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Synopsis
Mairi MacGregor hoped to never again lay eyes on Connor Grant. She was ten and one when he promised her he would one day build them a home in her beloved Highlands, spending their lives together. But she was ten and seven and foolishly weeping when he rode out of the Highlands to join the English Royal Army. She wouldn’t be so foolish as to waste tears on him now. Devoted to her beloved Scotland, Mairi believes Connor is a turncoat and a liar, and there’s nothing she despises more than that. No one but her brother, Colin, knows that Mairi is part of a rebel militia, quietly gaining intelligence and exposing traitors to Scotland using whatever means necessary. Now, at King James’ court in England, she’s determined to keep her missions secret and keep the one man with the power to bring her to her knees at arm’s length—her heart be damned.
Royal Captain Connor Grant never wanted to leave Mairi, but he’d had no choice. It was his duty to serve his family’s name, and no matter how he asked her to wait, his lass had refused. He’s never stopped loving her, though, and seeing the beautiful, passionate, yet mysterious woman she’s become at court has taken his breath away. But King James has powerful enemies, and Connor isn’t deaf to the whispers of treachery in court. So when the king disappears in the middle of the night with Mairi’s brother as his only protection, Connor suspects Mairi is involved. As one secret after another unravels about the king’s whereabouts and the whispers of a coup grow ever stronger, can Connor trust the one woman who still has his heart?
Release date: July 1, 2011
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Print pages: 400
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Tamed by a Highlander
Paula Quinn
“Seduced by a Highlander is sparkling, sexy, and seductive! I couldn’t put it down! Paula Quinn is a rising star!”
—Karen Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author
“4½ Stars! TOP PICK! An engrossing story brimming with atmosphere and passionate characters… a true keeper.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Scottish romance at its very best! Deliciously romantic and sensual, Paula Quinn captures the heart of the Highlands in a tender, passionate romance that you won’t be able to put down.”
—Monica McCarty, New York Times bestselling author
“A rich tapestry of love, rivalry, and hope… the simmering passion made for very heated scenes… I can’t wait to read more of the family in future books!”
—TheRomanceReadersConnection.com
“A story of feuding and rivalries, but also of love and redemption… It will be a pleasure to read more of the MacGregor clan’s adventures.”
—RomanceReaderAtHeart.com
“Five Stars! Reviewer’s Recommended Award Winner! Paula Quinn went above and beyond my expectations… With a hero to make a heart sigh and a heroine who can match the hero wit to wit, this story is one I highly recommend adding to your bookshelf.”
—CoffeeTimeRomance.com
“A powerful and dramatic story… I’m happy to have found such a talented writer.”
—RomRevToday.com
“A wonderful love story and so well-written. Fun to read… Loved Tristan and Isobel.”
—Romance Reviews
“Deftly combines historical fact and powerful romance… There’s much more than just sizzling sensuality: history buffs will love the attention to periodic detail and cameos by real-life figures, and the protagonists embody compassion, responsibility, and unrelenting, almost self-sacrificial honor. Quinn’s seamless prose and passionate storytelling will leave readers hungry for future installments.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“4½ Stars! TOP PICK! Quinn once again captures the aura of the Highlands. Here is an amazing love story where characters’ deep emotions and sense of honor for their countrymen will enchant readers.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Incomparable… Paula Quinn expertly interweaves fact and fiction so well that you will come to truly believe every one of her characters can be found in the pages of history… Ms. Quinn has a gift for creating characters for whom you genuinely feel affection and even come to adore, and this couple are two of the most memorable I have had the pleasure of reading lately… a romantic adventure of the heart, where emotional confrontations leave an unforgettable impact.”
—SingleTitles.com
“5 Stars! I found myself amazed… The writing style is so vivid, I could almost see the scenery and hear the battles within the halls of Camlochlin Castle. This author is one to watch!”
—HuntressReviews.com
“I absolutely enjoyed this book. It’s full of action, adventure, and more than a little bit of passion… This was my first venture into Paula Quinn’s writing, but it will not be my last.”
—NightOwlReviews.com
“4½ Stars! TOP PICK! Quinn uses her wit and whimsy to develop memorable characters who steal your heart… a romance that brings passion and history to life.”
—RT Book Reviews
“5 stars! Paula Quinn is a master storyteller and her gifted skill stands out in each enchanting scene of this breathtaking story… As for the suspenseful action and secretive mysteries in the story, Ms. Quinn is unparalleled when it comes to keeping the reader riveted… an innovative and unforgettable love story.”
—SingleTitles.com
“5 Stars! [A] gripping tale of seventeenth-century romance. Quinn has done awesome research… With this story’s strong plot, wonderful repartee, and well-developed characters, this is truly a book that will captivate you and one you won’t want to put down! Definitely a top pick and I look forward to more great reads from this very talented writer!”
—FreshFiction.com
“4½ Stars! TOP PICK! Quinn captures the aura of the Highlands brilliantly, delivering a tale rife with Scottish lore and infamous feuds. She combines passion, history, danger, and intrigue to perfection.”
—RT Book Reviews
“The Highlands of Scotland come alive in Laird of the Mist… Paula Quinn knows exactly how to capture the imagination of her readers by giving them memorable characters and enthralling plots.”
—SingleTitles.com
“Quinn is an author to watch.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“4 Stars! Readers will fly through the pages and wiggle in their seats… Feast on this medieval banquet!”
—RT Book Reviews
“Passion, peril, and plenty of medieval political intrigue… expertly crafted historical romance.”
—Booklist
“Features a sinfully sexy hero who meets his match in a strong-willed heroine… An excellent choice for readers who like powerful, passion-rich medieval romances.”
—Booklist
“Quinn’s lively romance… offers two spirited protagonists as well as engaging minor characters… The sharp repartee and dramatic finale make this a pleasant read.”
—Publishers Weekly
“4 Stars!… fast-paced and brimming with biting, sexy repartee, and a sensual cat-and-mouse game.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Gloriously passionate… boldly sensual… Quinn deftly enhances her debut with just enough historical details to give a vivid sense of time and place.”
—Booklist
Ye’re a lass; my daughter, and I’ll no’ have ye fightin’ in a battle.”
Mairi MacGregor stood with her father in the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall Palace, staring up at him in mute fury and disbelief. She was a lass. What the hell kind of reason was that to refuse to let her return home in the morning with the rest of her kin?
So what if the lass her brother Rob had rescued from the hands of the Dutch admiral Peter Gilles at St. Christopher’s Abbey was King James’s daughter, and was now on her way to Camlochlin? If the princess royal’s enemies did, in fact, follow them and attack Mairi’s home, she wanted to be there to help stop them.
But there was a bigger reason she didn’t want to stay in England. It had little to do with it’s being hotter than hell on Judgment Day, or that the nobles sitting around her beneath grand murals painted by a Protestant king’s favored artist looked down their noses at her Highland dress and barbaric customs.
“Faither, if this Dutch admiral attacks Camlochlin, I would like to fight.”
He gave her a horrified look that changed with her next heartbeat to one rife with warning. “Never suggest such a thing to me again.”
“But ye know I can wield a sword!” she argued, blocking his path when he moved to pass her.
Aye, she knew how to wield a blade, and she was not afraid to face one. There were many times when she had, and they were not on her father’s practice field. But she could never tell him that she and her brother Colin were part of the Highland rebel militia who cut down Covenanters and Cameronians, those Scottish Presbyterians who had bound themselves to maintain their doctrine as the sole religion of Scotland. Protestants, many of whom sat in Parliament, believing the Highland ways, with a chief ruling over his clan, barbaric.
“Ye refuse me because I am a woman!”
“Ye’re damned right!” he said louder than he intended. He cut his molten gaze to Lord Oddington passing them and looking over his shoulder. “Ye will remain here,” he told her, lowering his voice. “Colin will remain, as well. I dinna’ know where ye both sneak off to at home, but ye willna’ be doin’ it this time.”
Her eyes opened wide with alarm at what he suspected, but she couldn’t give up her pleading. “But…”
“I willna’ be persuaded, Mairi.” His gaze on her softened. “Ye are my daughter and ye will obey me in this. Ye will remain here until ’tis safe to come home. I love ye and I will do whatever I need to do in order to keep ye safe.”
He walked off to join her mother at the far end of the hall, leaving Mairi alone with a dozen curses spilling from her lips.
Damn it all to hell, but she wasn’t about to sit on her arse while her life was taken away from her. She was Callum MacGregor’s only daughter and as such she had been denied the rigorous training her three brothers had enjoyed growing up. But that hadn’t stopped her from learning how to wield a blade or fire an arrow. She could fight. She wanted to fight.
But it had not always been this way. Once, long ago, she had been content to think of a life like her mother’s, protected and adored in the arms of a warrior. She had wanted a quiet life, one with a man who vowed to tell her how bonnie she was to him every day, until the end of their lives. One with bairns of her own, in a home he’d promised to build for her, where tenderness and love meant more to her than religious or political wars.
Connor Grant had birthed those dreams, and then shattered them all when he left her to serve England’s Protestant King Charles.
She hadn’t seen him in seven years. She had put him out of her thoughts, out of her life for good. But tonight, he returned.
Mairi had not been in her father’s chambers when Captain Grant arrived at Whitehall and had given her kin the news that the Dutch were responsible for the attack on the abbey. She had stayed away, hoping to avoid him until she returned home. But she wasn’t going home.
All the years she had spent learning to protect herself from every kind of weapon, even deceit, could not prepare her for this day. She wished she were blind so she could not see the love of her youth, deaf so she could not hear him. But what would it matter if she was so afflicted? She knew his face better than she knew her own. She’d grown up looking at it, falling in love with it. She knew every one of the thousands of emotions that played so openly across his features. The way his eyes spoke for him, as clear as any words falling from his lips. She still heard his slow, thick drawl in her dreams, more like the purr of a lion than the voice of a lad. He had haunted her for the last seven years and she hated him for it. She hated him for making her lose her heart to him when she was too young to stop herself. For sweeping that heart away on dreams of their future, and then taking them from her without looking back.
Connor Grant was a part of her life she preferred to forget. But she could never forget the way he looked the day he left Camlochlin—resolved, despite the tears she foolishly shed for him.
She did not want to see or speak to him now. She was not certain she could contain the bitter betrayal he had left her with when he abandoned her… when he abandoned Scotland, and, mayhap, even his faith.
Her eyes shifted toward the entrance. He was coming. He’d gone to have a meeting with the king and was likely finished and on his way to the Banqueting Hall right now. Her fingers twisted a loose thread in her kirtle, over and over, until the coarse wool made her flesh raw. But that was the only outward sign of the turmoil within her. She breathed steadily, even offering a temperate smile to the woman approaching her.
“If Lady Oddington continues to ogle my husband,” Connor’s mother, Lady Claire Stuart, said, coming to stand beside her, “I will have no choice but to relieve her of her eyes.”
Casting Lady Oddington a pitiful look, Mairi sighed. “Ye would think she would exercise more caution around him after ye accidentally stepped on Lady Channing’s gown and nearly tore it from her body.”
“Sweeting, that was Lady Somerset. Lady Channing lost her wig when my ring caught into it as I was passing her.”
Mairi laughed for the first time that evening, but her mirth faded when her gaze drifted back to the entrance.
“You mustn’t be angry with him,” Claire said softly. Of course, she was speaking of Mairi’s father. She had quit trying to help Mairi see her son’s side of things long ago.
“Ye know I can fight, Claire.”
“Still, you must obey him. He loves you.”
Och, how many times had she heard those words throughout her life? She knew her father loved her, but he loved his sons as well, and he had no trouble letting them fight.
“I will be here with you if it is any comfort.”
“ ’Tis,” Mairi told her honestly. If she had to remain here, she was happy that her friend was staying behind, as well. After losing four daughters at birth, Claire had taken her under her wing as if Mairi were one of her own. ’Twas Claire’s life Mairi wanted to emulate after Connor left. Before ever gracing Whitehall Palace’s grand halls, or being titled Lady Huntley of Aberdeen, Claire had been a rebel outlaw, fighting against the usurpers of her cousin Charles’s crown. She taught Mairi everything she knew about combat. As she looked now though, adorned in a gown of dark claret, her flaxen tresses swept unfashionably away from her face into a crown of curls above her head, it was difficult to imagine her wielding a spoon, let alone a sword.
“I know you don’t like to speak of him…”
Mairi wound her thread tighter. Hell, mayhap ’twas not a good thing that his mother was staying.
“… but I was hoping the two of you might—”
She heard nothing after that but the hum of viols coming from the balcony above and the peal of thunder that shook the walls. She saw no one but the man framing the entrance. Dear God, how was it possible that he had grown even more handsome?
Unlike most of the lesser mortals at court, dressed up like colorful peacocks in their elaborate silk costumes and high heels adorned with wide-ribbon bows, Connor wore high, military-style boots over buff-colored breeches that clung to his long, muscular legs. A sheathed claymore hung from one hip and a holstered pistol from the other, lending to the air of danger and authority that surrounded him. He stood apart from the rest like a leopard, lithe and confident. A blend of his two heritages, he stood tall and elegant like his royal English side, but thicker boned and more imposing than any Englishman, thanks to the Highland blood that coursed through his veins. He wore his ostrich-feathered military hat under his arm, leaving his hair to fall to his chiseled jaw in streaks of warm amber and pale flaxen. His red-and-white short coat boasted shoulders broadened by strength and brawn rather than yards of ruffle.
Helpless to do anything else, Mairi watched him stop to share a greeting with Lord Hollingsworth and his wife. He looked older, more experienced in things she might never understand. But his smile hadn’t changed. It was charming, sensual, and playful all at once. To make it even more heartrending to any lass with a set of working eyes in her head, it was adorned by a dimple on either side; the right, deeper than the left and needing only the slightest encouragement to appear.
That is, until his eyes, eclipsed behind silken strands of gilded gold, found her and cut through her flesh like hot iron.
The thread in her fingers popped.
“Will you try, Mairi?”
She blinked and looked at Claire. Try what? Rather than admit that she hadn’t heard a word Claire said because Connor had stepped into the hall, Mairi nodded. “Aye, of course.”
“Thank you, sweeting. That means much to me.” Claire leaned in to kiss her cheek, then took her by the hand and pulled her forward.
Hell. Mairi tried to dig her heels into the floor when she saw where her friend was leading her, but Claire tugged her onward.
The hall grew smaller. Her feet felt like they were carrying her through cooled molasses. Each step that brought her closer to Connor twisted her stomach tighter and made her want to run the other way. Ridiculous! She feared nothing. Had she not, on three separate occasions, charged headlong into the fray when the militia kicked down the doors of her enemies? Why did she allow Connor Grant to make her palms moist, her breath shallow, her heart pound madly in her chest?
Because once, he had been the reason she smiled, the reason she dreamed and hoped. She had breathed him for so long that when he left, she could not breathe anymore. But finally, she had. And she would continue.
She despised the royal uniform that stretched across his wide shoulders like a clingy mistress, but she could not deny that he looked even more imposing in it than in the Highland plaid he used to wear.
The ladies of the court certainly seemed to like how he looked if the number of them hovering around him was any indication.
Glaring at them, Mairi wondered how many of these seemingly proper English trollops Connor had bedded since he had left Camlochlin. Quite a few if the gossip that traveled from England to Scotland counted for anything. How could he have traded her heart in for theirs? Was it their close-fitting gowns or their ghostly, painted faces with heart-shaped patches on their cheeks that he preferred? Bastard.
“There you are!” Claire exchanged Mairi’s hand for her son’s when he bent to kiss her.
Mairi’s cursed knees went a wee bit weak at the sight of him so close now she could smell the wind on his clothes.
“Miss MacGregor,” he offered briefly, straightening from his greeting and offering her neither smile nor scowl.
“Captain.”
His jaw, shadowed with several days’ worth of golden whiskers, had grown harder with the years. Or had it only gone harder on her?
“Be wary of Lady Hollingsworth.” Claire leaned in closer to her son. Her eyes, following the harlot as she traipsed across the hall to her husband, were the same stormy blue as Connor’s when they flicked back to Mairi. “She has claws, that one.”
“Rest assured.” Connor’s voice stole across Mairi’s cheek like a balmy breeze on the moors. “I am indifferent to claws.”
Mairi crooked her mouth at him and stifled a snort an instant before it left her lips. His words proved him the rogue he was rumored to be. Just as she had meant nothing to him, neither did the other women who shared his bed and his laughter. She was proud of herself for not flinching when his cool gaze settled upon her, this time, for longer than a moment.
“Do ye wish to say something, Miss MacGregor?”
“Nae, Captain, not to ye.”
Amusement sparked his gaze, but there was no warmth in it. “Ah, Mairi, ye remain consistent, at least.”
“At least one of us does,” she parried, her composure as coolly detached as his.
His grin went hard in an instant. “I see ye have kept yer tongue as sharp as yer blades.”
His leisurely perusal of her skirts, or more likely the split in them, made her belly flip. Damnation, she did not want to be here, conversing with him. She had finally put him out of her mind. Finally moved on with her life without him in it. Seeing him again tempted her to remember. Once, she had wanted nothing more than to be his wife, but she fought those memories as passionately as she fought against the extinction of the Highland way of life. Because of him, she had become a warrior.
When he met her gaze again, accompanied by a crack of thunder that shook the palace walls, she expelled a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding and did the only thing she knew to protect herself. She attacked.
“Tell me, Captain Grant, do ye always precede the gloom of a storm?”
He gave her a very English bow, adding to her insult. “Only when ye are waiting at my destination.”
Mairi thought of the dagger tied to her thigh, but realized regrettably that she could not kill him right here in front of his mother.
She turned her most practiced smile on Claire instead. “I should go find Colin—”
“Pardon me, Miss MacGregor.”
The proper English voice coming up beside her drew a silent sigh from Mairi. The night just kept getting worse. She offered her smile to Henry de Vere, the Earl of Oxford’s son, as he spared a brief greeting to Lady Huntley. Mairi had met him the day after her kin had arrived at Whitehall. His profuse knowledge about everything and everyone at the palace had enticed her into spending time with him. If there were any Presbyterians roaming Whitehall, he would know of them. Unfortunately, she was beginning to fear she’d spent too much time with him. For he followed her about like an eager pup and made it quite difficult to steal into any of the guest’s rooms for any valuable information she could bring home to the militia.
“I was hoping to have a word with you before the tables were cleared and to ask you for the first dance this evening.”
“Why, of course, Lord Oxford.” Seeing a way to use him to her advantage by getting her away from present company, she looped her arm through his and gave him a slight tug. “But remember, I only know the one courtly dance ye were kind enough to teach me.”
“Then allow me to teach you a dozen more.” Lord Oxford looked up at Connor as his hand stole over Mairi’s knuckles. “Unless, of course, you made a prior promise to someone else?”
Connor offered him a stiff smile and stepped out of their path. “She is yers fer the evening.”
Mairi wanted to slap him good and hard, and then do the same to herself. Why did his casual dismissal feel like a blow to her chest? She knew he no longer loved her—no man could be apart from the lass he loved for seven damn years! But had he truly grown so callous?
“If I had made such a promise”—despite her roiling insides, she spoke with all the sickeningly sweet civility she could muster—“Captain Grant of all people would understand if I broke it.”
She wanted evidence that her barb had pricked him. She wanted to hurt him, to repay him for every moment she had spent weeping over him in her bed. But his smile returned, as if he knew the secrets of mere mortals and found them amusing.
“Aye, not only would I understand,” he said, “but I would expect it, as well.”
A dozen curses battered against her teeth, but she contained them all and let Lord Oxford lead her away. She would show Connor no interest. Pretend he was not even here. An easy endeavor she mastered against those she hated.
And she certainly hated him.
Connor watched Mairi leave with her frilly admirer and clenched his jaw to keep from cursing aloud. He’d like to give her a swift kick in the arse to hurry her departure. If she wanted to revile him for the next fifty years, let her. If she chose to dance with every man at court, let her do that as well. He’d wasted enough years pining over her. She was no longer his and was free to do as she damn well pleased.
But hell, he thought, watching her take the floor with Oxford, she was still the bonniest woman he’d ever laid eyes on. More beautiful than he remembered. She stood apart from every other woman in the palace, donning her out-of-place Highland earasaid with the supreme confidence of a queen, her chin tilted with the defiance she’d inherited from her father. The years had had little effect on her. Her long, coal curls still captured the light as they fell over the swell of her breast. Her skin was as flawless as it was when she was a lass of five and ten summers. Only her eyes, still as blue as the heavens above Camlochlin, were colder.
The music from the balcony drifted downward, filling him with memories of his long days here before he and his men had been sent to Glencoe to keep peace between the MacDonalds and the Campbells. He hadn’t wanted to return, mostly because he knew Mairi would be here for the coronation, but also because he never truly fit in with all the posh and luxury of the king’s courts. He was a Highlander, and he couldn’t stomach being surrounded by false pleasantries and overindulged peers.
He missed Scotland already and he’d only been away for a se’nnight. He wished he were lying in his tent, upon the cold, hard ground, rather than here, with them… with her… mostly with her, even for a day. He was grateful that the MacGregors were returning home in the morning.
He hadn’t wanted to leave his home in the Highlands… or her, for he’d loved them both. He’d had no choice. As fourth cousin to the king, it was his duty to serve his family name. A duty he had not renounced but accepted with pride. The blood of warriors flowed through his veins, after all; his father, commander of the MacGregors’ brutal garrison, along with his mother, had risked his life to help restore Charles to the throne. His uncle and namesake, High Admiral Connor Stuart, once, long ago, defied generals and endured the pain of torture in the Tower.
It had been his turn to defend the throne and Connor had gone without quarrel. But Mairi had never forgiven him for leaving her to serve under a Protestant king. He’d written her, asking her to join him in England. She refused every request. She’d left him with no other choice but to let her go. It was what she had wanted. What she told him would make her happy. So he made himself forget her, and stayed away from Camlochlin, remaining in the army even after his required service to Charles had been fulfilled.
“I had hoped your reunion would go better than that.”
Connor looked down at his mother and shrugged the encounter off his shoulders with a glib quirk of his lips. “A hope that will only continue to disappoint ye if ye hold on to it.”
His mother offered him a tender look before she drew in a steadying breath and looked toward the dance floor. “She is staying here.”
“What?” Connor didn’t realize he’d spoken until his mother startled at his tone and lowered her own voice so that only he could hear.
“Callum doesn’t want her at Camlochlin in the event that the Dutch come looking for the king’s daughter. Colin is staying, as well, for the same reason.”
“What reason is that?”
“Their passion for the blade.”
Connor’s expression darkened. “Hell, ye continued her lessons in battle even after I… and her father, asked ye not to.”
“There is nothing wrong with her knowing how to wield a sword.” His mother glared back at him.
“Save that wielding a sword in practice is quite different from wielding one in true battle. She doesn’t know that or she would not even consider fighting men who recently murdered a convent full of nuns.”
His mother sighed and gave him a rather pitying look just before she smiled at her husband cutting through the crowd to reach them. “Connor, dear, there is much you don’t know since you left.” She gave him no time to ponder her oddly disturbing statement, but bestowed her most radiant smile on his father.
“How went yer meeting with the king?” Graham Grant asked him after tipping back his cap and kissing his wife. “Will we be fighting the Dutch then?”
Aye, here was what he should be concerning himself with. England’s new Catholic king had dangerous enemies who were very likely planning an imminent revolt. “Not before James knows fer certain who ordered the attack on the abbey.” They already knew about the exiled Earl of Argyll’s alleged return to England’s shores to gather forces against the king. The Duke of Monmouth could not be far behind. But, it was Prince William of Orange who had the most to gain should James be usurped. Connor let his gaze settle briefly on the king’s nephew and son-in-law sitting at the dais on the other side of the hall. As the king’s alleged firstborn, William’s wife, Mary, was next in line for the throne.
Their quiet conversation came to a halt when Lord Hartley and his daughter Eleanor stopped to give them greeting.
Connor smiled as decorum dictated,. . .
—Karen Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author
“4½ Stars! TOP PICK! An engrossing story brimming with atmosphere and passionate characters… a true keeper.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Scottish romance at its very best! Deliciously romantic and sensual, Paula Quinn captures the heart of the Highlands in a tender, passionate romance that you won’t be able to put down.”
—Monica McCarty, New York Times bestselling author
“A rich tapestry of love, rivalry, and hope… the simmering passion made for very heated scenes… I can’t wait to read more of the family in future books!”
—TheRomanceReadersConnection.com
“A story of feuding and rivalries, but also of love and redemption… It will be a pleasure to read more of the MacGregor clan’s adventures.”
—RomanceReaderAtHeart.com
“Five Stars! Reviewer’s Recommended Award Winner! Paula Quinn went above and beyond my expectations… With a hero to make a heart sigh and a heroine who can match the hero wit to wit, this story is one I highly recommend adding to your bookshelf.”
—CoffeeTimeRomance.com
“A powerful and dramatic story… I’m happy to have found such a talented writer.”
—RomRevToday.com
“A wonderful love story and so well-written. Fun to read… Loved Tristan and Isobel.”
—Romance Reviews
“Deftly combines historical fact and powerful romance… There’s much more than just sizzling sensuality: history buffs will love the attention to periodic detail and cameos by real-life figures, and the protagonists embody compassion, responsibility, and unrelenting, almost self-sacrificial honor. Quinn’s seamless prose and passionate storytelling will leave readers hungry for future installments.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“4½ Stars! TOP PICK! Quinn once again captures the aura of the Highlands. Here is an amazing love story where characters’ deep emotions and sense of honor for their countrymen will enchant readers.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Incomparable… Paula Quinn expertly interweaves fact and fiction so well that you will come to truly believe every one of her characters can be found in the pages of history… Ms. Quinn has a gift for creating characters for whom you genuinely feel affection and even come to adore, and this couple are two of the most memorable I have had the pleasure of reading lately… a romantic adventure of the heart, where emotional confrontations leave an unforgettable impact.”
—SingleTitles.com
“5 Stars! I found myself amazed… The writing style is so vivid, I could almost see the scenery and hear the battles within the halls of Camlochlin Castle. This author is one to watch!”
—HuntressReviews.com
“I absolutely enjoyed this book. It’s full of action, adventure, and more than a little bit of passion… This was my first venture into Paula Quinn’s writing, but it will not be my last.”
—NightOwlReviews.com
“4½ Stars! TOP PICK! Quinn uses her wit and whimsy to develop memorable characters who steal your heart… a romance that brings passion and history to life.”
—RT Book Reviews
“5 stars! Paula Quinn is a master storyteller and her gifted skill stands out in each enchanting scene of this breathtaking story… As for the suspenseful action and secretive mysteries in the story, Ms. Quinn is unparalleled when it comes to keeping the reader riveted… an innovative and unforgettable love story.”
—SingleTitles.com
“5 Stars! [A] gripping tale of seventeenth-century romance. Quinn has done awesome research… With this story’s strong plot, wonderful repartee, and well-developed characters, this is truly a book that will captivate you and one you won’t want to put down! Definitely a top pick and I look forward to more great reads from this very talented writer!”
—FreshFiction.com
“4½ Stars! TOP PICK! Quinn captures the aura of the Highlands brilliantly, delivering a tale rife with Scottish lore and infamous feuds. She combines passion, history, danger, and intrigue to perfection.”
—RT Book Reviews
“The Highlands of Scotland come alive in Laird of the Mist… Paula Quinn knows exactly how to capture the imagination of her readers by giving them memorable characters and enthralling plots.”
—SingleTitles.com
“Quinn is an author to watch.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“4 Stars! Readers will fly through the pages and wiggle in their seats… Feast on this medieval banquet!”
—RT Book Reviews
“Passion, peril, and plenty of medieval political intrigue… expertly crafted historical romance.”
—Booklist
“Features a sinfully sexy hero who meets his match in a strong-willed heroine… An excellent choice for readers who like powerful, passion-rich medieval romances.”
—Booklist
“Quinn’s lively romance… offers two spirited protagonists as well as engaging minor characters… The sharp repartee and dramatic finale make this a pleasant read.”
—Publishers Weekly
“4 Stars!… fast-paced and brimming with biting, sexy repartee, and a sensual cat-and-mouse game.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Gloriously passionate… boldly sensual… Quinn deftly enhances her debut with just enough historical details to give a vivid sense of time and place.”
—Booklist
Ye’re a lass; my daughter, and I’ll no’ have ye fightin’ in a battle.”
Mairi MacGregor stood with her father in the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall Palace, staring up at him in mute fury and disbelief. She was a lass. What the hell kind of reason was that to refuse to let her return home in the morning with the rest of her kin?
So what if the lass her brother Rob had rescued from the hands of the Dutch admiral Peter Gilles at St. Christopher’s Abbey was King James’s daughter, and was now on her way to Camlochlin? If the princess royal’s enemies did, in fact, follow them and attack Mairi’s home, she wanted to be there to help stop them.
But there was a bigger reason she didn’t want to stay in England. It had little to do with it’s being hotter than hell on Judgment Day, or that the nobles sitting around her beneath grand murals painted by a Protestant king’s favored artist looked down their noses at her Highland dress and barbaric customs.
“Faither, if this Dutch admiral attacks Camlochlin, I would like to fight.”
He gave her a horrified look that changed with her next heartbeat to one rife with warning. “Never suggest such a thing to me again.”
“But ye know I can wield a sword!” she argued, blocking his path when he moved to pass her.
Aye, she knew how to wield a blade, and she was not afraid to face one. There were many times when she had, and they were not on her father’s practice field. But she could never tell him that she and her brother Colin were part of the Highland rebel militia who cut down Covenanters and Cameronians, those Scottish Presbyterians who had bound themselves to maintain their doctrine as the sole religion of Scotland. Protestants, many of whom sat in Parliament, believing the Highland ways, with a chief ruling over his clan, barbaric.
“Ye refuse me because I am a woman!”
“Ye’re damned right!” he said louder than he intended. He cut his molten gaze to Lord Oddington passing them and looking over his shoulder. “Ye will remain here,” he told her, lowering his voice. “Colin will remain, as well. I dinna’ know where ye both sneak off to at home, but ye willna’ be doin’ it this time.”
Her eyes opened wide with alarm at what he suspected, but she couldn’t give up her pleading. “But…”
“I willna’ be persuaded, Mairi.” His gaze on her softened. “Ye are my daughter and ye will obey me in this. Ye will remain here until ’tis safe to come home. I love ye and I will do whatever I need to do in order to keep ye safe.”
He walked off to join her mother at the far end of the hall, leaving Mairi alone with a dozen curses spilling from her lips.
Damn it all to hell, but she wasn’t about to sit on her arse while her life was taken away from her. She was Callum MacGregor’s only daughter and as such she had been denied the rigorous training her three brothers had enjoyed growing up. But that hadn’t stopped her from learning how to wield a blade or fire an arrow. She could fight. She wanted to fight.
But it had not always been this way. Once, long ago, she had been content to think of a life like her mother’s, protected and adored in the arms of a warrior. She had wanted a quiet life, one with a man who vowed to tell her how bonnie she was to him every day, until the end of their lives. One with bairns of her own, in a home he’d promised to build for her, where tenderness and love meant more to her than religious or political wars.
Connor Grant had birthed those dreams, and then shattered them all when he left her to serve England’s Protestant King Charles.
She hadn’t seen him in seven years. She had put him out of her thoughts, out of her life for good. But tonight, he returned.
Mairi had not been in her father’s chambers when Captain Grant arrived at Whitehall and had given her kin the news that the Dutch were responsible for the attack on the abbey. She had stayed away, hoping to avoid him until she returned home. But she wasn’t going home.
All the years she had spent learning to protect herself from every kind of weapon, even deceit, could not prepare her for this day. She wished she were blind so she could not see the love of her youth, deaf so she could not hear him. But what would it matter if she was so afflicted? She knew his face better than she knew her own. She’d grown up looking at it, falling in love with it. She knew every one of the thousands of emotions that played so openly across his features. The way his eyes spoke for him, as clear as any words falling from his lips. She still heard his slow, thick drawl in her dreams, more like the purr of a lion than the voice of a lad. He had haunted her for the last seven years and she hated him for it. She hated him for making her lose her heart to him when she was too young to stop herself. For sweeping that heart away on dreams of their future, and then taking them from her without looking back.
Connor Grant was a part of her life she preferred to forget. But she could never forget the way he looked the day he left Camlochlin—resolved, despite the tears she foolishly shed for him.
She did not want to see or speak to him now. She was not certain she could contain the bitter betrayal he had left her with when he abandoned her… when he abandoned Scotland, and, mayhap, even his faith.
Her eyes shifted toward the entrance. He was coming. He’d gone to have a meeting with the king and was likely finished and on his way to the Banqueting Hall right now. Her fingers twisted a loose thread in her kirtle, over and over, until the coarse wool made her flesh raw. But that was the only outward sign of the turmoil within her. She breathed steadily, even offering a temperate smile to the woman approaching her.
“If Lady Oddington continues to ogle my husband,” Connor’s mother, Lady Claire Stuart, said, coming to stand beside her, “I will have no choice but to relieve her of her eyes.”
Casting Lady Oddington a pitiful look, Mairi sighed. “Ye would think she would exercise more caution around him after ye accidentally stepped on Lady Channing’s gown and nearly tore it from her body.”
“Sweeting, that was Lady Somerset. Lady Channing lost her wig when my ring caught into it as I was passing her.”
Mairi laughed for the first time that evening, but her mirth faded when her gaze drifted back to the entrance.
“You mustn’t be angry with him,” Claire said softly. Of course, she was speaking of Mairi’s father. She had quit trying to help Mairi see her son’s side of things long ago.
“Ye know I can fight, Claire.”
“Still, you must obey him. He loves you.”
Och, how many times had she heard those words throughout her life? She knew her father loved her, but he loved his sons as well, and he had no trouble letting them fight.
“I will be here with you if it is any comfort.”
“ ’Tis,” Mairi told her honestly. If she had to remain here, she was happy that her friend was staying behind, as well. After losing four daughters at birth, Claire had taken her under her wing as if Mairi were one of her own. ’Twas Claire’s life Mairi wanted to emulate after Connor left. Before ever gracing Whitehall Palace’s grand halls, or being titled Lady Huntley of Aberdeen, Claire had been a rebel outlaw, fighting against the usurpers of her cousin Charles’s crown. She taught Mairi everything she knew about combat. As she looked now though, adorned in a gown of dark claret, her flaxen tresses swept unfashionably away from her face into a crown of curls above her head, it was difficult to imagine her wielding a spoon, let alone a sword.
“I know you don’t like to speak of him…”
Mairi wound her thread tighter. Hell, mayhap ’twas not a good thing that his mother was staying.
“… but I was hoping the two of you might—”
She heard nothing after that but the hum of viols coming from the balcony above and the peal of thunder that shook the walls. She saw no one but the man framing the entrance. Dear God, how was it possible that he had grown even more handsome?
Unlike most of the lesser mortals at court, dressed up like colorful peacocks in their elaborate silk costumes and high heels adorned with wide-ribbon bows, Connor wore high, military-style boots over buff-colored breeches that clung to his long, muscular legs. A sheathed claymore hung from one hip and a holstered pistol from the other, lending to the air of danger and authority that surrounded him. He stood apart from the rest like a leopard, lithe and confident. A blend of his two heritages, he stood tall and elegant like his royal English side, but thicker boned and more imposing than any Englishman, thanks to the Highland blood that coursed through his veins. He wore his ostrich-feathered military hat under his arm, leaving his hair to fall to his chiseled jaw in streaks of warm amber and pale flaxen. His red-and-white short coat boasted shoulders broadened by strength and brawn rather than yards of ruffle.
Helpless to do anything else, Mairi watched him stop to share a greeting with Lord Hollingsworth and his wife. He looked older, more experienced in things she might never understand. But his smile hadn’t changed. It was charming, sensual, and playful all at once. To make it even more heartrending to any lass with a set of working eyes in her head, it was adorned by a dimple on either side; the right, deeper than the left and needing only the slightest encouragement to appear.
That is, until his eyes, eclipsed behind silken strands of gilded gold, found her and cut through her flesh like hot iron.
The thread in her fingers popped.
“Will you try, Mairi?”
She blinked and looked at Claire. Try what? Rather than admit that she hadn’t heard a word Claire said because Connor had stepped into the hall, Mairi nodded. “Aye, of course.”
“Thank you, sweeting. That means much to me.” Claire leaned in to kiss her cheek, then took her by the hand and pulled her forward.
Hell. Mairi tried to dig her heels into the floor when she saw where her friend was leading her, but Claire tugged her onward.
The hall grew smaller. Her feet felt like they were carrying her through cooled molasses. Each step that brought her closer to Connor twisted her stomach tighter and made her want to run the other way. Ridiculous! She feared nothing. Had she not, on three separate occasions, charged headlong into the fray when the militia kicked down the doors of her enemies? Why did she allow Connor Grant to make her palms moist, her breath shallow, her heart pound madly in her chest?
Because once, he had been the reason she smiled, the reason she dreamed and hoped. She had breathed him for so long that when he left, she could not breathe anymore. But finally, she had. And she would continue.
She despised the royal uniform that stretched across his wide shoulders like a clingy mistress, but she could not deny that he looked even more imposing in it than in the Highland plaid he used to wear.
The ladies of the court certainly seemed to like how he looked if the number of them hovering around him was any indication.
Glaring at them, Mairi wondered how many of these seemingly proper English trollops Connor had bedded since he had left Camlochlin. Quite a few if the gossip that traveled from England to Scotland counted for anything. How could he have traded her heart in for theirs? Was it their close-fitting gowns or their ghostly, painted faces with heart-shaped patches on their cheeks that he preferred? Bastard.
“There you are!” Claire exchanged Mairi’s hand for her son’s when he bent to kiss her.
Mairi’s cursed knees went a wee bit weak at the sight of him so close now she could smell the wind on his clothes.
“Miss MacGregor,” he offered briefly, straightening from his greeting and offering her neither smile nor scowl.
“Captain.”
His jaw, shadowed with several days’ worth of golden whiskers, had grown harder with the years. Or had it only gone harder on her?
“Be wary of Lady Hollingsworth.” Claire leaned in closer to her son. Her eyes, following the harlot as she traipsed across the hall to her husband, were the same stormy blue as Connor’s when they flicked back to Mairi. “She has claws, that one.”
“Rest assured.” Connor’s voice stole across Mairi’s cheek like a balmy breeze on the moors. “I am indifferent to claws.”
Mairi crooked her mouth at him and stifled a snort an instant before it left her lips. His words proved him the rogue he was rumored to be. Just as she had meant nothing to him, neither did the other women who shared his bed and his laughter. She was proud of herself for not flinching when his cool gaze settled upon her, this time, for longer than a moment.
“Do ye wish to say something, Miss MacGregor?”
“Nae, Captain, not to ye.”
Amusement sparked his gaze, but there was no warmth in it. “Ah, Mairi, ye remain consistent, at least.”
“At least one of us does,” she parried, her composure as coolly detached as his.
His grin went hard in an instant. “I see ye have kept yer tongue as sharp as yer blades.”
His leisurely perusal of her skirts, or more likely the split in them, made her belly flip. Damnation, she did not want to be here, conversing with him. She had finally put him out of her mind. Finally moved on with her life without him in it. Seeing him again tempted her to remember. Once, she had wanted nothing more than to be his wife, but she fought those memories as passionately as she fought against the extinction of the Highland way of life. Because of him, she had become a warrior.
When he met her gaze again, accompanied by a crack of thunder that shook the palace walls, she expelled a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding and did the only thing she knew to protect herself. She attacked.
“Tell me, Captain Grant, do ye always precede the gloom of a storm?”
He gave her a very English bow, adding to her insult. “Only when ye are waiting at my destination.”
Mairi thought of the dagger tied to her thigh, but realized regrettably that she could not kill him right here in front of his mother.
She turned her most practiced smile on Claire instead. “I should go find Colin—”
“Pardon me, Miss MacGregor.”
The proper English voice coming up beside her drew a silent sigh from Mairi. The night just kept getting worse. She offered her smile to Henry de Vere, the Earl of Oxford’s son, as he spared a brief greeting to Lady Huntley. Mairi had met him the day after her kin had arrived at Whitehall. His profuse knowledge about everything and everyone at the palace had enticed her into spending time with him. If there were any Presbyterians roaming Whitehall, he would know of them. Unfortunately, she was beginning to fear she’d spent too much time with him. For he followed her about like an eager pup and made it quite difficult to steal into any of the guest’s rooms for any valuable information she could bring home to the militia.
“I was hoping to have a word with you before the tables were cleared and to ask you for the first dance this evening.”
“Why, of course, Lord Oxford.” Seeing a way to use him to her advantage by getting her away from present company, she looped her arm through his and gave him a slight tug. “But remember, I only know the one courtly dance ye were kind enough to teach me.”
“Then allow me to teach you a dozen more.” Lord Oxford looked up at Connor as his hand stole over Mairi’s knuckles. “Unless, of course, you made a prior promise to someone else?”
Connor offered him a stiff smile and stepped out of their path. “She is yers fer the evening.”
Mairi wanted to slap him good and hard, and then do the same to herself. Why did his casual dismissal feel like a blow to her chest? She knew he no longer loved her—no man could be apart from the lass he loved for seven damn years! But had he truly grown so callous?
“If I had made such a promise”—despite her roiling insides, she spoke with all the sickeningly sweet civility she could muster—“Captain Grant of all people would understand if I broke it.”
She wanted evidence that her barb had pricked him. She wanted to hurt him, to repay him for every moment she had spent weeping over him in her bed. But his smile returned, as if he knew the secrets of mere mortals and found them amusing.
“Aye, not only would I understand,” he said, “but I would expect it, as well.”
A dozen curses battered against her teeth, but she contained them all and let Lord Oxford lead her away. She would show Connor no interest. Pretend he was not even here. An easy endeavor she mastered against those she hated.
And she certainly hated him.
Connor watched Mairi leave with her frilly admirer and clenched his jaw to keep from cursing aloud. He’d like to give her a swift kick in the arse to hurry her departure. If she wanted to revile him for the next fifty years, let her. If she chose to dance with every man at court, let her do that as well. He’d wasted enough years pining over her. She was no longer his and was free to do as she damn well pleased.
But hell, he thought, watching her take the floor with Oxford, she was still the bonniest woman he’d ever laid eyes on. More beautiful than he remembered. She stood apart from every other woman in the palace, donning her out-of-place Highland earasaid with the supreme confidence of a queen, her chin tilted with the defiance she’d inherited from her father. The years had had little effect on her. Her long, coal curls still captured the light as they fell over the swell of her breast. Her skin was as flawless as it was when she was a lass of five and ten summers. Only her eyes, still as blue as the heavens above Camlochlin, were colder.
The music from the balcony drifted downward, filling him with memories of his long days here before he and his men had been sent to Glencoe to keep peace between the MacDonalds and the Campbells. He hadn’t wanted to return, mostly because he knew Mairi would be here for the coronation, but also because he never truly fit in with all the posh and luxury of the king’s courts. He was a Highlander, and he couldn’t stomach being surrounded by false pleasantries and overindulged peers.
He missed Scotland already and he’d only been away for a se’nnight. He wished he were lying in his tent, upon the cold, hard ground, rather than here, with them… with her… mostly with her, even for a day. He was grateful that the MacGregors were returning home in the morning.
He hadn’t wanted to leave his home in the Highlands… or her, for he’d loved them both. He’d had no choice. As fourth cousin to the king, it was his duty to serve his family name. A duty he had not renounced but accepted with pride. The blood of warriors flowed through his veins, after all; his father, commander of the MacGregors’ brutal garrison, along with his mother, had risked his life to help restore Charles to the throne. His uncle and namesake, High Admiral Connor Stuart, once, long ago, defied generals and endured the pain of torture in the Tower.
It had been his turn to defend the throne and Connor had gone without quarrel. But Mairi had never forgiven him for leaving her to serve under a Protestant king. He’d written her, asking her to join him in England. She refused every request. She’d left him with no other choice but to let her go. It was what she had wanted. What she told him would make her happy. So he made himself forget her, and stayed away from Camlochlin, remaining in the army even after his required service to Charles had been fulfilled.
“I had hoped your reunion would go better than that.”
Connor looked down at his mother and shrugged the encounter off his shoulders with a glib quirk of his lips. “A hope that will only continue to disappoint ye if ye hold on to it.”
His mother offered him a tender look before she drew in a steadying breath and looked toward the dance floor. “She is staying here.”
“What?” Connor didn’t realize he’d spoken until his mother startled at his tone and lowered her own voice so that only he could hear.
“Callum doesn’t want her at Camlochlin in the event that the Dutch come looking for the king’s daughter. Colin is staying, as well, for the same reason.”
“What reason is that?”
“Their passion for the blade.”
Connor’s expression darkened. “Hell, ye continued her lessons in battle even after I… and her father, asked ye not to.”
“There is nothing wrong with her knowing how to wield a sword.” His mother glared back at him.
“Save that wielding a sword in practice is quite different from wielding one in true battle. She doesn’t know that or she would not even consider fighting men who recently murdered a convent full of nuns.”
His mother sighed and gave him a rather pitying look just before she smiled at her husband cutting through the crowd to reach them. “Connor, dear, there is much you don’t know since you left.” She gave him no time to ponder her oddly disturbing statement, but bestowed her most radiant smile on his father.
“How went yer meeting with the king?” Graham Grant asked him after tipping back his cap and kissing his wife. “Will we be fighting the Dutch then?”
Aye, here was what he should be concerning himself with. England’s new Catholic king had dangerous enemies who were very likely planning an imminent revolt. “Not before James knows fer certain who ordered the attack on the abbey.” They already knew about the exiled Earl of Argyll’s alleged return to England’s shores to gather forces against the king. The Duke of Monmouth could not be far behind. But, it was Prince William of Orange who had the most to gain should James be usurped. Connor let his gaze settle briefly on the king’s nephew and son-in-law sitting at the dais on the other side of the hall. As the king’s alleged firstborn, William’s wife, Mary, was next in line for the throne.
Their quiet conversation came to a halt when Lord Hartley and his daughter Eleanor stopped to give them greeting.
Connor smiled as decorum dictated,. . .
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Tamed by a Highlander
Paula Quinn
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