![]() ![]() The brooch had been a gift to the Campbell chief, the man about to become her father-in-law. To Cedric Campbell, a true friend is worth a king’s ransom. A boar’s head, symbol of Clan Campbell, with words chosen by the king himself. She squeezed tight the silver brooch inside, its design and inscription etched as clearly in her memory as on the pin itself. From habit, Fiona slipped her hand into the leather pouch around her waist. A low fire burned, warding off the spring morning’s chill. She rose from the threadbare cushion on the bench and moved without purpose toward the stone fireplace. Oh, that she had the courage to plunge it deep into the earl’s heart, if indeed he had one. She smiled at the latter and imaged the heaviness of that same pike in her hand. Perhaps he shaped a horseshoe or a pointed pike. The smithy’s hammer tapped a mellow cadence as if this day were just like any other. ![]() Through her narrow bedchamber window, sounds from the bailey filtered up. Soon after that, she must stand upon the chapel steps and marry a man she had never met, and yet had hated for all of her life. At any moment, Myles Campbell and his father, the Earl of Argyll, would pass through the gates of Sinclair Hall, unwelcome, yet unhindered by her clan. ![]() But the morning dawned soft and fair, mild as a Highland calf, and she knew that God himself mocked her. For today of all wretched days the sky should be burdened with clouds as dark and dismal as her mood. Fiona Sinclair could not reconcile the irony of nature’s twisted humor. ![]()
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