Highlander in Love Read online

  The Honorable Laird Douglas, Greatest Ruler in All the Land…

  Perhaps a bit dramatic, but she hardly cared. She wrote on, requesting the honor of calling on his cousin, Sarah Douglas, who, according to gossips in Aberfoyle, had come to Eilean Ros for the summer.

  Mared’s eyes narrowed as she read her letter one last time. Satisfied that her writing revealed nothing more than proper civility, she sealed it with a drop of wax, put it carefully on her vanity, and blew out the candle. As she slipped into her bed, a smile curved her lips.

  She didn’t give a damn about their agreement. She’d not marry that man.

  How could she? Marrying him would be admitting defeat, and she was not prepared to do that. Besides, her dream of returning to Edinburgh was very much alive within her. It was that dream that had sustained her in the last few years.

  She’d spent a fortnight in Edinburgh ten or so years ago, before the family fortune had begun to disappear. It had been a magical place, teeming with people and arts and it seemed there was a soirée or gathering every night. Yet the best part about it was that no one in Edinburgh knew of or believed in old curses. They treated her as a person. Not like here in the lochs, where everyone looked at her as some sort of witch.

  She’d even had a pair of potential suitors in her short time there, and was convinced that, in Edinburgh, her whole life would change.

  No, she’d not marry Payton Douglas and remain in the lochs all of her days, where her life was so wretchedly confined. Every word she uttered publicly was guarded, every path she took hidden from superstitious eyes. It would be a joy to live in Edinburgh. It would be a joy to simply live!

  Mared fell asleep thinking of Edinburgh. But she dreamed she was walking along the banks of Loch Ard, in the company of a young man with golden hair who smiled at her and stole kisses from her. They walked until they came upon a rowdy crowd. When Mared moved closer to see what they were shouting about, she realized that they were to witness an execution.

  She looked up to the gallows and with a start recognized the first Lady of Lockhart, the beauty who had sacrificed all for love. Her hands were tied behind her back, and she was kneeling at a chopping block.

  Next to her was her lover, Livingstone, with a noose around his neck.

  As Mared watched in horror, the executioner hanged her lady’s lover. And as he twisted beside her, they lay the Lady of Lockhart’s head on the block. As the executioner lifted his blade, she screamed, “Fuirich do mi!”

  Wait for me….

  The blade came down and Lady Lockhart’s head dropped to the ground and rolled to Mared’s feet. Mared screamed and looked around for her beau, but she was suddenly alone. Yet her scream had drawn the attention of the crowd, and they turned on her, recognizing her as the daughter of Lady Lockhart. The accursed one, they said. Spawned by the devil and left to live with the devil.

  “A daughter born of a Lockhart will no’ marry until she’s looked into the belly of the beast!” an old woman spat at her, and the crowd began to chant that she must look into the belly of the beast as they advanced on her.

  Screaming, Mared ran with the murderous crowd on her heels. She ran until she reached the river, where the crowd kept coming for her, until Mared fell in. The water closed over her head and she sank to the murky bottom, struggling to free herself of her clothing. But she couldn’t hold her breath, and she was choking for air.

  With a gasp, Mared suddenly rose up in her bed, her hands at her throat, and the bed linens twisted around her body. Her forehead was wet with perspiration.

  She caught her breath, took several deep breaths more, then slowly untangled herself from the bed linens. Unsteadily, she stood, walked to the hearth to stoke it as she willed her heart to stop pounding.

  The dream had shaken her badly. It always did.

  Payton Douglas would not hold her here. She would not be held captive in a land where she was despised. She would escape the lochs for Edinburgh and nothing would stop her.

  Two

  N ow that the betrothal date had been set, Payton thought it prudent to help Mared along to the inevitable end by making her feel less bartered and more admired. So he endeavored to court her…just as hard as she endeavored not to be courted.

  He’d sent dozens of Scottish roses to her, along with notes of his admiration. He’d also sent along two of the first bottles of barley-bree to be distilled on his land to her brothers and father. And he had dutifully and respectfully answered each and every one of her letters, of which there was quite a small pile mounting on the corner of his desk.

  His cousin, Miss Sarah Douglas, educated in France and now residing in Edinburgh, had come to Eilean Ros to help him find a replacement for his longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Craig, who had died recently after years of faithful service. Since arriving, Sarah had witnessed, with much exasperation, his considerable efforts to woo Mared. Even now, she was pouting atop her little sorrel, riding next to him as they had a look about the estate. “I don’t know why ye must go through with this,” she complained to Payton, who rode his big bay hunter.

  “Why? I’m no’ a young man, Sarah. I am two and thirty. If I am to leave an heir to the Douglas fortune, I best be about it.”

  “Yes, but with someone else, please. Perhaps it would be wiser to consider this one for the position of housekeeper. At the very least, she’d be an improvement over the half-wits and simpletons we’ve spoken to thus far.”

  Payton gave his cousin a sharp look. “That is the future Lady Douglas ye speak of, so be kind, Sarah. She’s no’ had an easy life here in the lochs, and she may no’ be as tender as ye are, but she’s deserving of yer esteem nonetheless.”

  Sarah shrugged. “Perhaps she deserves my esteem, but I can’t think why she should deserve such respect from ye, then. Really, Payton—marry her? She’s a Lockhart!”

  Payton suppressed a smile at that—Mared Lockhart may not have earned his esteem, but she had earned his respect years ago. “The time has come to put aside those old feuds. They’ve no bearing on the present or the future.”

  And besides, there was something about Mared Lockhart that had attracted him long ago, when they were children. He could remember, as a young lad, wanting the sweetmeat she had held, taking it from her little hand. Mared did not cry, nor did she run to her governess. No, Mared had felled him, a boy who was a full four years older than she, by pushing him into the thistle, then falling upon him and pummeling him until her brother Liam pulled her off.

  And when he began to become more aware of the fairer sex, it had been Mared’s blossoming and the small buds of her breasts that had afflicted his young dreams. He’d longed even then to touch her.

  But it wasn’t until years later, when he was a young man and Mared had grown into a beautiful yet untouchable woman—thanks to a bloody curse that seemed to have developed a life of its own—that he had fallen in love with her. It had been her indomitable spirit that had done it.

  By then, he’d begun to notice how the suspicious crofters closed their doors when she walked by, had heard them warn their children to steer clear of her. He knew that most of the villagers of Aberfoyle whispered behind her back and avoided her at social functions. Though most people around the lochs treated her as a pariah, he’d come to respect her dignity in the face of such ignorance.

  He’d first realized he loved her one evening almost seven years past, on the occasion of her first and twentieth birthday, when he had kissed her for the first time. It had been an impetuous act, one of sheer madness…but in that moment, he had felt her firm body respond to his, had felt her rise up to meet him….

  And then she’d bitten his lip.

  Aye, on that momentous occasion, Payton had come to desire her.

  Mared Lockhart was, to him at least, the only spot of color in a gray world, the only shimmering sign of life in a bucolic existence. The insistent flame sparked in him that sultry summer night seven years past had not died, but had kept burning bright for the one woma
n in all of Scotland who did not esteem him, Laird Payton Douglas of Eilean Ros.

  Just the thought of it made him chuckle again.

  “Why do you laugh?” Sarah demanded.

  “I’ve really no idea,” he said cheerfully and turned his attention to the lane as it widened around a stand of oaks, and Eilean Ros came into view.

  His estate was not really what the name, Island of Roses, implied, but it was built out on a piece of land that jutted into Loch Ard. It was a grand home nestled beneath Scots pines, built two hundred years ago by the fifth laird Douglas. When Payton’s father, the ninth laird Douglas, had inherited it, he had dreamed of creating a palace at the foot of the Highlands and had started extensive renovations. He’d died before he could see them through.

  Upon his death, Payton had become the laird and had completed the renovations. The work had added another wing to the house, and it now boasted fourteen bedchambers, three salons, and more sitting rooms, dining rooms, and studies than Payton could count. It was indeed a Highland palace. No other Scottish abode could boast such grandeur.

  Nor, Payton reckoned, was there another Scottish abode that sounded quite as empty as his.

  Time and again, he’d walk the long corridors of his home, hearing nothing but the click of his boot heels on the stone and wooden floors. He had an almost desperate desire to fill that empty sound with laughter and voices and warmth. When his brothers had gone out into the world—Lachlan to India, Padraig to America, he had remained behind as the sole Douglas and heir of Eilean Ros, destined by his firstborn status to carry out the family duties and name. It was, he had come to realize, his cross to bear in some respects. His was a rather lonely existence.

  Now, as he and Sarah rode around the stand of oaks, they could see the entire length of the house…and the donkey tethered beneath the shade of an oak tree, beside a cart that looked positively ancient.

  “Oh no,” Sarah sighed, scowling at the cart. “I shan’t believe they arrived in that.”

  “Be kind, Sarah,” Payton warned her and set his horse to a trot.

  Mared and her twelve-year-old English niece, Natalie, were standing beneath a towering portrait of the eighth Lady Douglas, Lord Douglas’s great-grandmother, as a pair of servants bustled about, preparing the room for tea under the watchful eye of the butler, Beckwith.

  “Her husband killed our great-grandfather in a duel,” Mared whispered to Natalie as she stole a glimpse of Beckwith over her shoulder.

  “A duel?” Natalie gasped, her blue eyes lighting up.

  “Aye. They’re a sorry lot, the Douglases. Never forget it, lass. This one’s husband called out our ancestor for merely having fallen in love.”

  Natalie looked up again, her mouth open.

  “I trust ye gave her a fair accounting, Miss Lockhart.” Payton Douglas’s voice boomed behind her, startling Mared and Natalie both. Neither of them had heard him approach across the Wilton carpet.

  Mared slapped a hand over her heart. “Diah, sir! Have a care! Ye might have frightened us to death!”

  He smiled wickedly and leaned forward, his deep slate gray eyes peering intently at her. “Ye did give the lass a fair accounting, did ye no’?”

  All right. So her great-grandfather had loved the woman in the portrait. But honestly, the poor woman had been locked in a horrible marriage—who could blame a Lockhart for desiring to give her a spot of happiness in her bleak existence? “Aye, of course,” she said, and with a brazen smile, she sank into an uncharacteristic curtsey and glanced up coyly. “Do ye doubt it?”

  He cupped her elbow to lift her up, and there his hand remained as his gaze dipped languidly to the décolletage of her gown. “When it comes to ye, lass, I doubt even my sanity.”

  Then she was doing something quite right. It brought a smile of satisfaction to her lips, and she put her arm around Natalie, pulling her into her side, forcing his hand from her elbow. “Ye recall our Miss Natalie?”

  Natalie dropped into a perfect curtsey. “How do you do, my lord,” she said in her English accent.

  With a charming smile, Douglas took Natalie’s hand and bowed low over it. “I do very well indeed,” he said, and kissed her small hand. “’Tis a pleasure to have such a beautiful lass at Eilean Ros.”

  Natalie’s face lit up at that. Aye, that was Payton Douglas, was it not, as charming as the day was long? But then he turned his attention to Mared again, his gaze sweeping the length of her in a way he had of making her believe he could see every bare inch of her, and with a smile that Mared half-expected to melt her gown right off her shoulders.

  “May I remark,” he said low, “that I canna recall when I last saw ye adorned in such a bright color…or ribbons,” he added, lifting a curious brow.

  Honestly, couldn’t a woman don a lovely, albeit borrowed, yellow day gown without astounding the entire region? “Neither can I recall, milord,” she responded breezily, “for I canna recall the last time I saw ye.” She smiled, pleased with her own wit, and before he could speak, Mared gestured to Beitris.

  Beitris, who was blond and petite, looked as bonny as a portrait sitting on one of ten Queen Anne chairs that lined the silk-walled room, her hands clenched in her lap. “What good fortune that I was able to coax Miss Crowley from Aberfoyle, aye?” Mared asked grandly. “I know that ye’ve grown quite attached to her and thought to be kind to ye, sir, and arrange for ye to enjoy her company again.”

  “Frankly, ye’ve been exceedingly kind with Miss Crowley’s company for quite some time now,” he said, but instantly broke into a warm smile and was striding across the room, his legs long and powerful in Wellington boots and buckskins that hugged him like a glove.

  Mared did not care to look at him…but she could hardly help herself. He wore no coat, no waistcoat, but a plain white lawn shirt. His golden brown hair had grown long, past the collar. If she were the sort of female to be interested in this man’s appearance, which she was decidedly not, she’d have no choice but to think him quite handsome.

  Beitris, the poor darling, must certainly have thought so, for she all but melted in her silk-upholstered chair. She tried not to look at the laird, but of course, she couldn’t help but look at him, for the Douglas was, if nothing else, a very commanding figure of a man.

  Beitris quickly came to her feet as he reached her. “Milord, thank ye for accepting our call.”

  He grabbed her hand and bent over it. “The pleasure is indeed mine, Miss Crowley.” He touched his lips to her knuckles, and Beitris’s fair skin turned pink.

  “Payton! Oh dear, did ye not change yer clothes to receive our guests?”

  It was Miss Douglas, a slender, fair-haired woman who seemed positively dwarfish next to her cousin. She entered the room wearing an expensive riding habit.

  “Sarah, allow me to reacquaint ye with our neighbor, Miss Lockhart.”

  Mared curtsied alongside Natalie and inquired politely, “How do ye do, Miss Douglas?”

  “Quite well. Thank ye, Miss Lockhart.”

  Was it her imagination, or did she detect a hint of disdain in the voice of the fancy woman from Edinburgh?

  “And Miss Crowley,” Payton added. “And of course, Miss Natalie Lockhart,” he said with another warm smile for the blonde-headed girl.

  Miss Douglas nodded at the child, then made a show of fanning herself. “Please do sit, ladies. Tea should arrive shortly. I hope ye will forgive our attire,” she added, casting a disapproving look at Payton’s buckskins and lawn shirt. “We just returned from a ride about the park. I daresay we did not expect ye quite so promptly,” she said and took a seat on the divan whose plush velvet upholstery looked very new. Rather, Miss Douglas took all of the divan, sitting directly in the middle of it, leaving no room on either side of her.

  Beitris sat gingerly on the edge of a matching settee. When Natalie moved to sit beside her, Mared quickly redirected her to a chair, so that the seat next to Beitris was left vacant.

  That left only her and Payton standi
ng, staring at one another across the room.

  He flashed that devilish, charming smile again, the one that made her skin tingle, and politely motioned to the seat next to Beitris.

  A smile curved the corner of Mared’s lips, and she sat hard next to Natalie.

  Payton’s smile deepened, but he obliged her nonetheless by sitting next to Beitris and stretching his arm across the back of the settee, which, naturally, made Beitris blush and drop her gaze to her lap.

  “I donna recall if I’ve mentioned that Miss Crowley has just this spring come from her studies in Edinburra,” Mared said smartly, and glanced at Miss Douglas. “Her father is a solicitor in Aberfoyle.”

  “Is he indeed?” Miss Douglas asked indifferently, studying a fingernail. “I should think there’d be little call for a solicitor in a village as small as Aberfoyle. There are certainly no housekeepers to speak of.”

  “Yer father must be quite delighted ye’ve come home, Miss Crowley,” Payton said. “I’d wager he’s found himself rather suddenly in the company of all the young bachelors in town, aye?”

  Beitris flushed so badly that Mared feared she might faint. Aye, but wouldn’t that be lovely! If she fainted, Payton would be forced to revive her…. Faint, Beitris!

  Beitris did not faint. She merely squeaked, “I, ah…I wouldna know, sir.”

  “Indeed he has, for Miss Crowley is quite accomplished,” Mared cheerfully interjected. “She’s perfectly brilliant on the pianoforte, and she speaks French fluently, and she’s rather remarked upon for her archery on the left banks of the lochs.”

  Payton glanced at Mared, his gray eyes blazing with amusement. “Quite impressive. Personally, I find education—as well as the ability to use a bow and arrow—to be quite attractive in a woman.”

  “Ah, here is the tea,” Sarah said, and rose gracefully from her seat to attend it as a footman, under the eagle eye of Beckwith, entered with a large and heavy silver service, piled high with fine china tea pots and cups and a plateful of biscuits—what would have been a veritable feast at Talla Dileas.