IT WAS AN unspoken truth that when a woman reached her twenty-second year without a single gentleman even pondering the possibility of marriage to her, she was destined for spinsterhood. Spinsterhood, in turn, essentially sentenced her to the tedium of acting as companion to doddering dowagers as they dawdled about the countryside. A woman without […]

All of London has been on tenterhooks, desperate for a glimpse of Crown Prince Sebastian of Alucia during his highly anticipated visit. Windsor Castle was the scene of Her Majesty’s banquet to welcome him. Sixty-and-one-hundred guests were on hand, feted in St. George’s Hall beneath the various crests of the Order of the Garter. Two […]

JAMIE CAMPBELL WASN’T alarmed when the old woman pointed her gun at his head—he was galled. He’d ridden up to her fence and had just come off his saddle when the cottage door opened and she appeared with her blunderbuss. He’d suffered more than his fair share of vexations these last few weeks. Things had […]

THERE’D BEEN A spirited debate among the Mackenzies of Balhaire over where to bury the remains of the venerable Griselda Mackenzie. Arran Mackenzie, her much beloved cousin, wanted her buried at the clan’s seat at Balhaire alongside two hundred years of Mackenzies. But Catriona, his youngest daughter—who had been as close to her “Auntie” Zelda […]

THE COACH GROANED and shuddered along a nearly impassable road, tossing its inhabitants across the benches and back against the squabs. The young Lord Chatwick’s complexion had turned gray, and he rested listlessly against the wall. “My poor darling,” crooned his mother, Daisy, Lady Chatwick, as she stroked his hair. “I said from the beginning […]

CALUM GARBETT WAS not allowed to know happiness. No matter how close he came to it, his wife and daughter would swoop in at the last moment to destroy any chance of it. The scene playing out in the drawing room was the crowning blow. He could feel all his hard work slipping through his […]

The Scottish Highlands, 1750 HE STOOD ON the very edge of the cliff, the tips of his boots just over the crusty rim, nothing below them but air. It was quite a long way down—one strong gust of wind would do it. He wondered how it would feel to fall. Would his body soar like […]

Lismore Island, The Highlands, Scotland, 1752 THE CAMPBELL MEN landed on the north shore of the small Scottish island of Lismore in the light of the setting sun, fanning out along the narrow strip of sand and stepping between the rocks and the rabbits that had infested the island. They were looking for stills. They […]

Helenamar, Alucia 1846 It is an absolute truth that men and women alike desire the earnest vow of someone to love and cherish them all their days, and that nothing elicits joy in the breast of all mankind quite like a wedding. Recently, the most joyous occasion was the wedding of the universally admired Lady […]