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Chapter One

Cait shifted on her horse The endless journey was growing more and more difficult to take If she only knew they were near, she could bear it better, but none of the soldiers talked to her or soto the end of the world; that wherever they were going got farther and farther away She’d lost count of the days now, although she guessed it was nearly teeks she’d been on the back of a blasted horse

Patience, Cait, she could hear Er quietly in her ear It was as if her nurse was still there beside her even though it had been nearly a month since she passed If only If only If only Er happily in their cozy cottage in the wilds of Aberdeen, instead of traveling to Inverness to be wed to a man she’d never met

Her hair stood up on the back of her neck as it always did when she reer with the unfortunate name of the Devil of Inverness Cait had no desire to marry at all, much less be married to a devil, and for that reason she re to bedifferent Forgetting didn’t o away

She wished she could forget Eret that lonely journey to find help, only to learn at Aberdeen’s castle that she was the king’s own daughter The king’s bastard, unwanted and despised His eyes had narrohen she’d been hauled before hi akin to fatherly love

“I thought you died,” he’d said “I was told you died Your mother tells lies”

“I don’t have a mother, sir”

“You certainly do,” he’d snapped, “and that noxious slut glories inmy life miserable even to this day Even to this hour,” he said, looking down his long nose at her, his lips twitching in disgust “I’ve no doubt you’re as much a e?”

“Caitlyn, sir And I turned seventeen at the end of January”

“Of course you did Well, seventeen is old enough to be et you out ofto look at a nearby advisor

“The earl of Inverness, the younger Douglas’s son His name escapes me, but they call him the Devil You knohom I speak?”

“Lord Niall?”

“No, the other The bastard son with the white hair”

“Lord Duncan?”

“That’s the one Did he not recently lose a wife in childbirth?”

“Yes, sire”

“Very well Send this girl to Inverness to take her place Tell the Devil earl I order hihed coldly “They will understand each other, will they not?”

“Yes, sire,” said the advisor, his eyes flicking briefly to Cait and then away “I’ll arrange for transport of your daughter at once”

“Yes, at once,” the King dee looks disquietretinue She is not valuable to et my wish, Duncan will dispatch this one in childbirth too, then this thing will be done which should have been done long ago”

Cait listened to all this kneeling before hi words from the mouth of the man who had fathered her She’d never known he existed until this awful day Of course she had iined sometimes what sort of man her father was If he was a kind man If he ever wondered where she was Now she knew the truth about him and wished she didn’t It hurt her to hear hione so coolly The entire conversation had hurt, but nothing quite so much as his cold, plain hatred for her existence

Cait was not a vain girl She knew she was no beauty She knew her looks were unappealing and strange Her hair was so black, her eyes so light; her skin so pale and translucent She had not a trace of her father’s golden blond hair and deep brown eyes Buther? She tried to be pleasant and agreeable to everyone she met She had cared for her old nurse Erarden and keep house She tried to keep busy and live happily and hurt no one or nothing on earth She had never been hurt either, not as her father had hurt her that day She’d never been cut so carelessly and so deep, and to have it come at the hands of her own father was terrible She cried for hours afterward though no one took notice Before nightfall she’d been lifted summarily onto the back of a horse

And now here she was, journeying endlessly to Inverness She doubted thewhile she’d feared they would ride out with her some distance and kill her and leave her body for the wolves, at her father’s coh, that they would never journey this far just to slay so with her into the wilderness to abandon her, to let her wander lost and starving until she died As it was, they barely took a care for her needs, or fed her If one of therunt If she reached her future husband’s keep alive it would be a miracle Some days she wished she’d never reach his keep at all

A devil living at the edge of the earth A bastard son hite hair and one wife already dispatched in childbirth She wondered how old he was If he had white hair he was advanced in age, and if he was frail and old enough he couldn’t pose her much harm, devil or not She wondered what kind of hoe like the one she’d shared with Erma was easy to tend If he was a bastard son and not well in the king’s favor, he probably had a simple domicile, and she could try to live a simple life with him

If he hated her, if he despised her for her looks or her personality or her parentage, well, she would bear it as well as she could None of those were things she could change, any e this new path her life had taken

The htfall and looked around the hall for the man

they called the Devil Lochlan hoped he wouldn’t be overly angered by the news he was charged to i some time as the earl was fetched from the practice fields and elected to bathe and take dinner before granting audience to his guest When at last Lochlan was ade would arrive before the actual e did

“My estees”

The Devil nodded, not looking up fro attention Otherwise he was soon to be in for a surprise

“Go on then, , but I’m a busy man and I must eat Sit if you like and eat with us”

“Oh no, sir, thank you but—”

“Therequire of me now?”

“The king wishes you to take a neife”

Duncan laughed, taking a deep draft of his drink “You ood wishes, friend, but I’ve less than no desire to be ain”

Lochlan hesitated, unsure of the best way to reveal the news “My lord, your neife arrives presently This very night This hour perhaps”

Duncan paused, his face growing hard “What the hell did you say?”

Thethe Devil’s hands curl into fists He had expected a e like the bride they brought hirey eyes, as grey as the sea that surrounded the keep on three sides

While he wasn’t as dark and devilish looking as Lochlan expected, he was certainly angry He feared the earl would toss hie was fully told