Prologue

SCOTLAND, THE HIGHLANDS 1718

Sabrina Cameron rubbed one of her mother’s plump tea roses beneath her uptilted nose. Tiny feathers of pollen tickled her nostrils. She sneezed, then clapped a chubby hand over her mouth and burrowed deeper into the hedge.

The MacDonnells were coming, and one careless move might see her bones melted to Cameron stew before this day was done.

She shivered in horrified delight. The MacDonnells had haunted her nightmares for most of her short life. Fearsome giants they were, her brothers whispered by candlelight, half man and half beastie. Great shaggy creatures who walked on two legs and wore nothing but fresh animal skins. The children of Cameron Glen trembled in fear of them, and men full grown took care not to wander far from the village after dusk.

On moonless nights, when the hounds whimpered and howled around the manor walls, it was said a MacDonnell was stalking the shadowy forests, searching for a naughty boy or girl to carry back to his lair.

Sabrina parted the glossy leaves to peer out. Her mother knelt at the edge of the garden path, stabbing the earth around her rosebushes with a silver trowel. Low-hanging clouds that boded rain splintered the sun into dazzling spills of red in her upswept hair. A knot of pug-faced puppies nested on her abandoned mantle.

A grunt and a giggle sounded a warning as the iron gate came crashing open and Sabrina’s brothers galloped into the garden. Brian rode on Alexander’s shoulders, bellowing orders and whacking him with a rowan twig. Alex’s whinnies rose to yelps. He arched his back, tumbling his younger brother into the slick grass. They rolled, locked in battle, straight into the folds of their mother’s skirt.

Elizabeth Cameron separated the roiling mass of strawberry curls with a skill born of ten years’ practice. The boys hung by their tunics, trapped into sheepish surrender.

She shook them gently, her English accent clipped with annoyance. “I ought to bang your stony little heads together. Do you want your baby sister to learn your roguish ways?”

She brushed at the grass stains scoured into the knees of their finest trews. Brian returned the favor by spitting on his palm and scrubbing a smudge of dirt from her cheek.

Alex clicked his heels together, his own Scots burr bristling with importance. “Papa sent us with a message. The MacDonnell is a-comin’.”

Brian cast the quivering hedge a sly glance. “And they say he’s hungry. With a taste for wee black-haired lassies.”

Sabrina came scrambling out of her hiding place. “Did you see him? Is he truly covered with hair from head to toes?”

“Aye, and he’s got sharp, pointed fangs fair drippin’ with blood.” Alex curled his hands into claws and bared his teeth at her.

“Alex!” his mother said sharply. “Stop filling your sister’s head with nonsense.”

“Pay your mother heed, lad.” The lilting burr snapped all their heads around. “My princess’s wee ears are fairly bursting with nonsense now.”

“Papa!” Sabrina hurtled toward the man at the gate.

The Cameron’s presence seemed to fill the walled garden as he swept his only daughter up into his arms. She was such a tiny replica of him that he might have sculpted her with his own hands. Her dark blue eyes sparkled beneath smoky lashes. As Sabrina smacked his beard with kisses, he winked at his wife over her inky curls.

Sabrina tweaked the chest hair spilling over his doublet. “Is it true, Papa, that MacDonnells have great tufts of hair on the soles of their feet and all their spoons are carved of human ribs?”

Alex and Brian punched each other, choking back giggles.

“Perhaps you should ask our guest yourself when he arrives.” The Cameron glowered at his sons. “Until then, do not heed the gossip of young idiots.”

As he lowered Sabrina, she gazed up at him, a whisper away from confiding her deepest hope about the MacDonnell. But he was already striding toward his wife.

He pressed a kiss to her upturned lips. “I’m in your debt, Beth, for agreeing to let the lad come. If the MacDonnell can trust me to foster his son for the summer, perhaps he can learn to trust me in other ways as well.”

Alex poked a worm with a stick. “Papa commands we be kind to the boy. He says we must make him welcome and never mention the fact that his papa is a treacherous bastard as likely to gut a man in his sleep and roast his entrails as—”

At his wife’s shocked gaze, the Cameron clapped a hand over Alex’s mouth. “I never said that. He must have heard it from one of the other men.”

Brian took advantage of Alex’s captivity to deliver a pinch to his brother’s thigh. Alex tackled him, fists flying. Sabrina took a step out of their path and fell over the sleeping puppies, who awoke with a cacophony of piercing yelps.

From where she sprawled in the grass, Sabrina was the first to see the boy. His stillness was absolute. She had no way of knowing how long he had stood there, watching them. Too long if the sullen set of his jaw was any indication.

Curiosity overcame her fear. She climbed to her feet. The MacDonnell did have a lot of hair, but most of it hung in a wild, sandy tangle past his shoulders. His furs weren’t fresh or dripping blood, but ratted and worn bare in spots. Sweat and dirt streaked his face and grimed the bare feet poking out from beneath his leggings. A tattered pack hung over one shoulder. To Sabrina, this MacDonnell did not look particularly fierce.

But as she crept toward him, she realized she was wrong. A feral energy coiled in his stance. He reminded her of an animal, wild and far more dangerous for being cornered. Her nose twitched at his crisp scent. He smelled of freshly turned dirt and sunshine as if he’d spent more than one night sleeping under the pines. His skin was bronzed, his eyes the dusky green of a glade on a summer day. The undeniable light of intelligence glimmered in their depths.

She danced forward and made an awkward dip. “Hello, boy. Welcome to Cameron.”

The blows between Alex and Brian ended in a soft thud. The puppies’ yips died to whimpers. With a haughty flick of his eyelids that would have done a monarch proud, the young MacDonnell dismissed Sabrina as if she had been a slug that pushed its way out of the dirt at his feet. Her cheeks flamed.

The fire in them cooled as her father’s hands fell on her shoulders. “My daughter phrased our welcome as well as I could have. Welcome to Cameron, lad.”

“I ain’t your lad,” he barked. “My name is Morgan Thayer MacDonnell, son of Angus MacDonnell and heir to the chieftainship of MacDonnell.”

Sabrina was impressed by the number of “MacDonnells” he’d managed to cram into one sentence. He stood so straight that it made her spine ache. She offered him a tentative smile. He looked away. Brian and Alex blinked at him, their gazes measuring but not unkind.

“We hope you’ll do us the honor of considering Cameron your home until the end of the summer,” her father said.

“Can’t come too bloody soon for me,” the boy murmured in a burr thick enough to cut with a blade.

The Cameron opened his mouth, but his wife waved him to silence. She was the only one who realized Morgan kept his jaw clenched to keep it from trembling.

Elizabeth came forward and gently laid her hand on his cheek. “I dare say you’ll be missing your mother and father, won’t you, son?”

He shoved her hand away. “Never had no mother and I won’t be needin’ one now. ’Specially not some bloody Sassenach.” Sabrina did not understand the word, but her mother paled.

The lad did not flinch when the Cameron’s shadow fell over him. He stood tall and straight, his eyes blazing a cold green fire. He had to crane his neck to look the Cameron in the eye, but he did it. Brian and Alex snickered. Sabrina covered her eyes and peeked through her fingers, bracing herself for the boxed ears that would surely result from such impudence.

But her father’s thunderous brow slowly relaxed into crannies of amusement. He reached to ruffle Morgan’s hair; the boy was too stunned to duck. “Spoken like a true MacDonnell, lad. A warrior born and bred just like your father. You’ll serve Cameron well.”

Morgan quivered with rage. “I serve only MacDonnell. I hate the Camerons.”

Brian’s and Alex’s snickers broke into open laughter. Morgan swung toward them, fists clenched. “How dare you laugh at a MacDonnell, you wee freckled weasels? I ought to knock your teeth down your throats!”

The boys found this new threat even funnier. They doubled over, clutching their sides. Before their mother could reprimand them, Morgan bolted the garden, leaving the Cameron standing alone before the gate.

“Boy! Boy!” Sabrina called. If the MacDonnell disliked Brian and Alex, perhaps he would not disdain her simply for being a girl.

Without a word of explanation, she ducked through the hedge and scrambled over the wall after him.

“Sabrina!” Elizabeth cried out.

The Cameron caught his wife’s arm. “Let her go. If anyone can charm a heathen MacDonnell, ’tis that one.”

Finding a niche in the ivy that twined along the wall, the laird of Clan Cameron heaved himself up and watched the two small figures race across the meadow only a length ahead of the gray, scudding clouds.

“God go with you, princess,” he whispered. “I fear you’re going to need all his wiles and your own as well.”

“Boy! Wait, please, boy! Wait for me!”

Sabrina’s chubby legs pumped up and down. Her cries deepened to gasps. The sun had dipped behind a mass of roiling clouds and the boy was already a dark speck melting into the forest. She mentally added running well to his list of talents before falling flat, burning her knees on the stubby bracken. Spurred on by the scent of the approaching rain, she scrambled up and plunged after him into the murky gloom of the towering oaks. A root twisted around her ankle, sending her tumbling.

She landed on her rump and cheerfully deduced she was lying at the bottom of a ditch with her skirt over her head.

“Are all you Camerons cursed with both stupidity and stubbornness?”

Sabrina poked her head out from under her skirt. Morgan MacDonnell stood over her with arms crossed, staring down his nose at everything that was supposed to be tucked safely beneath her smock.

She pushed down her skirt and offered him a hand. “Hello, boy.”

He pulled her up, then wiped his hand on his grubby tunic as if her touch had soiled it. “My name is not Boy. I am—”

“—Morgan Thayer MacDonnell,” Sabrina intoned solemnly, “son of Angus MacDonnell and heir to the chieftainship. You serve only MacDonnell and hate all Camerons. And I am Sabrina, the daughter of Dougal Cameron.”

“There’s no denyin’ that.” Morgan’s voice was choked with bitterness. “You’re the devil’s own image.”

Sabrina frowned, searching her mind for some common ground where they might meet. “Do you like worms?”

“No.”

“Beetles, perhaps?”

“Warriors have no time for such nonsense.”

Her frown deepened. Brian and Alex had time for worms, beetles, and the spiders they delighted in putting in her bed. Perhaps she should ask him if he really did have tufts of hair growing on his feet. But the grim set of his jaw discouraged her. Thick, sandy lashes veiled his eyes.

“What do you like, then?”

“Fisticuffs. Swords. Guns.” His sulky lips parted to reveal a row of straight white teeth, not a fang among them. “Winnin’.”

Sabrina felt slightly dazzled, as if the sun had crept out from behind a stubborn cloud. Emboldened by his smile, she laid her hand on his arm. “There now. I do believe we shall be friends. I like you most fiercely already.”

He stared down at the pudgy little fingers stroking his arm. Morgan had never known anyone in his life but clan and enemy. An array of emotions flickered through the lush green of his eyes. Shock. Fear. Uncertainty. Longing.

He wrenched his arm away from her. “I ain’t your friend. And I don’t like you.”

Her smile flickered but did not fade. “Why, of course you like me! Everyone likes me. Papa says I could charm the whiskers off a wildcat.”

Morgan’s eyes darkened. Sabrina took a step backward. “Have you no understandin’ of anythin’, lass?” he asked. “I don’t like you. I don’t like your brothers. And I sure as hell don’t like your Sassenach mother and your filthy-rich bastard of a da.”

Sabrina’s eyes welled with tears. The adoration she had received all her life had not prepared her for his rancor. His words held none of her brothers’ good-natured teasing.

He flung out his arm in a gesture of contempt. “Go ahead and cry. I’d expect no better of a silly wee babe!”

“I am not a babe! I am six years old!”

He advanced on her. Sabrina held her ground until he reached out and gave her chest a slight push. She sat down abruptly in the leaves. Tears spilled from her eyes.

She scrambled to her feet, rubbing her eyes and sucking back sobs. She started up the slope, choking out each word. “Papa won’t like it that you pushed me.”

Morgan’s mocking laugh rang out behind her. “I dare say he won’t. Run to your papa, princess. Tattle on me. Tell him the rude boy pushed you down and bruised your precious pride. Perhaps he’ll toss me in his dungeon to rot as his father did to me own grandfather. Or have me beheaded as old Eustace Cameron did to Lachlan MacDonnell.”

Sabrina stopped. Her back straightened. Drawing every inch of dignity she could muster into her tiny frame, she faced him, sniffing furiously. “Oh, no, Morgan MacDonnell. I’m not a babe and I’ll not tattle on you. There’s nothing you could do to make me tattle. And I swear to you, you’ll never make me cry again. Not if I live forever will I shed a tear for such a wicked boy. You—you—” Her limited trove of insults did not contain a word vile enough for him. “—MacDonnell!”

She marched the rest of the way up the slope, digging in her toes and grasping at exposed roots to keep from sliding back down at his feet. She scrambled over the rim of the ditch, chased by a flood of Gaelic curses she was better off not understanding.

The first fat raindrops pelted her as she broke into a run. A rumble of thunder drowned out the broken noises that rose from the ditch as Morgan MacDonnell, heir to the chieftain of MacDonnell, wrapped his thin arms around a tree and cried, his bitter tears mingling with the rain.

Dougal Cameron was toasting his toes in front of a crackling fire when his daughter burst into the drawing room. Dripping all over her mother’s precious Oriental rugs, she flung herself into his lap.

“Caught in the storm, were you, lassie?”

She nodded, her head bumping his chin. He cradled the small, damp bundle to his chest and waited for her shivers to abate. At first he feared it was sobs that shook her, but when she lifted her eyes to him, they were dry and bright with anger.

“You should have boxed his ears, Papa. He’s a very naughty boy.”

“Aye, that he may be. But the MacDonnells are a rough and tumble lot, princess. I fear the lad needs a bit of love and understanding more than he needs his ears boxed.”

Her little face screwed into a terrible frown. “I do not wish to displease you, but I shan’t love him.”

The Cameron chuckled. “’Tis just as well. I suspect that face of his will earn him love enough in the years to come.”

She hooked her arms around his neck and pressed a kiss to his beard. “I love you, Papa. I will always love you best.”

Dougal buried his chin in her silky curls, torn by his desire to spare her the mortal pains of love and living. “’Tis not so, princess,” he said softly. “But ’tis a pleasant thought. A pleasant thought indeed.”