Snowy Night with a Highlander.

From the anthology Snowy Night with A Stranger I read Julia London's short story Snowy Night with A Highlander - which I highly enjoyed. It is sort of a companion story to her recently released Highland Scandal.

Lady Fiona Haines must go into the Highland wilds to deliver an urgent message to her brother Jack from the king, which is basically to get his rear out of there and venture even deeper into the Highlands until the Delicate Investigation of Princess Caroline is over with and he is out of danger. But naturally, in all good romance tales there are a few problems for our lovable heroine: She must ask the Laird of Blackwood - Duncan Buchanan, for help on getting to her rogue of a brother, which she does and succeeds at. But under the belief that Duncan, the man she despises ever since he likened her to a woodchuck, is not there. Only.....he is, and is very unrecognizable due to a horrifying accident he suffered that left him scarred and disfigured. Lady Fiona finds herself being swept away by this mysterious, quiet Highlander that hides his face bundled up in scarves.

And I will leave the details at that. :) This was such a sweetly heartwarming story, I just loved it. Though it was a short, easy read, the characters were touching and my heart went out to Duncan for all of the suffering and self-punishment he'd been doing. He sort of had a Phantom of the Opera thing going for him. And well, I suppose you all know by now how I feel about The Phantom. So it was only natural I rooted and felt for Duncan.

The other two stories in this anthology are "A Holiday Gamble" by Jane Feather, and "When Sparks Fly" by Sabrina Jeffries. (I plan to read them today.)