Bride of the Mist by Christina Skye, Judy Unger (Illustrator)

From the Publisher

AT ROSE-COVERED DRAYCOTT ABBEY... in a savage age of chivalry, a war-wear knight defends a mysterious lady from danger and swears himself her champion for all time.

Centuries later, a startling psychic vision draws a gifted bridal writer to a rugged castle veiled in Highland mist and to its enigmatic laird, Duncan MacKinnon. From the moment they meet, Kara Fitzgerald can sense they share an ancient, secret destiny.

ON A STORMY SCOTTISH SHORE... they are swept up in breathtaking passion- even as a ghostly guardian warns of coming danger. For a callous enemy stalks the crags of Dunraven Castle a timeless menace the cynical Scotsman and beautiful American must confront together...armed only with the power of their eternal love.

Centuries later, a startling psychic vision draws a gifted bridal writer to a rugged castle veiled in Highland mist and to its enigmatic laird, Duncan MacKinnon. From the moment they meet, Kara Fitzgerald can sense they share an ancient, secret destiny.

ON A STORMY SCOTTISH SHORE... they are swept up in breathtaking passion- even as a ghostly guardian warns of coming danger. For a callous enemy stalks the crags of Dunraven Castle a timeless menace the cynical Scotsman and beautiful American must confront together...armed only with the power of their eternal love.

Publishers Weekly

Complex and multi-faceted, Skye's (Bridge of Dreams) latest addition to her Draycott Abbey series is actually two stories in one. When bridal magazine editor Kara Fitzgerald attempts to secure Dunraven Castle to Scotland for a fashion shoot, she has to overcome the resistance of Duncan MacKinnon, the ill-tempered lord of the manor. The pair are thrown together after Kara interrupts Duncan at work-robbing a London jewelry store in order to discover the weakness in corporate security. An old necklace triggers a psychic link between Kara and 19th-century Arduaine of Draycotte, the beautiful, mute daughter of Lord Draycotte with whom Kara shares a possibly fatal destiny. Meanwhile, Duncan tries to prevent his evil twin brother (Dunraven's displaced heir) from blowing the new-forming couple to smithereens. Skillfully using two time periods, strong characters, reams of rich Scottish history, and a couple of resident ghosts, Skye has written one finely-crafted, very romantic love story. (May)

Product Details

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Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

She was shaking.

It was the middle of the night, the moon a hard curve of silver above darkened New York streets, and Kara Fitzgerald was racked with tremors.

She sat up, blanket rumpled, clutched to her chest as spasms raced through her legs.

Not again, she prayed desperately. Not now.

The prayers didn't help, nor did the trembling fingers she dug into cool sheets of Irish linen.

Moonlight played over a leather-bound Gaelic dictionary lying open on a tartan of bold red and green. The haunting strains of a Scottish ballad drifted from her radio.

It had to be the music, she told herself wildly. Tuned low and then forgotten, it had reached out to her mind while she'd dozed in -the middle of her Scottish research. Even now the clear melody rose in a poignant lament.

Kara Fitzgerald's nerves were stretched taut as she closed her eyes against cold images that brushed at her like mist. Somewhere she heard the hiss of distant voices.

Just dreams, she told herself. The quaking climbed up her knees and seized her arms. The result of one too many stirring Scottish tales, she told herself.

She huddled in a tight, miserable ball, watching shadows play over the bed.

Ignore it.

Her jaw began to clench. Ignore it? She could have laughed-at any other time than this.

Hold it back. Drown the words out with brighter sounds and truer dreams. Sweat ringed her brow in beads as cold began to inch up her fingers, a sign she had come to recognize with terrible certainty. There would be no escaping her visions now. Soon she would see a face in some distant place, hear the words of a stranger whodesperately needed her help. It always began for Kara this way-first the shaking, then the cold.

Beside her bed a phone began to ring.

Let it ring.

The shrill crying continued.

Ignore it.

Barbs of fear climbed her spine. Light played behind her eyes, heavy with images and sound, sharp with meanings only she could see.

She didn't move, couldn't say the words of protection that would let her senses reach out in phantom contact with a stranger's mind.

The prickling grew to a stab. Her knees began to shake.

Danger in the touch. Danger in the seeing.

All around her the dark sense of danger rose, gray and shifting like cold mist drifting over a wild Hebridean shore. Kara bit her lip as she recognized the gathering shadows in her head.

This time death was involved. In fact, it was certain, unless she opened her mind and reached out to help.

She raised the phone receiver with trembling fingers. "Hello."

"Sorry to bother you, Kara."

She knew the voice. She knew the room it came from, a crowded police squad room on the edge of midtown Manhattan, a place filled with the raw smells of anger and the sounds of despair.

Kara had heard the police detective's voice a half dozen times over the last year, always in the cold, sharp hours before dawn. Always with news of a

missing child or a battered, unrecognizable body or an anonymous threat of brutal death. "Hello, Amanda." There was resignation in Kara's voice. "You need me again?"

"I'm afraid so." In spite of fifteen years away from the rolling mountains of western North Carolina, Detective First Class Amanda Rivington's voice still held the soft trace of southern cadences. Tonight it also held an edge of shredding control, something that Kara had never heard before. "Two students from the East Seventies are missing. Both from prominent Upper East Side families with pedigrees that go back to the Mayflower. The parents are highly visible-old money, old politics. They also happen to own major real estate in upper Manhattan." Her voice tightened. "The ransom letter came in an hour ago."

"A prank? Teenagers have been known to stage their own kidnappings."

"Not these kids. No history of problems in school or at home. And there are signs of violent removal from the car where they were sitting while waiting for a friend."

Kara felt another cold stab of fear. "Why call me, Amanda?"

"Because the scene is bare. The F.B.I. is in, but none of our forensics people can find anything, not one hair or nail scraping. There are signs of smudges on the rear window, indicating that the kidnappers used gloves, but there are no usable prints. If any blood was spilled, it's been wiped clean. In short, this is a damned professional job, Kara."

Silence pressed at Kara's chest, heavy and threatening. "Are you sure no one else can help?"

"Right now I've got four angry parents and probably twenty journalists camped outside my office, and they're all screaming for answers. Meanwhile, we're

lipped, nowhere, the FBI is being damned tightipped, as usual, and I've a bad feeling that our time is running out. Just give it a look, okay? Touch the ransom note. See what you can get." The police officer coughed softly. "I'd be, grateful. And your involvement would be strictly off the record, of course."

"Of course."

Irritation laced Amanda Rivington's well-bred voice. Kara could almost see the detective's elegant mahogany lips fold down in a frown. "Listen, that's not my choice. You're the one who insists on staying anonymous. You're the one who refuses compensation or credit for your input. You know, if you'd just come back and work for us, we'd give you full credit for your work. You could do a lot of good, Kara. This time you'd have unqualified support around here, from the top on down. Not like before. In fact, the word is-"

"The word is no, Amanda," Kara made her voice hard, though the tremors were slamming her like storm waves now. "It got so I couldn't see anything but pain and fear. Dead bodies followed me down lonely streets at night. Do you know what that's like?" Kara caught a ragged breath. "I'll help you when I can, when it's absolutely essential, but I won't 'go back. Not ever."

The striking black detective, the first woman ever to hold full detective status in her precinct, gave a slow, irritated sigh. Kara could imagine her pinching the bridge of her nose. "I hear you, Kara. Now you listen to me. These are kids, barely fourteen. And they're both girls."

Jennifer, Kara thought. Amanda's daughter was fourteen.

"I'm sorry, Kara. Sometimes — this job feels a long way from Asheville, North...