CHAPTER 1
DUMBARTON CASTLE, DUMBARTONSHIRE, SCOTLAND, 1314
Ipledge myself tae you, Errol, but you must wait tae ask for my hand in marriage. We lost my poor mother only three days past and my father and I need time tae grieve—och, I must return tae the great hall before he misses me!
Errol Sutherland winced at the haunting memory as he paced outside the chamber where King Robert the Bruce was in counsel with some of his highest-ranking warriors.
A meeting that had gone on now for over an hour while he waited impatiently, his beloved Tira Cheyne forever upon his mind.
If he had known when he kissed her soft lips that Tira would be abducted by enemy Mackay clansmen a few days later, and then traded to ruthless Orkney raiders before she could be rescued, he would never have let her go!
With love shining in her beautiful dove gray eyes, she had whispered a farewell and then hastened back into the great hall where mourners had gathered after the funeral.
Errol and his father, Hamish, had been among those to pay their respects to Monroe Cheyne, the chieftain of a sept of Clan Sutherland whose lands bordered Mackay country. Errol hadn’t seen Tira since she was a gawky twelve-year-old, but when hehad spied her in the front pew of the church, he had felt a jolt of emotion unlike anything he’d known before—and realized then, Tira was the woman he would marry.
Her long flaxen hair had gleamed like gold in the candlelight. Her milk-white hands folded in prayer for the soul of her mother as mournful tears had streaked her rose-tinged cheeks.
Errol had stood in the opposite front pew as befitting the rank of his father, the most powerful chieftain of Clan Sutherland, and had been unable to look away from Tira—no matter Hamish had elbowed him several times in the ribs.
Nothing could have made Errol tear his eyes from her while his heartbeat thundered in his ears, so fiercely had love struck him.
So suddenly, too, but he had felt no astonishment…only a certainty burning in his chest that he would do anything to make Tira his wife.
“Ah, God,how much longer?” Errol grated as he paced again by the closed door, gritting his teeth at the impatience ripping him apart.
The long months since he had discovered last November that Tira was still alive had been a tormenting nightmare from which he feared he would never wake—until spring had finally come to the Highlands.
The deep snow melted and the treacherous sea currents between the northernmost coast of Scotland and the Orkney Islands calmed enough at last to launch a mission to find her…if King Robert would loan him several ships and crew.
Aye, even one thirty-oared birlinn would be enough if manned by seasoned warriors ready to fight the ruthless raider who held her, Thorgren Sigurdson.
Cursing under his breath, Errol swallowed against bile rising in his throat at what Tira must have suffered since she was abducted last summer—och, he couldn’t think of it!
Agonizing months had passed before he learned that she still lived. That wintry November day, he and his father’s men had joined forces with the Mackays to attack the raiders who held Tira—only to discover that his sister, Rowen, who had been forced to marry Alec Mackay at the behest of King Robert, was a captive as well.
A fierce battle had ensued with half of the raiders standing their ground to fight while the rest, including Thorgren with Tira and Rowen slung like sacks over his shoulders, had run for the two ships yet to be set ablaze. Errol had watched helplessly as both birlinns were rowed from the cove where the raiders had camped for the night, and with Tira still in the raider’s clutches.
They had come so close to rescuing her—so close!—that Errol was swept by fresh anguish as intense as if it had been yesterday.
His only solace was that Rowen had thrown herself from Thorgren’s ship and been dragged safely from the frigid water by her husband, though Errol knew she grieved still that she had not been able to help Tira.
Rowen was happy in her marriage and expecting her first bairn, and the once-thought impossible peace had held fast between the Mackays and the Sutherlands, which Errol hoped would sway the king in his favor. Even if he possessed his own warship, the chieftains of Clan Sutherland would not have allowed him to sail for the Orkney Islands without King Robert’s permission.
War loomed with England, King Edward amassing his vast army at Scotland’s border. Errol knew his chances were slight that King Robert would spare any ships and warriors, which made him pace faster, his hand fisted on the hilt of his sword.
What would he do if his request was denied? God help him, he couldn’t think of that outcome, either!
Instead, Errol thought again of Tira and how she had slipped away from the funeral feast in her father’s great hall to join him in the corner of the foyer for a few precious moments.
Her slim fingers had trembled as she clasped his hands, her fair cheeks flushed and her lovely eyes shining with emotion that told him she had felt the jolt, too…
“You’ve grown so tall since last I saw you, Errol. I couldna believe it when I saw you and your father enter the church.”
“Ah, so you noticed me straightaway,” he teased her, though his heart pounded as she nodded.
“I had hoped you would come tae the funeral?—”
“Aye, I grieve for your loss, Tira. You’ve grown as beautiful as your mother…if not more.”
