White Rose Author Anne Greene

Masquerade Marriage by Anne Greene

To Purchase


A SECRET LIST
To protect his loved ones and escape the dark fate of his brothers, a noted warrior abandons his identity. Hiding from relentless soldiers who want him dead, Brody MacCaulay vows to protect the woman he loves more than life, more than freedom, more than Scotland. But his presence throws her into danger.
A VOW HONORED
To escape an arranged marriage to an abusive noble, a Lowland Lady weds a stranger to save his life. But vows spoken do not make a marriage, especially when Megan MacMurry holds a different love inside her heart.
A SACRIFICE MADE
Outlawed, and with a price on his head, Brody condemns himself to a life of heartbreak without Megan. Wanting her desperately, knowing he can't have her, he heads alone to certain death...

Excerpt:

April 16, 1746 - Drumossie Moor, Scotland—the Culloden Estate

Brody MacCaulay woke to a pounding head and gut-wrenching thirst. What happened? The wind and sleet had blown through. Smoke from blazing canons no longer choked him. He no longer heard the deafening din of battle. Silence hung around him, slit at times by weak cries of wounded men.

Cold weight pinned him upon icy ground. He could scarce draw a breath. Fingers dangled in his face. He felt the hand. Cold and stiff. He jerked back his own. Slowly he realized three clansmen crushed him against the frozen earth.

Even as his heart flamed hot hating everything English, the sound of approaching voices alerted him to lie still. He dug numb fingers into blood-dyed ground to keep from springing up and using his dirk.

Duncan, Collin, and Da were dead. He’d seen them fall. Sharp pain bit into his chest. He gritted his teeth. And Angus? Brody’s stomach heaved. Only a protecting angel could have spared Angus. Darkness, black as the smoke of gun powder, descended deep inside Brody’s mind. For certain his favorite brother lay dead, too.

Brody wedged his anguish deep inside his heart, slammed the door, and disciplined his thoughts into calculated coolness. He was a warrior.

The voices drew closer. Clipped. Not softly burred.

A sliver of moon lit ice upon the ground, casting enough light to see heaps of bodies, twisted limbs. The voices grew close. Two scarlet-clad English soldiers stalked among the kilted bodies.

A wounded Highlander looked up at them and begged. “Water.”

With cold-blooded deliberateness, one of the soldiers ran him through with his bayonet, strangling the Highlander’s weak voice into silence.

Brody slammed his eyes shut, hardly dared suck in a breath, and counted his heartbeats. English voices spoke so close that hair on the nape of his neck spiked. As the awful sound of a bayonet slashed into a nearby body, he fought back bile rising into his throat. “I say, I do believe we’ve dispatched all the wounded Scots.”

“Right. Nasty job.”

The first soldier snorted. “Sure to be an awful stink. Letting all these bodies rot.”

“Good riddance, say I.”

Boots clumped off. The voices faded.

“’Tis almost light.” Brody’s own whisper, though hoarse as a rusty hinge, infused him with courage. Somehow he lived. He must fight his way to Ma and Fiona. Protect them before the English hunted them down. A piper’s family proved precious booty for scavenger soldiers. With Da and his brothers dead, his duty lay in protecting Ma and Fiona.

He’d do whatever it took.

He struggled free of the weight sprawled atop him. The dirk lay half-frozen to the ground beneath his cheek. He gripped the handle of the sgian-dhu, worked it free, and jammed it into the sheath on his right leg. Panting, numb hands planted on frozen earth, he pushed to his knees. The scent of bog-myrtle and blood clogged his nostrils. He gazed over the silent battlefield.

What he saw would haunt him forever.

Discussion Question -- 

Do you find it difficult to discover the will of God in your life? If you do, what can you do to make it clearer?

Romans 12:2 - Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.