Highland
Guard
Murray Family # 20
Murray Family # 20
By: Hannah Howell
Releasing March 3rd, 2015
Zebra
Blurb
New York Times bestselling author Hannah Howell brings back the daring Murray family in a brand-new tale of dangerous love rekindled. . .
New York Times bestselling author Hannah Howell brings back the daring Murray family in a brand-new tale of dangerous love rekindled. . .
Lady Annys
MacQueen has no other choice. The deception that enabled her to keep her lands
safe is on the verge of being revealed by a cruel kinsman. To shield her young
son from the sword and her people from devastation, she must turn to the one
man she could never forget. . .
He lives
for duty and honor. So the only way Sir Harcourt Murray could repay the laird
who saved his life was to agree to father a child with Sir MacQueen's wife. .
.Lady Annys. Now the passion he still feels for the lovely strong-willed widow is
as all-consuming and perilous as securing her lands. But to convince her that
his love is forever real means confronting her most wrenching fears--and
putting everything they treasure most at stake.
Link to Follow Tour: http://www.tastybooktours.com/2015/01/highland-guard-murray-family-20-by.html
Goodreads
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22459021-highland-guard?from_search=true Goodreads Series Link: https://www.goodreads.com/series/41630-murray-family
Buy Links
Excerpt:
Waiting was pure
torture, Lady Annys MacQueen decided. She looked down at the small shirt she
was mending, sighed, and began to pull out the appallingly crooked stitching.
It was hard to believe Sir Harcourt would ignore her cry for help yet it had
been a very long ten days since she had sent him the message. Ten days and not
even the young man she had sent out with the message had returned. Annys prayed
she had not sent young Ian to his death. She doubted Sir Harcourt would hurt
Ian but the journey itself would not have been without its dangers.
“M’lady, mayhaps ye
should have a wee rest,” said Joan as she sat down beside Annys on the padded
bench.
Smiling at her
maid, Annys shook her head. “’Tis much too early, Joan. Everyone would wonder
if I was ill and that would only add to the unease they all suffer from even
now. I must try to be strong, and most certainly must at least always appear to
be.”
Annys wondered why
her words made Joan frown. The woman was only ten years older than her but
often acted in a very motherly way. Round of body and face, Joan did not even
look her age yet she could lecture one like a grandmother. That frown often
warned of a lecture being carefully thought out. Annys was not in a humor to
endure one but also knew she loved Joan too much to hurt the woman’s feelings
by revealing that displeasure with some sharp words. They had been friends and
companions, as well as lady and maid, since the day Annys had first come to Glencullaich
to meet her betrothed.
“Ye are a lass,”
Joan began.
“I have come to
realize that. I was slow to see it, but the breasts refused to be ignored.”
Annys was not surprised to receive a scowl from Joan that clearly said her maid
was not amused.
“No one expects
constant strength from a wee lass who has but recently buried her husband,”
Joan continued. “Ye are wearing yourself to the bone trying to be the laird and
the lady of this keep. Ye dinnae need to be both. All here willingly heed the
lady, have always done so, so trying to don Sir David’s boots is unnecessary.”
“And if I dinnae do
it, who will?”
“Nicolas.”
Annys thought on
that for a moment. The man had arrived almost five years ago. He had claimed
that he had spent enough time selling his sword for a living and now wished to
settle in one place. David had welcomed the man with open arms, readily
training him to lead the other, less well-trained men at Glencullaich.
Fortunately, no one had complained or taken offense at how the stranger had so
quickly moved into place as David’s right-hand man. In truth, they had all
welcomed his skills. She even had to admit that he had been immensely helpful
since David’s death.
“Mayhaps he can,”
she conceded. “He certainly has been most helpful thus far. Yet, I have always
wondered why he ne’er just went home to Wales to settle.”
“A long journey for
a mon who says there is no one left there for him.”
“True enough.”
Annys shrugged and tossed the little shirt she had yet to finish back into her
mending basket. “’Tis nay that I dinnae trust him, for I do. I but puzzle o’er
it now and then. I will try to put more of the work into his hands, but nay so
much that it hinders his ability to keep the men weel trained. Their training
cannae be allowed to lag.”
“Nay, ye are right.
It cannae.” Joan nodded. “It is badly needed, sad to say. E’en weel trained as
they are now, ’tis a constant battle to keep that bastard from trying to
destroy us. If he sniffed out a weakness he would be on us like carrion birds
on a fishermon’s catch. Have ye heard anything from that Sir Murray yet?”
“Nay. I begin to
fear that I have accomplished naught but to send poor young Ian to his death.”
“Och, nay, m’lady,
dinnae allow that fear to prey on your mind. Ian kenned the risks and he is a
clever lad, one who kens weel how to slip about quietly and hide weel when
needed. There are many reasons one can see for why he hasnae returned yet.
Many. And a sad fate is but one of them.”
“True.”
And it was true,
Annys thought. It was simply a truth she had a difficult time clinging to. Ian
had come to the keep as a young boy, orphaned when the rest of his family had
died in a fire, frightened, and painfully shy. It had taken a while, but by the
time she had come to live permanently at Glencullaich as its lady, he had
blossomed. Still sweet, still quick to blush, but settled and happy. He had
fallen into the role of Glencullaich’s messenger as if born to it, but he had
never been sent on such a long journey before.
“M’lady!”
Annys started as
the shout from the door yanked her out of her thoughts and she stared at the
tall, too-thin young man who had burst into the solar. “What is it, Gavin?
Please dinnae tell me there is more trouble to deal with. It has been so
blissfully quiet for days.”
“I dinnae think
’tis trouble, m’lady, for Nicolas isnae bothered.” Gavin scratched at his cheek
and frowned. “But there are six big, armed men at the gate. Nicolas was going
to open the gates for them and said I was to come and tell ye that.”
“I will be right
out then. Thank ye, Gavin.” The moment Gavin left, she looked at Joan. “How are
six big, armed men nay trouble?”
“If they come in
answer to your message?” Joan hastily tidied Annys’s thick braid. “There, done.
Now ye look presentable. Let us go out and greet our guests.”
“Guests dinnae come
armed,” Annys said as she started out of the room, Joan right at her side.
“They do if they
come in reply to a lady’s note saying ‘help me, help me’.”
“I didnae say ‘help
me, help me’.”
“Near enough. No
gain in talking on it until we actually see who is here.”
“Fine but I did nay say ‘help me, help me’.”
Annys ignored
Joan’s soft grunt even though she knew it meant the woman was not going to
change her mind. She stepped out through the heavy oak doors and started down
the stone steps to the bailey only to stop short before she reached the bottom.
The man dismounting from a huge black gelding was painfully familiar.
Tall, strong, and
handsome with his thick long black hair and eyes like a wolf, he had been a
hard man to forget. She had certainly done her utmost to cast him from her
mind. Each time he had slipped into her thoughts she had slapped his memory
away. Writing him that message had brought his memory rushing to the fore
again, however. Seeing him in the flesh looking as handsome as he had five
years ago told her that she had never succeeded in forgetting him. Annys began
to regret asking for his aid no matter how badly they needed any help they
could get at the moment.
She fought to
remind herself of how he had ridden away from Glencullaich all those years ago
without even a quick but private farewell to her. It had hurt. Despite knowing
it had been wrong to want that private moment to say their good-byes, despite
the guilt that wanting had stirred in her then, and now, she had been devastated
by his cold leave-taking.
Then, abruptly, his
gaze locked with hers and every memory she had fought to banish from her mind
came rushing back so clearly and strongly that she had to fight to stand
straight and steady. Annys cursed silently. It was still there. The
fascination, the wanting, was all reborn beneath the steady look from those
rich amber eyes. This could become the biggest mistake she had ever made in her
life.
Author
Info
Hannah
D. Howell is a highly regarded and prolific romance writer. Since Amber Flame,
her first historical romance, was released in February 1988, she has published
25 novels and short stories, with more on the way. Her writing has been
repeatedly recognized for its excellence and has "made Waldenbooks Romance
Bestseller list a time or two" as well as was nominated twice by Romantic
Times for Best Medieval Romance (Promised Passion and Elfking's Lady). She has
also won Romantic Times' Best British Isles Historical Romance for Beauty and
the Beast; and, in 1991-92 she received Romantic Times' Career Achievement
Award for Historical Storyteller of the Year.
Hannah
was born and raised in Massachusetts (the maternal side of her family has been
there since the 1630's). She has been married to her husband Stephen for 28
years, who she met in England while visiting relatives, and decided to import
him. They have two sons Samuel, 27, and Keir, 24. She is addicted to
crocheting, reads and plays piano, attempts to garden, and collects things like
dolls, faerie and cat figurines, and music boxes. She also seems to collect
cats, as she now has four of them, Clousseau, Banshee, Spooky, and Oliver
Cromwell.
Rafflecopter Giveaway (Three Print copies of
HIGHLAND GUARD)
