"Compelling tale of courage lost and found."
Reviewed by Suan Wilson
Posted November 17, 2006
Romance Historical
Sent to a convent to escape the revolution that enveloped
her country, Princess Sorcha lived a sheltered life for 10
years. Sorcha longs to return to her country as she waits
for a message that never comes. When someone sets her room
ablaze at the convent, Sorcha knows the assassins have
found her. She leaves the convent, intent on returning to
her homeland. After years of restricted living, Sorcha
embraces her newfound freedom making friends with everyone
she meets. A simple fisherman offers to escort her on the
journey, but does not reveal his identity to her. Prince Rainger spent eight years imprisoned and tortured.
He was beaten to despair, but the dream of his future bride
kept him alive. The vain, selfish boy vanished and a hard,
purposeful man emerged. His mission is to find Sorcha and
regain control of his kingdom. Tracking her to the convent,
Rainger impersonates a simple fisherman. Gaining her trust,
they set upon their journey. Rainger believes he can seduce
her into loving him and does not understand her anger when
he reveals his true identity. Sorcha cannot believe the gentle and kind man she fell in
love with could deceive her. Before she can forgive him, he
must acknowledge his feelings and trust her. Unfortunately,
their enemies steal Rainger's most precious possession --
Sorcha. In order to rescue Sorcha, Rainger must put aside
his rage and outmaneuver the fiend who has Sorcha. Ms. Dodd pens a compelling tale of losing courage and
gaining courage, especially in Rainger's imprisonment. She
gives Rainger the perfect heroine to soothe and heal his
scars with her gentle innocence that lifts the darkness
away.
SUMMARY
Betrothed in the cradle, Princess Sorcha and Prince Rainger
were destined to rule their countries together. Then
revolution sent Sorcha to a remote Scottish convent—and
Rainger into a dungeon so deep rumor claimed he was dead. Now danger threatens, and Sorcha must travel home with a
simple fisherman as her companion—Prince Rainger in
disguise. Changed by his imprisonment from a careless lad
to a dangerous man, he's determined to win back his kingdom—
and the woman he wants more than life itself. But can he
protect a woman who believes every person she meets is her
friend, every tavern is an opportunity to sing bawdy songs,
and each turn in the road hides new adventure? To keep his
princess safe, he must resort to his most treacherous
weapon: seduction.
ExcerptPROLOGUEFrom the time Crown Princess Sorcha was three, she prayed
for a baby brother. A baby brother would be a prince and
the heir to the throne of Beaumontagne, leaving Sorcha
free to be like other children. Well, not like other children, but at least like her two
sisters who were mere princesses. Unfortunately for Sorcha’s hopes and to the little
family’s deep distress, when Sorcha was six, her queen-
mother died bearing a third daughter.
So Grandmamma came to live with them.
Sorcha never forgot that day.
The opulent traveling coach drew up to the great door of
the castle, and Grandmamma stepped out — ancient, tall,
skinny, with regal bearing, a thick, carved cane, white
hair and cold blue eyes that froze Sorcha down to her
bones. From that moment, Sorcha grew up under the direct
glare of Grandmamma's critical gaze. Of course, Grandmamma
also made sure that Princess Clarice and Princess Amy were
supervised to within an inch of their lives — no one could
accuse Grandmamma of shirking her duties — but it was
Sorcha who occupied most of her time and attention.
Grandmamma approved Sorcha's tutors and made sure that
Sorcha was taught everything a crown princess should know —
language, mathematics, logic, history, music, sketching,
philosophy, and dance.
She made sure that the elderly archbishop of the Church of
Beaumontagne visited every Sunday, rain, snow or shine to
teach the princesses their religion and when he left,
Grandmamma personally drilled Sorcha on her catechism.
She instructed her in geography, showing her maps and
demanding she know rivers, mountains and seas. Somehow,
Grandmamma managed to make tiny Beaumontagne perched on
the spine of the Pyrenees between Spain and France sound
like a center of culture and learning — in fact, the most
important country in Europe.
In a private weekly session, Grandmamma taught Sorcha the
art of governing, posing intricate crises that would face
a queen and demanding Sorcha unravel the problem.
Grandmamma made Sorcha argue law, taking either side as
Grandmamma required and with Grandmamma as her opponent.
And Grandmamma never let an occasion pass without
reminding Sorcha that the crown princess and the crown
princess alone was responsible for the continuation of the
Beaumontagnian royal line.
From Sorcha, Grandmamma demanded perfection.
Which was why, at the age of twenty-five, Sorcha found
living in a convent on a tiny, rocky, barren island off
the northern coast of Scotland a freedom she cherished.
Her duties there were simple. She prayed. She read. She
gardened. She wore a simple brown habit. To differentiate
her from a novice, she wear no headdress, and because she
was a princess of Beaumontagne, she wore the silver cross
of her church on a chain around her neck.
She kept the plants alive in the greenhouse in the winter
and in the garden in the summer. She ate with the nuns and
slept in her bare little room. And after so many years of
listening to Grandmamma's voice nagging on and on, she
cherished the silence.
Yet one night almost three years ago, she had had a dream.
A dream? No, it had been more than a dream. It had been a
vision of unremitting darkness … and empty years.
The air was foul. The indifferent stones closed in around
her. No voice disturbed the silence. No hand reached out
to bind her wounds or cure her pain. The bones of rats
were her bed and the long drape of cobwebs her blanket.
She was buried alive.
And she didn’t care. Somewhere close, water seeped into a
pool, and the slow drip which had once driven her mad now
contributed to her indifference. Her world was sorrow and
loneliness. She was dying, and she welcomed the end of
desolation, of grief, of anguish.
Her fingertips touched the skeletal hand of Death …
Sorcha woke with a start and a horrified gasp.
The cross she wore around her neck seared her chest. She
wrenched it from beneath her nightgown and in the darkness
of her cell the silver gleamed like a blue coal. It
blistered the palm of her hand, but she grasped it as
tightly as she could, desperately needing its comfort.
Sitting up in her bed, she trembled, gasping for air,
wanting nothing so much as to breathe, escape, to live!
And the first light of dawn shined in her cell, and the
first seabird called its high, sweet call outside her
window.
She ran to the window, wrapped her hands around the cold
bars, and looked out at the ocean, trying to clear the
remnants of that awful dream from her mind.
Yet she couldn’t, and in all the time since, never had she
regained her serenity. Day after day she found herself
donning her brown wool cloak and wandering over the island
as if seeking something.
Or as if something were seeking her.
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