amongst the tall and graceful tree trunks.

      He was wrong to be here as well. This forest was hers. Clan Colquhoun had no place here. But he was there, like a storm that kept battering against her.

      Her hand fluttering to the hidden blade at her waist, she rounded on him. ‘I showed you what you wanted to see. Why did you follow me?’

      ‘We were in front of your clan and mine. My not leaving the village with you would have looked like a slight. So I strolled out with you as if we wished to talk privately.’

      Stroll, she had practically ran here, but he kept his pace with her and wasn’t out of breath. To everyone, they probably did look as though they walked away from the village. Again, she made a foolish choice. She was unused to wondering what others thought or what appearances should be.

      She had been hidden away most of her life, and for the rest of it, she hid herself away. She was hiding now, but the Colquhoun wouldn’t leave her alone. She clenched the blade she’d hidden in her clothes.

      ‘So we talked privately and now you can go!’

      ‘Nae, we must truly talk. We must come to an agreement.’

      The competition again. His tone changed until it was as blunt as hers. It wouldn’t make her change her mind on its futility, especially when he used the word ‘must’. The very word curbed her freedom. She had heard it from her stepmother and in the end from her father.

      She knew he would continue to argue about the games until she couldn’t refuse. However, what Bram couldn’t control was how the competition would go.

      Bram might bring his food and his supplies. He might order this competition. But she would choose who the winner would be.

      Bram didn’t move. He didn’t even realise he needed to move, until she threw the knife just past his left ear.

      She knew he hadn’t seen the blade, but there was no mistaking the fury and the shock in his eyes when he heard the thunk of it embedding in the tree behind him.

      Brutal silence as storm-grey eyes stared at her.

      Lioslath smiled. ‘That’s my agreement to your competition. Satisfied, Colquhoun?’