Page 1 of To Defy a Highland Duke

Scottish Highlands

29 December 1720

I’m out of my mind for agreeing to this. Completely and utterly mad.

With that peevish thought, her fingers ice-cold despite her gloves, Marjorie Kennedy shivered and burrowed further beneath the weight of the heavy coach blankets. Only the crown of her soundly sleeping daughter’s head peeked from within the cocoon she’d swaddled six-year-old Cora in.

On the opposite seat, her sister-in-law, Berget Kennedy, also buried in a swath of thick coverings, cuddled Elana, Marjorie’s seven-year-old daughter.

The bricks now skidding around the coach floor had long since lost any semblance of heat and had been abandoned as foot warmers. Wishing for a roaring fire to warm the soles of her feet, Marjorie wiggled her cold toes against the bottom of her sturdy shoes.

“I canna imagine ’tis much farther, Marjorie.” Every bit as exhausted and miserably cold as she, Berget offered a weak upward sweep of her mouth, empathy shining in her kindly gaze. “The last time we stopped, Graeme vowed we’d arrive within the hour.”

With chipped teeth, bruised bums, and our blood frozen solid.

Well, Berget might not be frozen through and through. Her bright eyes and flushed cheeks, and the smoldering glance her husband bathed her with when they’d emerged from the inn’s private parlor, suggested Graeme had found a creative and effective way to warm his young bride.

Overseeing her daughters’ use of the necessary behind the posting house meant Marjorie had never completely thawed before the troupe reboarded the coach and lurched away on the rutted excuse for a road.

It wasn’t precisely envy that pricked her, for she didn’t begrudge Graeme and Berget their happiness or love. True, Graeme resembled her dead husband Sion strongly and, for a brief period, she’d developed a tendre for him.

But the sentiment hadn’t been love. He’d reminded her so much of Sion, and she did so miss her husband.

So, what precisely, was this disgruntlement chafing her? Abrasive and persistent.

If she must put a name to the aching, fluttering behind her breastbone, she’d call it yearning. For what she’d once had and mightn’t—probably wouldn’t—ever have again: the love and devotion of a strong, loyal, devoted husband and father.

Could one grieve such things?

Love. Devotion. Companionship.

Should one?

How could she not?

Her heart and spirit had wills of their own these days.

Burying her fingers deeper in the furs, Marjorie attempted to ignore her discomfort while keeping her complaints constrained to mutinous musings. Vocalizing her displeasure served no useful purpose, since naught could be done but endure the remainder of the bone-rattling trip.

Besides, it wasn’t her nature to be churly or snipe.

This journey, however, reinforced her abhorrence of coach travel, which was why her last prolonged trip had been from England as a bride of eighteen. Starry-eyed and bubbling with hope and expectations as the young bride of Laird Sion Kennedy.

She’d been blessed with three and a half joyful years with Sion before he’d died, far too young, five years ago. Her brawny, strapping husband felled by a gash. A stupid infection of his foot that had turned putrid and poisoned his blood, claimed the doctor.

Sion had left her a widow at two and twenty, in a new homeland, with an infant, a toddler, and a shattered heart and broken spirit. Her daughters were what kept her going.

Maternal pride blossomed in her chest as she swept a love-filled gaze over the sleeping lasses. Thank God for Elana and Cora. She didn’t know how she would’ve borne the grief and loneliness without them.

The constant rumbling, jerking, and bouncing of the coach had whittled her mischievous daughters’ good humor to grumpy pouts and, eventually, frustrated tears before slumber claimed the pair. Experience had taught Marjorie that they would awaken energized and quite ready to engage in more shenanigans.

For certain, the propensity for impishness came from their Scots blood.

“I’m quite looking forward to a hot bath and a steaming cup of tea,” Marjorie admitted, realizing she’d forgotten to respond to Berget. Tiny, frosty puffs accented her words and emphasized precisely how frigid the temperature had become inside the coach since the sun began its slow descent behind the Highlands’ craggy horizon.

A tot of bracing brandy or whisky in the tea wouldn’t go amiss either.

“Aye, I do too,” came Berget’s muffled reply.