Highland Temptation

Highland Temptation
is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Loveswept Ebook Original

Copyright © 2016 by Jennifer Haymore

Excerpt from
MacLean's Passion
by Sharon Cullen copyright © 2016 by Sharon Cullen

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

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OVESWEPT
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OVESWEPT
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ebook ISBN 9781101965283

Cover design: Carrie Devine/Seductive Designs

Cover photographs: Hot Damn Stock (couple), Period Images (background)

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Most of the inhabitants of London were abed at this hour of night, but a single light glowed in the downstairs window of the Highland Knights' home. Inside, three of the Knights had gathered in the drawing room, as they often did late at night, holding glasses of whisky and talking easily as only close friends could.

Sir Colin Stirling sat on the blue velvet sofa, his elbow propped on the armrest as he swirled the amber liquid in his glass. His lips twisted as he listened to Camden McLeod extol the virtues of marriage.

“I dinna ken why so many men avoid it.” McLeod's blue eyes were bright under his coal-black hair. “There's naught better than lying beside a warm, willing body every night.” He punctuated this pronouncement with a healthy swallow of whisky.

“You used to dislike any mention of the institution of marriage, if I recall,” Sir Ewan Ross said dryly.
“Vehemently.”

“And for many years,” Colin added, nodding.

“Well, I was an idiot and a fool,” McLeod said. “The two of you ken that well.”

“Aye, of course. At the time I kent you were addled,” Ross said.

“You see?” McLeod gave them a smug look.

“But the problem is,” Ross said, grinning under his wild thatch of curly red hair, “you're
still
addled, man. Just in a different way.”

“Nay,” McLeod said gravely. “I'm the sanest of us all. Thanks to Esme.”

Esme was McLeod's wife, and Colin was glad that she seemed just as pleased to be married to McLeod as he was to be married to her, and both were proud and excited that Esme was with child and they'd be parents soon.

Colin grinned at McLeod, happier for the man than he could say. He loved these evenings, sitting in comfort with the other Knights, all of whom he considered his brothers, discussing their lives and their days.

These were the final moments of peace for him each day. There were seven Highland Knights, and Colin was the only one who stayed up late every night, avoiding going to his room until everyone else had gone to bed and there was no choice in the matter.

It was then that the demons came. They didn't haunt him every night. No, they would give him a reprieve once in a while, just long enough for him to let down his guard before they returned with a vengeance. Would they come tonight? He shuddered at the thought and took another swallow of his drink.

“So therefore, I've concluded that the two of you—and Laurent—need to marry as soon as possible,” McLeod said.

Ross snickered. Even Colin's lips drew up in a smirk. He, Ross, and Laurent—the newest man to join their ranks—were the only remaining unmarried Highland Knights.

“Och, well, that's not entirely fair,” Ross said. “Laurent's a mere pup. Give the lad a few years of freedom, at least.”

“Fine.” McLeod's eyes sparkled in challenge. “The two of you, then. You're both long enough in the tooth to be shackled. Especially you, Stirling. What are you now? Forty-one?”

Colin scowled at him. “Not quite. You're a decade off. Have you forgotten how to count, man?”

“Fifty-one, then?” McLeod exclaimed, brows raised.

“You wee bawbag,” Colin grumbled good-naturedly, knowing he was being ribbed.

“Thirty-one, you idiot,” Ross said.

“Nay.” McLeod feigned shock. “You canna be thirty-one. Why, that's my age. You look at least a decade older with all those lines creasing your face.”

Colin shook his head and rolled his eyes. No doubt he did look older than McLeod. He was envious of the other Knights' resilience after Waterloo. If only he had that kind of strength. Raising his glass, he swallowed down the last of his whisky.

“Still, you ought to marry. Thirty-one—hell, you're practically on the shelf.”

“That's a term for
women
of a certain age, not men,” Ross told McLeod.

“
English
women,” Colin added. He'd spent the first half of his life in Scotland, and he'd never heard of a Scottish woman being referred to as “on the shelf.”

“True. God, have you ever imagined what it'd be like to be an Englishwoman, with all their judgments and rules?” McLeod shuddered.

“Nay, I havna,” Ross said. “And I never intend to.”

Colin smiled. “You'd make a fine Englishwoman, though, with all that bonny bright red hair.”

Ross snorted.

McLeod set down his glass. “Well, all this talk of marriage has me craving my wife. Esme is waiting. I'm to bed.”

“Aye, me, too,” Ross said. “No wife to crave, but 'tis late.”

Swallowing down the instant panic that overtook him, Colin rose along with the other two men, clenching his fists at his sides. In his bed, he wouldn't find a wife. He'd find nothing but coldness and darkness, and his demons.

The other Knights had been forced to chase away Colin's demons a few times, which was a few times more than Colin liked. It was humiliating, what the demons did to him. How they reduced him to something less than a man.

Taking up the lantern, McLeod opened the door, and the three of them stepped into the corridor and turned toward the stairway that led to the first floor and their bedchambers. But just then, a sound drew them to a sudden halt. A pounding on the front door.

McLeod looked over his shoulder at Colin and Ross, his brows raised. “What the hell?”

It wasn't right that Colin should be relieved by this—at this hour, that kind of pounding on the door couldn't mean anything good. But it would delay him from his bed awhile longer, and therefore he was grateful for it.

The men swiveled and strode quickly to the front door. The knocking was louder now; it was as if someone was pounding with two hands flat on the smooth wood surface. Colin reached the door first. He gripped the handle and wrenched it open.

It was a woman—that much was apparent immediately, by her flowing garments. It took a moment for Colin's eyes to adjust to the dimness, but then the lantern McLeod held splashed a beam of yellow light over her.

Colin took in wild blond curls, a roundish face, big gray-blue eyes. And blood streaked across the fabric of her white dress. Smeared across her cheek.

He knew this lass. His heart began to beat painfully against his breastbone. “Lady Emilia?”

The woman released a great sob and threw herself at him. He stumbled back a foot before regaining his balance, his hands moving up to her arms to hold her steady. “Oh, Sir Colin, thank God,” she wept into his chest, her fingers curling tightly into his shirt. “Please help me. Please!”

McLeod and Ross had stepped outside and scanned the street as Colin awkwardly murmured calming words to her, cursing his body at its flare of awareness of her pressed against him. He'd admired Lady Emilia Featherstone from afar for a long while, ever since the Highland Knights had been assigned the task of guarding her father, Lord Pinfield. Who, as it happened, was a complete bastard, and Colin had been more than a little relieved when that assignment had ended.

Evidently finding nothing of consequence, McLeod and Ross returned and closed the door behind them.

“Come,” Colin said as gently as he could to the sobbing woman in his arms. “We'll go to the drawing room, and you can tell us what happened.”

She pulled back slightly and seemed to try to gather herself, but her breaths were coming in great heaves, and tears streamed incessantly down her cheeks, streaking through the blood that made Colin's own blood run cold, though he couldn't see where she'd been injured.

“Yes,” she managed. “All right.”

Wrapping his arm around her shoulders to hold her trembling frame steady, Colin led her down the corridor to the drawing room, noticing her halting steps and her grimaces of pain as she walked. What the hell had happened to the poor lass?

Colin directed her to sit on the sofa when they entered the drawing room, and she complied, gingerly perching on the edge. Colin sat beside her.

“Are you injured, milady?” McLeod asked.

Lady Emilia just stared down at her lap, her shoulders heaving. Ross and McLeod exchanged a concerned glance. “We'll fetch Lady Claire,” McLeod said, and Colin nodded, sensing another woman's presence might help. Plus, Lady Claire was Major Campbell's wife and the only one among them who had any medical knowledge. If Emilia was hurt, Claire could assess her injuries and treat them.

The door closed softly behind McLeod and Ross, and Colin sat uncomfortably, his fist clenching and unclenching at his side. He didn't know what to do. He'd never encountered a woman in this state, and seeing this particular woman in distress made something dark and angry swirl within him. He wanted to go find the person who'd done this to her and kill him. Slowly and painfully.

Gently, he grasped a wild curl that had fallen over her face and tucked it behind her ear. Then he took her hand—goddamn, it was cold, like a small block of ice. He chafed it, trying to infuse some warmth into it. Emilia allowed him to touch her, to move her hand, but she didn't look at him; she kept staring down at her lap. He knew she was still crying, because her shoulders heaved and tears dripped with hot splashes onto his hands.

“Shh, lass,” he murmured. “You're safe now. I promise. You're safe.”

She didn't respond. She seemed frozen in her misery. Still rubbing her hands—first one, then the other—he looked her over, trying to find the source of the blood.

It wasn't difficult to find. Her lower back was soaked with red, the color shocking in its brightness against the stark white of her dress. Colin ground his teeth. She was still bleeding.

He couldn't help himself. “Damn it, Emilia,” he said, his voice so raw it ached, “who did this to you?”

For the first time since he'd opened the front door, she looked straight at him, her eyes wide, their gray-blue depths fathomless. A tear crested at one of the bottom lids and slid down her blotchy face.

“It was my father,” she whispered.