Page 1 of The Iron Earl

{ Prologue }

Stirlingshire,Scotland, in the scattered lands between the Highlands and the Lowlands

March 1816

Late.

He was too late.

Above a rocky outcropping a mile away smoke snaked into the sky. The stream of blackened ash billowed into a ragged cloud, then vanished as the wind snatched it into oblivion.

Lachlan set his heels into his horse, thundering across the last field toward the small set of buildings just out of his view.

His brother and sister hadn’t waited for him at Vinehill. Not as they should have. Not as they said they would.

Hewas the soldier. They should have waited for him.

But no, not his siblings. Jacob and Sloane had taken off, following their third cousin, Torrie, to get to her family’s farm before the clearing men came.

How Torrie’s family had put off the brutes that were clearing the Swallowford lands for as long as they had was a miracle.

A miracle that was ending in front of his eyes.

Baron Falsted’s men were intent on removing one of the last families in the area. There would be no further reprieve.

The stench of the fire charred his nostrils long before he could see the blazes.

He crested the last hill.

Worse than he imagined.

Five buildings were now torches flaming from the ground, the air about them undulating with heat.

Yanking on the reins, Lachlan leapt from his horse before it stopped. He tore toward the hellfire, searching the flames. Searching for people in the sooty haze.

Three men. One far off on a horse, watching. One on the ground by the cottage with a torch in his hand. The third standing halfway between the two. None he recognized and all a distance back from the raging blazes.

His brother. Where the hell was Jacob?

Lachlan ran across the wheat field, flying straight between the barn and a cottage, both engulfed in fire. Heat singed his skin and his arm flung up, shielding his eyes from the heat that enveloped him.

There.

Far at the opposite end of the buildings, the main house. Two bodies sprawled prone on the ground in front of it, blood smeared across one man’s face.

Not Jacob. Not Sloane. Not Torrie.

Lachlan spun, squinting against the embers spewing into his face. Where the hell were they?

He spun again. Movement out of the main cottage.

Jacob. Jacob carrying Sloane on his hip, her arms stretched out, dragging a screeching Torrie with her.

Flames engulfed Torrie’s skirts.

Five steps from the cottage, Jacob dropped Sloane. She scrambled to Torrie’s skirts, swatting at the flames with her arm, screaming as she tried to squelch the blazes.

“Jacob.” Lachlan ran toward them. “Jacob.” But his bellows didn’t stop his brother—didn’t slow Jacob one step.

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