CHAPTER ONE
Glenclova, Scotland
Summer 1306
I don’t want to be a countess!Laoghaire MacKinnon fumed as she stared at the imposing castle that dominated the escarpment.
Not if it meant wedding a Lowlander who was a Scot in name only.As every Highlander knew, the noblemen who inhabited these parts were Norman in both speech and manner. To worsen the transgression, they were proud of their French ways.
The tawny-haired man who rode beside Laoghaire turned and said, “Once ye marry the Earl of Angus, ye’ll be lady over all of this.” With an expansive sweep of the hand, her cousin Diarmid gestured to the fertile landscape at the base of the steep slope. “For as far as the eye can see.”
“Humph! Don’t ye mean that I’ll soon be Hugh de Ogilvy’s bed warmer?”
“That, too,” Diarmid concurred with a self-important nod. “’Tis a wife’s duty to share her husband’s bed. How else can ye give the earl a male heir?”
Laoghaire made no reply as she tightened her grip on the reins, unable to tear her gaze from the massive curtain wall and numerous towers that fortified Castle Airlie. Uncertain what awaited her within those intimidating stone walls, she fought the urge to pull her horse to a halt. With a sinking heart, knowing that her fate was sealed, she refrained from acting on the impulse. She and her kinsmen—six kilted riders all tolled—had crossed the whole of mainland Scotland, riding over dangerous and rough terrain.
All so I can wed the aging Hugh de Ogilvy and give him a much desired heir.Something the Earl of Angus’s previous three countesses had been unable to do, each of them having died in childbed.
Praying that she didn’t meet a similar fate, Laoghaire felt her belly tighten nervously. Since her departure from her brother’s castle on the Isle of Skye—the stronghold of Clan MacKinnon—she’d felt like a hapless animal caught in an iron snare. Through no fault of her own, she’d been made a pawn in a ruthless, high stakes game of political chess, the king of Scotland having issued a royal edict yoking Clan MacKinnon to the noble House de Ogilvy through the bonds of marriage.
Damn the Bruce! And damn my brother Iain as well!
Hit with a burst of impotent rage, Laoghaire was as angry at Iain, the laird of Clan MacKinnon, for abducting and then marrying the Earl of Angus’s betrothed bride, as she was at Robert the Bruce for ordering the marriage in order to circumvent a blood feud between the two families. Because Scotland and England were currently engaged in a violent struggle—the fate of the country very much in the balance—the Bruce didn’t want his political allies warring with one another. Such in-fighting would only weaken Scotland’s precarious situation. Or so her brother had adamantly claimed before he sent Laoghaire—the chosen consolation bride— to far-flung Glenclova to wed Hugh de Ogilvy, a man old enough to be her grandfather.
While women were rarely given a choice as to whom they would wed, oftentimes forced to marry men who were complete strangers, Laoghaire nonetheless railed against the king’s marital decree, deeming it a great injustice.
“Do ye think Angus is very decrepit?” she asked her cousin.
“Since I have never met the earl, I canna say,” Diarmid answered with a shrug. “Although in his youth he was known as one of the fiercest warriors in the Holy Land. But that was, er, quite some time ago,” her cousin added in a more circumspect tone of voice.
“Long before I was even born,”Laoghaire muttered dejectedly, all the while imagining a stoop-shouldered, flaccid-skinned graybeard. “He probably drools in his wine goblet and all too frequently passes wind.”
“Once ye are wedded to the earl, ye will have to bide yer tongue,” her cousin chided. Since her brother Iain had been unable to escort Laoghaire to Glenclova, Diarmid had been given the honor of representing the laird at the upcoming nuptials; an honor the twenty-five-year-old had taken to heart, having issued many a stern warning over the course of the last few days, her cousin having turned into quite the scold. “If ye dinna want to incite de Ogilvy’s famous ire, ye would be wise to cultivate the virtue of prudence.”
Prudence!At hearing that, Laoghaire was sorely tempted to reach over and clout her quibbling cousin on the ear.
Admittedly possessed of more courage than ladylike caution—Laoghaire capable of wielding a sword as ably as most men—she worried, and not for the first time, that she was ill-equipped to become a countess.
And her apprehension only escalated the nearer they got to Castle Airlie, the earl’s sprawling stone citadel much larger than any castle she’d ever set eyes upon. As their small entourage approached the massive gatehouse, she counted a total of eight towers, all of them set between soaring curtain walls that loomed over the surrounding countryside. Built atop a flat hillock that abutted a loch, the castle appeared impregnable.
Staggered by the overwhelming sight, Laoghaire felt her jaw slacken.
“Cousin, ye look all agog,” Diarmid remarked. “Mayhap ye should close yer mouth. ’Twould be a more seemly expression for a countess.”
Realizing that shehadbeen staring with her mouth agape, Laoghaire pulled her gaze from Hugh de Ogilvy’s daunting bastion and instead focused her attention on a herd of shaggy brown cattle that was grazing on a lush meadow at the base of the escarpment. In another far-off field she caught sight of an apple orchard. Appearing much like busy ants, there were numerous laborers climbing wooden ladders and dangling from tree limbs as they harvested the ripened fruit. For some unknown reason, she thought it passing strange to see such peaceful domestic scenes adjacent to so much military might.
Other than the occasional lowing from the herd on the hillside, the only sound to break the unnerving quietude was the persistent dull crunch of iron horseshoes striking the pebbled path that led to the gatehouse. Her kinsmen—usually a loquacious band—had grown unaccountably silent. Perhaps they, like Laoghaire, had an uneasy dread of what they would find once they entered the stronghold. Until only a few months ago, Clan MacKinnon had been sworn enemies of the House de Ogilvy.
Just then, Laoghaire’s trepidation instantly spiked when a raven suddenly swooped in front of them and screeched loudly. The shrill caw caused several of the horses to whicker.
“I dinna know if the bird is welcoming us or warning us to turn back,” Diarmid remarked with what sounded suspiciously like forced laughter.
Laoghaire stared at the lone raven as it circled overhead. “’Tis a dire omen,” she murmured, the raven a harbinger of death.
But whose death?she wondered, with no small measure of unease.
She had little time to ponder the matter; in the next instant a guard standing atop the gatehouse hoarsely called down to them, “Halt! Who approaches?”
