His Stolen Bride (Stolen Brides Series Book 0)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
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Copyright
Also by Shelly Thacker
Excerpt: FOREVER HIS
Excerpt: Run Wild
Excerpt: AFTER SUNDOWN
The Making of HIS STOLEN BRIDE
About the Author
She’s kidnapped on the morning of her royal wedding—by her groom’s most dangerous enemy
Treachery leads battle-hardened Highland lord Darach of Glenshiel to abduct an innocent: wealthy Lady Laurien d’Amboise, betrothed to the knave who betrayed Darach and his men. Stealing the delicate beauty from the steps of Chartres Cathedral on her wedding day, he vows to keep her safe—and untouched—for she is a hostage to be bartered for the freedom of his beloved Scotland.
But soon he discovers that his lovely captive has unexpected strength, fire—and plans of her own. From a besieged French castle to the untamed Scottish Highlands, Darach and Laurien are swept up in wild adventure, dangerous secrets… and forbidden love that puts their honor and their lives at risk.
An RWA Golden Heart Award Finalist
“Fast-paced action, a very likeable heroine, and a story that keeps you enthralled from page one.”
–Rendezvous
“A compelling, memorable romance. HIS STOLEN BRIDE joins the ranks of the finest medieval captive/captor stories along with those by Elizabeth Stuart and Johanna Lindsey. 4 1/2 stars (highest rating).”
–Romantic Times Book Reviews
A full-length novel of 100,000 words
Adult content: steamy love scenes
Originally published by Avon Books under the title Falcon on the Wind
This revised Author’s Preferred Edition ebook includes new scenes and exclusive bonus content: “The Making of His Stolen Bride: The Story Behind the Story.”
The Stolen Brides Series: One is kidnapped from her wedding by her groom’s most dangerous enemy… one falls through time and finds herself married to a dark stranger… one may never reach her royal wedding if she can’t resist her rugged protector… one is abducted by a mysterious swordsman and swept away to a secret island paradise. These regal brides are about to discover that falling in love with a warrior is the most dangerous adventure of all.
Each book in the Stolen Brides Series is a stand-alone novel, so you can enjoy them in any order:
The prequel: HIS STOLEN BRIDE (Darach and Laurien)
Book 1: FOREVER HIS (Gaston and Celine)
Book 2: HIS FORBIDDEN TOUCH (Royce and Princess Ciara)
Book 3: HIS CAPTIVE BRIDE (Hauk and Avril)
Search keywords: captive romance, kidnapped romance, kidnapping, captive captor, medieval romance, Scotland, Scottish, Highlander, sexy historical romance, knight, romantic adventure
About the Author: USA Today bestselling author Shelly Thacker has written for top New York publishers and earned lavish praise from Publishers Weekly, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Detroit Free Press and The Oakland Press, who have called her historical romance novels “innovative,” “addictive,” “erotic” and “powerful.” Find out more at www.shellythacker.com.
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A note from Shelly
Dear Reader: My proofreader and I carefully check each of my books before publication. We work hard to produce ebooks that are 100% free of typographical errors. But typos are sneaky little devils, and sometimes they slip past us. If you spot any typos lurking in this book, please visit http://www.shellythacker.com/contact to email them to me. Thank you! Together, we can stamp out sneaky typos.
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Prologue
Dryburgh Abbey, Scotland, 1294
Ambush.
Cold fury shot through his veins and wrenched him back to awareness. Sir Darach of Glenshiel forced his eyes open, seeing only black sky and distant stars above, all of it spinning. His head throbbed, his entire body shocked by the impact of slamming into the ground. He lay flat on his back in the muddy field, barely able to breathe. One thick arrow had sheared across his side and knocked him from his horse. The cool autumn air chilled the blood soaking his tunic. He felt the familiar pain of broken ribs. And another arrow buried deep in his right leg.
He instinctively reached for his sword—but he was not wearing his sword. Or his helm or his chain mail.
No weapons. They had said no weapons. English bastards!
An eerie silence hung over the dark clearing. He heard no moans. No cries for help. No sound from any of the horses—or any other survivors.
“Galen?” Darach could manage only enough breath for that one word. He tried to lift his head.
In the scant moonlight, he could not tell one crumpled form from another. Where was his brother? He could make out naught but the abbey on the hill above them, candles still flickering in the front windows in peaceful welcome.
Murderous rage flooded him. The English archers had concealed themselves just below the abbey, in the trees on the opposite side of the river. They had waited with their longbows until their targets were within fifty yards. The Scots had had no shields to protect them from the hail of arrows. No weapons. No chance.
England’s King Edward had invited the Scottish noblemen to a peace negotiation. And sent armed assassins to slaughter them.
“Galen?” Darach tried to rise and nearly passed out again from the effort. Then he saw his brother’s gray destrier—on the ground, a dozen yards away. Galen, so young and so full of hope, had been riding at the head of their group of ten lords and knights.
And had been the first struck down.
A movement caught Darach’s attention: a gloved hand, reaching toward him. Galen was still alive.
Darach struggled to get to his feet and abruptly realized why he could not: the arrow that had hit his leg had gone all the way through—and pinned him to the ground. He clenched his jaw, fastened one hand around the shaft and pulled. In a blinding haze of agony, he managed to wrench himself free, but could not get the arrow all the way out.
He sagged back into the muddy earth. Then he wrapped both hands around the arrow, close against his thigh. He snapped it in half, a string of curses tumbling past his clenched teeth.
A gust of wind whipped over the field and carried a sound toward him. Voices. ’Twas the longbowmen, climbing back up the hill, toward the shelter and warmth of the abbey.
They were laughing. “That was a lesson their King John Balliol will long remember.”
“Aye, ten fewer Scots. I call that a good beginning.”
“We’ll crush them. Just like the Welsh.”
Darach forgot his pain and all else for a moment, lost in t
he icy urge to kill. He pushed himself up on one shaking arm—just in time to see two shadowy figures arrive in the clearing. Both carried steel-tipped pikes. Yeomen, sent to finish off the night’s bloody work.
They were headed directly for Galen. Who had gone still.
Heart hammering, Darach started to call out to draw their attention—but stopped himself before he could make a sound. A shout would alert the archers.
Instead, he sat up higher, moaning just loud enough for the two yeomen to hear. The pair changed direction and headed quickly toward him.
Hoping the darkness would conceal his intent, Darach reached for the hidden sheath in his right boot. The command come unarmed did not mean the same thing to him that it meant to other noblemen.
Nine years as a mercenary in distant lands had taught him too much about war—and naught about peace.
He slipped the Sicilian blade into the sleeve of his tunic as he let himself fall back to the ground, still moaning. Fresh pain sliced through him with every small movement. He slid his other hand across the ground, hoping to find a rock. A stray arrow. A weapon of any kind. He felt only mud and grass.
The two Englishmen were within a few paces now. They looked even younger than Galen, as green as the yew bows slung across their backs.
One of them knelt to steal a coin purse from a dead man.
The other smiled down at Darach, chuckling, then spat on him. “Ignorant barbarians. When will you Scots accept that you are outmatched?” He lifted his pike, aiming for Darach’s heart.
“Rach thusa!” Darach cursed him in Gaelic, flinging the blade.
The yeoman dropped his pike and fell, eyes wide in shock, clutching at his throat, choking on his own blood.
His companion whirled, mouth open to cry for help. Darach snatched up the fallen pike and threw it. The steel point hit the Englishman in the chest and ended his life before he could utter a sound.
Darach landed heavily on his side, groaning in pain, dizzy from lost blood. Darkness threatened to close over him again. He fought it, blinking hard, looking up at the abbey. Had any of the archers seen or heard?
They had all disappeared into the sanctuary. But when the yeomen did not return, the others would come looking.
It might be a matter of minutes.
Darach could see only one surviving horse—near the trees, darting nervously back and forth, reins trailing on the ground. Only one chance to escape. He started dragging himself across the blood-soaked field. He needed to get his brother away from here. Now.
It seemed to take two lifetimes to reach Galen’s side.
His brother lay pinned by his fallen destrier. He blinked up at Darach, his blue eyes glazed with pain.
He had an arrow in his gut and another in his chest.
“Nay.” The denial came from deep in Darach’s throat. The wounds were mortal.
He was already too late.
A pain beyond any physical suffering tore through him. This was his fault. Darach had more experience in battle tactics than many of the other Scottish lords; he should have made them listen when he said this mission was a mistake.
He should have sensed the danger as soon as they approached the clearing.
Should have protected his younger brother.
Galen struggled to speak, blood in his mouth, in his blond hair, on his face. “The others…”
“Dead.” Darach choked on the word. “All dead.”
“Y-you were right.” Galen’s expression was a mask of sadness and loss. “No… peace w-with the English.”
Darach shut his eyes, resting his forehead on Galen’s shoulder. “Do not try to speak, brathair.” God’s breath, he had wanted Galen to be right. Had wanted to believe that one hundred years of truce with England could last another hundred.
But King Edward’s ruthlessness had made that impossible.
Galen reached for Darach’s hand, grasping it fiercely. “Do not… l-let this night…be in vain.” He spat out the words, quickly, as fast as the two of them used to skip stones over Loch Shiel when they were boys. “The French…you must go to the French. The Auld Alliance… might still be…loyalties.”
Darach felt a burning in his chest that had naught to do with his wounds. Galen could not die. Not Galen, kind-hearted and honorable and selfless and everything else that Darach was not. The best of his brothers.
The last of his family.
But nay, there was one other Glenshiel yet living.
Galen was clearly thinking the same, even as the strength ebbed from his grip. “Y-you must… watch over Aidan… protect him, brathair.” His bloodied hand still clasped Darach’s as his last breath left him. “Protect them all.”
Chapter 1
Chartres, France, 1295
Dawn came cool and clear to the September sky, a lone bird wheeling in the clouds high above the chateau. A hawk, or mayhap a falcon, Lady Laurien d’Amboise thought, feeling a rush of envy for the creature’s freedom. She stood at the window of the guest chamber, gripping the velvet curtains with one trembling hand, watching as the sun rose higher above the waking town. The shifting rays gilded the spires of the cathedral where the ceremony would take place.
She had been awake since well before first light, accustomed since childhood to rising before dawn for matins and lauds. But this morn, she had prayed not for the needs of the Church or her abbey or the poor, but for divine intervention to stop this wedding.
A royal wedding.
Her wedding.
The thought made her mouth feel as dry as dust. Below, freemen and serfs had already gathered around the chateau walls, eager to enjoy the day’s festivities and get their first glimpse of the maiden who would be their lord’s new wife.
In little more than an hour, the doors of that cathedral would close behind her and she would find herself standing at the altar, next to the king’s own cousin. She would receive a ring. Recite vows. Hear the words of the wedding Mass.
She backed away from the window, looking down at her linen nightdress, her fingers twisting in the costly fabric. How could any of this be happening? Only four days ago, she had been enjoying supper in the convent at Tours, giggling with her fellow novices over some silly jest, when the abbess came to tell her that her stepfather had arrived.
The stepfather she had not seen since she was nine years old.
All but dancing with delight, Louis d’Amboise had informed her that an important member of the royal court, Comte Jacques de Villiers, had asked for her hand. Louis had given her no time to object—and little time to say farewell to the students, novices, and nuns who had truly been like sisters to her for eleven years.
Louis had whisked her away from the convent and deposited her here at the comte’s chateau. Served her up like the main course at a St. Michaelmas feast. When they arrived yestereve, her brother Henri had been waiting—but he had offered no help. He had even stopped her when she attempted to leave, telling her that it was her place as a woman to accept their father’s decision.
She blinked hard against the tears that burned her eyes, refusing to cry. Henri’s betrayal hurt worse than aught else. The little brother who used to follow her everywhere and keep her secrets when they were small had grown into a man.
One just as heartless as other men.
An urgent knock at the door startled Laurien. She turned to find two serving maids peeking into her chamber—the same two she had turned away earlier when they tried to bring her breakfast.
“Milady?” the gray-haired one ventured, her arms laden with a mound of blue and white silk—Laurien’s wedding gown. “The hour grows late.”
“The comte has been asking if you are ready,” the petite brunette beside her added with a high, nervous laugh. She carried a wooden bucket of steaming water and a basket heaped with ribbons and other frippery. “We do not want to keep him waiting.”
“But I… I need more time,” Laurien insisted, trying to think of some way to postpone the ceremony.
“Milady,
he ordered us to fetch you.” With an apologetic look, the older woman bobbed a quick curtsy and entered the room. She draped the gown across the bed where Laurien had tossed and turned all night. “He is already displeased that you did not attend the feast in your honor last evening. And it is best never to displease him—”
“Verel, my friend,” the brunette interrupted, making that nervous laugh again as she placed her basket on a small table near the window, setting the water bucket in the rushes that covered the floor. “It is not a kindness to frighten a bride on her wedding day.”
The gray-haired serving maid ignored her friend, moving tentatively toward Laurien and lowering her voice. “Milady, you must learn to be careful of the comte’s temper. He made his fortune trading silks and spices, but that is not all he seeks on his trips to the East—”
“Verel,” the brunette said sharply. “You say too much.”
“Fayette,” the older woman responded in the same tone, rounding on her. “I was lady’s maid to his last wife, as you well know—and I only wish I had said a word to her while there was time.” She turned back toward Laurien, a look of compassion in her brown eyes. “This gentle demoiselle is but twenty and newly come from the cloister. She is an innocent. She deserves at least a warning.”