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Bride Of The Isle
Margo Maguire
Get Out, Ye Bloodthirsty Half-Breed!Since the infamous Battle of Falkirk, Cristiane MacDhiubh had these words–and worse–hurled at her in the village streets. Half Scot, half English, she could claim no place as home–until the Lord of Bitterlee, as gallant a knight as any could dream, came in search of a bride…!Marriage had been naught but sadness for Adam Sutton, yet duty demanded he wed again. Cristiane MacDhiubh, as fey and wild as his own island fiefdom, might rouse his forgotten passions. But brave of heart though she might be, could Cristiane ever heal his sorrowing soul?
Adam could not recall seeing anything quite as grand as Cristiane MacDhiubh
enjoying her first sunrise on Bitterlee. Her eyes were wide, framed by gold-tipped lashes. Her lips were full and moist, and entirely too alluring.
His heart began to pound. The rushing surf was naught compared to the roaring in his own ears.
In the growing light he saw that she was covered from neck to toe by a thin linen kirtle, yet her enticing form would never be hidden from him again, no matter how well covered it might be. Burned into his memory was the way she’d looked in the firelight the morning he’d seen her undressed.
’Twould take only the slightest movement of his hand to pull her close, a trifling tip of his head to bring his lips into contact with hers.
And every fiber of his being demanded that he do so…!
Acclaim for Margo Maguire’s latest titles
Celtic Bride
“Margo Maguire’s heart-rending and colorful tale of star-crossed lovers is sure to win readers’ hearts.”
—Romantic Times
Dryden’s Bride
“Exquisitely detailed…and entrancing tale that will enchant and envelop you as love conquers all.”
—Rendezvous
The Bride of Windermere
“Packed with action…fast, humorous, and familiar…THE BRIDE OF WINDERMERE will fit into your weekend just right.”
—Romantic Times
#607 HER DEAREST SIN
Gayle Wilson
#608 NAVAJO SUNRISE
Elizabeth Lane
#610 CHASE WHEELER’S WOMAN
Charlene Sands
Bride of the Isle
Margo Maguire
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Available from Harlequin Historicals and
MARGO MAGUIRE
The Bride of Windermere #453
Dryden’s Bride #529
Celtic Bride #572
His Lady Fair #596
Bride of the Isle #609
This book is dedicated to Amy Ho, enthusiastic backpacker, avid reader, daring volunteer and student extraordinaire. May all your dreams and wishes come true.
Contents
Prologue (#uecd113bd-95eb-568a-b30c-5fe603f836eb)
Chapter One (#u96888acb-7fa5-5bc7-b01b-87d2e938185f)
Chapter Two (#ud2ebb125-22ce-5c47-876a-5d219e75df0e)
Chapter Three (#ub3547763-0cec-56ca-bf50-eae73a9e5a0c)
Chapter Four (#ua083d342-9141-5a0c-832a-faed5a8a946f)
Chapter Five (#ue42428f6-5b01-50c3-86a9-627389b58ee7)
Chapter Six (#u55700a36-705f-503b-b779-85229028e274)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
Isle of Bitterlee, in the North Sea
Autumn, 1299
“Nay, Penyngton,” said Adam Sutton as he restlessly paced the length of the tower room. “I’ll not marry again. And certainly not a Scot.”
“But, my lord,” Sir Charles Penyngton protested. He had license to speak to his lord in this manner, only because of his long term as seneschal here at Bitterlee. “You are still a young man. Merely one and thirty. And you have no heir. As Earl of Bitterlee, ’tis your duty to provide…”
Distractedly, Adam stopped at one of the long arrow loops in the wall of his solar and gazed out at the sea beyond. Bitterlee was a bleak, isolated place. According to legend, it had been named the “Isle of Bitter Life” by one of his ancient ancestors after his wife had ended her life here. ’Twas said that the name had changed over the years—been corrupted—to Bitterlee.
“This Scotswoman is perfect,” Charles said. “Cristiane of St. Oln. She is accustomed to a harsh climate such as ours, and is said to be a hearty lass.”
“Unlike Rosamund,” Adam said starkly. He knew what Charles and the others assumed. That he still mourned the death of his wife, Rosamund. And that was true, to a point.
What they did not understand was that he had never cared for Rosamund the way he should have, nor did he mourn her loss. Oh, true enough, he mourned her death, as he would have mourned anyone in his household.
But Rosamund had never been part of his heart or his being. Adam did not care to think how he would feel if she had been more to him than she was.
Even now he did not understand how Rosamund’s father could have given her to him in marriage. Surely the man had known Bitterlee’s characteristics, its isolation, its harsh winters…its fierce beauty. Rosamund had been a delicate young lady who should have married a southern lord. She’d have fared so much better wed to a man with connections in London, a man with aspirations at court.
Instead, she’d come to this godforsaken isle. And languished here for nearly five years. She had despised it.
“My lord,” Charles began again, but his words were cut off by a spate of coughing. When Adam would have seen to him, the seneschal waved him off, insisting he needed no help. “There are other considerations,” he said, once he’d caught his breath. “Your daughter, my lord…she is in need of…”
Adam frowned and speared Charles with his steely gray gaze.
“Er…that is, Margaret needs…I mean to say Lady Margaret does not seem to—to adjust, my lord.”
Adam had to admit that much was true. Though everyone at Bitterlee had kept secret Rosamund’s cause of death, Margaret was clearly traumatized by the loss of her mother. The child was a wraith. She looked nothing at all like a Sutton, and was as frail and wispy as her mother had been. Since Rosamund’s death, Margaret had closed herself off. She never spoke, and she showed little interest in anything that would normally hold a child’s attention.
And if Adam did not do something about Margaret’s impassivity, she would not survive the year.
But marry a Scotswoman?
“Tell me more of this…Cristiane of St. Oln,” he said, his words and attitude without hope. He’d recently suffered bitter losses at the hands of the Scots, and could not imagine bringing one of their kind to the isle. “But do not assume that I will go along with your plan.”
Chapter One
The Village of St. Oln, Scotland
1300
Cristiane inghean Domhnall, the half-English daughter of Domhnall Mac Dhiubh, sat on a rocky promontory overlooking the crashing black waves of the North Sea. The wind had kicked up, and the clouds overhead were thick with moisture. Cristiane knew there would soon be a downpour.
’Twas no matter. There was a cave nearby if she needed to find shelter. She would not return to the village by choice. Lord knew she was barely tolerated in St. Oln since the death of her parents.
Cristiane stretched one arm out and opened her hand, letting it rest quietly beside her. Soon enough, a pair of soft gray kittiwakes approached, one more shyly than the other. The bold one stood looking at Cristiane, then hopped closer, eyeing the outstretched hand, tilting his head this way and that, viewing from all angles the bit of bread she held.
Cristiane smiled wistfully. ’Twas a game she’d played for years, with the guillemots, the shags and the puffins that inhabited this place. The birds were unafraid of her. Wary, of course. She expected nothing less of them.
But soon she would see them no more. For her mother had arranged for her to be escorted to York, to the estate of her uncle. Elizabeth of York had known that Cristiane had no future here in St. Oln. When the lass’s father, the Mac Dhiubh, had been killed in a skirmish with a neighboring clan, Elizabeth had begun to seek a new home for Cristiane.
She wondered if a likely husband existed in York. There was no one in St. Oln who’d have her, especially now that her father was gone. No Scotsman would willingly take a half-English wife.
Again, ’twas no matter. There was no one Cristiane was interested in having, either, though she did yearn for a man of her own, and a family. By the age of two and twenty, all the village lasses were well and truly wed, and some already had babes and wee children playing at their feet. It hurt Cristiane deeply to know that she was never to have the same pleasure.
She knew she was different from them. Besides being half-English, she had been reared separate from the other village children. Her father had tutored her in French and Latin, and she could read. She’d also had hours of leisure to explore the cliffs, and to learn the ways of the creatures that lived here.
’Twas no wonder none of the men of St. Oln would have her.
The brazen kittiwake approached, and with its long, sharp beak, quickly snatched the bit of bread from Cristiane’s hand. Then it hopped away to pick at its food and argue with the shy one over it. Cristiane closed her hand. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
She knew she had only a day or two left at St. Oln before the earl’s men came for her. ’Twas her mother’s dearest desire that Cristiane leave this poor, unfriendly land where Elizabeth had been banished by her own father so many years before. Now that her mother was dead and buried, Cristiane was compelled to carry out her last wish.
’Twas a bittersweet promise. Cristiane had no regrets over leaving the village of St. Oln, but when she traveled to the strange land to the south, she would lose the comforting presence of the familiar birds and the wee creatures that nested on her beloved cliffs.
But she had no choice in the matter. Her English-bred mother had been wife to the Mac Dhiubh, and therefore tolerated as long as there was peace in the land, and the laird was alive. But the once-prosperous St. Oln had fallen on hard times. War with the English king and with neighboring clans had made the people suspicious of all outsiders, including Lady Elizabeth and even Cristiane inghean Domhnall. Her father’s influence was no longer a force to be reckoned with.
Cristiane had always known she had ties in England. Her mother’s elder brother was the Earl of Learick, away south in the land of York, and it had been her mother’s last wish that Cristiane remove to his estates there. On her deathbed, Elizabeth had made her daughter promise to go with the earl’s men when they came for her.
Cristiane had no idea what her mother’s connection was to the Earl of Bitterlee, or why ’twas Bitterlee’s men who would come for her. By the time her mother had spoken of these plans, she had been too ill to be questioned. It still seemed strange to Cristiane that it was not her uncle who was coming for her, to take her directly to York.
Ah, well… ’twas too late now to learn any more from her mother. Elizabeth had rarely spoken of her family until the very end, so Cristiane knew little of them. Only that her mother had been disowned by her father all those years before, and sent away to St. Oln to marry Domhnall Mac Dhiubh. Domhnall had been chosen because her Yorkish uncle had known him in Paris years before.
