Page 2 of To Wed a Wild Scot
By the end of it, all of Rosal Township will fall victim to the flames. The fire will devour more than two hundred fifty farmhouses, and scatter their inhabitants to every corner of Scotland and beyond. Later, long after the smoke has cleared, 1814 will be known asan bhliain ar an dó.
The Year of the Burning.
Logan doesn’t stay to watch it happen. He turns his horse’s head and leaves the scene of destruction behind him, but it’s not the last time he’ll see Patrick Sellar.
In 1816, he’ll make the short journey to Inverness, to watch Sellar go on trial for the murder of ninety-year-old Margaret MacKay, burned to death in Rosal Township two years earlier. Despite the evidence against him, Sellar will be found not guilty of the charge.
There are other factors, after Sellar. Other greedy landlords eager to trade their history, their heritage, their kinsman’s lives for a profit. The people will try to fight them, and they’ll lose. The clansmen have no rights. Neither their landlords nor the law will protect them.
When Fitzwilliam Vaughan arrives in Scotland, there will be nothing to stop him from setting fire to every farm on Kinross land.
Nothing, that is, but Logan.
He won’t let it happen. The duke owns the land, but he doesn’t own the people. Whatever Logan has to do—lie, steal, fight—he’ll do it. Laird or not, he’s been raised to protect his clan at all costs.
He won’t let an Englishman destroy Clan Kinross.
Not even if that Englishman is his brother.
Chapter One
Gretna Green, Scotland
Late June, 1818
By the timeLady Juliana Bernard realized something was amiss, her boots and the hem of her riding habit were already splattered with vomit.
Miss Findlay, who’d been looking a trifle green over the past few miles, slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my lady! I’m so dreadfully—”
Sorry.
The word was lost in a faint gurgle, and poor Findlay once again cast up her accounts all over the floor of the carriage. Juliana jerked her feet back to save her boots from another dousing, but it was already too late.
“Oh, dear. I’m excessively mortified.” Miss Findlay sagged back against the squabs, her forehead sheened with sweat. “Oh, and I’ve ruined your boots, and your favorite blue habit!” she wailed, looking as if she were about to burst into tears.
“Now, Findlay, you mustn’t think on it. I have other riding habits. There’s no real harm done.” Juliana reached for her companion’s hand and patted it soothingly. “Indeed, I blame myself. I thought you looked a bit off color. I should have realized you were ill.”
“No, no. I’ll be perfectly well in a moment,” Miss Findlay protested weakly, but her face had gone from green to white, and she was obliged to swallow several times before she dared open her mouth again. “A brief rest, and I’ll be as fit as ever.”
Juliana didn’t argue, but as soon as Miss Findlay’s eyes drifted closed, she leaned out the window and told her manservant, Stokes to stop at the next inn. Miss Findlay had borne up well over the six days of travel between London and Gretna Green, but it was clear the poor thing was exhausted. As anxious as Juliana was to settle her business, she wasn’t quite so wicked as to drag her poor companion another twenty-five miles to Dumfries.
Wicked enough, though.
Miss Crampton, her old governess—a woman of stern propriety and rigid ethical principles—had warned Juliana time and again that every lie was like another bar in a sinner’s prison. Once a lie was told, one never escaped it. It might take years, even decades, but your lies would haunt you in the end.
Juliana shuddered. Miss Crampton had been a terrifying woman to be sure, but she hadn’t been wrong. Juliana had told dozens of lies over the past few weeks—to her father, to her friends, and even to her six-year-old niece, Grace—and now she was being punished for it.
None of this was Findlay’s fault. It washers. Her toes were now resting in a puddle of vomit because shedeservedit.
She dredged up a handkerchief, pressed it to her nose, and fell back against the squabs with a sigh. She must be mad to be chasing Fitzwilliam all the way to Scotland. When he’d left five months earlier he’d promised to write, and so he had—for the first month or so.
Since then he hadn’t replied to any of the dozens of letters she’d sent him.
Not even the most urgent ones.
But Fitzwilliam was her dearest friend, and they’d been promised to each since birth. If a lady in desperate straits couldn’t rely on her betrothed, whom could she rely on?
If she could only find him, all would be well.
