SKYE, SCOTLAND
FALL 1709

Chapter One

Abigail MacGregor brushed her snowy tresses out of her eyes and watched her twin brothers, Tamhas and Braigh, cut across her father’s private solar. “Faither!” they said almost in unison. “A letter was waitin’ fer us in Broadford.” Braigh, the oldest by four minutes, handed him a folded parchment. “ ’Tis from London!”

“Who is it from, Faither?” Abigail asked, rising from her chair. She smiled at her mother, convalescing in her settee by the window, and pulled her blanket up to her chin.

“Lads,” Robert MacGregor said to his sons instead of answering her, “go fetch yer brother and yer uncles.”

“Which uncles?” Braigh asked.

“All of them.”

“Robbie, who is it from?” his wife, Davina, asked softly when the boys were gone. Bronwen, her giant hound, rested at the foot of the settee and raised her head to whine at the sound of her mistress’s gentle voice.

“ ’Tis from… the queen.”

Abby turned to her father. Her mother sat straight up. Very few people in England knew Davina MacGregor was Davina Stuart, the true firstborn daughter of King James II of England and Anne Hyde. She’d been secluded in an abbey her whole life, unknown to her sisters or anyone else to ensure a Catholic successor should James II die without a son. Those who suspected her existence didn’t know she lived with the MacGregors somewhere on Skye. So why was the queen, her mother’s sister, penning them a letter?

“What does she say?” her mother asked, her voice shaken.

Her father read the letter silently. Abigail hadn’t seen his face drain of so much color since his beloved wife came down with fever three months ago.

“She says…” He stopped and looked up from the parchment, his blue eyes startlingly vivid. “She says she knows of ye and she commands yer attendance in London.”

Abby shook her head. Her mother couldn’t leave Camlochlin. The exceptionally longer winter had struck her slight body like a plague. She was just beginning to recover and it was still brisk outside.

Her father shared her thoughts, proving it when he held up his palm to stop her mother from speaking. “Ye’re not goin’, Davina. My mind is set.”

Thank God. Abby gave a soft sigh of relief. When her father set his mind one way, he rarely moved it again. Abby loved him and respected him as clan chief. She had grown up hearing tales of him from his bard, Finlay Grant, and also from their aunt Maggie, who favored her Rob above all others, save for her brother Callum, and from Abby’s mother.

Her father was stubborn and steadfast in his duty. He made certain that Camlochlin remained a safe haven for displaced Highlanders. With that responsibility came many challenges. She’d watched him face them with confidence and keep them all safe. Everything done was for the good of the clan and the land.

In the last few years, Scotland’s independence had changed so much. Clans were changing, moving into burghs with Lowlanders as their neighbors.

Abby didn’t want that kind of life. She was happy in Camlochlin. She hoped her father would always be there to make decisions that would protect the clan and their home, but when he grew weary of it all, who would take his place as chief? Her older brother, Adam? God help them all, no.

It was up to her.

She might bare more resemblance to her mother but it was her father’s heart she followed.

“Robbie, my love,” said his wife, “how do ye know I was going to suggest anything of the sort?”

He looked at the letter clutched in his hands and then at her. “Ye will when ye hear the rest. But wait a moment fer the others. ’Tis something everyone should hear.”

Abby swallowed and sat down beside her mother. What was it? What was so important that everyone needed to hear? She worried that life here would change now that the monarchy knew of her mother’s existence.

She and her mother didn’t have to wait too long before her uncles arrived. Abby’s brother, who was Robert’s heir, wasn’t with them.

“Where’s Adam?” her father asked the twins.

“With Murron MacDonald,” Tamhas answered.

“He said he’d be here shortly,” Braigh added.

Her father didn’t wait. When he told them who’d penned the letter, Abby’s uncle Tristan poured them all whisky from her father’s decanter.

“She threatens to send her full army to Skye to come get her if Davina refuses to go to England.” He stopped when his wife gasped and looked around at his brothers and his brother-in-law to gauge their reactions. He’d already decided Davina wasn’t going. That meant the army would come. Their lives and their family’s lives were at risk. Robert MacGregor was chief to his clan but he still discussed his decisions with them. If they all didn’t agree with this one, what would he do? “She also commands,” he continued without looking at the parchment again, “that my wife go with no Highlander to accompany her, but with the queen’s personal guards only.”

Everyone remained silent and still while his words settled on them.

“I must go.” Her mother broke the silence and swept her blanket off. Abby held it in place in her lap while Bronwen sat up and plopped her huge paw in Davina’s lap.

“Are ye mad to think we’d let ye go, Davina?” Abby’s uncle Colin asked.

“Mayhap the fever has returned,” said her uncle Connor Grant.

“Should I get Isobel?” her uncle Tristan asked, bringing more relief to Abby knowing that they agreed with her father.

“I can’t let people I love die because of me. Not again.”

“We need to alert the other clans.”

“Aye, Tristan,” her father agreed. “I dinna’ think the queen knows where in Skye we are. She’ll send her army throughout.”

“Rob, my love,” her mother pleaded woefully. “Please. I can make it to London and stop any fighting from taking place. Let me do it. I don’t know how she found out about me but my sister simply wants reassurance that I am no threat.”

Abby had heard tales of St. Christopher’s Abbey, where her mother grew up, and how her royal family was responsible for hiring a madman to burn it down with more than twenty nuns who raised her inside. She would have died as well if Abby’s father hadn’t rescued her from the flames. Her mother didn’t want to be responsible for more deaths.

“She knows ye’re no threat,” her father corrected. “No Catholic can ever claim the throne again.”

“But she isn’t certain I am Catholic,” her mother argued. “She needs reassurance. I can give it.”

How had Anne found out about her? Had she always known? Did she really just want assurances that the firstborn heir to England’s throne didn’t want the seat?

“Davina,” her father said softly. “My mind is set, my love.”

“What of our kin?” her mother insisted. “Our bairns, Rob. What if they are killed?”

The thought of the queen’s army coming down on Camlochlin turned Abby’s stomach. Nae! She wouldn’t let it happen. She stood up again. “I will go in her stead, Faither!”

Hell, she wasn’t afraid to go to England. Even if she was, there wasn’t a choice. She would go in her mother’s stead and convince her aunt that the true heir was happy just where she was and that she was the last remaining Catholic novice from St. Christopher’s. Davina Stuart wanted no part of the throne. Abby would make the queen see that. She would win the queen’s favor for her mother’s sake and try to guarantee some kind of protection for the clan. Protection against the loss of their name and their Highland way of life. She wasn’t afraid. What was the worst that could happen? Mayhap she might even meet a handsome knight like the ones from her grandmother’s books. She’d be escorted by the queen’s personal guards, so nothing… She blinked at her father, who was staring at her like she’d just sprouted a second head.

“Abigail, d’ye sincerely think I’d let ye go to England alone?”

Her eyes glittered like the frost on the mountaintops outside the castle, but there was nothing cold about her. Like her mother, everyone at Camlochlin loved Abby. She fit in with everyone—whether in the kitchen, in the sewing chamber, or on the practice field. The chief’s only daughter won every heart, especially her father’s.

“Ye dinna’ have a choice, Faither. Our clan depends on it. I will do whatever I must to keep us safe. The Royal Army would do much damage and eventually they would find us. I’m not going to sit back while my beloved faither and uncles fight and possibly die in a battle. I’m going. My mind is set.”

Colin was the only uncle who smiled. It was slight, but Abby caught it.

“Ye will go over my dead body, Abby,” her mother told her sternly.

“And ’twill be dead indeed if ye try to go, Mother.” She shook her head and turned to the men again. “Ye all know that one day I want to be the chief. This clan needs a dedicated leader when our chief steps down. Adam isn’t yer man and ye all know it. Though I’m a woman, I want to prove to ye that I’m worthy of the title.”

Colin raised his cup to her and smiled. “Ye’re braw, lass. Ye’ll have my ‘aye’ when the time comes fer the next chief to be chosen.” He turned to her father and winked at him. “Not that I want that day to come any time soon, brother. I just think she’s a better choice than Adam—”

“I dinna’ give a damn about that,” her father shouted. “Ye think my only daughter should go to meet our enemy alone?”

“Nae, of course not.” Colin laughed. “Why the hell would ye think that? We’ll stay a day behind her.”

Tristan smiled. So did Connor. Abby loved them all. They were strong willed and fiercely protective yet tender enough to pick heather without breaking a stem. Each of them possessed traits she wanted in a husband and would wait for, no matter how long it took to find them.

“I canna’ let her go.” Her father turned to her. “Ye ask the impossible.”

She knew she did. How could she expect her father to allow her to do such a perilous thing? She didn’t expect it. She wasn’t a fool. But it had to be done to save them. Her mind was made up. No one would change it.

She smiled softly and went to her father, taking his arm in hers. She’d learned it’s easier to go around the mountain than to try to conquer it.

“Faither, I love ye with all my heart, but I didna’ ask.”

Abby penned her reply to the queen herself, and without waiting for her father’s approval, she rode to Broadford and made arrangements to have the letter delivered to St. James’s Palace. Afraid or not, she was going to England to see to the safety of her kin. The more she thought about it, the more she knew she wouldn’t be stopped. No one in her mother’s royal family knew of her existence. Or rather, they thought no one knew. Now the queen knew. Abby wanted to use it to her advantage. Her blood ties to the queen could prove to be a blessing.

Upon her return to Camlochlin, she met up with her eldest brother, who was returning from Torrin.

“Where were ye earlier today, Adam?” she asked, riding her surefooted mount around his appropriately named dog, Goliath. There were many dogs at Camlochlin, but he was one of only five offspring of the late beloved wolfhound Grendel. “Faither sent fer ye and ye didna’ come.”

Adam exhaled a long breath and turned his eyes toward Camas Fhionnairigh. Abby knew where he’d been and what he’d been doing instead of seeing to his duty. She didn’t blame Murron MacDonald. Adam was striking, with raven hair like their father’s and pale skin like their mother’s. It was a shocking contrast, and with even lighter blue-gray eyes than Abby’s, his beauty was chilling and otherworldly. He was an indifferent danger to women everywhere he went.

“Aye, a letter from London. The twins told me.” He swung his cool gaze to her. “Ye know I have nae interest in anything English.”

“It seems ye have nae interest in anything that doesna’ wear a skirt.”

He smiled and Abby thought it a pity that he was so arrogant and flippant about his life.

“Ye are practically handing me yer birthright, Adam.”

He shrugged. “Who says I want it?”

He didn’t. He’d made it clear on more than one occasion. He didn’t want to rule. He wanted to raid, women mostly. That was fine with her. Less opposition later. She smiled.

“Give it to me then.” She waited for his answer. If he handed his birthright over to her, no one would contest it. “Why wait? Find yerself a woman who can find a way to love ye, take her as a wife. I’m beginning to think that only Edmund and Lucan are fit to be faithers.”

He laughed, infuriating her that he found his birthright a matter of jest.

“Why d’ye want the weight of our clan’s survival on yer shoulders?” he asked her. “Ye’re the one who should find a husband and have babes, sister.”

Oh, she wanted to punch him in the face. She’d never wanted to punch anyone so badly. “Adam, ye—”

“I say that because I love ye,” he cut her off. “I dinna’ want to see ye carry such responsibility on yer back. Ye dinna’ understand how crushing being chief will be.”

“And ye do?”

“I’ve been groomed fer it my whole life. I have a better idea than ye have aboot it.”

“That might be true, but the safety of the people in Camlochlin means more to me than it does to ye.”

He cast her a wry smirk. “I dinna’ think we should meddle in English things, but I would fight if an army came here, Abby.”

“Well.” Abby didn’t smile back. “They might be doing just that. The difference between us is that I would stop them from coming in the first place. The letter, brother. ’Twas from the queen. She knows of Mother’s existence.” Ah finally, a reaction other than a glib quirk of his lips. “Queen Anne has commanded Mother to travel to London with English guards.”

“She canna’ go.”

“She isna’ going. I am.”

He laughed again and she smiled with him but there was no humor in her eyes. Let them all think she was mad or foolish. She was willing to put herself in harm’s way for them. Adam might not have been paying attention to his grooming, but she had been. She’d hung on every word, every lesson she’d watched from her place atop the barn with her cousin Caitrina.

Robert MacGregor’s blood flowed through her veins. She wanted to be like him, and she was. Almost everyone had told her so. The passion to protect their clan drove her. She wasn’t going to let harm come to them because of a queen’s command.

“And Faither has agreed to this?” her brother asked.

“He will. If I dinna’ go, the queen has promised to send an army here.”

They discussed it more, with Adam finally taking the matter more seriously.

She was going to England to save her clan and to prove she was worthy of someday becoming chief. And nothing was going to stop her.