Hearts of Highland Fire

Prologue

PROLOGUE

“Lena Wallace! Ye come back here right now!”

Gretna Wallace placed her balled hands on her slim hips and stamped her foot in frustration, something she hadn’t done in quite some time. Her younger sister, Lena, was darting in and out of the bales of hay in the field, her laughter filling the air. Gretna didn’t have time for her sister to be playing around right now. They had far more important things to do.

“Lena!”

Her sister peeked out from behind a hay bale, an impish smile on her face. “Come now, Gretna! Ye used tae love tae run with mah!”

“That was before I grew up!” Gretna shouted back. “I will leave ye out here by yerself if ye donna come tae mah right now!”

Lena looked around at the empty field behind the keep, seeing no other Scot around. Gretna knew that her younger sister despised being alone and a smirk crossed Gretna’s face as Lena slowly started back toward her, her chin nearly to her chest. “See? That wasna too hard.”

“Ye are no fun anymore,” Lena grumbled as she fell in step with Gretna as they made their way back to the keep.

“I am no longer a child,” Gretna replied briskly. “That is a childish game.” She had long outgrown such trivial things.

“Ye have gotten too serious since Iris left,” Lena added, glancing at her sister. “At least she was fun.”

“Wot Iris was,” Gretna said taking a deep breath, “wasna a lady like I plan tae be and wot ye should be as well, Lena.”

Lena giggled as they crossed from the field to the cobblestones that would lead them to their home. “Our sister is the finest warrior in all of Scotland!”

Gretna just shook her head. Iris had been a strong lass, aye, a warrior that had pleased their da beyond measure. Gretna remembered looking up at her sister on her horse, riding in from battle with a wide smile on her face and laughing with their brothers. Iris had left to become a champion, but instead had become both a champion and fallen in love with a lowly advisor.

Gretna wanted the same thing. She wanted a great love, one that defied all logic. Her sister had found it and so had her brother, Ian, the current Laird. Aye, there would not be anything else in Gretna’s heart than someone who could make her feel as if she were flying.

The problem lay in the very fact that no one she had been introduced to so far had made her feel like she was flying.

At the very least, her feet never left the ground.

Lena started to run ahead and Gretna opened her mouth to call her back, but decided that there was no reason to do so. At least she was heading toward the keep now, which was Gretna’s intent. They were due to have dress fittings in a few moments and Gretna was a stickler for making certain she was on time for everything. While her sister, Iris, had been one to break all the rules, Gretna wasn’t one to do that at all.

She liked control, her days not interrupted by a change in her plans.

Gretna slowed her steps, looking up at the keep she called home, perhaps for only a few more months. She was now in her nineteenth year, at least three years removed from marriageable age. Most of the girls her age had one to two bairns clinging to their skirts at her age. Of course, it wasn’t because Gretna didn’t have prospects. Her brother had brought prospect after prospect before her, some from faraway clans. Gretna had smiled, laughed, and even danced in the arms of young and old Scots alike, but none had turned her head.

None had made her heart race or her throat become parched as she had read in some of the romance novels that Gretna had pilfered from the maids.

Nary a one had made her wish that their time together would never end or filled her dreams with romantic thoughts of a future.

Sighing, Gretna climbed the stone steps to the keep, pushing open the heavy wooden door. The smell of clean rushes and wood burning filled her senses, causing some of the anxiousness to leave her body. Not much had changed since her da passed years ago, the same historical tapestries covering the stone walls and the large wooden table scarred with generations of Wallaces against one wall.

Across the table, a large stone fireplace dominated one wall, the fire crackling and warming the great hall.

The only thing that had changed was that her da’s chair was no longer positioned in the great hall, but in the adjoining chamber, where Ian held court with the clan every day. He was doing so right at this moment, with his wife, Ida, at his side. Gretna liked Ida. Ida was a fierce lass, one that seemed to be Ian’s equal in every way.

Ian was infatuated with his wife and though many lairds did not allow their wives to participate in clan business, her brother was the exception. He listened to Ida, allowing her to make suggestions to better the clan.

That was exactly what Gretna was looking for in a husband. Someone who would see her as an equal.

As much as she loved her brother, Gretna knew that Ian was running out of patience in her choosing of a husband. There was some worry that she might have to choose one that was beneath her standards for a husband. Couldn’t love come later? Gretna supposed so, but what if she wed and love didn’t come?

Could she spend the rest of her days unhappy?

Gretna shook off her thoughts. She would find her love. There was another laird’s son she would meet in a month’s time and Gretna would try everything she could to make this one be successful and fall in love as she hoped to.

After all, Gretna didn’t know how long she had left to make all her wishes come true.