Free The Highlander's Dark Seduction (Secrets of the Darroch Clan) by Joanne Rock

Chapter One
    Scotland 1890
    Most young ladies of Elizabeth Harrison’s acquaintance would have traded anything for the invitation to a summer party at Balmoral while Queen Victoria was in residence.
    American heiress Elizabeth Harrison, however, would have given anything to
leave
Balmoral without the fanfare her great-aunt insisted on making as they stood near the horses. Elizabeth had been ready to part since dawn, desperate to escape the week of mockery she’d endured after a spurned suitor had spread rumors about her inability to wed due to her plainness. But Aunt Sophia had made their leave-taking a long and drawn-out affair.
    “Aunt Sophia, I will be fine.” Elizabeth leaned closer to her maiden aunt who acted as her chaperone at Balmoral since Elizabeth had no luck convincing anyone else to accompany her to the Highlands. “I fear I should have been underway half an hour ago, so truly, I must beg your leave—”
    “I only hoped that handsome Italian count would come down to see you off, my dear. What was his name?” Sophia patted her niece’s hand absently as she peered over the pristine lawns in the early morning haze.
    “He’s a fortune hunter, Auntie,” Elizabeth insisted, more determined than ever to make her departure from the cruelty of a society where she’d never quite fit in. “He is a deposed count with no more holdings and his dwindling resources are the only reason he ever seeks my company.” She’d had enough awkward conversations with men who only saw her father’s bank accounts when they looked upon her. Or, more often, “up” to her. At almost six feet tall, Elizabeth often felt like a lurching beast among parties full of delicate girls. “Which is all the more reason I should depart since I have no wish to field indelicate questions about the extent of Father’s possessions. I will write you when I arrive.”
    “You’re sure Lily is expecting you?” her aunt fretted. “I expect I should chaperone this journey, if not the visit.”
    Elizabeth had argued to make the trip into the mountains alone, a point that she’d only won because her aunt detested country living and all the lack of luxury it implied. Elizabeth’s mother had died when she was barely out of the nursery, and it had forced her to be more independent. Her father had been too deep in grief to pay much attention to raising her so she’d raised herself and took care of him, too. Even now, she felt like more of the caretaker for her aunt than vice versa.
    “Lily is a widow and a perfect chaperone. She can’t wait for my arrival,” Elizabeth lied, anxious to be free of society for a fortnight or however long she could stretch the visit. She would need a chaperone far less in the Highland wilds than she did in the corners of crowded ballrooms where men and women mocked the height they likened to a giraffe’s. “I will return before you know it!”
    Calling to the driver through the carriage’s open window, Elizabeth waved to her aunt and began her journey at last. Away from the prospect of marriage. Away from self-important suitors who thought she should weep with gratitude when they asked her to dance because they were nobility while she was not only plain, but even worse… an American.
    The word meant something entirely different for her than it did for them. Her friend Lillian Desalles, who’d very briefly been Viscountess Broadville, understood this. And if Elizabeth was truly going to see her old friend Lily from New York at the end of this journey, Elizabeth would be delighted.
    Except she did not know what she’d find at the other end of her trip. Because the truth was that Elizabeth hadn’t heard from her best friend in weeks. She knew Lily had taken shelter at a nearby Highland castle after being unexpectedly widowed following a brief marriage. Lily had described the romantic, crumbling ruin of Invergale in her last missive, along with a few other peculiar details that left Elizabeth uneasy for her