Read The Highlander for Free Online Page A

that she had difficulty with the buttons, but she finally managed somehow to rip the dress from her body and kick off her shoes.
    When she surfaced at last, she no longer heard the screams of the other passengers. All she could hear was the pounding roar of the sea thrashing, and dashing itself against the rocks. She wondered if she could make it to shore when she was struck by the bow of a small boat, and felt someone grab her and pull her aboard.
    She vaguely remembered hearing a male voice and that he wrapped her in a dry blanket. She huddled in the bow of the boat, water streaming from her nose and mouth, while the wind and the sea seemed determined to drive them straight to the bottom.
    She must have dozed off at some point, for she the next thing she remembered was being hurled forward as the boat struck something, and the sound of splintering wood echoed with a deafening roar through her ears.
    The boat bounced and then crashed back into the rocks, and Sophie was thrown into the sea once again. She struggled to keep her head above water and called for help, but she never saw the man or the boat again.
    The current was strong and at first she tried to fight it, but then it occurred to her that the boat had struck a rock, so that must mean the current had carried the boat toward the shore. She began to drift with the current, until the numbness began to slow her. She had only a vague recollection of her feet scraping against rocks, her body being washed ashore, and then the feeling that she was going to die, surrounded by nothing but bitter cold and a driving wind.
    Her hand came up to the medallion once again. She rubbed her hand over the fleur-de-lis, as she had a habit of doing since her father had given it to her.
    "It belonged to your grandfather, Sophie," he
said.                                              
    It wasn't until Sophie was older that she realized the importance of her grandfather, and what it meant to be the granddaughter of Louis XIV, the King of France, and that he had worn this very medallion before giving it to her father. As a child, she was told how very fortunate she was to be the granddaughter of the Sun King.
    Having a beautiful face and being the granddaughter of the King of France carried a double curse, Sophie learned later, when she became the pawn of kings.
    Enough, she told herself. That part of your life is over now. No one will ever know of your royal blood, if you do not tell them.
    She doused the candle and slipped farther down into the bed, wondering how much warmer she would have been if Jamie Graham were lying here beside her.
    Her thoughts were foolish, she knew, yet she could not help wishing for human contact, and even his presence—warm, strong and protective. At least she would not be alone if he were here.
    Her heart cracked at the thought, for it was true. She was completely alone, in a strange land, and her heart felt as abandoned, lonely and as bleak as the windswept crags of the cold mountains that surrounded this place.
    She knew she should harbor no illusions about Jamie Graham. He would have no use for her when he learned the truth; when he discovered she was the granddaughter of the Sun King.
    That thought carried its own warning, and she reminded herself that her life may be in more danger here with him than it would be with the English, or the French.
    She had to congratulate herself, for she always managed to get herself in a silver-lined dilemma. And what was she doing romanticizing about a grim Scot, when she should be concerned for her life?
    Because there was no help for it; she simply could not stop thinking about him, even to the point of infatuation, for she had to admit he was quite probably the most impossible, terrifying, deliciously beautiful man she had ever seen.
    Why was he not the man the King of France chose for her to marry instead of that unspeakable villain, the Duke of Rockingham?
    She could not