The Laird's Bastard Daughter (The Highland Warlord #1)
Tessa Murran
Cormac Buchanan is uncompromising, wild and brutal - when he has to be. Over six foot of muscle and ferocity, he has spent years fighting for Robert the Bruce, self-proclaimed King of Scotland and leader of its rebel army, as he wrests control of Scotland back from English tyranny. Cormac is battling not only the English invaders but also his clan’s sworn enemy, the Gowans, who have threatened the Buchanan’s for a generation. Thinking he is beyond the reach of love and tenderness, he is horrified at his king’s command to bury old enmities and unite with Clan Gowan, through marriage.
Cormac expects his bride to hate him and he intends to put her aside and forget about her. What he does not expect, is Ravenna Gowan, a bastard, half low-born and with a fierce defiance. At first, he just wants her to obey, in bed and out of it, but with looks that would stir any man’s blood, Ravenna wakes a savage need in him which he cannot ignore. But he can’t trust her. Nor can he ever look favourably on any Gowan after what they took from him.
Brought up on the fringes of her clan, the unloved, bastard child of Laird Baodan Gowan, Ravenna is her father’s shame and his pawn in vying for power. Banished to a convent for the sin of forbidden love, her heart hardens against the world which has wronged her. Her life is over until an English army heads north and her father has to sacrifice a daughter to the cause of King Robert the Bruce. Ravenna is about to become the glue that binds two clans together by wedding fearsome warrior Cormac Buchanan. But her father means her to spy on Cormac and bring him down, in exchange for freedom from his iron control.
Can she survive her rough, angry husband who resents and mistrusts her? Or will her loyalties be tested and her life threatened, as she tries to deny their growing attraction.
The Laird’s Bastard Daughter takes the reader from the moors of the Highlands to castles under siege, and, as Scotland burns, to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Scots rebel army in the battle lines at Bannockburn.
Loyalties are tested, bloody vengeance is sought, and secrets are spilled, with deadly consequences.
The Laird’s Bastard Daughter is the first book in The Highland Warlords Series.
Extract
When she got to the kirk, Ravenna saw before her a group of men standing with her father and she had to force her legs forward.
She could barely look at them. Oh God, which of this pack of hounds was to be her husband? Which of these men, covered in muck from the road, would step forward and claim her, like a prize? Or was she more a burden, for she knew full well that no Buchanan would ever want her?
As she walked forward, a handsome man, young but imposing, looked at her with keen interest. He wasn’t so bad, his expression was kind, and there was admiration in his eyes. Then he stepped aside to reveal a man behind him. This other one was taller, darker and wild-looking.
‘Like a beast’, Coira had said. With a heart sinking to her toes, Ravenna realised this must be Cormac Buchanan, not the one with gentle eyes, but this one, who was looking at her with a face like thunder.
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The 'The Highland Warlord' series
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