[Scottish Treasure 02] • Defended by a Highland Renegade

When Lady Mairiana MacKerrick witnesses her fiancé, Alec Lindsay, committing a murder three days before their wedding, she decides she must run away. Darack Grant, secretly an outlaw MacGregor, is on a clandestine mission, but when he finds Mairiana hiding in the stables, he decides to help her escape. He remembers the lovely lass from their one meeting a few years before. Though he was drawn to her, he always saw her as far beyond his reach. Mairiana finds her hidden inner strength and trusts the Highland renegade to protect her on their journey through the Scottish Highlands. On the way, they find an astonishing passion. But Alec will stop at nothing to reclaim his betrothed and destroy Darack, even pin a murder on him.

**Excerpt**

Angus, Scotland, June 1619

Sitting at the high table, Lady Mairiana MacKerrick frowned. She was listening to her fiancé, Alec Lindsay, as he murmured to the young guard who hovered about on the other side of his chair.

"Meet me in the stables in a half hour." Alec's voice was barely audible to Mairiana over the roar of conversation in the crowded great hall of Lenor Castle, but what she heard crackled with impatience and irritation.

What was Alec riled about? He'd always kept such a tight rein on his temper, she hadn't realized he'd had one. But over the last few days, his easygoing charm had begun to slip into a dour mood. He'd shoved down one of the young stable lads when they'd first arrived, then yelled at a serving wench shortly thereafter in the great hall. Mairiana had assumed he was simply exhausted and irritable, but what if it was something more? What if his true nature was rising to the surface? She was to wed him three days hence, but now she was growing uncertain about her future husband.

He had been acting oddly since they had been in Perth, several days ago. That was when her brother Dugald, chief of the MacKerricks, had accused someone in the Lindsay clan of stealing a valuable dagger from him, the MacKerrick family heirloom known as the King Richard dagger. Mairiana hadn't seen the dagger since Dugald had carried it at her betrothal ceremony, and she'd defended Alec's innocence the entire time. She'd thought her short-tempered brother was overreacting and blaming whoever was convenient. But now, she was starting to suspect her brother might have been right.

A cold, prickling dread settling into the bottom of her stomach, she pretended not to hear Alec speaking to his attendant. Instead, she gazed down at the jeweled thistle brooch Alec had given her a short time earlier—a wedding present, he'd said. 'Twas not a new brooch. It appeared to be a hundred or more years old. Most of the silver had been polished recently, but some tarnish remained in the tiniest cracks and crevices. Not obvious unless one examined it closely. Surely the rubies, sapphires and emeralds were real. It felt heavy and valuable.

Alec leaned down close to her ear and murmured in what seemed to be a warm, intimate tone, "Do you like it?"

"Aye, 'tis lovely." She glanced briefly at the lanky guard of about a score years who strode toward the stairwell. She still wondered what they were up to. "Was the brooch your mother's?" she asked Alec. His mother had passed many years ago, and now his father, Angus Lindsay, was married to a much younger woman.

"Nay, 'twas passed down from my father's great aunt." Alec's blue eyes twinkled in that captivating way which had always beguiled her. From the moment she'd met him, she'd considered him perfect for her, from his golden hair to his strong muscular body. But was he sincere?

"I love family heirlooms. They're so important in the traditions of a clan." Mairiana watched his handsome face closely, wondering if he truly had stolen her brother's dagger.