by Eliza Knight
The Highlander’s Secret Vow
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
Excerpt from The Highlander’s Temptation
About the Author
About the Book
When Liam Sutherland was a lad of sixteen summers, he saved a lassie’s life and secretly vowed to always keep her safe. As the prized warrior of his clan, and youngest son of the laird, he has responsibilities. But he can’t ignore a mysterious missive from the Sassenach from his past—a woman with the power to make him leave everything behind.
* * *
Cora Segrave, daughter of an English baron, owes her life to the Scot who saved her years ago during a border raid. When her family home is destroyed, and she’s taken prisoner, there is only one man she knows can save her—the one she’s never been able to forget.
* * *
Answering Cora’s plea for aid will jeopardize Liam’s reputation, and maybe even cause a rift with his family, but a vow is a vow, and he cannot turn his back on her, or his heart. He has to save her before it’s too late and pray his family and king will understand. And by saving her, he just may save himself.
Copyright 2019 © Eliza Knight
THE HIGHLANDER’S SECRET VOW © 2019 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 SECRET VOW 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.
Edited by Heidi Shoham
ISBN-13: 978-1-949941-00-5
Published by:
Knight Media, LLC
PO Box 324
Mount Airy, MD 21771
More Books by Eliza Knight
The Sutherland Legacy
The Highlander’s Gift
The Highlander’s Quest
The Highlander’s Stolen Bride
The Highlander’s Hellion
The Highlander’s Secret Vow
The Highlander’s Enchantment — Summer, 2019
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
French Revolution
Ribbons of Scarlet: a novel of the French Revolution
Chapter 1
1324, Scotland
* * *
Sir Liam Sutherland was loyal to a fault.
And that was why he was traveling south with his men from Sutherland lands toward the border of Scotland and England on a mission for his king. It was early morning, and mist still covered the dewy ground. The ears of their horses flicked back and forth. White clouds puffed from their mounts’ nostrils in the dawn chill. They slowed to a walk as they trudged past the darkened woods on a road he’d traveled more times than he could count.
Firs, oaks and birch trees waved in a gentle breeze, as though the limbs and leaves of the foliage were also awakening with the new day. Used to the scurrying sounds of forest animals and the clomping of deer hooves as the animals rushed away, Liam kept his ears perked for any other sounds. Sounds of men.
This was Ross country. And those bastards had been the mortal enemies of his clan, and half of Scotland, for longer than Liam had been alive.
Though their laird—Ina Ross, a vile woman if he’d ever encountered one—was still imprisoned by Robert the Bruce at Stirling Castle, that didn’t make their lands any less dangerous. The men of the clan were just as vicious as their leader, and they were willing to exact revenge on those who’d taken her—Liam’s own family. He was certain the Ross clan had been watching him. Following him even.
It was only a matter of time before they pounced.
The clinking of the iron rings on the bridles of a dozen Sutherland horses echoed in the eerie dawn.
He could have taken his men through the woods, but it would make passing through these treacherous lands longer, and the more they lingered, the more likely it was that they would encounter one of those Ross bastards. Meaner than hungry and scared wildcats, Ross warriors didn’t fight fair. Naturally, Liam wouldn’t fight them fairly either, as it was a matter of life and death with those sneaky maggots.
Liam was the best warrior in all of Scotland. That wasn’t an exaggeration, or a conflagration of his own self worth. It was a fact. He’d been named the top warrior in Scotland for the third year in a row now, beating out all the others at the king’s annual tournament.
So, while he was certain he could take down any Ross who came within his grasp, he didn’t have time for a fight, even if the reason he was on the road had to do with those vile imbeciles anyway. His king had given him a mission to find Ina Ross’s husband, Ughtred.
Ughtred was a tiny, irrational upstart. Like Liam, he was nearing thirty summers, but he was half Liam’s
size, and with a bigger head than eight Sutherlands put together. He was a right bastard and dealing with him was going to be a pain in Liam’s arse. He wasn’t likely to get relief from Ughtred for some months, if ever, if he didn’t complete this damnable mission.
Word was that Ughtred was causing trouble along the border lands, and Robert the Bruce wanted Liam to put a stop to it. The mission entailed Liam and his men traveling to the border, taking Ughtred prisoner and sending his minions running back to England, thus securing the border and providing a lovely reunion for Ughtred and his bride in the dank dungeon of Stirling Castle.
Of course, that wasn’t all. Once the first part of his mission was complete, Liam was tasked with taking Ross Castle. Not engaging with the Ross warriors now didn’t mean he wouldn’t be seeing them soon. But one battle would be sufficient, and he preferred the element of surprise.
The mission seemed easy enough, and Liam was not in the least bit worried about seeing it through—just as soon as they got off these godforsaken Ross lands. Though they’d be back soon enough, he knew. He had to find Ughtred first, and it was evident he wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity. To make themselves known when their target was not present was only inviting trouble.
He’d grown up listening to the stories of Ina Ross and her father, who tormented everyone who sided with the Scots. He’d heard about their treachery, their attempts at abducting those in his family, and every other heinous thing they’d ever done.
Those stories had been the stuff of night terrors for young lads, a way to rein in wayward bairns when they got out of hand. It wouldn’t do to take a horse out for a ride over the heathers when one’s Da had warned a Ross could be right over the rise ready to snatch up a lad or lass and cook them for supper.
As Liam had aged, he’d realized the rumors and stories were exaggerations. He’d never had anything to do with Ina Ross himself until some months ago, when the mad woman had attempted to steal his sister away from a tavern. Thanks to his sister, Greer, Ina Ross had been captured that night. Unfortunately, they’d yet to find Ughtred.
Liam’s horse let out an irritated snort and flicked his ears back and forth. Liam loosened his grip on the reins and concentrated on the sound of the wind rustling the leaves in the branches to his right. The road eased toward the left, and with each step, they drew farther from the dark wood.
There did not appear to be anything out of the ordinary, but that didn’t necessarily mean that nothing was amiss.
In fact, if he’d learned anything in his thirty years, when all seemed well, it was smart to be prepared for the worst.
More than anything, he wished to urge his mount into a gallop and get the hell out of here. They were at least two weeks away from their destination—and a whole hell of a lot could happen in that amount of time. If Ughtred was indeed raiding at the border, he could do a lot of damage before Liam and his men arrived. And even a single hour of torment could feel like years to an innocent. Two weeks could feel like a lifetime.
Liam thought back to the first time he’d been to the border. He was sixteen at the time and had been fostered out to his uncle. His uncle was laird of the Montgomery clan, and often performed duties for the Bruce near the border. Those few hours had changed his life forever, given him what felt like a lifelong mission that would never come to a close.
Liam squinted ahead. The hair on his arm prickled, and so did his warrior’s sixth sense. They were being watched. He could feel it.
He held up his hand to call for the warriors with him to still. He scanned the horizon, taking in the ridges and dips in the land, the long grasses that could hide men crawling like wildcats on all fours ready to pounce. He studied the road ahead of them, looking for anything that could be causing his heightened senses.
Nothing.
He glanced to his right at his cousin Tad, his second-in-command. Tad had been adopted as a lad by Liam’s uncle Ronan when his parents were killed. Though they weren’t blood related, Tad held all the same mannerisms as Ronan, even parted his dark hair the same way. Though Tad was easily a decade older than Liam, he’d been Liam’s confidante for as long as he could remember.
Deep grooves lining the space between Tad’s brows, and his brown eyes were slits. Something wasn’t right.
“I dinna like this,” Liam murmured, feeling the telltale pulse in his chest at the sight of one of his first battle wounds, an ache that often brought itself about when he was close to a fight. The healer had warned he may feel residual pain after the arrow had been removed since it had damaged much of the area. And pain him it did, throbbing whenever his heart beat a little too fast, and making him fear he might just drop dead.
“Aye.” Tad’s gaze skittered over the landscape.
“Perhaps we’d do best to increase our speed. We’ll fall into any trap that’s laid out whether we go slow or not.” Liam continued to scan all around, looking for anything out of place, jerking toward every moment, even that of a leaf waving in the wind.
Tad nodded. “’Tis better to hurry, I think. If they’re coming, then they’re coming, whether we like it or not.”
“If we make haste, we might have the element of surprise.” He wouldn’t put it past the Ross men to make sport of them. Besides, the king had ordered him to hurry to the border.
Liam urged his horse into a gallop, Tad and the men behind him following. They veered off the road, taking a path less traveled over the rolling hills, their horses’ hooves creating fresh divots in the earth. Only a few minutes at that pace went by before he could hear the thundering of hooves behind them.
Damnation, their choice to run had roused the foxes out of their holes.
There was no telling how many Ross men might be following them. There could be an entire hoard of them, scurrying over the moors like a cluster of newly hatched spiders or demons crawling out from the earth. He imagined them snarling and dripping with the blood of their enemies as they unearthed themselves. Of course, it was a bit late for Samhain, but all the same, when did the Ross clan ever follow the rules?
The more distance they covered, the louder the pounding hooves seemed to grow from behind. Then just as suddenly as the pursuit had commenced, it ended. Like the bloody specters he’d imagined them to be.
“What the bloody hell?” Liam reined his horse in, coming to a stop and turning to look behind them. He could still see the dust from the earth rising where the horses were being ridden hard, but no one was there. Nay, not dust, as the air was too damp. ’Twas possible it was only mist rising from the earth and toying with his eyes. What game did the Ross men play?
“Bloody ghosts,” Tad muttered.
“They are trying to unnerve us,” Liam answered.
“A warning?”
Liam shook his head, willing the arseholes to show themselves. “Nay, the bastards never warn anyone. They did it to delay us.”
Tad let out a low growl. Liam felt like growling too. He couldn’t risk one of them escaping and warning Ughtred that Liam and the King of Scotland were on to them.
Part of Liam wanted to charge back toward where the riders had to have been. To engage them in a battle they would never forget, or never remember as their bodies sank back into the earth where they’d come from.
But they couldn’t waste their time, nor their energy, on a worthless battle. Engaging the Ross wraiths right now would be nothing more than a glorious notch to etch into the hilt of his sword, and a wrench in a plan that already had little room for error.
Liam was confident they would win any battle provoked into, but orders were orders, and the risks were simply too great.
Reluctantly, he turned his mount southward and whistled for his men to continue on their way. The wraiths would rise up, no doubt, to torment them several more times on their journey. Like ghostly reminders Liam and his men were within inches of being in a battle to the death. The taunting of a far too confident army.
Tad agreed it would feel good to thrust his sword into one of the bl
asted Ross men. For a good hour or more, they plotted out a battle in their minds as entertainment on the long journey. At least an imagined battle wasn’t a risk, and it gave quite a few laughs, especially when Liam jested about the Ross warriors fighting in women’s boots to match their laird.
By nightfall, they reached the border between the Ross and Munro lands. Liam bid his men to ride the extra hour that would take them out of enemy territory, so when they bedded down for the night, they could do so knowing they were no longer on Ina and Ughtred’s lands. Besides, the Munros were his kin, and if they were to run into anyone, he knew they would receive a friendly welcome.
Cora Segrave shuffled frantically through the items on her father’s desk, searching for a blank piece of parchment and stopping every few minutes to listen. She was in hell.
Her father was dead.
She yanked open a drawer and shuffled through the scrolls, broken quills, stubs of wax, and other items that were useless to her now. Panic rolled through her in waves, making her hands shaky, her eyes a little blurry.
“Come on,” she groaned.
Not even a half an hour had passed since her father had been murdered right before her eyes. Thank goodness, the besiegers of the castle had not seen her. Having been sieged before, Cora knew what was happening before anyone else, including her mother, who’d rushed headlong toward the man running her father through.