Excerpt & Giveaway: Highland Guard by Hannah Howell
Highland
Guard Murray
Family # 20
By:
Hannah Howell
Releasing
March 3rd, 2015
Zebra
Blurb
New York Times bestselling author Hannah Howell brings back the daring Murray family in a brand-new tale of dangerous love rekindled. . .
New York Times bestselling author Hannah Howell brings back the daring Murray family in a brand-new tale of dangerous love rekindled. . .
Lady
Annys MacQueen has no other choice. The deception that enabled her to
keep her lands safe is on the verge of being revealed by a cruel
kinsman. To shield her young son from the sword and her people from
devastation, she must turn to the one man she could never forget. . .
He
lives for duty and honor. So the only way Sir Harcourt Murray could
repay the laird who saved his life was to agree to father a child
with Sir MacQueen's wife. . .Lady Annys. Now the passion he still
feels for the lovely strong-willed widow is as all-consuming and
perilous as securing her lands. But to convince her that his love is
forever real means confronting her most wrenching fears--and putting
everything they treasure most at stake. .
Goodreads Book Series Link
Excerpt
Waiting
was pure torture, Lady Annys MacQueen decided. She looked down at the
small shirt she was mending, sighed, and began to pull out the
appallingly crooked stitching. It was hard to believe Sir Harcourt
would ignore her cry for help yet it had been a very long ten days
since she had sent him the message. Ten days and not even the young
man she had sent out with the message had returned. Annys prayed she
had not sent young Ian to his death. She doubted Sir Harcourt would
hurt Ian but the journey itself would not have been without its
dangers.
“M’lady,
mayhaps ye should have a wee rest,” said Joan as she sat down
beside Annys on the padded bench.
Smiling
at her maid, Annys shook her head. “’Tis much too early, Joan.
Everyone would wonder if I was ill and that would only add to the
unease they all suffer from even now. I must try to be strong, and
most certainly must at least always appear to be.”
Annys
wondered why her words made Joan frown. The woman was only ten years
older than her but often acted in a very motherly way. Round of body
and face, Joan did not even look her age yet she could lecture one
like a grandmother. That frown often warned of a lecture being
carefully thought out. Annys was not in a humor to endure one but
also knew she loved Joan too much to hurt the woman’s feelings by
revealing that displeasure with some sharp words. They had been
friends and companions, as well as lady and maid, since the day Annys
had first come to Glencullaich to meet her betrothed.
“Ye
are a lass,” Joan began.
“I
have come to realize that. I was slow to see it, but the breasts
refused to be ignored.” Annys was not surprised to receive a scowl
from Joan that clearly said her maid was not amused.
“No
one expects constant strength from a wee lass who has but recently
buried her husband,” Joan continued. “Ye are wearing yourself to
the bone trying to be the laird and the lady of this keep. Ye dinnae
need to be both. All here willingly heed the lady, have always done
so, so trying to don Sir David’s boots is unnecessary.”
“And
if I dinnae do it, who will?”
“Nicolas.”
Annys
thought on that for a moment. The man had arrived almost five years
ago. He had claimed that he had spent enough time selling his sword
for a living and now wished to settle in one place. David had
welcomed the man with open arms, readily training him to lead the
other, less well-trained men at Glencullaich. Fortunately, no one had
complained or taken offense at how the stranger had so quickly moved
into place as David’s right-hand man. In truth, they had all
welcomed his skills. She even had to admit that he had been immensely
helpful since David’s death.
“Mayhaps
he can,” she conceded. “He certainly has been most helpful thus
far. Yet, I have always wondered why he ne’er just went home to
Wales to settle.”
“A
long journey for a mon who says there is no one left there for him.”
“True
enough.” Annys shrugged and tossed the little shirt she had yet to
finish back into her mending basket. “’Tis nay that I dinnae
trust him, for I do. I but puzzle o’er it now and then. I will try
to put more of the work into his hands, but nay so much that it
hinders his ability to keep the men weel trained. Their training
cannae be allowed to lag.”
“Nay,
ye are right. It cannae.” Joan nodded. “It is badly needed, sad
to say. E’en weel trained as they are now, ’tis a constant battle
to keep that bastard from trying to destroy us. If he sniffed out a
weakness he would be on us like carrion birds on a fishermon’s
catch. Have ye heard anything from that Sir Murray yet?”
“Nay.
I begin to fear that I have accomplished naught but to send poor
young Ian to his death.”
“Och,
nay, m’lady, dinnae allow that fear to prey on your mind. Ian
kenned the risks and he is a clever lad, one who kens weel how to
slip about quietly and hide weel when needed. There are many reasons
one can see for why he hasnae returned yet. Many. And a sad fate is
but one of them.”
“True.”
And it
was true, Annys thought. It was simply a truth she had a difficult
time clinging to. Ian had come to the keep as a young boy, orphaned
when the rest of his family had died in a fire, frightened, and
painfully shy. It had taken a while, but by the time she had come to
live permanently at Glencullaich as its lady, he had blossomed. Still
sweet, still quick to blush, but settled and happy. He had fallen
into the role of Glencullaich’s messenger as if born to it, but he
had never been sent on such a long journey before.
“M’lady!”
Annys
started as the shout from the door yanked her out of her thoughts and
she stared at the tall, too-thin young man who had burst into the
solar. “What is it, Gavin? Please dinnae tell me there is more
trouble to deal with. It has been so blissfully quiet for days.”
“I
dinnae think ’tis trouble, m’lady, for Nicolas isnae bothered.”
Gavin scratched at his cheek and frowned. “But there are six big,
armed men at the gate. Nicolas was going to open the gates for them
and said I was to come and tell ye that.”
“I
will be right out then. Thank ye, Gavin.” The moment Gavin left,
she looked at Joan. “How are six big, armed men nay trouble?”
“If
they come in answer to your message?” Joan hastily tidied Annys’s
thick braid. “There, done. Now ye look presentable. Let us go out
and greet our guests.”
“Guests
dinnae come armed,” Annys said as she started out of the room, Joan
right at her side.
“They
do if they come in reply to a lady’s note saying ‘help me, help
me’.”
“I
didnae say ‘help me, help me’.”
“Near
enough. No gain in talking on it until we actually see who is here.”
“Fine
but I did nay say ‘help me, help me’.”
Annys
ignored Joan’s soft grunt even though she knew it meant the woman
was not going to change her mind. She stepped out through the heavy
oak doors and started down the stone steps to the bailey only to stop
short before she reached the bottom. The man dismounting from a huge
black gelding was painfully familiar.
Tall,
strong, and handsome with his thick long black hair and eyes like a
wolf, he had been a hard man to forget. She had certainly done her
utmost to cast him from her mind. Each time he had slipped into her
thoughts she had slapped his memory away. Writing him that message
had brought his memory rushing to the fore again, however. Seeing him
in the flesh looking as handsome as he had five years ago told her
that she had never succeeded in forgetting him. Annys began to regret
asking for his aid no matter how badly they needed any help they
could get at the moment.
She
fought to remind herself of how he had ridden away from Glencullaich
all those years ago without even a quick but private farewell to her.
It had hurt. Despite knowing it had been wrong to want that private
moment to say their good-byes, despite the guilt that wanting had
stirred in her then, and now, she had been devastated by his cold
leave-taking.
Then,
abruptly, his gaze locked with hers and every memory she had fought
to banish from her mind came rushing back so clearly and strongly
that she had to fight to stand straight and steady. Annys cursed
silently. It was still there. The fascination, the wanting, was all
reborn beneath the steady look from those rich amber eyes. This could
become the biggest mistake she had ever made in her life.
Author
Info
Hannah
D. Howell is a highly regarded and prolific romance writer. Since
Amber Flame, her first historical romance, was released in February
1988, she has published 25 novels and short stories, with more on the
way. Her writing has been repeatedly recognized for its excellence
and has "made Waldenbooks Romance Bestseller list a time or two"
as well as was nominated twice by Romantic Times for Best Medieval
Romance (Promised Passion and Elfking's Lady). She has also won
Romantic Times' Best British Isles Historical Romance for Beauty and
the Beast; and, in 1991-92 she received Romantic Times' Career
Achievement Award for Historical Storyteller of the Year.
Hannah
was born and raised in Massachusetts (the maternal side of her family
has been there since the 1630's). She has been married to her husband
Stephen for 28 years, who she met in England while visiting
relatives, and decided to import him. They have two sons Samuel, 27,
and Keir, 24. She is addicted to crocheting, reads and plays piano,
attempts to garden, and collects things like dolls, faerie and cat
figurines, and music boxes. She also seems to collect cats, as she
now has four of them, Clousseau, Banshee, Spooky, and Oliver
Cromwell.
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DeleteThanks for the ecerpt. Love this serif. Thank you for the chance to win one of the books.
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Thanks for the ecerpt. Love this serif. Thank you for the chance to win one of the books.
ReplyDeleteCarol L
Lucky4750 (at) aol (dot) com