Flame (42 page)

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contact us at:

May McGoldrick

e-mail: [email protected]

www.JanCoffey.com

Our 16th Century books...

In
The Thistle and the Rose
, Colin
Campbell and Celia Muir are introduced...

And we also introduce Alec Macpherson, who
is the hero of our second book,
Angel of Skye
...

Alec has two brothers, Ambrose and John, who
are the heroes of
Heart of Gold
and
The Beauty of the
Mist
, respectively...

In
Angel of Skye
, we also introduce a
little boy, Malcolm MacLeod, and in
Heart of Gold
we
introduce a little girl, Jaime...

When Malcolm MacLeod and Jaime grow up, they
are the hero and heroine of
The Intended
...

In
Heart of Gold
, we also introduce
Gavin Kerr, who becomes the hero of
Flame.
..

In
Flame
, we introduce a number of
characters who show up in
The Dreamer, The Enchantress,
and
The Firebrand
(the
Highland Treasure Trilogy
),
including John Stewart, the earl of Athol and a number of
villains...

The Highland Treasure Trilogy
is the
story of three sisters...Catherine Percy of
The Dreamer
,
Laura Percy of
The Enchantress
, and Adrianne Percy of
The
Firebrand
...

In
The Enchantress
, we introduce Sir
Wyntoun MacLean, who also appears in
The Firebrand
...

In
The Firebrand
, we also introduce
Gillie the Fairie-Borne, who may just have a story of his own one
day...

Colin Campbell and Celia (from The Thistle
and the Rose) also make a 'cameo' appearance in The
Firebrand...

Alec Macpherson and Fiona (from Angel of
Skye) have three sons. The youngest, Colin Macpherson, is the hero
of
Tess and the Highlander
(a young adult novel published by
HarperCollins in November 2002)...

Our 18th Century Books

In The Promise, Samuel Wakefield, the earl
of Stanmore, and Rebecca Neville/Ford are the hero and
heroine...

In that book we also introduce Stanmore's
friend, Sir Nicholas Spencer, who becomes the hero of The Rebel,
which is set in Ireland...

Stanmore and Rebecca also appear in The
Rebel...

In The Promise, we also introduce Rebecca's
friend, Millicent Wentworth, who becomes the heroine of Borrowed
Dreams...

Borrowed Dreams is the start of a new
trilogy about three Scottish brothers, starting with Lyon
Pennington, earl of Aytoun. We also meet a new cast of characters
who show up in the trilogy. Violet, from The Promise, plays a big
role in this book, too. She will show up again in the third book in
the trilogy, Dreams of Destiny.

In Captured Dreams, we see Lyon and
Millicent and the entire household of Baronsford in Scotland, along
with wonderful heroes and villains that David Pennington meets in
colonial Boston.

In Dreams of Destiny, the mystery of Emma's
death is solved...

Ghost of the Thames…a Dickensian novel.

Visit us at www.JanCoffey.com and on May
McGoldrick, facebook page for discount offers of our other
ebooks.

About the Author

Nikoo & Jim McGoldrick have spent their
lives gathering material for their novels. Nikoo, a mechanical
engineer, and Jim, who has a Ph.D. in sixteenth-century British
literature, wrote their first May McGoldrick novel in 1994. Since
then, they have taken their readers from the Highlands of Scotland
to the mountains of Kurdistan in bestselling, award-winning
historical romance and contemporary suspense novels under the names
May McGoldrick, Nicole Cody, and Jan Coffey.

You can contact us at
[email protected]

Please like May McGoldrick author page on
facebook to receive the latest updates.

Complete Book List as of 2012

Writing As May McGoldrick:

Made In Heaven

Ghost of the Thames

Scottish Dream Trilogy

Dreams Of Destiny

Captured Dreams

Borrowed Dreams

The Rebel

Tess and The Highlander (A YA Novel)

The Promise

Highland Treasure Trilogy

The Firebrand

The Enchantress

The Dreamer

Flame

The Intended

Macpherson Trilogy

Beauty Of The Mist

Heart Of Gold

Angel Of Skye

Thistle and The Rose

Writing As Nicole Cody & May
McGoldrick:

Love and Mayhem (reissued as Arsenic and Old
Armor)

Writing As Jan Coffey:

Aquarian (A YA Novel)

Blind Eye

The Puppet Master

The Deadliest Strain

The Project

Silent Waters

Five in a Row

Tropical Kiss (A YA Novel)

Fourth Victim

Triple Threat

Twice Burned

Trust Me Once

Here's an excerpt from May McGoldrick’s next
book

(Book 1 of Highland Treasure Trilogy)

by

May McGoldrick

Catherine Percy listened to the tinkling
laughter of the woman riding behind her.

Ellen Crawford was young, clever, and
certainly beautiful. And she was apparently to be the wife of John
Stewart, earl of Athol. By chance, the two traveling parties had
met just north of Stirling Castle, and Catherine had been delighted
to be able to travel into the wilds of the Highlands in the company
of another woman--especially one who had traveled this route
before.

Glancing back in the direction of her
traveling companion, Catherine wondered to what extent she could
seek the assistance of the future countess of Athol. Or for that
matter, how much she could reveal to her.

Certainly, Catherine thought, she was no
longer in any immediate danger of being captured by the treacherous
Deputy Lieutenant. And her sisters, too, were well on their way to
safety. Any day now, Laura should be arriving at the Church of St.
Duthac, on the eastern sea, and Adrianne, the youngest, was
probably already settled in on an island called Bharra in the
Western Isles.

But still, in order to start the school that
Catherine had dreamed of for so long, she would need the assistance
of people like the earl of Athol and this future bride of his.
Indeed, she knew she would need their strong and open support
before any of the locals would trust a half-English spinster enough
to share in what she had to offer.

Looking about her, Catherine glanced at the
unfamiliar faces of the travelers. Strangers, every one. Even after
months of hiding, she still could not get accustomed to this
constant dependence on others. She wondered if she could ever come
to accept that she no longer had a home to call her own--no longer
had a homeland to think about with pride.

Catherine sighed. She and her sisters were
exiles. Since their father’s death, they--like their mother--had
been pursued and hunted across the windswept moors of Yorkshire,
northward into the hills and river valleys of Northumberland, and
finally into Scotland. And all because of the family’s refusal to
take King Henry’s Oath of Supremacy. To accept the king as the head
of the church.

Of course, she admitted silently, there was a
lot more to it than that.

But so be it, Catherine thought stubbornly.
Fate had taken them to this new land. To these rugged Highlands
that their mother had long ago called home.

Shaking herself from her reverie, Catherine
reminded herself that the time for grieving was long behind her.
She had to look ahead and think of what must be done. Heaven had
placed Ellen Crawford in her company, and it would be foolish to
waste the opportunity of talking to her about the school and
recruiting the future countess in her cause.

Determined on her course of action, she
turned in her saddle and scanned the faces of the travelers who
followed them on this long journey. She pulled her cloak around her
as a breeze sprang up from the west. The sun had been fairly warm
most of the day, but now had disappeared behind a bank of dark
clouds moving in from the west.

Not seeing Ellen, her brow furrowed. As
usual, Catherine decided she must have been woolgathering and had
missed Ellen somehow.

The warriors at the head of the long column
of travelers were just starting down the craggy, heather-covered
ridge they’d been crossing for the past hour. Beneath them, in a
valley surrounded by steep rocky hills, Catherine could see a
loch--its dark silver waters as smooth as a looking
glass--reflecting the jumble of clouds that where quickly
converging on the weary travelers.

Catherine searched the passing faces for any
signs of the young woman. Having no luck there, she looked instead
for David Hume, the leader of her own warriors. From what she
remembered, the last time she’d seen Ellen Crawford, the young
bride had been in deep discussion with him.

As the last of the packhorses carrying
Ellen’s trunks, and last of the travelers trailed by her, three of
the kilted warriors who were accompanying Ellen stopped in response
to her question about their lady’s whereabouts.

With a sidelong smirk at his two companions,
one of the three scratched his bearded chin before answering.
“Sometimes Mistress Ellen simply needs to stretch her legs,
mistress. If ye get my meaning.”

“Of course. You mean she’s walking her
horse,” Catherine replied. “And since I cannot find David Hume, my
man must have stayed behind with her.”

“Aye, m’lady.” She watched him throw another
knowing look at his fellows. “Though I should think Mistress
Ellen’s surely riding by now.”

Frowning at the snickers coming from the two
warriors, Catherine nodded curtly and pulled her mare’s head
around, coaxing her along the path after the other travelers.

“What odd manners these Highlanders have,”
she whispered into the mare’s ear, a bit disconcerted at the
conclusions the men had drawn over what was certainly an innocent
stop.

They were nearly halfway down the steep,
winding path before Catherine saw that Ellen Crawford and David
Hume had once again joined the line of travelers. Looking up the
hill at the young woman, she could see that Ellen’s cheeks were
flushed and her clothes somewhat disheveled.

“‘Tis no business of yours judging the
affairs of others,” she murmured, turning her gaze back to the
trail. She herself had consciously chosen her studies over such
behavior in her younger years, but how Ellen Crawford chose to live
her life had nothing to do with her. Odd though, she thought, for a
woman about to be married.

By the time the path widened enough to travel
more than single file, the travelers had entered a thickly forested
glen at the base of the ridge. Then the sky opened, and the rain,
coming in on a gust of wind, prevented Catherine from discussing
anything with Ellen Crawford. The rain was still falling hard when,
an hour later, she spotted with weary relief the cone-topped towers
of the hunting lodge at Corgarff. This, she knew, was one of the
earl of Athol’s hunting lodges. Less than a day’s ride remained to
Balvenie Castle.

As they rode under the pointed arch and into
the small courtyard of the tower house, the servants of the lodge
bustled about the arriving throng, leading them into a well lit
Great Hall, and laying before them a sumptuous dinner. Catherine,
weary from the weeks of travel, did her best to play the role of
agreeable foil to Ellen Crawford’s youthful gaiety, but halfway
through the dinner, she excused herself.

Up the winding stone steps, she was led to
the Ladies’ Chamber, a small and quaint combination of bedchamber
and sitting room, and she eyed with longing the comfortable looking
bed.

She hung her heavy cloak on a hook by the
little fire. Placing her leather satchel on a three-legged chair,
she noted with curiosity the three doors to the chamber. Aside from
the door she had entered from the main corridor--where she had seen
the traveling gear of a number of their traveling escort--there was
a door at each end of the room. Opening one, she peered into the
Master’s bedchamber. She knew that Ellen would be sleeping there
tonight, and she stared for a moment at the huge damask-curtained
bed that nearly filled one side of the lavishly furnished
chamber.

Backing out and closing the door quietly,
Catherine crossed her bedchamber to the other door. Moving through
a small anteroom where she could see the wet gear of at least one
of the warriors, she opened another door onto a landing and looked
down a narrow coil of stairs. Cautiously, she descended halfway
down the stone steps before the smell of the food and the noise of
revelry assured her that she had little to fear regarding
accommodations while under the earl’s roof.

A few moments later, as she lay her head down
on the bed, Catherine was only vaguely aware of the rain outside
her window and the crackling hiss of the water dripping onto the
fire.

And then, in the space of a moment, her
dreams overtook her with the suddenness of a Yorkshire mist.

They had already arrested their father, and
now they were coming after them! There were soldiers crowding the
courtyard. The pound of horses’ hooves, the shouts of men, the
chaos of a castle under siege.