CAPTURED BY A LAIRD (THE DOUGLAS LEGACY #1) by MARGARET MALLORY

After a tumultuous ten year marriage to a much older man her family bound her to when she was only thirteen, the lady Alison Douglas is finally free from the ties that bound her in her unhappy matrimony. She has two beautiful daughters for doing her time with the Blackadder and now she prays she never has to marry again. So over her dead husband in fact that she burns the bed that belonged to the deceased Laird slept in.

David Hume and his family have been through devastation. His father and brother are executed and his step-mother has been taken hostage. David has now become the new Laird of Wedderburn and he is needs to have his step-mother freed, so her young sons can have their mother back and he wants to exact revenge on the Blackadders, by taking their castle and the widow, Lady Alison. Since taking over his lands and Hume Castle, David has gained quite the reputation for himself as the Beast of Wedderburn, a reputation for which he welcomes if it gains him the fear and all he covets.

Lady Alison is having trouble with her people. They show her no respect since their Laird showed none for her when he was alive, and Alison is at a loss with how to deal with them. When she asks her Douglas brothers for help, they quickly push her needs aside to take care of their own lives, leaving her people on the verge of starvation since her lands are being raided consistently by the Beast of Wedderburn. 

After laying siege and capturing Blackadder Castle, the Beast forces the Lady Alison to marry him to use her as a tool to gain all he wants, but when he sees the beauty, he is out of sorts and in for much more than he bargains for. If he thinks  that Alison is going to be a meek bride, he has no idea  what he is in for. Alison vows she will never be mistreated again, but this leads to quite a few misunderstandings between Alison and her new husband. She yearns for his trust, but when she makes a serious miscalculation when dealing with her family, she causes a rift that may never be able to be repaired between she and David. 

At each turn their sad pasts create a bitterness within them the each attempts to heal in the other, but with outside forces hoping to destroy all they attempt to gain, it will take a miracle and no less for David and Alison to come to terms with what has them at odds. 

CAPTURED BY A LAIRD  the first book in the Douglas Legacy series by the very talented Margaret Mallory is such a captivating read that I could not put it down once I began reading, David Hume's loss and Lady Alison's, so different, but such that it brings them both together. After making many mistakes in their new relationship, Alison tries to do all she can to tame David, but not so much that he loses all pride in himself. David's attempts to awaken the naive Alison while he cements his relationship to her, her daughters and his newly acquired people is a journey worth taking while reading each page of this touching tale. Revenge is what he seeks, but what the Laird of Wedderburn finds is so much more worthy in the end. I highly recommend this exhilarating story and I wait patiently (not) for the next installment of The Douglas Legacy by Margaret Mallory. 

~KIMBERLY~