The Warrior's Bride

by Amanda Scott

  —NightOwlRomance.com

  “[A] gifted author… a fast-paced, passion-filled historical romance that kept me so engrossed I stayed up all night to finish it. The settings are so realistic that the story is brought to life right before your eyes…”

  —RomanceJunkiesReview.com

  HIGHLAND MASTER

  “Scott, known and respected for her Scottish tales, has once again written a gripping romance that seamlessly interweaves history, a complex plot, and strong characters with deep emotions and a high degree of sensuality.”

  —RT Reviews

  “Ms. Scott is a master of the Scottish romance. Her heroes are strong men with an admirable honor code. Her heroines are strong-willed… This was an entertaining romance with enjoyable characters. Recommended.”

  —FreshFiction.com

  “Deliciously sexy… a rare treat of a read… Highland Master is an entertaining adventure for lovers of historical romance.”

  —RomanceJunkies.com

  “Hot… There’s plenty of action and adventure… Amanda Scott has an excellent command of the history of medieval Scotland—she knows her clan battles and border wars, and she’s not afraid to use detail to add realism to her story.”

  —All About Romance

  TEMPTED BY A WARRIOR

  “4½ stars! Top Pick! Scott demonstrates her incredible skills by crafting an exciting story replete with adventure and realistic, passionate characters who reach out and grab you… Historical romance doesn’t get much better than this!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Captivates the reader from the first page… Another brilliant story filled with romance and intrigue that will leave readers thrilled until the very end.”

  —SingleTitles.com

  SEDUCED BY A ROGUE

  “4½ stars! Top Pick! Tautly written… passionate… Scott’s wonderful book is steeped in Scottish Border history and populated by characters who jump off the pages and grab your attention… Captivating!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Readers fascinated with history… will love Ms. Scott’s newest tale… leaves readers clamoring for the story of Mairi’s sister in Tempted by a Warrior.”

  —FreshFiction.com

  TAMED BY A LAIRD

  “4½ stars! Top Pick! Scott has crafted another phenomenal story. The characters jump off the page and the politics and treachery inherent in the plot suck you into life on the Borders from page one.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Scott creates a lovely, complex cast.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Amanda Scott’s exciting new Border Nights series begins with

  Moonlight Raider!

  Please turn this page for a preview.

  Chapter 1

  Scottish Borders, 4 November 1426

  What was she thinking? God help her, why had she run? When they caught her… But that dreadful likelihood didn’t bear thought. They must not catch her.

  Even so, she could not go any faster, or much farther. It felt as if she had been running forever, and she had no idea of exactly where she was.

  Glancing up through the forest canopy, she could see the quarter-moon high above her, its pale light still occluded by the mist she had blessed when leaving Henderland. Although the moon had been rising then, she had hoped that the mist would conceal her moving figure until she reached the crest of the hills southeast of the castle. When she was safely on their southern slope, she had followed a narrow, little used track, one that she hoped they would never imagine she had taken.

  Experience had warned her even then that the mist might presage rain ahead, but the mist had been a blessing all the same. In any event, with luck, she would find shelter before the rain arrived, or the light of day, come to that.

  Long before then she had to decide what to do. But how? What could she do? Who would dare to help her? Certainly, no one living anywhere near St. Mary’s Loch. Her father was too powerful, her brothers too mean, too greedy, and Tuedy… But she could not bear the thought of Ringan Tuedy at any—

  A low, canine woof abruptly curtailed her stream of thought, and she froze until a deep male voice somewhere in the darkness beyond the trees just ahead of her said quietly, “Whisst, Ramper, whisst.”

  Impulsively, knowing she could neither outrun them nor risk time to think, eighteen-year-old Molly Cockburn dove into the shrubbery and desperately eased her way in as far, as quietly, and as deeply as she could, giving no thought to the brambles and branches that scratched and tore at her face and bare skin as she did.

  A susurrous sound came then of some beast—nay, a dog—sniffing. Then she heard scrabbling and a rattle of dry shrubbery nearby. Was the dog coming for her?

  Hearing the man call it to heel, then a sharper, slightly more distant bark, and realizing that he and his dogs were closer than she had thought, she curled tightly to make herself as small as possible and went utterly still, scarcely daring to breathe.

  She was trembling, though, and whether it was from the cold or sheer terror didn’t matter. She was shaking so hard that she would likely make herself heard if the nosy dog did not drag her from the shrubbery or alert its master to do so.

  Above the sounds of the animal that had sensed her presence came others then that were even more ominous. Recognizing the distant yet much too near baying of dogs, Molly stifled a groan. The dogs were doubtless Will’s sleuthhounds, trained to track people, even—or especially—rebellious sisters.

  Twenty-four-year-old Walter Scott, Laird of Kirkurd since childhood and a scant twenty-four hours of being the sixth Lord of Rankilburn, Murthockston, and Buccleuch, had just taken a long, deep breath and was savoring the energizing, chilly air that filled his lungs, and trying not to think of the vast responsibilities that had just descended upon him, when his younger dog gave its low, curious woof.

  “Whisst, Ramper, whisst,” he said. When the shaggy pup ignored him, its attention fixed on whatever wee beast it had sensed in the always-so-intriguing shrubbery, Wat added firmly, “Come to heel now, lad, and mind your manners as Arch does. I’d liefer you waken no badgers or other wildlife tonight.”

  Hearing its name, the older dog perked its ears, and Ramp turned obediently, if reluctantly, toward Wat. Then, pausing, Ramp lifted his head, nose atwitch.

  Arch emitted a sharp warning bark at almost the same time, and Wat heard the distant baying himself.

  “Easy, lads,” he said as he strode toward the sound.

  Both dogs ranged protectively ahead of him, but seeing torchlight in the near distance and now hearing hoofbeats over the hounds’ baying, he halted a few yards past the area where young Ramper had sought whatever wildlife had gone to earth there. Calling both of his dogs to heel, he looked swiftly around.

  The moon’s position told him the time was near midnight, so whoever was coming with hounds, was coming for reasons other than to offer condolences to the new Lord of Rankilburn and hereditary Ranger of Ettrick Forest. That they might be raiders occurred to him, but he dismissed that thought. A second thought, then a third that brought a wry smile to his face, led him to shout, “Tam, Sym, to me!”

  Doffing his warm cloak, he watched the torches draw nearer and waited.

  Except for the ever-closer riders and dogs, silence ensued. It was possible that neither man, or perhaps only one, had followed him from Rankilburn. As the riders drew nearer, he drew his sword, draped his cloak over a shrub, and eased his dirk forward, hoping that he would need neither weapon.

  The dogs were quiet now and kept close, awaiting commands. Hearing a slight rustle behind him, Wat said, “Are you alone, Tam, or is Sym with you?”

  “We both be here, sir,” Jock’s Wee Tammy said quietly. “Three of us should be enough, though, laird. It be just four or five riders, I’m thinking.”

  Even more quietly, Sym Elliot said, “Herself did send us, laird.”

  That term, at Rankilburn, referred to only one person, his grandmother.

  �
�Are you saying that, had she not, you would not have followed me?”

  Sym cleared his throat.

  “Aye, well, I’m glad you did, both of you,” Wat said, looking right at the two as he did. Jock’s Wee Tammy, despite his name, was nearly sixty and thus the older as well as much the larger of the two. A much-proven warrior and still fierce with a sword, he was captain of the guard at Scotts Hall. Both he and Sym had served Wat’s father and grandfather before Wat was born. “I was woolgathering,” he added. “But Arch and Ramper warned me of our visitors.”

  Lanky Sym said, “Herself sent me to tell ye that her ladyship were a-frettin’ earlier and restless. She said to remind ye that if she wakens… her ladyship, I mean… she’d be gey worried tae hear that ye was out roaming in the forest, so…”

  “My mother and grandmother are both stronger women than most,” Wat said. “I do know that my lady mother is grieving, Sym. We all are.”

  “It were too sudden,” Tam said.

  “It was, aye,” Wat agreed, stifling the new wave of grief that struck him. “We will sorely miss my lord father, but death does come to us all in the end.”

  “Not from this lot we be a-seein’ now, though,” Sym said confidently, drawing his sword. Tam’s was out, too, Wat noted.

  “Don’t start anything,” he said. “Take your cues from me.”

  “Aye, sir, we know,” Tam said.

  He knew that they did, but the riders were close, their baying dogs closer, and he hoped that their dogs were well trained. Arch and Ramper would fight to the death to protect him, but he didn’t want to lose either one, so he kept them close.

  Moments later, a pack of four hounds, dashed amid the trees toward them.

  “Halt and away now!” Wat bellowed, shouting the command that the Scotts had long used to keep their own dogs from tearing into their quarry.

  Either his roar or his words were enough, because the four stopped in their tracks and two of them dropped submissively to the ground. The other two stared at him, poised, teeth bared.

  He stayed where he was and watched the riders approach, four men, in pairs, the two on his right bearing torches. In their golden glow, he recognized the two leaders, decided the third was their younger brother, and although he did not immediately recognize the fourth man, Wat thought he looked familiar.

  When the four drew rein, Wat said to their leader, “Will Cockburn, what urgency brings you and these others to Rankilburn at this time of night?”

  Cockburn was a wiry man some years older than Wat with a reputation for leading raids across the border or on his own side of it, a not uncommon reputation in a territory rife with reivers. He glowered at Wat, exchanged a look with his younger brother Thomas, beside him, and then looked back at Wat.

  The look was speculative, as if he hoped Wat would say more.

  Wat waited stolidly for the answer to his question.

  At last, Will Cockburn said, “One of our maidservants seems to have lost her way home. The dogs picked up her scent near St. Mary’s Loch and led us here.”

  Molly nearly gasped. So she was a maidservant, was she? It was not far off the mark, but did they really think that Walter Scott of Kirkurd would care about a maidservant missing from Henderland? And, surely, it must be Walter Scott of Kirkurd if Will called him “Wat” and they were on Scott land near Rankilburn.

  “A maidservant who has wandered all the way here from Henderland?” he said, his tone heavy with skepticism. “Sakes, the distance is eight miles or more.”

  “I ken fine how far we’ve come,” Will snapped.

  She could easily imagine the sour look on his face as he said it, too, so heaven help her if he got his hands on her after chasing her such a distance. He’d get his own back. Then he’d turn her over to Ringan Tuedy, and Tuedy had already told her what he meant to do to her. A shiver shot through her at the memory.

  “You won’t find your girl here,” Kirkurd said, his deep voice reassuringly calm. “My dogs would have alerted me to any stranger within a mile of here, just as they did when they sensed your approach.”

  A snarling voice that Molly identified with renewed dread as Tuedy’s snapped, “So ye say, but since ye’ve no said what ye’re doing out and about at such an hour, how do we ken that ye didna come out tae meet some girl yourself, and kept them dogs quiet?”

  She had never met Walter Scott of Kirkurd, but her father had told her that he was just six years older than she was. Tuedy, on the other hand, was older by nearly ten years, powerfully built, an experienced warrior, and one accustomed to getting his own way. Would Kirkurd therefore defer to Tuedy?

  She hoped not. Recalling then that Kirkurd’s authoritative tone had stopped Will’s dogs before they could surround her and let Will know they had found her, she told herself she should be thankful for that blessing and not be praying for more.

  At last, in a surprisingly mild tone that revealed only slight curiosity, Kirkurd said, “Ring Tuedy, is that you? I thought you looked familiar, but it must be five or six years since last we met. Do you often help search for lost maidservants?”

  Molly’s lips twitched grimly, but her terror eased to more familiar dread.

  “I was visiting Piers Cockburn,” Tuedy said, as if his had been an ordinary visit. “But ye’ve not answered me question, Wat. What be ye doing out here?”

  “It is unnecessary for any Scott to produce reasons for a moonlight stroll on Scott land,” Kirkurd said. “However, you may not yet have heard that my lord father died last night. We buried him today, so it has been a grievous time for us here. I came into the forest to seek some fresh air and solitude.”

  Rankilburn was dead? Sadness surged through her at that news. She had met him only a handful of times, but unlike her brothers and even her father, Rankilburn had always treated her with the respect due to a lady. He was younger than her father, and she had thought him a kinder and gentler man, too. She wished she could see the men as they talked, but she was facing away from them and dared not move.

  Tuedy said mockingly, “Ye come seeking peace, yet ye come fully armed and wi’ Jock’s Tam and Lady Meg’s Sym at your side, likewise full-armed.”

  “Most Borderers carry weapons at all times,” Scott said.

  She realized then that she ought no longer to think of him as Kirkurd, because Walter Scott was Lord Rankilburn now and Chief of Clan Scott, as well.

  He added then, “I won’t ask why you four come armed to seek a missing maidservant at midnight, but you do seem over-familiar with my people, Tuedy.”

  “Sakes, everyone hereabouts kens that Sym Elliot is your Granddame, Lady Meg’s, man and that Jock’s Wee Tammy is captain of Rankilburn’s guard.”

  “Enough of this talk,” Will said curtly. “Ye won’t object if we have a look through the forest hereabouts for our lass, will ye, Wat?”

  Molly held her breath again.

  “But I do object to such an unnecessary intrusion, especially now whilst we here are grieving our loss,” Scott replied, his voice still even but with an edge to it, as if he disliked Will but had resolved not to show it. “Tammy and Sym were nearby, because a few men always are. If I whistle, two score more will come.”

  A brief silence fell before he added amiably, “Methinks you should train your sleuthhounds better, Will, because they must have followed a false trail. Moreover, you ken fine that you have no business hunting man or beast in Ettrick Forest without my permission, so you would all be wise to turn around now and go peacefully back to Henderland.”

  “And if we don’t?” Tuedy demanded provocatively.

  “You are on my land, Ringan Tuedy. Recall that I now wield the power of the pit and gallows. Do you think I will hesitate to use that power if you make trouble here whilst my mother, sisters, and grandmother are in deep mourning?”

  When another silence greeted those words, Molly bit her lip in frustration. Then, to her deep relief, she heard Will mutter something to the others, followed by the shuffling sounds of hors
es turning. Calling the dogs to heel, Will shouted, “Ye’d best not be lying to me, Wat. If ye’ve given shelter to the maid, ye’ll answer to me.”

  “I am not in the habit of sheltering lost maidservants, Will. Rest assured that if one turns up here, I’ll get word to Henderland at once.”

  Although she was sure Will must have heard him, he did not deign to reply.

  She listened intently until she could no longer hear any sound of horses, dogs, or men. She had been vaguely aware at first that the new Lord Rankilburn was issuing orders to the two men who had come when he’d shouted. But silence had descended on the forest by the time she decided that Will and the others had truly gone and she had begun to feel the icy chill again. Had everyone gone?

  After a few more moments, she decided that they had and carefully wiggled the toes of one bare, chilly foot to make sure that they had not gone numb.

  “You can come out now,” Walter Scott said quietly. “They’ve gone.”

  Ramp whined then but stayed obediently at Wat’s side. The shrubbery was still, but he was sure she was there. The sleuthhounds, although as obedient as Ramp, had quivered in such a way that if Will Cockburn had been paying more heed to them and less to getting his own way, he would surely have noticed.

  “Come on out now, lass,” he said again. “No one here will harm you. I’ve sent my lads on ahead, as you must have heard, so I’m the only one here now. I have small interest in runaway maidservants, but I don’t have infinite patience.”

  “I can’t,” she said, her voice little more than a hoarse squeak.

  “Are you stuck in the shrubbery?”

  “In a manner of speaking, I expect I am.”