Christmas at the Castle

by Marion Lennox

  Her Lord had found his Lady. Cinderella had found her prince.

  Holly had found her Angus.

  ‘Will you marry me?’ he said, the words muffled in her hair and somehow she managed to nod. It was a pretty weird nod, though, when she was so close, so close...

  ‘Yes,’ she managed.

  ‘And will you love me?’

  ‘Of course I’ll love you,’ she said through tears. ‘I love you forever, forever and forever. I wanted to. I thought I did the first time I saw you, especially in that kilt, but Angus, I didn’t trust...’

  ‘You had reason not to trust. But can you now?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said between kisses. ‘Maybe, my love, as long as you keep wearing that kilt, maybe I know I can.’

  * * *

  It was a great day in the history of the tiny village of Craigenstone when Lord Angus McTavish Stuart took one Holly Margaret McIntosh to be his bride.

  They were married in the chapel of Castle Craigie—of course they were—but the chapel was tiny and there wasn’t a soul in the district who didn’t want to be part of this joyous day. Marquees had been set up with sound and vision so this wedding could be shared by all.

  ‘She’s our girl,’ the villagers declared, conveniently forgetting Holly’s father had gone to Australia and married an Australian and Holly spoke with a broad Aussie twang. For this day she was Our Maggie’s granddaughter, a local, their girl taming the Lord of Castle Craigie.

  For Angus was still the Earl of Craigenstone. No one wanted him to renounce the title. The villagers saw Angus taking on the title as a beginning of a new and bright future, not a continuance of the same.

  He was moving mountains, this new Lord of theirs. Their Laird. Already an army of workers was repairing roads, restoring long neglected cottages, preparing crofts for the sheep that Angus planned would return to bring prosperity back to the valley. The old ways had been superseded by the new but there were many who craved quality and craftsmanship, and Angus’s business acumen saw a niche that wasn’t small.

  The mill was being rebuilt. The old folk of the village were being turned to for advice, for teaching. The village hummed and there was already talk of young ones, drifted away for generations, returning to take part in this new resurgence.

  And it all hung on this couple, this darkly handsome Lord, who looked just like his father but who wasn’t the least like him, and his astonishing half Scottish, half Antipodean bride.

  And now the day had come. Angus stood before the altar in his wedding finery—the Stuart tartan, the dress sword, tassels, sporran, every piece of Scottish gorgeousness Holly could convince him to wear. Dougal was in his wheelchair by his side, looking almost as fine, waiting with his Lord for the woman who’d made this happen.

  Holly.

  And here she was, rounding the great Castle walls in a dray. Maggie was by her side, dressed to the nines as well—someone had to use that Very Expensive Dress Shop in Edinburgh—and she was giving the bride away, for there was no way in the world she was letting another do it.

  The dray came to a halt. Holly jumped down almost before it stopped, not waiting for the dozen men who’d surged forward to help. Mary and Polly collected her train—vintage lace because this was Maggie’s gown recycled, but there was nothing recycled about this bride.

  She looked exquisite, She was exquisite. Angus thought, as he watched his bride make her way towards him. The deep cream gown fitted her to perfection and her copper curls glowed and glinted in the afternoon light.

  She’d always glow, he thought, and somewhere in his heart he felt room to be sorry for the unknown Geoff, who’d treated her so badly and in doing so had given Angus, given this valley, these people, so much.

  ‘I’ve got your ring safe,’ Ben whispered as Holly grew nearer but Angus didn’t hear. He had eyes only for his bride.

  From this day forth...

  They’d fill the Castle, he thought, with their family, their friends, their animals. They’d make this place a home as it truly should be a home. It might be a great grey fortress on the outside but on the inside... Holly had brought her heart to this Castle and it was transformed.

  More, she’d brought her heart to his, and that was transformed as well.

  ‘My love,’ he said softly as she reached him and he took her hand and drew her to stand by his side. ‘You look beautiful.’

  ‘You don’t scrub up too badly yourself,’ she said and grinned and he chuckled, a lovely deep chuckle that had every lady in the congregation sighing and knowing exactly why it was that Holly was marrying this man.

  But Holly knew more. She wasn’t marrying him for his smile or his laugh. Nor for his Castle, his title or his money.

  She was marrying him because he was her Angus; it was as simple as that.

  She smiled up at her husband-to-be, a lovely heart-warming smile that was as much of a match for his chuckle as it was possible to make.

  ‘No laughing. This is serious,’ she said softly. ‘You’ve promised me a gold ring and that’s what I’m here for.’

  ‘You won’t give this one away?’ he asked and her smile died.

  ‘I won’t,’ she said, and her eyes met his and he knew what she spoke now was absolute truth. ‘This one’s for ever.’

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from SNOWFLAKES AND SILVER LININGS by Cara Colter.

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  PROLOGUE

  CHRISTMAS.

  Turner Kennedy was a man who took pride in his ability not just to cope with fear, but to shape it into a different force entirely.

  He had jumped from airplanes at 8,200 meters into pitch blackness and an unknown welcome.

  He had raised all kinds of havoc “outside the fence” in hostile territory.

  He had experienced nature’s mercurial and killing moods without the benefit of shelter, sweltering heat to excruciating cold, sometimes in the same twenty-four-hour period.

  He had been hungry. And lost. He had been pushed to the outer perimeters of his physical limits, and then a mile or two beyond.

  He had been the hunted, stranded in the shadows of deeply inhospitable places, listening for footfalls, smelling the wind, squinting against impenetrable darkness.

  It was not that he had not been afraid, but rather that he had learned he had a rare ability to transform fear into adrenaline, power, energy.

  And so the irony of his current situation was not lost on him. After a long period away, he was back in the United States, a country where safety was a given, taken for granted.

  And he was afraid.

  He was afraid of three things.

  He was afraid of sleeping. In his dreams, he was haunted by all the things he had refused to back down from, haunted by a failure that more fear, on his part, might have changed a devastating outcome.

  And maybe it was exhaustion caused by that first fear that had led to the second one.

  Turner Kennedy was afraid of Christmas.

  Maybe not the coming Christmas, specifically, but of his memories of ones gone by. Those memories were lingering at the edges of his mind, waiting to leap
to the forefront. Today, it had been seeing an angel Christmas tree topper in a store window.

  Without warning, Turner had been transported back more than two decades.

  They came down the stairs, early morning light just beginning to touch the decorated living room. The tree was eight feet tall. His mother had done it all in white that year. White lights, white Christmas ornaments, a white angel on top of the tree. The house smelled of the cookies she had baked for Santa while he and his brothers had spent Christmas Eve on the backyard skating rink their dad had made for them.

  It had been past ten when his mother had finally insisted they come in. Even then, Turner hadn’t wanted to. He could not get enough of the rink, of the feeling of the ice beneath his blades, of the cold on his cheeks, the wind in his hair, the power in his legs as he propelled himself forward. The whole world had seemed infused with magic....

  But now the magic seemed compromised. Though the cookies were gone, nothing but crumbs remaining, Santa hadn’t been there. The gifts from Santa were always left, unwrapped, right there on the hearth. This morning, that place yawned empty.

  He and his younger brothers, Mitchell and David, shot each other worried looks.

  Had they been bad? What had they done to fall out of Santa’s favor?

  His parents followed them down the steps, groggy, but seemingly unaware that anything was amiss.

  “Let’s open some gifts,” his father said. “I’ve been wanting to see what’s in this one.”

  His dad seemed so pleased with the new camera they had gone together to buy him. His mother opened perfume from Mitchell, a collectible ornament from David. She’d looked perplexed at Turner’s way more practical gift of a baseball mitt, and then laughed out loud.

  And just as her laughter faded, Turner had heard something else.

  A tiny whimper. Followed by a sharp, demanding yelp.

  It was coming from the laundry room, and he bolted toward the sound before his younger brothers even heard it. In a wicker basket with a huge red bow on it was a puppy. Its fur was black and curly, its eyes such a deep shade of brown a boy could get lost in them. When Turner picked it up, it placed already huge paws on his shoulders, and leaned in, frantic with love, to lick his cheeks. Much to the chagrin of his brothers, Chaos had always loved Turner best of all....

  Turner snapped himself out of it, wiped at cheeks that felt suddenly wet, as if that dog, the companion who had walked him faithfully through all the days of his childhood and teens, had licked him just now. The last time Chaos had kissed him had been over a dozen years ago, with the same unconditional love in his goodbye as had been in his hello....

  To Turner’s relief, his cheeks were not wet, but dry.

  For the third thing he was afraid of, perhaps even more than going to sleep and the coming of Christmas, was tears.

  He got up, restless, annoyed with himself. This was the fear, exactly. That something about Christmas would weasel inside him and unleash a torrent of weakness.

  He went to the barracks window. It was temporary housing, between missions. Would there be another mission? He wasn’t sure if he had it in him anymore. Maybe it was time to call it quits.

  But for what? It had been a long time since he had called anyplace home.

  He could not stay here, at the military base, for Christmas. He hated it that emotion seemed to be breaking through his guard. It was too empty. There was too much room here for his own thoughts.

  There was too much space for that thing he feared the most.

  A yearning for the way things had once been.

  David and Mitchell hadn’t told him not to come for Christmas, but hadn’t asked him, either. Of course, they probably assumed he was out-of-country, and he hadn’t corrected that assumption.

  It was better this way. He had nothing to bring to their lives. Or anyone’s.

  There were lots of places a single guy could go at Christmas to avoid the festivities. Palm trees had a way of dispelling that Christmassy feeling for him. A tropical resort would have the added benefit of providing all kinds of distractions. The kind of distractions that wore bikinis.

  Turner was aware he wasn’t getting enough sleep. Not even the thought of women in bikinis could shake the feeling of ennui, mixed with the restless, seething energy that wouldn’t let him drift off.

  Just then his cell phone rang.

  He must have another mission in him, after all, because he found himself hoping it was the commanding officer of his top secret Tango Force unit. That Christmas would be superseded by some world crisis.

  But it wasn’t his CO’s number on display. Turner answered the call. Listened. And was shocked to hear himself say, “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  It had been a voice from that thing he most wanted to avoid: the past. A time he remembered with the helpless yearning of a man who could not return to simpler things, simpler times, his simpler self.

  But Cole Watson, his best friend from before Turner had ever known he had a gift for dealing with fear, had been trying to track him down for weeks. Said he needed him.

  And Turner came from a world where one rule rose above all the others: when a buddy needed you, you were there.

  Okay. So it wasn’t a life-or-death request. No one’s survival was on the line.

  Cole was putting his life back in order. He’d lost nearly everything that mattered to him. He said he’d been given a second chance, and he planned to take it.

  Was that the irresistible pull, then—second chances? It certainly wasn’t a place in the backwoods of New England called the Gingerbread Inn, though the fact that Turner had never been there was a plus, as it held no memories.

  No, Cole had casually mentioned that the inn sat on the shores of Barrow’s Lake, where a man could put on his skates and go just about forever. That sounded like as good a way as any to spend the holiday season.

  As good a way as any to deal with the energy that sang along Turner’s nerve endings, begging for release. It sounded nearly irresistible.

  Copyright © 2013 by Cara Colter

  ISBN-13: 9781460322871

  CHRISTMAS AT THE CASTLE

  Copyright © 2013 by Marion Lennox

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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