Excerpt of The Lady's Proposal for the Laird by Jeanine Englert

Argyll Castle

Glencoe, Scotland

October 1745

Laird Rowan Campbell slammed the forging hammer down with force, the clash of metal against iron reverberated through his body. He relished the ache the repeated pounding created in his forearm. His nightly visits to the forge had become his place of peace, not unlike a religious man’s house of worship. He set aside his hammer and turned the rough metal blade that would become a sword in his grip and frowned. The piece was becoming too cool to shape and would fracture if he wasn’t careful. Setting it aside, he grabbed the shovel, scooped up a heaping pile of hot bright orange coals, and then added them to the forge before sliding the metal blade beneath them.

‘This is the last place I thought to search for you, yet here you are.’

Rowan stilled at the sound of the familiar female voice behind him. It was a voice he had not heard for over two years. One he had not ever wished to hear again but wishes were fickle things prone to shatter much like hot metal when it cools too quickly and isn’t properly tempered. And that was Susanna Cameron: fire and ice within the same breath and a woman quite prone to breaking things and relishing in her destruction.

‘Susanna,’ he replied, shifting the coals evenly over the flame in the forge, not eager to face her. He needed a moment to gain his bearings and counted to five as he ran his soiled hands down the leather apron protecting him as he worked. Then, he turned, and his body thrummed and heated at the sight of her like the first time he’d set eyes on her when he was fifteen years old with the beginnings of scruff on his cheeks. She stood framed by the doorway of the forge, covered in her signature dark hooded cloak, her glistening ice blue eyes gathering all the light in the room while her pearly skin and lush pink lips reflected the firelight and sent a surge of need straight through him.

Deuces.

His body didn’t remember what his mind always did: her cruelty. He fisted his hands by his sides.

‘You look far better than the last time I saw you,’ she said, her gaze slowly assessed him head to toe as she pulled at the tips of her gloves one at a time to remove them from her hands.

She’d skilfully landed her first blow. He knew more was to come.