Orabillis McCullum wore chainmail to her wedding — a stark warning to the groom that she wasn’t entering this marriage of her own accord. She would happily feed the former knight, Gavin MacKendrick’s entrails to the scavengers should he even think about anything other than a marriage in name only.
For Gavin MacKendrick, this predicament of his own making. Had he not gotten so bloody drunk and unknowingly bedded one of King Robert II’s daughters, he wouldn’t have lost his knighthood and now be staring into the eyes of a woman who infuriated him as much as enchanted him. But he’d rather chew stones and have his eyes skewered with a hot poker than admit his fascination with the beautiful female warrior.
By order of their King, these stubborn, independent, and strong-willed individuals must marry. But will they live long enough to get through the ceremony? Or will God actually show some mercy and step in to stop it?
Stranger things have happened.
Genre: FICTION / Romance / Historical / ScottishOrabillis is the final book in this series and was just released in June. It has over 80 5 star reivews at Amazon, Goodreads, etc. It has sold quite well.
When they were little, Orabillis McCullum’s mother would lull her and her sisters to sleep with fairytale stories. They always began the same way… Long, long ago, in a land far away, there lived a beautiful princess.
The stories were all very similar, filled with princesses and princes, gallant knights, kings and queens, young maidens in despair as well as dragons, banshees, will-o-the-wisps, evil witches or bad men consumed with greed. The stories all ended the same as well … And they lived happily thereafter in love and peace, never to be bothered by the evil witch, king, or man again.
Of course, as a wee little lass, Orabillis loved hearing those fanciful tales. She would often drift off to sleep with images of a knight coming to rescue her and her family from an angry fire-breathing dragon or a witch intent on throwing them into a cooking pot. Those fairytales gave her much comfort, filling her young head with the idea that most men were brave and honorable and wanted only to protect those they loved, or those who were less fortunate than themselves.
Orabillis’s birth father had died before she was even born. Her only memories of the man were the ones her mother shared with her. Of course, as she got older, she couldn’t help but think that mayhap, just mayhap, her mother might have embellished the facts of his bravery and honor a wee bit. The only other men she’d known in her life were a handful of neighbors that she rarely saw. Couple that with the exaggerated tales about her father and all those romantic fairytales, the poor child had no true idea of what real men were like.
