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Claiming the Highlander's Heart
by Lily Maxton
 
Copyright © 2018 by Lily Maxton. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Chapter One

The Highlands, Scotland

1816

Georgina Townsend was lost in memory when the front wheel of the cart jolted over a particularly vicious dip, which was why she didn’t meet the rough terrain with her usual aplomb. Instead, she lurched forward, gripping the side to keep herself from toppling off the seat.

“Are you all right?” her sister-in-law, Annabel, asked.

“Of course.” She was used to the worst of the Highland roads. Ahead of them, the land dipped and swelled beneath a broad gray sky. The wind that stung their eyes and cheeks brought with it a hint of salt from the sea and peat from Highland fires. And Llynmore Castle, her brother’s country seat, loomed above them like a dark sentinel on the lonely moors.

It was bleak and fierce and wild. It was something straight out of a Gothic novel. And most of all, it was home. Georgina felt the pit of tension in her stomach unfurl, relax.

Her sister-in-law was silent, and when she turned to glance at Annabel, she saw worry in her eyes. With a pang, Georgina realized she wasn’t speaking of the rough terrain.

“You’ve been quiet since we left Glasgow.”

Her brother Theo glanced away from the reins and then at Georgina with raised eyebrows, as if he’d only just noticed that she had indeed been rather quiet. She loved her brother, but he wasn’t always the most observant sort when it came to fickle things like emotions.

“You look peaked,” he said bluntly. “Are you ill?”

“Tired from the journey, I suppose.” The lie rolled from her tongue easily. She was tired, but that wasn’t why she was quiet.

She’d gone to see a physician when she was in Glasgow—supposedly one of the best in Scotland, who was known for being forward thinking. She hadn’t been prepared for what he’d told her.

Oh, she was fine. For the most part. She could live a long, healthy life with her condition, he’d assured her. It was just…the shape of her life had changed. And it was odd, because she hadn’t even realized she’d seen her life as a certain shape. She hadn’t realized there were things she might have wanted until the possibility of them was gone.

She had thought she was happy. What else did she need? She had her siblings and Llynmore Castle and all the open land and air she could ask for. She was free.

But maybe some part of her had envisioned something different. She was young yet. How she felt now wasn’t how she might feel in five years, in ten.

Her musings were cut short when the cart rolled to a stop. From the passage to the inner courtyard, a child of about two hobbled toward them with her arms outstretched, her green eyes wide and her dark hair unruly. On her heels was a harried-looking maid.

Annabel leaped down from the cart and was moving as soon as her feet hit the ground. She lifted the girl, who giggled delightedly, and swung her around and around. Annabel’s answering laughter was as light as air. Georgina watched them, a twinge of something unnamable deep in her stomach. It was not quite envy and not quite sorrow.

This was the first time Annabel and Theo had been away from their daughter, and they’d both fretted endlessly. She imagined they would wait until Maria was older before they traveled again, so they could take her with them.

Once the girl was set down, her eyes lighted on Georgina. She couldn’t say her full name yet, and had christened her “Gee” instead. Georgina knelt down to sweep her into a hug; she burrowed her face against the top of Maria’s head and breathed in her sweet-smelling hair.

“I missed you, too,” she murmured.

Georgina looked up just as Annabel’s aunt Frances emerged from the castle at a more sedate pace. She could tell as soon as she looked at the older woman’s pinched face that something was wrong.

“What is it?” she asked, straightening.

Frances stopped, all eyes on her. She tucked a strand of gray hair behind her ear. “Ten of the sheep have gone missing—” She paused, corrected herself. “Were stolen.”

“Stolen?” Theo echoed. There had been rumors in the past few months of Highland outlaws, stealing livestock from some of the larger estates. But they’d thought they were only that—rumors. “How do you know?”

“On the same night, someone broke into the castle while everyone was asleep.” Theo and Annabel’s faces went pale. “No one was harmed,” Frances assured them. “We didn’t even realize they’d been there until after. They must have went through quickly, but they made off with some of the silver and some jewelry—”

Georgina was already moving through the inner courtyard, past the gnarled tree at the center, pushing open the castle doors. She ran up the spiral stairway and stopped, breathing heavily, at the threshold of her bedchamber.

From here, nothing looked disturbed, and she could almost imagine that no one had been in this, her private sanctuary, that no one had gone through her belongings. But then she stepped toward the small oak stand by her bed, and her breath hitched in her lungs.

Normally, a music box rested there. Tortoiseshell with silver trim. When the internal mechanism was wound and then released, it played a soft, slow, haunting tune. Altogether, it was a nice piece—a simple design of good material and a fairly intricate melody—but that wasn’t why the loss of it threatened to cleave her chest in two.

When she’d been ill as a child, when she’d been so far gone she could barely think, she remembered her mother winding the box for her, remembered that slow, pretty song. Her mother had given it to her later, when Georgina was better. She’d told Georgina to keep it for her. To protect it.

Her mother had been gone many years now. But Georgina had kept the music box safe, right by her bed, in a place where she could reach out and touch it to be assured it was still there. She’d kept it like she might keep and protect a fragile piece of her own heart.

And it had been taken from her. Like her mother. Like some vision of a future that was now dark forever.

Panic flooded her chest, so cold and so heavy.

At Georgina’s side, her hand curled into a tight fist. Her heart was beating too fast, but the bite of nails against her palm braced her. She took three deep breaths, and eventually panic hardened to anger, and anger…well, that, she could use. Anger she could sharpen and hone like a weapon. It could be turned into purpose.

Anger was far, far better than helplessness.

Before she could falter, before she could second-guess herself, she strode to the wardrobe and began tearing through her clothes, looking for things that would hold up against the Highland weather. Two pistols with gleaming, dark wood handles and brass barrels glinted from beneath a pile of stockings. They were a gift from Aunt Frances, who’d learned to shoot at some point during her brief acting career, from an actor she’d carried out a minor flirtation with (a dalliance which, by Frances’s account, had been even briefer than her acting career). Frances had, in turn, shown Annabel how to load and fire a gun, and Georgina, too, when she’d expressed an interest.

Georgina took the pistols, in addition to the clothes, relieved that the bandits hadn’t noticed them.

First, she would talk to some of Theo’s tenants—they trusted her, and no doubt they’d heard the rumors about the outlaws and the stolen livestock. They might even be able to point her in the right direction.

She would leave a note for Theo and Annabel, telling them she was traveling by stagecoach to visit her sister, Eleanor, in Edinburgh, and then she’d have to send a note to Eleanor so her sister wouldn’t be taken by surprise if Theo mentioned it in a letter. No doubt Theo would be livid about Georgina traveling alone, but she’d deal with that when she returned.

She couldn’t tell him the real reason, of course.

And maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was reckless. But at the moment, with grief and resolve mingling to a potent brew, it only felt necessary.

She was going to find the thieves.

She would find them, and she would take back what was hers.