Caolan’s Challenge by Tessa Murran

Does revenge burn brighter than love?

Caolan Bannerman is ashamed to be the bastard son of a disreputable laird. When a high-born lass sparks desire in him, he suffers her mockery and a burning humiliation. He vows never to feel the agony of youthful infatuation again.
Years later, a death raises him up, and Caolan must wed to retain his newfound power. Luckily for him, a man who once despised him is desperate to marry off his daughters, and one is the lass responsible for Caolan’s humiliation – blonde temptress, Sybilla Munro.

It is time to even the score, but Caolan ends up with more than he can handle in a lass as cunning as she is comely, and with a grudge to equal his. He may long to humble Sybilla, but first, he must survive enemies who wait in the shadows, sniffing out his weaknesses. And it turns out that Sybilla might just be his greatest one.

Bold beauty, Sybilla Munro, had a glittering future. But when Caolan Bannerman discovered her being shamed, it all crashed down. With her family fortunes ruined, she ends up stuck in a mouldering castle at the whim of an uncaring father, tormented by the past. When Caolan crashes back into her life, their mutual loathing resurfaces. Caolan needs a bride, and soon, Sybilla is faced with a less than glittering future. She is to be wife to a gloomy, young man who despises her, mistress of a clan who mistrusts her and the target of enemies who would take Caolan’s riches and his life.

A poisoner is at large, spies whisper their secrets, and Scotland’s absent King watches the Marches, ready to crush any clan who disturbs his peace. If Sybilla is to survive, she has only one refuge – dark, intense, Caolan Bannerman.
But then another, more chivalrous admirer, rides into her life.