Call of the Clan

By Molly Stuart

The walls of the castle were being battered now, and even if Janet wanted to escape, she would not be able to. She couldn’t take the risk of opening up the door again, in case the raiders spotted it, or she left some sign in the room of where she had gone. She ran her fingers along her father’s shield, and then turned it over, bracing her arm into the leather strap behind it. It was heavy, and she wasn’t sure that it was a help or a hindrance, but she knew that she had to at least try to protect herself for the first few blows. 
There was a footstep behind her, and she turned, pulling her knife from her belt, and holding it out towards the stranger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Avery Publishing
• Release date: Apr 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386250852

Book preview

Call of the Clan

A Highlander Romance Novella

By: Molly Stuart

Call of the Clan

Chapter 1

A mist had fallen sharply over the land, and Janet wrapped her shawl more tightly around herself. Standing on the castle walls, she could see only a short distance in front of her, and when she looked behind, the keep itself was shrouded in a fine white blanket.

Yet, if she listened carefully to the wind, she would swear that she could hear the clash of metal, and the cries of men as they fell beneath the great blades. The cries of distress and of anger, rage even to the last second of their lives, carried over the cloud, brought to her by wind or the fears of her own imagination.

There would be no end to it, she feared, at least not in this generation. It had been a mistake by her grandfather to try to take over the lands, but like all the McDonalds, he was proud and maybe too quick to decide on an issue. Rather than helping to keep the clan calm and organised while the Chief was in prison, he had swept aside the supporters of John McDonald, and had come to live in the estate by himself.

His mother had resolutely kept her from the worst of the fighting, taking her to court and teaching her how to be a lady. She was her mother’s heiress, and the older woman hoped that she could conclude a suitable marriage for her daughter before the tension in the clan exploded. It had not been a success, and rather than win a place in the court with James’s new bride, Janet had lost her father at Solway Moss. Now, with the English King’s army at the gates of Edinburgh, she had had no option but to flee back to her mother’s estate.

The King was dead, and with it his plans for the highlands. The new monarch was a girl, a baby, and there could be no orders from her hands concerning the McDonalds. As easily as a ghost through a wall, John had slipped his bounds, and came back to his estates. Her grandfather, the replacement Chief, had only the support of his Fraser kinsman, but even they were reluctant to stand in the way of a man coming back to claim his inheritance. Her grandfather, called the Outsider, had no clan to turn to, and he chose to flee.

Lady