Page 1 of Kidnapped By a Highland Shadow

Prologue

Even in the heat of summer, this place was cold as death. In the endless cold, wet months, the place was nigh unbearable. One would think a castle should offer some shelter from the weather, but this place seemed to defy all expectations, keeping its inhabitants as shivering and miserable inside as they would have been outside.

The castle was a fortress built to repel invaders, not to be comfortable. In fact, whoever had built the place had not even tried to make it comfortable.

Arran had grown up here, right in the heart of the Scottish Highlands, and he’d have been a weak specimen to crumple under a little cold. He’d endured blizzards and waded through waist-deep snow and faced the never-ending rain that blew into a man’s face with sharp sleet that cut at any exposed skin.

Still, he wasn’t sure what it was about Donough Castle that seemed to make it so unbearably cold. Perhaps it was its owner, adding an extra layer of coldness and inhospitality. He longed to pull his cloak around him a little tighter, or tug at the hem of his kilt to cover his knees, or just give in and shiver away.

He refused to allow himself that luxury. Luxury was weakness, and weakness was death. Laird Stewart couldn’t control how cold his castle became, with its tiny windows that let in hardly any light at all, but he certainly liked it. He enjoyed watching his hired men, servants, and even his own guests shiver in the cold, trying to warm icy hands and blue faces.

Donough Castle was one of the ugliest buildings Arran had ever seen, and that included the mud-walled, thatch-roofed shacks in some of the poorer villages. Simply named by the locals as the Castle, it was all endless stone corridors that were impossible to walk down quietly and bare walls that were thick enough to muffle all sounds from within but somehow managed to let in countless icy draughts. Stewart designed the place to be unwelcoming, cold, and uncomfortable. The vast stone hallways contained no color, no decorations, and no furnishings at all, and nowhere to sit except for the dusty floor. There were armed men standing at intervals, their pikes and daggers subtly displayed.

No, Arran hated the place, even though he’d been coming here for more years than he could remember. He’d learned to keep the discomfort and unease from his face and leaned against the bare wall opposite the door at the end of the hallway.

For want of anything else to look at, Arran stared at the door. It was a huge, wooden thing, studded with iron knobs as if the occupant inside expected to stave off a small siege from the room inside.

Well, perhaps he did. The Stewarts had lots of enemies, and the current laird had plenty of extra enemies of his own, so it was hardly out of the question.

The two burly guards standing at either side of the door glared balefully at Arran. He regarded them impassively, not bothering to engage in a staring contest. He needed every advantage for the meeting ahead, and dry eyeballs were not going to help the situation. Besides, the infamous Arran didn’t need to engage in power plays with hired swords.

He presumed that the guards did not know who he was. At first glance, Arran was not particularly intimidating. He was handsome, with thick red hair that curled no matter how closely he cropped it and no terrible scars on his face. He was tall and broad, certainly, but then so was virtually every other Stewart warrior.

“Enter,” a raspy, deep voice came from inside the room, and the two hired men flinched. They glanced warily at each other, and Arran straightened up, pushing away from the wall he’d been leaning against.

“Well, are you going to open the door, or will you just goggle at each other?” Arran asked, his voice dangerously low.

Perhaps sensing something worrying in Arran’s voice, the men jumped to it, hauling open the heavy wooden door wide enough for him to step through. The door clanged shut behind him.

Laird James Stewart’s private room was a little more comfortable than the rest of the castle, with furnishings, chairs, and even a roaring fire. Arran longed to warm his hands before the crackling blaze, but that would look too much like weakness. The fire was not for him. There were no other chairs in the room, save a comfortable-looking armchair behind the fire—which Arran would not be permitted to sit in—and the chair occupied by the laird.

A man was seated at a table, poring over pages of closely-written figures, probably trade deals or peace agreements. He did not look up as Arran approached, instead running the nib of his pen down a row of figures, whispering under his breath as he counted. Arran had to stand uncomfortably before the table, waiting to be noticed.

He concentrated on not fidgeting. This was just another power play. He knew that by now. Still, it was frustrating. He had things to do. He stared at the whorl at the top of the man’s head, a dull brown now streaked with grey, thinning at the sides.

“I suppose you heard about McTavie,” the man said, still not looking up.

“You’ll need to be more specific. What’s he done now?”

Laird Stewart, head of the notorious Stewart clan, sat back in his seat, carelessly tossing the pen onto the table. Arran watched it bounce over the papers, wincing. Stewart wouldn’t care if the pen left ugly ink blots everywhere. He would not be the one to clean it up. He never would be.

“I’m talking of the skirmish two nights ago. Something went wrong, and you”—Stewart pointed accusingly—“were not there. I lost ten men. Ten good men, who will be difficult to replace.”

“I know.” Arran ground his teeth. Donal, a cheerful Irishman, had died in that skirmish, rammed through by a McTavie soldier’s rusty pike and left to bleed to death on a muddy field. Arran did not consider himself a popular man, but he and Donal had been friends since childhood. If Arran could catch the McTavie man—or any McTavie he could lay his hands on—he would happily split his skull.

“Enough is enough, Arran,” Stewart continued. “We need to bring this dispute to an end.”

“You’ll talk to McTavie?”

“Don’t be stupid, lad. You can’t reason with animals, and I’m not about to start. No, I’ve a better plan. There is one way we can cut off the snake’s head.”

“Kill McTavie himself?”

Stewart rolled his eyes as if Arran was being particularly stupid. He took his time before answering, thoughtfully scratching at his neck. Across his throat was the reason for his harsh, rasping voice—a vicious, crescent-shaped scar running from his collarbone to underneath his chin. It was a testament to an attempt at cutting Stewart’s throat.

It was obviously a failed attempt, and the would-be assassin had not lived long enough for a second attempt.

“What do you know of McTavie’s family?” Laird Stewart eventually continued.