Chapter 1
“O
ch, rouse yourself, ye lazy wee blageaird.”
Arran Lennox—not that anyone bloody knew that was his name—opened one eye.
Light sliced through the narrow window, far too bright and cheerful for what had to be an utterly ungodly hour.
Arran closed his eye again.
“Wake up, ye bastard,” came that same laughing voice. “Ye do ken that I am nae your nursemaid, do ye nae? If ye are still abed when the procession gets here, the Laird will have your hide.”
With a groan, Arran pushed himself upright just in time to catch the shirt that his friend Declan Callahan chucked at him, his blue eyes twinkling in the morning light.
“‘The Laird’,” Arran mocked. “Tell me, does yer uncle make ye call him that even when it’s just the two of ye alone?”
When Arran got the shirt over his head, he saw Declan wearing that same cocksure grin he always wore. There was something to admire about the man’s impenetrable charm and confidence, though Arran struggled to appreciate it this early in the morning.
“Do ye really think my uncle spends any time with me alone?” Declan retorted.
Arran huffed a laugh. That was true enough. Laird Seamus Callahan was as somber and serious as his nephew was lighthearted, and the Laird never had time for anything that wasn’t clan business.
This morning, though… that was clan business. The kind of clan business that meant even lowly guards like Arran were required to make an appearance.
The damned Alliance…
Arran’s father had been a big believer in the group, which had come together to promote trade routes through the Highlands and to provide a unified force whenever the British got ideas about trying to exert more control than they were meant to ever have over Scotland.
And the Alliance had done what they were meant to do, at least for a while.
But in the ten years since explosions had torn through the Highlands, blowing the clans to bits…
In the ten years since Arran’s family had been erased in a single evening…
In the ten years since he’d dared to live under his own name…
In that time, the Alliance had become lackluster. At best.
They had started letting English lords in, for Christ’s sake. As if every child in Scotland didn’t learn from the time they could talk that letting the English in was a very dangerous mistake to make.
Ineffective—and tainted by Sassenachs—though the Alliance might be, they were still made up of some of the most powerful players that remained in this part of Scotland. And those were the kinds of people that Arran wanted to be around.
Not out of any sense of personal ambition, but out of a thirst for knowledge. Vengeance, maybe.
He would find out who had organized the explosions that had destroyed his family, destroyed his clan.
He splashed water over his face, icy from sitting overnight in the ewer, and slicked back his dark blonde hair, the water turning almost brown, obscuring the lighter traces.
That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, in Arran’s opinion.
He didn’t know who, exactly, would be arriving with the procession, and the less he looked like a Lennox, the better.
And since he couldn’t hide his damned eyes…
“Are ye finished primping, princess?” Declan asked impatiently from the doorway. “I am nae being set to mucking out stalls because ye are trying to look braw for whatever lassies are coming along with this group.”
Arran flicked water at his friend, which Declan easily dodged from that distance, and the two headed down to steal a bannock from the kitchens before heading out to the courtyard.
Laird Callahan was already waiting by the gate, his back ramrod straight, his expression as calm and steady as ever.
He offered Declan and Arran a small smile as they arrived.
Arran arched an eyebrow at Declan. See? They werenae bloody late after all.
Then turned back to the road, where a long line of carriages rumbled ever closer.
“Ye will represent this clan with dignity and honor,” the Laird said, his voice quiet but no less commanding as he addressed the six trusted guards who had been summoned to this morning’s welcome. “Ye will show that the Callahans are nae a clan to be trifled with.”
Despite the fierceness of his words, there was an omnipresent sadness to the Laird, one that hadn’t left him since he’d lost his wife in the same attack that had killed Arran’s family a decade prior.
While Arran had been forced to hide his sorrow, lest it lead to questions he had no desire to answer, the Laird had worn his grief like a mantle, using it to add to his consequence.
It also helped hide that the man was as sharp as a bloody tack, Arran thought with an inward smile. Laird Callahan was as canny as they came, with a keen political sense, but his quiet outer aspect made people underestimate him far too frequently.
They usually came to regret it.
“Aye, my laird!” the gathered men replied, somber and obedient.
The first carriage rolled in, all gilt edges and elaborate decorations. A coat of arms had been painted on the doors—and if that wasn’t just asking to get robbed, Arran thought dryly, he didn’t know what was. It didn’t help that the thing was nigh spotless.
Maybe dirt didn’t dare to touch such greatness.
It was a real effort not to roll his eyes.
The carriage, led by four identical horses, came to a precise halt in front of the gathered men. A footman, dressed in livery that was finer than anything Arran himself owned, leaped down the instant the carriage stopped moving and opened the door for the passengers.
A short, round sort of man emerged, wearing an expression that said that he was already disappointed in his surroundings. He was well into middle age, likely late in his fifth decade of life, though his cap of snowy white hair made him look even older.
“Lord Edmund Ashbourne,” the footman announced solemnly.
Ah, so this was the English ambassador. Well, no surprise there. He looked exactly like Arran might have expected a man in such a role to look.
Arran paid the man little mind as he stepped forward to greet Laird Callahan. Puffed-up Englishmen wouldn’t have the information that Arran required.
A young woman appeared at the carriage door next.
She was closer to twenty than twenty-five, in Arran’s opinion, tall and lithe with a great pile of golden hair atop her head.
Her piercing green eyes looked around the scene, taking it in.
She looked assessing, as though she was trying to figure out what to do next.
The footman wasn’t paying her any mind even though she was likely an attendant, so Arran reached up a hand to help her down. She glanced down at his hand, hesitating before she accepted it.
“The luggage will go around the back, lassie,” he said—a little more curtly than he might otherwise have done. It was early yet, and she was an Englishwoman.
Her eyes flashed, and she turned to him, a retort clearly ready to spring to her lips. But something made her falter, and she eyed him warily rather than speaking.
Lord Ashbourne interrupted instead, turning sharply on Arran, his chest puffed out with anger.
“Learn to recognize quality when you see it, boy,” he snarled, intruding in Arran’s space. This was less effective than it might have been, given that Arran had a good six inches on the man. “That is a lady of rank you addressed just then. That is my wife. Learn some respect.”
It took all of Arran’s training—a lifetime spent in the yards, learning to be a soldier, plus a decade of keeping his innermost feelings locked down—to prevent him from reacting.
It wasn’t just the difference in their ages that surprised him.
Well, yes, it was mostly that, but he knew these things happened.
They happened here in Scotland, so he was certain it was even worse in England, where status and prestige seemed to rule above all else.
But there was something… real about the lass. Something solid and dignified, something clever. She’d held her tongue when he’d made an incorrect assumption, and she’d watched the scene carefully before making her move.
Arran had only observed Lord Ashbourne for a minute now, and he already recognized the lord as the kind of man who blustered into situations, confident that his title and his wealth would carry him through. It probably did, most of the time, because the world was irritating and unfair.
“Apologies, my lord,” Arran murmured through gritted teeth and bowed his head a fraction.
He didn’t think he could get out much else, so it was fortunate that Ashbourne didn’t seem to need anything further. The lord just sneered, then turned to Laird Callahan.
“I’m sure that you don’t get to see many fine ladies all the way up here,” he chuckled, either unaware or uncaring that he was being hideously offensive to his host. “I suppose I cannot blame a lowly guard from some remote backwater for not knowing what a true lady looks like.”
While Ashbourne was otherwise occupied, Declan leaned over slightly so that he could hiss in Arran’s ear.
“The wife is Makenna MacBrae,” he whispered.
Arran went stock still.
Makenna MacBrae was no prim English lady. She was a Highlander, a Scotswoman. She must have been married off to this blowhard as part of the Alliance, and Arran felt a sudden twist of sympathy for her.
“I apologize, my lady,” he said while her husband continued to complain about the localities he’d visited on his way here. “I assumed—”
“Think nothing of it,” she said. Her voice held only the faintest hint of her home country in it, as if she had done everything she could to erase her origins. “You are but a guard.”
The words were dismissive, designed to sting. Arran felt his sympathy evaporate.
He might have found himself unable to resist responding to that little dismissal, if not for the conveniently timed stumble that sent Declan’s shoulder crashing into his.
It was only a small distraction, even Declan wouldn’t risk ruining things for his uncle with something more dramatic, but it was enough.
By the time they were both standing ramrod straight again, Makenna MacBrae, now Makenna Ashbourne, was standing two steps behind her husband, her hands clasped primly in front of her.
“And how is your father, lass?” Laird Callahan asked Makenna, tilting his head to the side to see her around Ashbourne.
“MacBrae stands strong as always, my Laird,” she said, in that strange, almost-English voice. “You can’t stop the fire, after all.”
Callahan’s expression remained as placid as ever at the reference to the MacBrae Clan’s call to arms. Arran, meanwhile, felt it like a slap across his face.
He’d heard those words dozens—hundreds—of times as a child. Not only did the MacBraes reference it in every one of their military displays, but more than that, it was the words tossed back and forth between boys in childish spats.
If a Lennox won, he’d crow that ye could stop the fire, and when a MacBrae returned the favor, they would insist the opposite with even greater vehemence.
Hearing it now took Arran back to another time… and reminded him that, while the MacBraes endured, the Lennoxes had been erased from this world.
“Of course, Lady Makenna,” Laird Callahan said, smiling politely.
“I am pleased to hear it, of course. Now, let us return inside shall we? I will show ye the Keep and then ye can retire to your rooms before we share a meal. It will give ye a chance to restore yourselves after your long journey through… our challenging terrain.”
Arran could feel Declan’s delight at this retort from his uncle, no matter how slight.
The guards trailed obediently behind their Laird and Ashbourne as they led the way back into the Keep. The English lord kept a hand possessively on his wife’s back as they went inside. She did not utter so much as another word, just hovered where she was directed.
And yet, whenever there was a chance, Arran could feel her eyes upon him. They did not seem judgmental but far too observant.
And for Arran, whose life depended on staying hidden, it was not a comfortable feeling in the least.