The Laird’s Sinful Secret (Highland Sinners #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Moyra’s fingers tightened around the leather strap as unease prickled down her spine. Something was wrong.

Through the carriage window, Lindisfarne Priory loomed against darkening horizon—those ancient walls her father insisted would keep her safe from the enemies he’d made in his quest for MacLeod lands. But it wasn’t the priory that held her attention now. It was the silence.

The guards had gone too quiet.

Three days she’d traveled south from the Highlands, each mile taking her further from everything she’d ever known. Her father’s words still echoed in her mind: “The priory will keep ye safe from those who would use ye against me, daughter. ‘Tis fer the good of the clan.”

But what clan? Since his marriage to Ishbel MacLeod six months past, Keith MacKenzie had spoken of little else but his newfound connection to MacLeod lands. His first wife—Moyra’s beloved mother—might as well have never existed.

Moyra leaned forward, peering into the gathering dusk. The shadows flanking their path moved wrong—too deliberate, too purposeful.

“Kristin,” she whispered, her voice tight. “Those aren’t trees.”

Her lady-in-waiting looked up from her embroidery, following Moyra’s gaze. The color drained from Kristin’s face. “Me lady—”

The sharp crack of steel against steel shattered the evening air.

“Saints preserve us—” Kirstin began, but her words were lost as their carriage suddenly lurched to a violent halt, throwing both women against the wooden walls.

Shouts erupted outside. There was a clash of weapons. The screams of horses.

“We’re under attack,” Moyra breathed, her blood turning to ice.

Through the window, she glimpsed flashes of torchlight and the gleam of swords. Her father’s men—the six guards who’d accompanied them—were fighting desperately against a larger force that seemed to have materialized from the shadows.

Moyra’s mind raced as she assessed their position. The priory gates stood perhaps two hundred yards ahead, tantalizingly close yet impossibly far with armed men between them and safety. Their carriage sat exposed on the open path, making them easy targets if they remained.

But if they ran...

“Listen tae me carefully,” Moyra grabbed Kirstin’s trembling hands.

Her friend—daughter of a neighboring laird and her closest companion since childhood, now serving as her lady-in-waiting—looked terrified, one hand instinctively moving to protect the barely visible swell of her belly.

“When I open that door, ye’ll slip out quiet as a shadow and run straight fer the priory gates. Dinnae look back, dinnae wait fer me.”

“But me lady—”

“Dinnae argue with me,” Moyra said sharply, her tone carrying centuries of MacKenzie authority. “Ye’re carrying a bairn, Kirstin. Ye need tae survive this—fer yer child’s sake. I’ll make sure they chase me instead of ye. Get tae the priory and tell the nuns everything.”

Kirstin’s brown eyes filled with tears. “I cannae leave ye—”

“Ye can and ye will.” Moyra squeezed her hands. “Someone needs tae survive this tae tell the tale. And I’m far from finished fighting.”

The sounds of battle seemed to be moving closer.

Through the opposite window, Moyra could see one of their guards fall, crimson spreading across his MacKenzie plaid.

Her breath caught in her throat—it was Dougal, who’d taught her to skip stones as a child, who’d carved her a wooden horse when she was six.

The sight of his lifeless form sent a wave of nausea through her, but she forced it down.

She couldn’t afford to freeze now. Not when Kristin’s life—and her own—hung in the balance.

“Now,” she whispered, easing the carriage door open with painstaking care.

Kirstin hesitated for one heartbeat, then pressed a quick kiss to Moyra’s cheek before slipping out into the night. Her slight form disappeared into the shadows like smoke.

Moyra waited, counting her heartbeats. One. Two. Three.

Then she burst from the carriage in the opposite direction, her emerald cloak billowing behind her as she ran toward the rocky outcropping that bordered the coastal path. Her boots slipped on the loose stones, but she pressed on, making as much noise as possible.

“There! The girl!”

The accent that reached her ears was distinctly English, not the Highland brogue she’d expected. These weren’t rival clansmen come to steal her away—these were soldiers of the English crown.

But why would English soldiers attack a MacKenzie party traveling under safe passage?

Heavy footsteps pounded behind her as she scrambled over the uneven ground. Her lungs burned, and the stays of her traveling gown constrained her breathing, but she pushed harder. If she could reach the cluster of standing stones ahead, perhaps she could lose them in the maze of ancient granite.

“Stop running, you Highland witch!”

A crossbow bolt whistled past her ear, so close she felt the fletching brush her auburn hair. She stumbled, catching herself against a moss-covered boulder, but kept moving.

Almost there. Just a few more yards to the stones—

The flat of a sword blade cracked against her shoulder blades, sending fire racing down her spine. She hit the rocky ground hard, sharp stones tearing at her palms as she tried to catch herself.

“Got her!”

Rough hands seized her arms, hauling her upright despite her struggles. Her captors were professional soldiers—their mail was well-maintained, their movements disciplined. Not bandits or raiders, but men following orders.

“Let me go!” She twisted in their grip, managing to rake her nails across one man’s face before he backhanded her hard enough to make her ears ring.

“Hold still, or you’ll get worse than that,” he snarled, blood trickling down his cheek.

They bound her wrists with rough rope that bit into her skin, then one of them tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. The indignity of it made her fury burn hotter than her fear.

“Take me back tae the carriage this instant! Me faither will hear of this—he’ll have yer heads fer touching a MacKenzie!”

The soldier carrying her only laughed.

They carried her back toward the path where the sounds of fighting had finally ceased. Her heart clenched as she saw the still forms of her father’s guards scattered across the ground, their blood dark against the stones. Good men, loyal to Clan MacKenzie, dead because of her.

But as they passed the priory gates, she caught a glimpse of a small figure disappearing safely inside the ancient walls. Kirstin had made it. At least one life had been saved that night.

A tall figure separated himself from the shadows near the overturned carriage—a man whose bearing spoke of command and whose dark cloak marked him as their leader. Even in the flickering torchlight, she could see the calculating coldness in his blue eyes as they fixed on her.

“Sir Geoffrey Arundel,” the soldier announced, dropping Moyra unceremoniously to her feet though keeping a firm grip on her bound arms. “The MacKenzie girl, as ordered.”

Sir Geoffrey stepped closer, and Moyra lifted her chin defiantly despite her precarious position. She would not cower before English dogs, no matter what they intended.

“Lady Moyra MacKenzie.” His voice carried the cultured tones of English nobility, but there was steel beneath the silk. “You’ve led us quite a chase.”

“Me faither will come fer me,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady, clinging to the hope that he’d sent her away for protection, not abandonment. “He’ll pay whatever ransom ye demand.”

Something that might have been sympathy flickered across the commander’s features before disappearing behind professional indifference.

The blindfold they forced over her eyes made every sensation sharper—the smell of leather and steel, the rough texture of the horse’s mane beneath her bound hands, the cold night air cutting through her torn cloak.

They’d rode for what felt like hours, moving steadily inland from the coast.

“Where are we going?” Moyra demanded, her voice cutting through the steady rhythm of hoofbeats.

“Somewhere you’ll cause no more trouble,” came Sir Geoffrey’s familiar response from somewhere to her left.

“That tells me naething, ye English dog. At least have the courtesy tae inform a lady of her destination before ye drag her off tae whatever dungeon ye have planned.”

His low chuckle held no warmth. “Patience, my lady. All will be revealed soon enough.”