Page 1 of My Scot, My Surrender
Chapter One
Selkirk, Scotland, 1819
It had to be a miracle.
Brandt Montgomery Pierce, connoisseur of horseflesh and stable master to one of the most venerated stables in England, stared in stunned silence at the glossy gray Scottish thoroughbred tethered in the auction paddock.Thiswas the very horse he had traveled to Scotland for.
Lochland Toss was by far the finest animal Brandt had set eyes upon, and ever since he’d first seen the Scot-bred stallion, two years ago at the races in Kelso, he’d wanted him. The horse hadn’t been racing and never would; he wasn’t sleek or fast enough for that. No, Lochland Toss had been bred into the Duke of Dunrannoch’s legendary line of horses for incomparable brawn, endurance, and extraordinary stamina.
Reverently, he reached for the aristocratic beast and, starting at the withers, ran his fingers down his velvety back to his hindquarters, feeling along his strong legs and examining his joints for any abnormalities. There were none, of course. Dunrannoch wouldn’t have brought anything less than perfection to the common lands auction. Brandt had met the Scottish laird at Kelso and had made an offer for the two-year-old on the spot. He’d been turned down that day with a firmno, and then twice more since. The horse wasn’t for sale, he’d been told. And yet now, here it stood, in the auction ring.
It was a stroke of blind luck. Brandt had been stopping at the common lands festival only to purchase a mare for the already well-stocked Bradburne stables before traveling north to Maclaren, Dunrannoch’s home, where he’d planned to make yet another offer for the horse in question. Beg, if necessary.
Rising from his crouched position, Brandt signaled the auctioneer. He’d waited long enough to make a bid on the stallion, and he’d pay whatever coin Dunrannoch wanted in order to take him off the auction block. He wanted, and needed, the stallion to begin a new, unparalleled breed. Something bred to win.
The auctioneer came over, tipping the short brim of his hat. “My lord?”
Brandt wasn’t a lord, but he didn’t correct the man. “What is the opening bid?”
“Forthishorse?” the man said, his eyes turning toward Lochland Toss. “Apologies, my lord, but ’tis no’ up for auction.”
A stone of disappointment dropped into the pit of his stomach. Bloody hell.Not again.
“Then what is it doing here?” he bit out.
The auctioneer cocked his head. “He’s with the Maclarens, o’ course. Fine animal, he is. Owner’s o’er there.”
Brandt followed the man’s eyes and turned to view an exhibition match in a nearby paddock. Two men—one monstrous and the other a youth half his size—covered in thick padding and wearing metal helms, dueled with heavy claymores. The bigger one had to be the Maclaren in question. He would easily seat Lochland Toss, and if the steady thrashing he was giving the smaller man were any indication, he could handle him as well. Brandt admired the skill and pluck of the youth, but the outcome was not in his favor.
He revised his prediction as the youth spun and vaulted into a flying leap to bring the flat of his blade behind the man’s knees. His opponent crumpled like a sack of bricks. The onlooking crowd went nearly quiet in shock. Brandt laughed. The sound drew the attention of the victor, who chose that same moment to pull off his helm. A long, inky braid tumbled from its hold, and a blazing blue gaze met his, knocking the breath from his lungs.
The fighter wasn’t a young man, but a woman. A heavily scarred woman, with three parallel welts running diagonally across her face from mid-brow to right cheek. Her hair was combed away from her crown, declaring to all that she didn’t give a whip what anyone thought of her ruined face. A lesser mortal would have hidden behind a fringe or a veil, but with her proud mien and broadsword lifted in triumph, she was Athena incarnate.
Brandt stared at her as the crowd began to cheer, a few people chanting something that sounded like “beast,” though he couldn’t be sure. With a hard twist of her lips, she turned away to collect her winnings. In that moment, she had weighed, measured, and dismissed him as nobody of consequence. He supposed she was right. He was a poor, inconsequential stable master, charged only with the welfare of the Duke of Bradburne’s stables.
Though neither of those were entirely true. He alsoownedone of the finest breeding stables in England. And he wasn’t poor. Far from it. He had more wealth than he knew what to do with, thanks to certain well-timed investments and the advice of his longtime friend, Archer Croft, the Duke of Bradburne.
His eyes drifted back to the clearing paddock as the crowd dispersed, opening up his view. Brandt couldn’t help but take in the details of Athena’s appearance, from her proud cheekbones to a hard, expressive mouth that seemed bent on ferocity. Though she’d been a head shorter than her opponent, she was nearly as tall as some of the men surrounding her, and her arms, bound in supple leather, were limber with muscle. They’d have to be strong to wield a broadsword with such confidence and ease.
She was a Highlander through and through. As hale and spirited as Lochland Toss, shifting restlessly beneath his touch. Which reminded him, he had business to conduct. Brandt gave the beautiful animal another once-over and shifted his attention to the felled Maclaren giant. Once the man had soothed his wounds and his pride, Brandt intended to make him an offer he could not refuse.
He turned back to the auctioneer and gestured toward the spotted mare he’d been looking over earlier. They’d already reached an agreement on that horse, and now, after making the arrangements for delivery to Essex, Brandt gave one last pat of appreciation to the gray stallion and headed back to where his own mount was stabled. Archer would be pleased with the mare, he knew. The beautiful horse would be a fitting gift for his wife, who loved horses almost as much as Brandt did.
Having been raised at the Duke of Bradburne’s estate, and as the son of the previous stable master, he’d been surrounded by the animals all his life. They had always soothed him, giving him comfort as a boy and then as a man whenever his mind betrayed him by turning to things he’d rather not dwell upon anymore.
Like his cold-blooded Scottish mother.
Brandt loosed a shallow breath. He hadn’t lived up past Hadrian’s Wall since he was an infant, and he certainly had no memories of it. He had no memories ofher, either, and if the reluctance his father, Monty, had always shown in speaking of his birth mother told Brandt anything at all, it was probably best he didn’t know. Shaking off his maudlin, unwelcome thoughts, he signaled for his horse.
His mount, Ares, was brought forward quickly, and he motioned the horse toward the road when a female bellow and sounds of a scuffle reached his ears. Brandt closed his eyes and released a sigh. These Scots were always getting into barneys over something or the other. It wasn’t his fight, but even he could not ignore the sound of a woman in distress.
The crowd cleared for the big horse, and what Brandt saw made him gape. Five men of varying sizes wearing yellow and brown kilts surrounded the swordswoman from earlier in the exhibition paddock. She didn’t look afraid at all, despite the trickle of blood running from a shallow cut near the trio of scars that traversed one half of her face. The bloody trail, combined with the lurid marks, should have made for a daunting picture, but instead, she reminded him even more of a warrior goddess.
Utterly fearless.
“You lost fair and square, Craig,” she snarled, her fists high. Brandt was struck by her proper English speech, underscored by a lilting brogue, though it was nowhere as thickly accented as some of the Scots he was used to bartering with at these festivals.
Craig, the large man she’d been fighting earlier, scowled. “’Twas no’ a fight for a woman.”
