Christmas Brides - Softcover

Enoch, Suzanne; Hawkins, Alexandra; Essex, Elizabeth; Bowman, Valerie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250060567 ISBN 13: 9781250060563

Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2014

Synopsis

Relax on a silent night and dive into Christmas Brides, a lush historical holiday anthology featuring a brand-new story from USA Today bestselling author Alexandra Hawkins. And back by popular demand from last Christmas, previously published One Hot Scot, The Scandal Before Christmas, and It Happened Under the Mistletoe are back to deck the halls in this sensual Christmas collection.
One Hot Scot by Suzanne Enoch
Duncan Lenox lives surrounded by enemies, a MacLawry in a land of Campbells. But when an English beauty has nowhere else to turn, he feels obligated to help. Now that they must spend a night together in an abandoned cottage while a storm rages on, will their mutual passion save―or doom―them both?
Once Upon a Christmas Scandal by Alexandra Hawkins
Lady Ellen is outraged when she learns her dowry's been increased by her dad, eager to draw every bachelor in England to her front door. So when Lord Swainsbury comes knocking, Ellen assumes he's another dreadful fortune hunter. Little does she know that Swainsbury has completely fallen for her―body, heart, and soul...
The Scandal Before Christmas by Elizabeth Essex
Lieutenant Ian Worth needs a wife by Christmas. He has to find her, woo her, and wed her before he goes back to sea. Anne Lesley is a shy spinster with no prospects, so she accepts Ian's hasty offer only for the security it will bring. But when a midwinter storm rolls in, things start to heat up between them...and they might just find true, honest-to-goodness love...
It Happened Under the Mistletoe by Valerie Bowman
Oliver Townsende intends to avoid the hordes of marriage-minded misses at a friend's holiday party. When he meets Miss Cerian Blake, who's dodging her own unwanted set of admirers, the two decide to join forces and fake an infatuation to keep their suitors at bay. But when mistletoe becomes involved, will their Christmastime prank turn into a love to last all seasons?

About this title

About the Author:

A native and current resident of Southern California, Suzanne Enoch loves movies almost as much as she loves books, with a special place in her heart for anything Star Wars. She has written more than thirty Regency novels and historical romances, which are regularly found on the New York Times bestseller list. When she is not busily working on her next book, Suzanne likes to contemplate interesting phenomena, like how the three guppies in her aquarium became 161 guppies in five months.
Alexandra Hawkins is an unrepentant Anglophile who discovered romance novels as a teenager and knew that one day she would be writing her own. With her Lords of Vice series, she has combined her love of English history, mythology, and romance to create sensual character-driven stories that, she hopes, will touch readers' hearts. Alexandra lives in Georgia with her husband and three children.
Elizabeth Essex is the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed Reckless Brides historical series. When not re-reading Jane Austen, sipping tea or mucking about her garden, Elizabeth can be found writing, making up wonderful stories about people who live far more interesting lives than she. It wasn't always so. Elizabeth graduated from Hollins College with a BA in Classical Studies and Art History, and then earned her MA from Texas A&M University in Nautical Archaeology, also known as the archaeology of shipwrecks.

Valerie Bowman grew up in Illinois with six sisters (she's number seven) and a huge supply of historical romance novels. After a cold and snowy stint earning a degree in English with a minor in history at Smith College, she moved to Florida the first chance she got. Valerie now lives in Jacksonville with her family including her rascally dog, Roo. When she's not writing, she keeps busy reading, traveling, or vacillating between watching crazy reality TV and PBS. Valerie loves to hear from readers.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter One

 

Julia Prentiss sat in the road as the tail of her mare vanished around a large pile of boulders. In other circumstances she likely would have thought the sight pretty—a black horse galloping, riderless, into the cloud-filled orange and purple sunset. It was precisely the sort of thing she’d imagined when she’d suggested that a summer visit to Scotland for her aunt’s wedding would make for a perfect Christmas present. She fingered the ripped hem of her blue gown and scowled. This wasn’t even remotely what she’d had in mind.

Nothing in the past five days, in fact, seemed like any sort of holiday gift she ever would have asked for. Not in a thousand years. So she supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised at being flung to the ground now. It all went perfectly along with the horrid nightmare this so-called gift had become.

Once she had her breath back, she wiggled her fingers and her toes. Her backside would definitely be bruised tomorrow, but nothing seemed to be broken—which was also the first bit of good luck she’d managed in the past five days. It was also likely the last bit of luck she would see. She certainly couldn’t risk waiting by the side of the road hoping for a friendly face. It was far more likely the next person she saw would be decidedly unfriendly.

That thought sent a chill down her spine, and she carefully gathered her feet beneath her and stood. The long, narrow lake that had attracted her attention lay close by on her right, and though she should likely be spending her energy recovering that blasted horse, thirst had already turned her mouth to dust. With a quick look behind her at the empty rolling hills of rock and heather, Julia made her way to the water’s edge, squatted down, and scooped up mouthfuls of blessedly cold water with both hands.

Whatever she thought of Hugh Fersen, Lord Bellamy, he’d chosen well when he’d dragged her off here. She’d been riding for two hours or so, and other than Bellamy Park and the scattering of cotters’ shacks around it, she hadn’t seen so much as a chimney. And now she couldn’t see her horse either. In another twenty minutes, she wouldn’t be able to see anything at all because it would be completely dark. Another thought occurred to her. Wolves had supposedly been killed off in the Highlands, but she wasn’t as certain about bears. Or wildcats. And to think, she might have asked for a visit to Paris. Or a new gown.

“Damnation,” she muttered. Would one bit of luck be too much to expect?

A splash of water out in the lake answered her. If she’d been hungry enough to consider raw fish, she would have been interested, but though breakfast had been hours and hours ago, she and her hunger hadn’t yet reached the point of desperation. At the edge of the water she’d hoped reeds would offer her some sort of shelter from the view of the road, but evidently here either the weather wasn’t temperate enough or the wind was too strong to allow any plants to grow above ankle height. A canyon would hide her, or a nice deep valley, but she didn’t want to hide as much as she wanted to be gone from here entirely. Cowering under a tree wouldn’t serve any purpose.

From somewhere in the distance a low sound rumbled across the craggy hills, and she shivered. Whether it was a gunshot or thunder, it reminded her how very exposed she was. Whatever her wishes, she would have to find somewhere to shelter and hope the night and the rain hid her trail. Julia straightened. As she turned, something caught her eye, and she bent down. A large swathe of checkered material had been folded and set across a low boulder. She snapped the cloth open to see black and white and gray squares with a thick red threading shot through them, almost like blood.

Bellamy’s clan colors were blue and green and black; anything different was welcome. Had she finally gotten free of Fersen land? The low rumble repeated, and she wrapped the cloth around her shoulders. If rain came, she would have something beyond her once pretty blue ball gown to keep her warm at least.

Water splashed out in the lake again, and she looked back. And froze.

A figure rose from the lake water. A male figure, she noted, belatedly stepping backward as he moved directly toward her. Black hair, straight beneath the weight of the streaming water, brushed bare, broad shoulders. His well-muscled chest and abdomen came into view as the water fell away, and she took a heartbeat to wonder whether he wore anything at all before the up-sloping bank answered the question for her.

Oh, my. A thick cock rooted in dark, curling hair hung between muscular thighs. She’d seen statues, of course, and the occasional naked toddler, but this was no toddler. And no statue. Taken altogether, he was … stunning.

She shook herself. He was also a stranger, and she was very much alone. “Stand back,” she ordered, backing up another step.

He eyed her, wet black hair falling across one startlingly green eye as he tilted his head. “Ye seem to be wearing my kilt,” he rumbled in a thick Highlands brogue.

Julia fingered the heavy material around her shoulders. “Oh. Oh!” Shrugging out of it, she flung the mass at him.

The large fellow caught the tartan as it slapped against his chest. Keeping his gaze squarely on her as if he thought she might vanish into thin air, he wrapped the long material twice about his waist and tucked the end away. “That’ll do,” he said a moment later. “Now. Ye’re a Sasannach lass, are ye not? What are ye doing on my land?”

His land? Was he a Fersen, then, even with the different tartan colors? Or had she indeed found someone who might aid her? All the alliances and territories were terribly confusing, and now she wished she’d spent more time learning about them. Back before her Christmas gift had gone so horribly awry, she’d thought the idea of clans rather romantic. Oh, she should have begun running the moment this man’s head emerged from the water. But if he didn’t know who she was or why she was there, perhaps she did still have a chance to escape. “I was riding with friends,” she ventured. “We were separated, and my horse spooked.”

The green gaze trailed from her snarled red-brown hair half escaped from its pins to her equally disheveled blue gown. “Ye went riding in that?” he asked, producing a pair of boots from the other side of the boulder and stomping into them. “Unlikely.” Abruptly he turned his back on her and began walking along a faint path in the heather.

“Wait!” Julia looked from the empty, dimming road behind her to the rapidly retreating half-naked man in front of her. The mare could be in York by now, for all she knew. Or worse, it might have returned to the stable from where Julia had procured her this afternoon. What mattered was that if Bellamy’s men came across the horse, they would know she was on foot. And close by. Drat.

“Well, come along then,” the large man said, not offering a backward glance. “I’ve nae got all night. And it’ll be raining by suppertime.”

When one was drowning, any bit of flotsam would do, she supposed. Gathering her skirts, she hurried after him. After ten minutes or so of walking to what looked like nowhere, a narrow valley opened up before her, the trail deepening into a surprisingly well-cut series of switchbacks leading down to the bottom. It was fairly easy to navigate but nearly impossible to see from above unless one knew where to look. She dearly hoped that Fersen didn’t know where to look.

A waterfall to the left carried the runoff from the lake above into a narrow, fast-moving stream that cut through the middle of the valley in a series of cascading descents. Trees, elm and pine and sturdy oak, lined both sides of the water. If she’d been in a more expansive mood, she might have had a random thought or two about how it looked very like a hidden Eden below the stark hills and craggy peaks above.

“Where are we?” she ventured. According to the tale she’d spun, she was lost, after all. Therefore she’d asked a perfectly reasonable question.

“Strath na saighead,” he rumbled.

Well, that wasn’t at all helpful. “Beg pardon?”

“Valley of the Arrows,” he said after a moment. “A great battle was fought here. A course, great battles were fought nearly everywhere in the Highlands.” They rounded a stand of tumbled boulders, and a small stone house came into view tucked beneath the cliff. No, not a house. Not even a cottage. A tiny cotter’s shack that hardly looked bigger than her bedchamber back at Sebree House in Wessex.

“That sounds exciting,” Julia returned absently. So now she knew what the valley was called. That didn’t answer the more pressing question. Was she still on Fersen land? Was he loyal to Fersen? She took a breath, trying to ignore the stiffness setting into her backside. “I hear that Clan Fersen has its seat nearby. Are you a part of Lord Bellamy’s clan?”

“Is that where ye rode from?” the Highlander asked, stopping to turn around and look at her.

Escaping this afternoon had taken every bit of courage she possessed. If she had to do it again … “Please, just tell me if you’re allied with the Fersens,” she insisted, abruptly realizing that in a very isolated place she’d just taken herself even further from help in this hidden valley. She’d thought—hoped—this might be her chance. But if she was wrong, she’d just delivered herself back into Bellamy’s hands, and he would make certain she never escaped again.

“Nae,” he answered after a moment. “I answer to Clan MacLawry.” He tilted his head, that stray strand of damp, raven black hair falling across one green eye again. “More or less.”

She didn’t know Clan MacLawry, but then most of the odd … antiquity of the Highlands had been a complete surprise. And where before it had seemed quaint, now it seemed distinctly dangerous. Rather like walking into a pit of vipers and not knowing which one was the most—or least—poisonous. “Oh,” she ventured, deciding he expected some kind of reply.

“Oh,” he repeated, a touch of humor brushing his gaze before he turned back to the cottage and continued forward.

“Is that MacLawry House, then? Who’s the … clan leader? Might I speak with him?”

“Ye think that pile of rubble is the house of a clan chief? Ye’re nae one of those Bedlamites escaped from the asylum, are ye?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then, nae, that’s an old cotter’s shack I use from time to time when I go hunting. The chief of Clan MacLawry is Lord Glengask, who resides at Glengask Castle. And nae, ye cannae speak with him, as he’s in London. His youngest brother Bear MacLawry is there, but it’s near seven miles from here, and it’s aboot to rain.”

Seven miles? It might as well have been a hundred miles, since she had no horse and no idea which direction to travel. Thunder rumbled again, closer this time. “Is … is there anyone else here?”

“In the shack? Nae. Lenox House—where I live—is three or so miles from here. I can take ye there tomorrow when I’ve finished up here, or when the storm passes; whichever comes first.” He pulled a rope latch and pushed open the heavy door. It opened with a squeak she couldn’t describe as anything other than ominous.

“I … Perhaps you could tell me the direction to Lenox House? I’m certain I would be welcome there.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Aye? Do ye know Duncan Lenox and his kin, then?”

That would be quite a bluff, if she meant to attempt it. Those keen green eyes glinted at her, though, and she had the distinct feeling that he knew more than he was saying. About what, she had no idea. Julia forced a smile. “No, I don’t.”

Unfolding his muscular arms, he stuck out his right hand. “Well, now ye do. I’m Duncan Lenox. Come in, lass. I’ve hot water on fer tea and a rabbit stew on the fire. I’ll nae harm ye. Ye have my word on that.”

Duncan Lenox waited, his hand outstretched. If this woman had been out riding with friends and lost her way, he was a French poodle, but whatever lies she told, one thing was obvious—she was alone and in distress.

“You’re—do you always go about naked, Mr. Lenox?” she asked, glancing from his hand to his face, her brown eyes wary.

“I needed a bath. I didnae expect to have a guest here.” He lowered his hand again. “Are ye going to join me inside, or nae?”

“No. I feel more … It wouldn’t be proper for me to be alone with a man inside his shack.”

It wasn’t precisely proper for him, either, but she didn’t hear him complaining, did she? “Suit yerself, then.” Hiding his amusement at her stunned expression, he walked into the shack and closed the door behind him.

He damned well couldn’t rescue someone who didn’t wish to be rescued. And he wasn’t sending anyone on to Lenox House who could possibly bring trouble with her. And this woman was trouble. He could practically smell it in the air. Half-naked Highlander though he might be, he knew the rules of propriety. He had the feeling he was about to discover just how remote this valley was and just how far Society could reach.

Of course she could be some married lady off on an odd adventure. That would save him one set of problems but introduce a whole other one—namely, her husband and what that fellow would do if he discovered them sharing a rabbit stew in a tiny cotter’s shack. He preferred to avoid any trouble, but that didn’t seem likely today.

Above all that, he couldn’t escape the sensation that he’d wandered into some faerie’s trap. When he’d surfaced in the loch to see a lovely sprite wrapped in his clan colors, her auburn hair touched by the breeze and her brown eyes facing the setting sun, for a bare second he’d thought … Well, he wasn’t certain what he’d thought, but it hadn’t made any sense.

He did know what his body had thought, and it had taken a moment to let the cold water put everything back in place again. She’d have run for certain if she’d seen that bit leading the way. With a glance at the still-closed door he pulled on an old linen shirt, then walked over to throw another piece of wood on the fire and pull off the kettle to make himself a cup of tea. That done, he set the stew back over the fire; if that scent didn’t tempt her to come inside, nothing would.

She seemed to think him part of the Fersen clan—or at least she had at first—and that idea had made her nervous. If she was tangled up with Bellamy, that made him nervous. But still, she clearly didn’t belong here in the Highlands, and if she was desperate enough to follow a nearly naked man to his doorstep, he couldn’t abandon her. Not even if leaving her standing there like Boadicea in the heather might have been the wiser decision.

All he’d wanted was to stop a few beasts from killing his calves, for the devil’s sake, and perhaps to do a bit of fishing. To be certain he’d never caught a Sasannach woman in Loch Shinaig before. Duncan glanced toward the door again. Perhaps she’d gone, after all. That would take care of a substantial number of troubles. And all he would have to do was not go looking for her.

The door rattled and opened. “You would truly have left me out there in the dark and the rain, wouldn’t you?”

So, the more difficult route, it was. He should have been dismayed and annoyed, but Duncan found himself smiling as he pulled down another teacup and set it on the plank table. “I had a hunch ye’d come inside if ye wanted to. I wasnae going to drag ye in. Have a seat.”

Instead of doing that, she spent a moment looking around the small shack. A bed in the corner up against the side of the fireplace, the table, three chairs, two cupboards, and the corner by...

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1250060567
• ISBN 13: 9781250060563
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384