Bride of Lochbarr. Margaret Moore
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Название: Bride of Lochbarr
Автор: Margaret Moore
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Mills & Boon M&B
isbn: 9781408953273
isbn:
PRAISE FOR
MARGARET MOORE
“Margaret Moore’s characters step off the pages into your heart.”
—Romantic Times
“When it comes to excellence in historical romance books, no one provides the audience with more than the award-winning Ms. Moore.”
—Harriet Klausner, Under the Covers
“Ms. Moore…will make your mind dream of knights in shining armor.”
—Rendezvous
“Her writing is full of humor and wit, sass and sexual tension.”
—Heart Rate Reviews
“Margaret Moore has a captivating writing style…that lends itself to pure, fluid prose and vivid characterizations.”
—Heartstrings Reviews
“…an author who consistently knows how to mix just the right amount of passion and pageantry.”
—Old Book Barn Gazette
Dear Reader,
I’m delighted to be part of HQN Books, and thankful for this opportunity to write longer books for Harlequin. I’m especially thrilled that my first HQN novel is set in the medieval time period, my particular favorite.
Why does that time period appeal to me so much? My usual answer to this question is, “There’s just something about a man with a broadsword.” However, what really appeals to me is the emphasis on honor and duty.
If you’re familiar with my Harlequin Historicals books, you know I generally hang my medieval heroes’ helmets in Wales. So why go to Scotland with Bride of Lochbarr? I wanted to venture into what is relatively new territory for me—and I can no longer ignore the allure of men in kilts.
So now you know why that time and place. What about the story? How did I come up with that? I thought, What if a hero comes riding to the rescue and the heroine says “Are you nuts? Go away and leave me alone.” A chivalrous yet flummoxed hero, a defiant woman and a rescue gone awry. I was off and running.
But I don’t write just for myself or my editors. I write for you, the readers. Every time I sit at my computer, my goal is to tell a story that entertains you. As always, I hope I’ve succeeded.
MILLS & BOON
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margaret Moore
Brideof Lochbarr
With special thanks to
Amy Wilkins and Melissa Endlich
for their excellent editorial suggestions,
and to Tracy Farrell for another
wonderful opportunity.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
Scotland, 1235
MARIANNE WAS in purgatory.
Or so it was easy to believe as she looked out over the sodden landscape from the arched window in her brother’s fortress.
Of course it was raining again, the downpour effectively hiding the jagged hilltops surrounding Beauxville like a veil, making the courtyard a mess of mud and puddles, and soaking the scaffolding erected around the half-completed walls of the castle. It had rained every day since she’d arrived in this wilderness at the edge of the civilized world.
If she were in Normandy now, the sun would be shining and the leaves of the trees would be bright green. She’d be beneath their shading branches, whispering with a gaggle of young women her own age, trying to stifle her laughter as the farm laborers went past the convent walls heading home after a day working in the fields. The young men would be singing their bawdy songs, well aware that behind the white walls of the convent, girls would be listening. The nuns would be scurrying about and twittering like a flock of startled birds, chiding their charges and trying to get them to go inside.
If she were back in Normandy, she would be warm. Here, even wearing a linen shift, a gown of indigo blue wool, a bliaut of light red with gold trim and with a bright green woolen shawl wrapped around her shoulders, she was still cold.
If she were in Normandy, she would be warm and happy, not lonely, cold and utterly, completely miserable.
She should have asked more questions when her brother arrived at the convent and told her he was taking her to his estate. Instead, she’d been too happy to be free of the confines of the religious house and too proud of her noble brother and impressed by his bearing and arms to question him. Even the Reverend Mother had seemed intimidated by Nicholas, and Marianne had believed the pope himself couldn’t intimidate the Reverend СКАЧАТЬ