All he ever wanted was a girl of beauty,breeding and above all a stainless reputation to salvage his reputation and restore his family honor but along the unexpected happened.......
Chapter 1 Prologue
Moss wood, Lochmaben, Scotland, March 1307
Carissa thought nothing could be worse than the hideous wails and screams of the dying but she was wrong. The silence of the dead was infinitely worse.
Huddled in the damp blackness of the old well she rocked back and forth in icy shivering terror trying not to think about where she was or what might be crawling around her.
Her eyes burned with tears that had run out hours ago. She'd screamed until her voice was a thin rasp. She was so thirsty but she dared not pray for water. She was only too conscious of what would happen if it rained. How much water would it take for the old well to fill inch by horrible inch, as she waited for someone to find her?
But the English hadn't meant for anyone to find her. After the soldiers' murderous rampage, they'd left her here to die. To slowly starve or drown- they cared not which. It was her punishment for trying to save her. . .
A sob choked in her throat. Heat swelled her eyes. Her mother. Oh God, Mother!
She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the memories. But alone in the darkness there was nowhere to hide. They came, barrelling through her mind in an avalanche of fresh horror.
Carissa had been at the river fishing when she'd heard the sound of horses. It was the number that made her hair at the back of her neck stand up. In their small isolated village tucked into the forested hills on the outskirts of Lochmaben, they had a few visitors. In this dangerous times, with the outlaw Earl of Carrick (King Robert, as he'd crowned himself) recently returned to Scotland after been forced to flee the year before, so many riders could be only one thing: bad. It was either more of Bruce's men seeking refuge in the outlaw king's ancestral lands- putting the small village of mostly women and children in more danger - or worse, the English soldiers who'd garrisoned the nearby Bruce stronghold of Lochmaben and were turning over every stone and Village looking for the outlaws or the "rebels" who gave them aid.
She didn't bother with her net or fishing line (or her shoes, which she'd removed and left on the bank); she just ran. Fear had taken over, with the stories of the fresh wave of English horror racing through her mind. Men drawn apart by horses, women raped, children beaten, cottages ransacked and burned, all in the effort to make neighbour turn on neighbour. To find the rebels and punish them. Carissa had no love for"King" Robert, but even he was preferable to their English "Overlords."