Chapter One – Munro
Ross Stronghold
The Highlands, Scotland
The Year of Our Lord 1267
The woman beside me breathed softly, her arm slung across my chest. I stared up at the canopy of my bed and tried and failed to remember her name. That should have troubled me, but it didn’t.
I slid free of the bed, careful not to wake her. The floor was cold beneath my feet, the stone biting even through the haze of wine still clinging to my skull. I found my braies and tunic on the floor and put them on. The fabric of my tunic was stiff where wine had been spilled sometime during the night. Finally, I tugged my boots on. Everything took more effort than it should have.
Beyond my chamber, the wind moaned through cracks left untended. My family stronghold had always been drafty, perched high where the sea winds came hard and fast, but now the cold seemed to live in the walls themselves.
I heard the whispered rumbles of my neglect from my clansmen and servants. That should also have bothered me, but it didn’t either. Where my heart had been, where care had dwelled, emptiness now lived. If grief were a curse, mine was thorough.
A small, sharp, controlled cough carried up the stairwell as I stepped into the corridor, shutting the chamber door behind me. The torches burned low, shadows pooling thick in the corners. I rounded the bend to the stairs and nearly collidedwith my uncle. He was already dressed, of course. He always was. Clean tunic, red hair tied back neatly, the faint scent of soap and pine clinging to him like a virtue. He glanced at me, and his lips twitched. I was certain he was fighting one of his judgmental scowls. An emotion rippled through me then, not regret or embarrassment as I knew I should feel. Instead, my jaw clenched.
He cleared his throat, looking as if he were debating what to say. “How’s yer jaw?” he asked slowly.
I frowned and tested it, wincing as pain shot through it. What in God’s blood was this ache?
Uncle Gordon narrowed his gaze. “Ye do nae remember last night, do ye.”
It was a statement and a fact, given he was correct. “Did I get in a fight?”
“Aye, Munro,” he said. “Or rather, ye threw a punch at James.”
“I would nae ever—”
“Aye,” my uncle said, his tone grave. “Ye would, and ye did. Ye were quarrelling.”
I could count on one hand the number of times I’d quarreled with James in the twenty-plus years he’d been my closest friend, and that number was two. We’d argued when I’d become laird and made him my right hand. He was worried it would harm our friendship. It hadn’t. And then we’d argued over a battle plan. He’d been right, and in the end, I’d admitted it.
“What were we quarrelling over?”
Footsteps echoed suddenly in the hall, the clacking of shoes against the stone growing louder by the second. I looked down the corridor, and the fair-haired lass I’d left only a moment ago appeared.
“That woman,” my uncle said, motioning toward the buxom, young lass. With her disheveled hair and laces hanging open ather chest, it was obvious she’d been properly tumbled in my bed last night.
“James wouldn’t fight me over a lass,” I said. He had plenty of women clamoring to warm his bed.
“He did nae argue with ye because he wanted her,” Uncle Gordon replied. “He was trying to dissuade ye from taking Lady Francesca to yer bed.”
Her name tugged at a string in my memory, but it didn’t give. “Who the devil is she?” I asked, impatience rising.
He shook his head as if disgusted with my behavior. An old ripple akin to remorse moved through me, but I handily shoved it away. “She’s Isabella’s cousin.”
I recoiled at my uncle’s words. “That’s Francesca Gunn?”
“Aye,” he said, meeting my gaze.
I studied her for a moment. The last time I’d seen my wife’s cousin was when she’d come to pay her respects after Isabella had died. Unease stirred, mingling with surprising self-loathing. I was usually so adept at repressing emotions, but this morning they seemed to be battering me. “Is Isabella’s aunt here as well?” I asked my uncle.
“Nay,” came Lady Francesca’s voice.
My gaze met hers, and my disgust increased. She had the same light blue eyes as Isabella. How had I failed to register the similarities last night or remember her from meeting her after Isabella’s death? The answer came swiftly—my self-induced wine haze.
“My mama did nae come when the missive arrived at our home,” Lady Francesa said. “Da has been ill, and Mama feared leaving him.”
