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Chapter One

December 24, 1819—the Scottish Borders

Beconant had been so easy, so catastrophically sine, a little unfaht made for romance, a careless, innocent tumble from virtue to ruin

So just how hard giving birth to the baby was It is because I’htened, Kate told herself In a et up and light the fire If I can get there, if there is any dry kindling, if I can strike a spark

‘Stop it’ She spoke aloud, her voice echoing in the chill space of the half-ruined bothy ‘I will do it because I have to, because I must, for the baby’ It was her fault her child would be born in a tue on a winter’s day, herit so late to run away, her lack of attention that had allowed the pickpocket to slip her purse fro her penniless She should have gone to the workhouse rather than think she could walk on, hoping for soh, muddy road

Her mind seemed to have turned to et away before Henry can takeat all, for this child, to keep him or her safe from her brother’s clutches Noas the tiht left in the lowering sky She tried to stand up from the heap of ether, Catherine Harding Woive birth every day and in far worse conditions than this’ Beyond caring that she was reduced to a luet on to her hands and knees and began to craards the hearth and the broken rerate

The weakness caught her before she could move more than a few feet It must be because she had eaten so little in the past day and night Shaking, she dug her fingers into the dirt floor and hung on She would gather a little strength in a moiving birth could not takeso wo the harp Learning the wiles of hardened rakes and the consequences of a moonlit dalliance would be eventhat one could not trust anyone, not even your closest kin, was a lesson Kate had learned too late

If the mother she could not reht herself up before the wishful thinking could weaken her, before the haunting fear of what her own fate ht be overwhelmed her She was still in the middle of the floor How ht the fire? Hours? Only ht Kate inched closer to the hearth

So struck a stone outside, then the sound of footsteps muffled by the wet turf, the snort of a horse and a man’s voice

‘This will have to do You’re la to snow and this is the first roof I’ve seen for the past ten lish, educated Not an old man, not a youth Hide

She backed towards the heap of straw, aniainly speed A plank table had collapsed, two legs eaten through by rats or da out of her lungs Kate stuffed her clenched fist into her mouth and bit down

‘At least water’s the one thing we’re not short of’ Grant Rivers dug a broken-handled bucket froe and scooped it into the small burn that rushed and chattered at the side of the track His new horse, bought in Edinburgh, twitched an ear, apparently unused to for part of a one-sided conversation

Grant carried the bucket inside the part of the building that had once been a byre The place was technically a but and ben, he supposed, one half for the beasts, one half for the fah the long Border winters There was enough of the heather thatch to provide so section had only a few holes in the roof, although theand door had long gone At least the solid wall turned its back on the prevailing wind He could keep warnore the headache and the occasional dizziness, the legacy of that near-fatal accident a week ago

He lifted off the saddle, took off the bridle, used the reins as a tether and tipped the bag of oats froround ‘Don’t eat it all at once,’ he advised the chestnut gelding ‘It’s all you are getting until we reach civilisation and I’ve half a e’