Chapter One
Scottish Highlands
Summer
Rory Hart gruntedas he swung his arm up and his fingers found a small slip of ledge to slide into. He pushed off with his booted foot and repeated the gesture. Below him, swift waves crashed onto rocks, breaking up the bright white peaks. The briny smell of the sea surrounded him and he inhaled deeply as he made his way up the wall of rock.
He could spend all of his days for the rest of his life out here doing this same thing every day and he would die a very happy man. There was no one to bother him. No one nagging him about responsibility or what he should be doing for the family. For the clan.
Being the second born son of the laird, he didn’t have the amount of responsibility that had been placed on his older brother, Alpin’s, shoulders since birth, but he had his share.
And he’d rather ignore them.
There was naught he disliked more than being holed up in Hartsmoor Castle. His familial home was massive and held a commanding presence in their part of the highlands, but whenever he was indoors, he longed to be outside. He felt held down. Closed in. A prisoner of sorts.
Reaching the top of the rock, he pulled himself up and over the edge to the summit. He rolled his burning shoulders in an attempt toease the tightness from the effort of the climb. He looked at his fingers, the knuckles bloody where he’d managed to scrape the skin off when he dragged them across the rough stone surface.
But sore and bloody, he didn’t care. Nay, the beautiful view laid out afore him was worth every scrape of skin. Every sore muscle. He dropped to the ground and brought a knee up to rest his arm upon as he lifted his chin and squinted at the sun.
The silence of his rowdy siblings and castle life was a welcome reprieve. There were plenty of noises here to fill his ears. The sound of the crashing waves. The birds sing-song. The faint rustle of the wind blowing through the grass and trees, shifting the leaves.
All of them were amongst his favorite sounds. Natural sounds that he expected to hear when he was in the midst of nature.
Here he didn’t have to listen to his mother, Lillias, lovely as she was, lecture him about taking unnecessary risks.
“Ye will fall one day. Yer fingers or boots will slip and down ye will go.” She would make an exaggerated sweep of her arm, arcing it through the air. “And we will ne’er ken. For days ye could lay upon the rocks, a bloody mess, or worse, dead, and we willnae ken. ’Tis too dangerous.” Then she would drop a kiss on his cheek afore patting his head as if he were a wee lad and move on to trying to convince his father, Arthur, laird of clan Hart, to order him to stop.
But his father kenned better. The highlands called to Rory. The fresh air beckoned him.
His family would never be able to drag him away from them.
He refused to be remanded inside doing Lord kens what.
Leaning back on his palms, he let the early summer sun warm his face and skin. He closed his eyes and took a slow, cleansing breath.
Soon, no matter how much he didn’t want to, Rory would need to return to Hartsmoor. Back to the raucous that was his family. Having four siblings meant that the castle they called home was never quiet—especially with three sisters.
Here, though, in the highlands, in the trees, scaling rocky cliffs and hiking mountains, Rory felt like he could forget the rest of the world existed. It was just him and nature. No pressure. No demands.
He could just be.
Sighing, he pushed himself up off the ground and dusted the backside of his trews off. He began his descent, choosing a different path than the way he had come up. As he made his way down, he saw a hawk circling in the distance.
Something in the area must have perished, or it was tracking its prey. Either way, Rory was sure it would not be long afore it dove down and snatched whatever creature it was that the bird had spotted.
The closer he got to Hartsmoor the more solemn his mood grew. His shoulders felt heavier. His feet moved a little slower. That always happened when he spent a day doing what he loved only to return to the confines of his family home.
Rory loved his family. Every single sibling. His parents. He never wished ill will to fall upon any of them and would not cope well with one of them becoming injured. Was it wrong then, that even though he loved them, he didn’t want to be around them?
His sister, Moira, had an independent streak that their parents had tried to break her of. All the good that did. Instead, she deceived them all by concocting a plan to visit her best friend for an extended period of time and traveled the highlands with a MacLeod. Not just any MacLeod, but Laird MacLeod’s first-born son. The clan was Hart’s sworn enemy at the time. Had been for years long afore Rory’s father had been born.
Now, they were married, uniting the clans and bringing to light a history that none of them had been aware of.
When their father had found out what she had done, Rory thought he was going to meet an early grave. Arthur was ready to scorch the earth from their lands to the MacLeods.
But it all worked out in the end and now she and her husband,Errol, were building a new life together on a parcel of land that now acted as a bridge of peace betwixt the Hart and the MacLeod clans. With Moira and Errol’s settlement there, the lands were joined, creating a new future devoid of the fighting that had long defined their families.
Walking up the road that would lead him to Hartsmoor, Rory dragged his feet with each step. For some reason, he felt unsettled. As if bad news was headed his way. He paused and sucked in a huge gulp of crisp highland air, letting it slowly out through his nose as he gazed at the trees lining either side of the road. If he turned left the road would take him to the bustling village where merchants of all kinds were selling their wares—jewelry, embroidery, clothing. Aught that one could imagine would be sold on the streets. Then there was the baker, with his tasty treats and breads. The ale maker with his honey and heather mead. The blacksmith—one of the finest this side of the highlands. Rory himself had purchased a small dagger from him on one of his trips into the village. It was made of supreme craftsmanship.
