{"id":438,"date":"2011-04-15T12:50:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T12:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2011\/04\/15\/title-spotlight-masquerade-marriage-by\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:51:10","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:51:10","slug":"title-spotlight-masquerade-marriage-by","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/title-spotlight-masquerade-marriage-by\/","title":{"rendered":"Title Spotlight: Masquerade Marriage by Anne Greene"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n
April 16, 1746 – Drumossie Moor, Scotland\u2014the Culloden
\nEstate<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Brody MacCaulay woke to a pounding head and gut-wrenching
\nthirst. What happened? The wind and sleet had blown through. Smoke from blazing
\ncanons no longer choked him. He no longer heard the deafening din of battle.
\nSilence hung around him, slit at times by weak cries of wounded men.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Cold weight pinned him upon icy ground. He could scarce draw
\na breath. Fingers dangled in his face. He felt the hand. Cold and stiff. He
\njerked back his own. Slowly he realized three clansmen crushed him against the
\nfrozen earth.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Even as his heart flamed hot hating everything English, the
\nsound of approaching voices alerted him to lie still. He dug numb fingers into
\nblood-dyed ground to keep from springing up and using his dirk.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Duncan, Collin, and Da were dead. He\u2019d seen them fall. Sharp
\npain bit into his chest. He gritted his teeth. And Angus? Brody\u2019s stomach heaved.
\nOnly a protecting angel could have spared Angus. Darkness, black as the smoke
\nof gun powder, descended deep inside Brody\u2019s mind. For certain his favorite
\nbrother lay dead, too.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Brody wedged his anguish deep inside his heart, slammed the
\ndoor, and disciplined his thoughts into calculated coolness. He was a warrior. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The voices drew closer. Clipped. Not softly burred.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

A sliver of moon lit ice upon the ground, casting enough
\nlight to see heaps of bodies, twisted limbs. The voices grew close. Two scarlet-clad
\nEnglish soldiers stalked among the kilted bodies. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

A wounded Highlander looked up at them and begged. \u201cWater.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

With cold-blooded deliberateness, one of the soldiers ran
\nhim through with his bayonet, strangling the Highlander\u2019s weak voice into silence.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Brody slammed his eyes shut, hardly dared suck in a breath,
\nand counted his heartbeats. English voices spoke so close that hair on the nape
\nof his neck spiked. As the awful sound of a bayonet slashed into a nearby body,
\nhe fought back bile rising into his throat. \u201cI say, I do believe we\u2019ve
\ndispatched all the wounded Scots.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cRight. Nasty job.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The first soldier snorted. \u201cSure to be an awful stink.
\nLetting all these bodies rot.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cGood riddance, say I.\u201d <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Boots clumped off. The voices faded.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Tis almost light.\u201d Brody\u2019s own whisper, though hoarse as a
\nrusty hinge, infused him with courage. Somehow he lived. He must fight his way
\nto Ma and Fiona. Protect them before the English hunted them down. A piper\u2019s
\nfamily proved precious booty for scavenger soldiers. With Da and his brothers
\ndead, his duty lay in protecting Ma and Fiona. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

He\u2019d do whatever it took. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

He struggled free of the weight sprawled atop him. The dirk
\nlay half-frozen to the ground beneath his cheek. He gripped the handle of the sgian-dhu<\/i>,
\nworked it free, and jammed it into the sheath on his right leg. Panting, numb
\nhands planted on frozen earth, he pushed to his knees. The scent of bog-myrtle
\nand blood clogged his nostrils. He gazed over the silent battlefield.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

What he saw would haunt him forever.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Thousands of men lay still in the blue moonlight. The
\nstrength and youth of Scotland\u2019s Highlands sprawled in heaps across the great
\nexpanse of the battlefield. Pale twisted limbs gleamed in the cold light.
\nBloody clan banners lay beneath bodies already stiff. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

A stab of guilt pierced Brody\u2019s rage. Why had God spared
\nhim? If his brothers hadna sent him to the rear, there would not be a male
\nMacCaulay left alive. Mayhap that was why he found breathing so unnatural. He
\nshook his head. Dizziness. His pulse pounded, increasing the thundering pain.
\nTouching his bloody left temple, he closed his right eye. The carnage before
\nhim went black. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

He whispered, \u201cCanna see with my left eye. Appears my head\u2019s
\nno\u2019 as hard as Angus insisted.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Angus<\/i>.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Brody shoved aside the heart-stopping thought of his
\nbrother. For Ma\u2019s sake, for Fiona\u2019s sake, he must escape before English
\nsentinels spotted him. Hunched double, hiding among the bodies, he retrieved
\nhis targe and pipes and strapped them atop the claymore on his back. Despite
\nthe cold wind, sweat beaded his forehead. Belly pushed into frozen dirt, he
\ncrawled south toward the line of trees growing by the river Nairn. He\u2019d head
\nfor high country. Find a place to hide. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Barely able to see his own hands ploughing the earth, he crawled
\nbetween bodies of family, friends, acquaintances drawn close in the heat of
\nbattle. Bodies, clad in blood-drenched tartan stared wide-eyed at the waning
\nmoon. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Hurry!<\/i> Daylight threatened. If the English found him,
\nhe\u2019d be murdered.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI willna give them that satisfaction.\u201d <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 16, 1746 – Drumossie Moor, Scotland\u2014the Culloden Estate Brody MacCaulay woke to a pounding head and gut-wrenching thirst. What happened? The wind and sleet had blown through. Smoke from blazing canons no longer choked him. He no longer heard the deafening din of battle. Silence hung around him, slit at times by weak cries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[512],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-about-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}