by Eliza Knight
The Highlander’s Stolen Bride
Book Two: The Sutherland Legacy
Eliza Knight
Contents
About the Book
More Books by Eliza Knight
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
More Sutherlands!
Excerpt from The Highlander’s Temptation
About the Author
About the Book
The Highlander’s Stolen Bride
After a harsh betrayal, Magnus “Strath” Sutherland, Laird of Dornoch, accepts a commission from the king to squelch an English lord’s siege at the Scottish border. What better way to torment his new English enemy than to defeat his army and steal his beautiful bride? At first, Strath plans to toss the Sassenach lass into a dark cell and forget about her, but there is something about the way she defies him that he finds alluring, not to mention how very much he’d like to kiss her.
Eva de Clare, youngest daughter of the Earl of Northwyck, is pledged in matrimony to a cruel lord blackmailing her family. Her salvation comes in the form of a terrifying Highlander who interrupts the ceremony. But salvation turns to horror when she’s plucked from where she stands and whisked across the Scottish border. Eva isn’t about to be made a prisoner of war, and once she sees the kindness beneath her captor’s hard exterior she decides she won’t be sent back to England to be wed either. In fact, she just might be the woman to warm the Highland warrior’s hardened heart.
Copyright 2018 © Eliza Knight
THE HIGHLANDER’S STOLEN BRIDE © 2018 Eliza Knight. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part or the whole of this book may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or utilized (other than for reading by the intended reader) in ANY form (now known or hereafter invented) without prior written permission by the author. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal, and punishable by law.
* * *
THE HIGHLANDER’S STOLEN BRIDE is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and or are used fictitiously and solely the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental.
Cover Design by Kim Killion @ The Killion Group, Inc.
Published by:
More Books by Eliza Knight
The Sutherland Legacy
The Highlander’s Gift
The Highlander’s Quest — in the Ladies of the Stone anthology
The Highlander’s Stolen Bride
The Highlander’s Hellion — Fall 2018
Pirates of Britannia: Devils of the Deep
Savage of the Sea
The Sea Devil
A Pirate’s Bounty
The Stolen Bride Series
The Highlander’s Temptation
The Highlander’s Reward
The Highlander’s Conquest
The Highlander’s Lady
The Highlander’s Warrior Bride
The Highlander’s Triumph
The Highlander’s Sin
Wild Highland Mistletoe (a Stolen Bride winter novella)
The Highlander’s Charm (a Stolen Bride novella)
A Kilted Christmas Wish – a contemporary Holiday spin-off
The Conquered Bride Series
Conquered by the Highlander
Seduced by the Laird
Taken by the Highlander (a Conquered bride novella)
Claimed by the Warrior
Stolen by the Laird
Protected by the Laird (a Conquered bride novella)
Guarded by the Warrior
The MacDougall Legacy Series
Laird of Shadows
Laird of Twilight
Laird of Darkness
The Thistles and Roses Series
Promise of a Knight
Eternally Bound
Breath from the Sea
The Highland Bound Series (Erotic time-travel)
Behind the Plaid
Bared to the Laird
Dark Side of the Laird
Highlander’s Touch
Highlander Undone
Highlander Unraveled
Wicked Women
Her Desperate Gamble
Seducing the Sheriff
Kiss Me, Cowboy
Under the name E. Knight
Tales From the Tudor Court
My Lady Viper
Prisoner of the Queen
Ancient Historical Fiction
A Day of Fire: a novel of Pompeii
A Year of Ravens: a novel of Boudica’s Rebellion
For every woman striving to forge a path… You’ve got this!
Chapter One
Spring, 1322
Northern England
Eva de Clare had been told that every English lady looked forward to her wedding day. But she was pretty certain that was a lie. In her case, her wedding day was fast winning out over her worst nightmare.
Standing in her father’s study was her betrothed—a man who’d been blackmailing her family for at least two years that she knew of. Somehow, he’d managed to wheedle his way down to this—her hand in marriage.
Lord Belfinch stared down his nose first at her, and then her father. His thick brown hair was cropped close to his head and his face was as cleanly shaven as a sheep shorn too close to the skin, revealing pockmarks along his jaw line. Thin purple veins were visible at the plump parts of his cheeks, creating a map to his bulbous nose. Sharp, black eyes bore into her as he assessed her with a sneer of his yellowed teeth.
This man who made her physically ill was to be her husband. Her father might as well have sentenced her to death, for she wasn’t only ill from looking at him, although he was extremely unpleasant, but rather because there was no blood pumping through his veins. Nay, a man that evil had to be filled with tar.
Eva tried to hold in her shudder. She wished her sister, Jacqueline, was here to talk sense into their father. More than anything, she wished her mother was here to hide her in the woods on one of their wilderness adventures. A gust of wind banged against the closed shutters, as though her mother spoke to her from beyond the grave, or maybe tried to scare away the vile beast about to force her into marriage.
Not a day went by that Eva didn’t mourn the loss of her mother, her dearest friend and champion. Lady Northwyck had allegedly passed away from a sweating sickness some years ago—after being abducted by the father of the man who stood in front of her.
From what Eva had gathered, the illness had come about swiftly and ravaged her mother’s once-strong body. No matter how many times Eva tried to escape to go to her mother’s side, even if that meant she would be abducted as well, her father stopped her. She’d not even been able to say goodbye. Mother had never been sick in all the days Eva could remember. Imagining her wasting away and being helpless to do anything had only made Eva more aware of the fragileness of life.
Eva had always wondered if her death was real or not, because just last year she’d received a letter in her mother’s hand saying that soon she would work o
ut a plan to rescue Eva. But nothing had come of it. Her father had raged about falsehoods and trickery when he’d seen the letter. After that, any correspondence that came to her was opened and read by her father first.
And now, it was painfully evident how much she missed her mother’s level-headedness.
Belfinch’s blackmailing had started shortly after her mother’s death.
With her sister married off to a lord nearer to London, and her mother gone, the only one she could argue her case with, and the only one who should protect her, was her father. But apparently, Lord Belfinch had a tight hold over her father.
She’d discovered her father was being blackmailed by accident. She’d seen Belfinch leaving her father’s study two summers prior with a large jingling sack. Shortly thereafter, her father had levied an additional tax on their tenant farmers. Many were already struggling to make ends meet, and the tax nearly broke them. Eva had taken up the cause with her father, and when he’d stubbornly refused to back down, she’d asked about the coin he’d paid Belfinch. The look on her father’s face had been all the confirmation she’d needed. When he then admitted he didn’t have a choice, and he would not give her the reason as to why Belfinch was blackmailing him, Eva guessed it must have something to do with her mother’s disappearance. But instead, her mother’s disappearance had only been the beginning.
Despite her pleading, her father had continued to make exorbitant payments to Belfinch without explanation. As a result, their farmers were defeated in mind and spirit, and even in body. And so was Eva. Where was her mother? Was she truly gone?
Eva did all she could to help her people. She even wrote to her mother’s family in Scotland, but when she never heard back she assumed either her father was taking the letters or they’d not written her back. Jacqueline, too, tried to write to their family in Scotland, but when her husband found out, he burned the letter.
After pilfering a few coins from the coin purse her father was supposed to give to Belfinch, she’d finally been able to convince a traveling bard to take a letter and send it out. Still, she’d not heard back.
Too keep herself from going mad, Eva continued her wilderness excursions, teaching women to forage for food in the forest, since they often went without even their own portions of farmed produce. Jacqueline sent money that Eva snuck to the farmers so their children wouldn’t starve. But this couldn’t go on forever. Belfinch had to be stopped.
But how? Was this it? Would spending the rest of her life with the lout be payment enough? And how would her people get on without her?
There would be a revolt. The people of Northwyck would be in danger and once again, she felt completely helpless.
Over the last few weeks while the negotiations were taking place, her father’s hair had grayed completely and lost the luster it had once held. New deep grooves had etched themselves in his face, and the whites of his eyes had gone yellow. Was it the stress of Belfinch’s noose closing around her father’s neck, or the guilt for the wrongs he’d done himself?
“Papa,” Eva pleaded. She grasped her fingers tightly in front of her waist, wanting desperately to tell her father all the reasons this was a bad idea, but the man standing two feet away held a power over her that made her tongue dry and brittle.
Even with the short distance between them, she felt like he was on top of her, suffocating her.
Lord Belfinch was twice her age, and where her father had gone completely gray, this man looked to be getting younger. Not a wrinkle marred his eyes despite his years, and not a single gray strand colored his hair. There was a gleam of malice in his dark eyes that frightened her, and the way her father’s shoulders stooped as though the devil himself had given him a whipping was extremely disheartening.
It would seem the only one who could stand up for her in this situation wasn’t her father, but herself.
Turning from her father, she faced Lord Belfinch head on. Shoulders squared, spine straight, her stance belied the fluttering in her belly.
“Lord Belfinch,” she started, fixing him with a steady gaze. “While I confess I do not understand the arrangement you’ve had with my father—”
“You are correct,” he cut her off, sounding strangled, as though it took all of his willpower to keep himself from shouting.
Eva pretended as though he’d not just interrupted. She was certain any reaction would give him the satisfaction he was looking for. “I am not chattel up for bidding. I must beseech you—”
The man held up his hand, interjecting once more. “That is where you are wrong, young lady.”
Eva bristled at his tone and his use of young lady, as though a lass of twenty-two summers were a mere babe. Well, in his case, she practically was. Even still, her chest tightened with anger. She stood so erect her spine might snap. It was hard for her to hold her tongue. Her mother had believed that children or women should be seen and not heard, and she’d grown up voicing her opinions, much to the irritation of her father. Lord Northwyck had indulged his wife, but could not tolerate the behavior in his children. But with Belfinch… Her throat was tight, and she lost her senses and the ability to speak.
He rolled his eyes, disgust wrinkling his nose as he spoke low and nasally. “You see, you are chattel. Every daughter is.”
Her belly threatened to upend its contents. Daughters were currency to him. Zounds, but if she were to actually marry him—which she swore right then and there she’d never do—Lord save her from having any daughters.
She had to get away from him.
“He’s right, Daughter. You must do your duty.”
Another gust of wind rattled the shutters. Even her father, who stared hard at her as though he were mentally willing her to be quiet, jerked up as though the rattle had been just for him.
“And this you must also understand,” Belfinch said. “I am not bidding on you, quite the contrary. Your father wants me to marry you so badly he is willing to part with a small fortune in order to see it done. I am getting paid to take you off his hands.”
Eva opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out. Her tongue and throat were so dry, she was certain if she were to breathe, her insides would turn to dust. How had he done it? How could he make her feel like less than nothing with a few disdainful looks and hurtful words?
But perhaps it was not so much the power he had over her, but instead the lack of objection from her father. The fact he was allowing all of this to happen. Deep down, Eva questioned whether her father could truly want to get rid of her. In her heart of hearts, she just couldn’t believe that he would pay anyone to take her. He was being forced. That had to be it. Her father was forceful, harsh sometimes, but he couldn’t be completely without feeling, could he?
What hold did Belfinch have over him? If he’d only trusted her enough to tell her when she’d asked those two summers ago, she might have been able to stop it.
Feeling the telltale sign of tears prickling the backs of her eyes, Eva shifted her gaze to her father, who wouldn’t look at her.
“Please, Papa…” She hoped her plea and the hurt she knew must be showing on her face would jar her father out of his decision.
Before her father could answer, Lord Belfinch was once more interrupting.
“The deed is done, my lady. The contract is signed. And I’ll teach you a lesson in contradicting me.”
“Contracts can be broken.” The words escaped her before she had a chance to pull them back.
Before she even knew what was happening, there was a loud crack, and her face exploded with pain.
Eva stumbled backward, her mind a mushy jumble. Tears blinded her as the truth of what had just happened dawned on her. She caught herself, righting to her full height once more, the pound of pain in her face, the taste of blood on her tongue.
Lord Belfinch had hit her.
In front of her father. And her father had done nothing to stop it.
Eva brought her hand to her face, feeling the heat of where his fist or palm
had connected. She shot her father a look of pure exasperation. He was no longer looking at the floor. His gaze held hers, and he shook his head. Was she imagining it, or was it sorrow making the grooves in his face even deeper?
“That is only a taste of what you can expect should you raise your voice to me again.” Belfinch stood before her, puffing his chest, his yellowed teeth bared.
She hadn’t raised her voice, merely contradicted him. Done only what she’d done all her life, which was to express her point of view.
But with a man like Lord Belfinch, any sign of disagreement would be seen as hostile. From this day forward, if the priest should give his blessing, if she was not able to escape, she would be his property, and all opinions she might have would be forfeit.
Eva would rather die.
And she’d just had a taste, as he said, of his temper—which was probably child’s play compared to whatever his true rage must be.
She might actually die.
The way he was looking at her now, she wasn’t so certain he wouldn’t kill her on their wedding night. Or was he more sadistic than that, excited about the prospect of tormenting her for the rest of her life?