The Thane of Cawdor was a busy man, and his bastards grew as wild (and as numerous) as the thistles on the hills. Isobel Sutherland always knew she would marry a laird. But her mother died when she was just a girl, and her father had no interest in raising her properly. She had been left to her own devices for so long that Isobel had never considered the fact that she might be used as a political bargaining tool. Romance and marriage were never in her plans-but when the Thane of Cawdor summons her to Nairn, his orders must be obeyed. "Sometimes it takes a bastard to get the job done." As the eldest bastard of the Thane of Cawdor, Arran Duncan has been all over his father's lands as his representative, bearing the thane's seal and carrying his authority. But playing escort to a spoiled daughter of one of his father's lairds on the dangerous southern road was not a task he ever expected to be saddled with. He has a duty to protect her, but leaving her on the side of the dirt road wouldn't be a bad option, either. Reader beware - "A Highland Escort" features lots of plaid, possible historical inaccuracies, a frustratingly stubborn heroine, and a gruff Highlander to sweep her away. There is no cheating to be found here, NO cliffhanger, and a Highland HEA is guaranteed.