Verwandte Artikel zu Treasured (Volume 1) (Secrets of the Loch, Band 1)

Treasured (Volume 1) (Secrets of the Loch, Band 1) - Softcover

Buch 1 von 3: Secrets of the Loch

Camp, Candace

 
9781476741086: Treasured (Volume 1) (Secrets of the Loch, Band 1)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1476741085 ISBN 13: 9781476741086
Verlag: Pocket Books, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

Love is in the cards for a young Scottish heiress in the first book of a delicious new trilogy of historical romances, Secrets of the Loch, from New York Times bestselling author Candace Camp.

A family legend of hidden treasure mingles with the mist over the shores of Loch Baille… But it’s not the cache of gold dating back to Culloden that Jack Kensington claims when he arrives in the Highlands; it’s the house he won in a London card game from a luckless Scotsman.

Stunned to learn that her wastrel brother wagered their family estate, Isobel Rose must find a way to save her home and the people she loves…even if it means accepting a loveless marriage. Or perhaps not so loveless? Isobel unlocks the secrets of desire in the arms of the mysterious and handsome Englishman, but a series of “accidents” makes her fear that she will soon be a widow instead of a wife. As their hunt for lost riches turns into the search for a killer, Isobel fights her attraction to the man who stole her birthright…but can Jack convince Isobel that he can provide a home for her heart, and a love to treasure?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Candace Camp is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than sixty novels of contemporary and historical romance, including the bestselling Regency romances Enraptured, Treasured, and The Marrying Season. She is also the author of The Mad Morelands series, Before the Dawn, and Heartwood. She grew up in Texas in a newspaper family, which explains her love of writing, but she earned a law degree and practiced law before making the decision to write full time. She has received several writing awards, including the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. Visit her at Candace-Camp.com.

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Treasured
Images

APRIL 1807

It was raining. It had been doing so, Jack thought in disgust, ever since he set foot in this benighted land. Sometimes the water fell in slanted sheets, lashing him like bits of iron; other times, it subsided into a steady, miserable drizzle. But even when the rain stopped briefly, mist still hung over everything, as if the very air were so laden with moisture it could not hold it.

A cold drop of water slid between cloth and skin, trickling down his back, and Jack turned up the collar of his greatcoat as he gazed out across the bleak landscape. The road—if this rutted, narrow path could be termed that—cut across thick mats of heather and disappeared into the distance. There were few trees between him and the gray curtain of mist, only the brown and green land and a few scrubby bushes. Off to his right, a trench had been dug into the ground, exposing a straight wall of black earth. Rocks of all sizes dotted the lumpy, irregular ground, adding to the image of desolation.

What had possessed him to come to Scotland?

He had asked himself that question last night as he’d lain on the thin straw mattress in the grim little inn in Kinclannoch—indeed he’d asked it almost nightly for the past week, and had still not come up with a satisfactory answer. There was no reason to see the house that was now his or to talk to the people who worked on the estate. His only desire was to sell the place, which fortune had dropped in his lap like an overripe plum. Whatever little tickle of proprietary instinct had made him want to see it, whatever odd pull he’d felt at the thought of being a landed gentleman, the truth was his impulsive journey up here to claim the estate made him as big a fool as the bird-witted Scotsman who had wagered his home on the turn of a card.

Still, it made even less sense to turn back now, when he had drawn so close to his destination. If he had understood the innkeeper’s thick brogue, the house could not be much farther.

His horse whickered and shifted as a gust of wind whipped through them, driving the rain into Jack’s face and nearly taking his hat with it. He grabbed the once elegant, now sodden hat, jamming it more firmly down on his head, and leaned over to stroke a soothing hand down the horse’s neck. “Steady on, Pharaoh.”

Now, blown by the wind, the mist receded, and he could see the narrow loch and, at last, the house. It lay on a shelf of rock beside the water, a long, straight line of stone unbroken by curve or ornamentation. As gray and dreary as the loch and the sky above it, the house might have been formed out of this bleak landscape itself.

Baillannan.

If Jack had harbored some hope that the sight of his new home would lighten his mood, he knew now he was doomed to disappointment. Nothing could have looked less welcoming. Suppressing a sigh, he dug in his heels and started forward.

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Isobel was carefully pulling out the last few stitches in her embroidery when her aunt startled her by exclaiming, “We have a visitor! How nice! Barbara, did you know someone was coming?”

“Isobel,” she corrected automatically, and her aunt nodded vaguely.

“Yes, dear, of course.”

“Who is it?” Isobel set aside her needlework and stood up, suddenly hopeful. “Is it Andrew?”

Aunt Elizabeth squinted down at the courtyard below. “I don’t think it’s anyone I recognize.”

“A stranger?” Isobel joined her aunt at the window, but their visitor had already disappeared, and she saw nothing but the groom leading off an unfamiliar bay horse.

“He looked soaked, poor man,” Elizabeth went on sympathetically. “Perhaps he’s a traveler seeking shelter from the rain.”

“A traveler to where?” Isobel asked pragmatically. “It’s my guess he’s gone astray. No doubt Hamish will set him straight.”

“It would have been nice to have a visitor,” her aunt said wistfully. “So many people have left, one hardly sees anyone anymore.”

“Yes, since the Clearances began, our closest neighbors are now sheep,” Isobel agreed tartly.

“The MacKenzies would not have sold if Ronald was still alive. Poor Agnes; she will not enjoy living in Edinburgh, however much her son may have profited.”

Agnes MacKenzie had been Elizabeth’s closest friend, and Isobel’s aunt had been lonely with her gone. Isobel could not help but feel that the loss had affected Aunt Elizabeth’s mind as well as her spirits; she had grown more forgetful the last few months.

Isobel murmured a vague agreement, not wanting to set her aunt off on that unpleasant path. She returned to the sofa and picked up her embroidery hoop, saying, “I fear I’ve made a shambles of my stitches. What do you think I should do?”

Elizabeth was distracted by Isobel’s plea for help, and she started toward her niece. But she had scarcely taken a step when the quiet was interrupted by the sound of a voice rising in agitation downstairs. Surprised, both women glanced toward the door. A moment later, there was the clatter of feet on the stairs, and one of the maids burst into the room.

“Miss Isobel!” The girl’s face was flushed and her voice trembled with excitement. “Hamish says come quick. There’s a man here, claiming Baillannan is his!”

“What?” Isobel stared at the girl. Her words were so absurd that Isobel thought she must not have heard the maid correctly.

“A man, miss, at the door. An Englishman. He says he owns Baillannan. Then Hamish says he maun be daft, but the man says, ‘Nae, it’s mine,’ and shows him a paper, and Hamish sends me to fetch you.”

“Isobel . . .” Aunt Elizabeth turned toward her, frowning. “I don’t understand. An Englishman, here? Who is he? What does he mean?”

“I have no idea. It’s nonsense, of course.” Isobel started toward the hall. “Don’t worry, Auntie, I will straighten it out.”

At the foot of the staircase Isobel was met by the sight of Hamish, the man who had been the Rose family butler all her life, standing, arms crossed, as if he would bar the man from the stairs physically. His weathered face, usually set in stoic, even grim, lines, was red as a beet, bushy brows drawn together, dark eyes glittering with dislike.

Opposite him stood a stranger, tall and dark-haired, his face creased in frustration. He would have been a handsome man, she thought, if he had not been soaked to the skin, his cravat a soggy lump around his neck, starched collar points utterly wilted, and his fine wool jacket stretched out of shape by the weight of the water it had absorbed. He held a waterlogged hat in one hand and a many-caped, gray greatcoat hung over the same arm, both of them puddling water on the stone floor beneath him. His boots were caked with mud, and between the sides of his open jacket, his wet shirt clung to his chest. It was made of fine lawn and the water had turned it almost transparent, so that she could see every line and curve of his chest and stomach. As she watched, he reached up and shoved the mop of hair back from his face, stripping water from it. His hair was thick, and slicked...

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Verlag
Pocket Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2014
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1476741085
ISBN 13 
9781476741086
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
416
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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