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    The Highland Rose
    The Highland Rose
    The Highland Rose
    Ebook44 pages38 minutes

    The Highland Rose

    By Alexandra Benedict

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    About this ebook

    CASTLES IN THE SKY is a series of bedtime stories based on classic fairy tales; each short tale ranges in heat from sensual to kisses so there is something for every romance lover. A perfect, quick read for a night of sweet dreams!

    Don't miss THE HIGHLAND ROSE - a charming short story based on the fairy tale BEAUTY AND THE BEAST - where a runaway bride falls into the hands of a beastly laird, imprisoned on his estate for an unforgivable sin. Her only escape? She must melt the laird’s heart.

    HEAT LEVEL: kisses.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlexandra Benedict
    Release dateApr 7, 2018
    ISBN9781370707416
    The Highland Rose
    Author

    Alexandra Benedict

    Alexandra (AK) Benedict is a bestselling, award-winning writer of short stories, novels and scripts. Educated at Cambridge, Sussex and Clown School, Alexandra has been an indie-rock singer, an actor, an RLF Fellow and a composer for film and TV, as well as teaching and running the prestigious MA in Crime Thrillers at City University. She is now a full-time writer and creative coach.   As AK Benedict, she writes acclaimed short stories, high-concept novels and award-winning audio drama for Big Finish, Audible UK, Audible US and BBC Sounds among others. She won the Scribe Award for her Doctor Who radio drama, The Calendar Man, and was shortlisted for the eDunnit Novel Award for The Beauty of Murder and the BBC Audio Drama Podcast Award for Children of the Stones. Her Christmas mysteries, The Christmas Murder Game and Murder on the Christmas Express, were both bestsellers, and The Christmas Murder Game was longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger. Alexandra lives on the south coast of England with writer Guy Adams, their daughter, Verity, and dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.

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      Book preview

      The Highland Rose - Alexandra Benedict

      THE HIGHLAND ROSE

      BY ALEXANDRA BENEDICT

      COPYRIGHT

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      THE HIGHLAND ROSE

      Copyright © April 2018 Alexandra Benedikt

      Cover Photo Copyright © shmeljov/Bigstock.com

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

      www.AlexandraBenedict.ca

      THE HIGHLAND ROSE

      Scotland, 1793

      The furious wind slashed and swirled, whipping up snowflakes in delirious funnels.

      From his vantage in the castle library, Ian MacGregor studied the storm through the frosted window. Crystals had formed in the corners of the glass. The glittering flecks spread outward like spider webs. Soon the whole pane would be covered in rime.

      He rubbed his scarred cheek. It ached with the bitter gale. The more savage the flurries, the more savage his pain. The cold pierced him to the bone, even with a great fire blazing at his backside. But he would not move away from the window. He stood in front of the glass, listening to it splinter under the blight of ice, waiting for it to shatter, for the tempest to besiege the castle and destroy him.

      His eyes burrowed into the night.

      Come, he beseeched the darkness. Come and take me.

      And then Death appeared.

      At last.

      A white figure in the snowdrifts stumbled toward him. It sidestepped in the mighty gale, floundered—then collapsed.

      No! he shouted and bounded from the room.

      Tearing through the castle, he reached the entryway and pulled apart the heavy oak doors. The biting wind slapped him, sliced through his clothes. His muscles burned with cold. He pushed onward through the whirling snow. The mounds reached his knees. He pushed onward still.

      He followed the firelight from the castle window. The bright beam stretched deep into the night, illuminating a billowing sail of … tulle and taffeta.

      Ian stared at the woman. Her cloak lashed him. She clenched a wilted bouquet of red roses.

      It was not Death that had come to the castle but a simple lass.

      He gritted his teeth. When would Death stalk him?

      Ian reached down and scooped the frozen body into his arms, trudging back to the keep. Once inside, he hastened with her to the library and placed her on the bearskin rug before the roaring

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