by Alisa Adams
Highlander’s Lost Daughter
Alisa Adams
Contents
A Free Thank You Gift
Prologue
1. Tavia
2. Blair
3. The Cat
4. A Worried Mother
5. The Portrait
6. French Lessons
7. An Argument
8. Another Kiss
9. Man to Man
10. Love Letters
11. Tavia’s Nightmare
12. New Faces
13. Tavia’s Double
14. Revenge
15. Tavia’s Defiance
16. Sleeping and Talking
17. Finding Out the Truth
18. Last Piece of the Puzzle
19. Calum’s Plan
20. The Wedding
Highlander’s Daring Escape
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
A Free Thank You Gift
Also by the author
A Free Thank You Gift
Thanks a lot for purchasing my book.
As a thank you gift I wrote a full length novel for you called Rescuing The Highlander.
* * *
Click here to get you FREE book
* * *
Or use this link directly in your browser.
* * *
alisaadams.com/free
Prologue
The little girl was petrified as she clung to her mother, screaming. The turbulent green water, making a horrific boiling, bubbling roar, was above her chin, splashing into her mouth and nose, and making her choke and spit. It was freezing, churning around her and tossing her from side to side, up and down, so that she could not hold on to anything, and she looked around frantically for help or escape. Mammy and Da will keep me safe, she thought with confidence.
Like any four-year-old, her parents were the center of her life, her whole world, and the people she trusted and loved unconditionally. She would never be in danger as long as she was with them. She told herself this over and over again, but now, as she looked at her mother, she could see an expression on her face that had never been there before, one of utter terror. Where is Da? she thought, searching frantically for her big strong powerful hero, her father, the man who protected her from all harm.
She could see other people with their heads bobbing in and out of the water, all screaming, all with identical terrified expressions on their faces as they struggled to keep their mouths and noses above the water.
“Mammy!” she cried in her loudest, most piercing voice, but Mammy’s reassuring arm had slipped from around her waist, and she felt her lungs fill up as the green water closed over her head. Just then she heard a loud bump and the ship lurched forward as it hit something hard. She was thrown upwards and hit the side of the boat with her head. A great lump of pain hit her on the forehead, then she relaxed as blackness closed over her.
Archie Donald had watched the storm beginning to gather in the early afternoon. The ominous clouds began to darken the horizon just after midday, and he decided to make haste to gather the seaweed they ate and used for various medications before the tide turned. He put on his warmest cloak; it was almost the middle of the winter, just the day after New Years eve. He shivered; it was freezing, but he needed the seaweed, and he reasoned the longer he left his little foray, the more time it would take to be done, so he stepped out of the door of his cottage into the wild weather, bowing his head as the wind assailed him.
He went downhill at a trot, trying to get there and back as fast as his legs would carry him, but when he stepped onto the beach a horrific sight met his eyes.
The shattered hulk of a stricken ship lay stranded on the sharp, treacherous rocks a few hundred feet from shore, and it was obvious there were no survivors inside it. Pieces of the wooden hull and great lengths of sailcloth were strewn all over the sandy beach, with more wreckage being washed in every minute, but that was not the worst of it.
There were bodies scattered everywhere, and the villagers were already looting them, going through their pockets and clothing in search of valuables. From time to time one of them would stand up and shout in ghoulish triumph as they recovered a gold chain or a purse of coins. They were stripping rings from the corpses’ fingers, but if they were too tight, or the villagers were too impatient, they simply cut them off.
Archie felt like vomiting, but there was nothing he could do; there were two dozen villagers and only one of him, and he knew how mobs behaved. Besides, they were poor people and dead bodies no longer needed jewelry.
He sighed. He was not going to gather any seaweed today. He turned to go back home, and as he did, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. There was a small body lying very near the shoreline. As he walked towards it, he could see that it was a little girl, and she was moving, shivering uncontrollably.
Oh, God! he thought. Thank you!
The child coughed and her eyelids fluttered open, but the hazel-colored eyes that met his were glazed and unseeing. There was no time to waste. He wrapped her in his cloak and ran uphill all the way back home. Later, he would wonder what power had assisted him, since he could not even walk for long without becoming breathless.
He burst through the door and his wife Maureen started in fright, then, seeing the sodden little bundle in his arms, she came forward to look at her, her expression deeply anxious. However, Maureen Donald was not a woman who wasted time or panicked.
“Strip her and dry her by the fire,” she ordered, taking charge at once. “Her lips are blue—she’s frozen tae the bone, poor wee thing.” She went to fetch a thick wool blanket, and wrapped both of them in it so the little girl was warmed not only by that, but by her body heat.
They asked the girl her name, but she could not answer.
Archie and Maureen had been trying for years to have a baby of their own and had given up hope, but now Maureen, far more religious than Archie, saw God’s hand at work. She had fallen in love with the child the first moment she laid eyes on her, and now she knew why she had been without issue all her married life; it was because God had a plan for her and this child. It was their destiny.
“She is ours,” she whispered, kissing the little forehead.
Archie, gazing at his wife’s glowing eyes, was suffused with a deep contentment at seeing the joy that radiated from her. He knew as soon as he saw her that this was the child they had dreamed of, and now he smiled at Maureen and put an arm around her shoulders.
“Today is her new birthday,” he murmured. “What shall we call her?”
“Tavia,” Maureen replied, looking down lovingly at the little sleeping face. “Just because I like it.”
“Tavia it shall be, then,” Archie agreed.
1
Tavia
Tavia liked planting herbs. The effort involved was immense and her back was no stranger to the ache of prolonged effort, but she loved the feeling of the soft soil against her skin. Her hands were always stained and dirty, but she was happy—in fact, she was one of those fortunate people who were nearly always contented.
When she was working at a chore that needed little mental effort, she could let her mind wander and dream about the handsome man she would marry one day.
He would, of course, be tall and strong and would wield a heavy claymore to protect her from all harm. He would love her to distraction, and would kiss her a hundred times a day.
She had never been kissed except by her mother and father, but she was wise enough to know this was not the kind of kiss that men and women in love gave each ot
her. There was something mysterious that came afterward, but at the moment she had no idea what it was.
She would have no trouble finding a husband because Tavia Donald, at seventeen years of age and in the first blush of womanhood, was a joy to behold. She was small in stature, with a slight but shapely figure and a heart-shaped face in which were set her large hazel eyes, which sometimes shone gold in the sunlight. Her hair was golden too, and tumbled in shining waves down to her tiny waist. Added to that, her intelligence, sense of humor, and joie-de-vivre made her the perfect package of virtues for any husband to be proud of.
She looked up to see her father striding towards her, smiling.
“You have done well today, Tavvy,” he said approvingly. He helped her to her feet and she looked down at the neat rows of fennel seedlings she had just planted, and smiled.
“I did not realize I had planted so much,” she said in wonder. She wiped her filthy, sweaty forehead with an equally dirty hand. “I was thinking about a drawing I was doing and I forgot the time.” She laughed, her eyes lighting up.
Archie put his arm around her shoulders. He was often unable to believe that this clever, beautiful, spirited young woman was his own daughter, given to him as a gift from the sea.
They looked up at the sky, where one of the wild Highland storms was gathering its troops, preparing for an assault. The clouds were already the color of the charcoal she used for her drawings, massing in great heaps as they prepared to shed their load of freezing rain upon them.
“The garden is flourishing under your care,” he said proudly. “We have all our edibles and all our medicines here, Daughter. I am constantly amazed by how much you do in a day! I am so proud of you—did I tell you that?”
“Indeed you did,” she replied. “Today, yesterday, the day before that—” she laughed. “I am doing what any good daughter would do, Paw. Now, I am very hungry!”
Archie laughed. He was a small but sturdy man with a shock of bright red hair and merry blue eyes, and Tavia loved him, because he was her shelter from every storm, the bulwark against any of her fears. “When are you not very hungry?” he asked dryly. Tavia had a seemingly bottomless stomach. She ate a prodigious amount of food, but it never seemed to make a difference to her figure.
“You owe me a Latin lesson, Paw,” she reminded him. “We were not able to complete it the night before last.”
Archie looked at her and sighed. “You and your Latin!” He threw his hands in the air. “I know that it is useful in herb lore, but we are never going to converse in it, so why you need the verbs and grammar is beyond me!”
Tavia gave him a few firm pats on the back. “Perhaps you are getting old,” she suggested sympathetically. “You are almost forty, after all, Paw.”
“In my dotage,” he replied sadly, and they both laughed.
Archie had planned a future in the priesthood, but had abandoned the idea the moment he met Maureen. It was love at first sight the moment they met, and even the difference in their social rank had made no difference to them. However, his training had left him fluent in Latin and French, and he had the kind of medical knowledge that other practitioners only dreamed of. He had much less faith in God now, however, but he had an abundance of love in his life.
The house doubled as an apothecary’s shop, so when they stepped inside, their noses were assailed by a dozen fragrances at once: aniseed, lavender, sage, rosemary, thyme, and the less pleasant reek of garlic.
However, it was the yeasty, warm aroma of bread baking that made Tavia’s mouth water. She loved her mother’s bread, and the feeling of her fingers breaking through the dry resistance of the floury crust into the moist white filling below. Nobles might eat rich beef and haunches of venison, but to Tavia there was no finer feast than newly-baked bread with fresh, creamy butter, especially when it was liberally smeared with honey from their own hives.
Maureen smiled when she saw her daughter. She was a plump, prematurely gray-haired woman, with deep dark brown eyes and rosy cheeks. She came forward to embrace Tavia and then pushed her away a little to gaze at her disapprovingly.
“My goodness, hen!” she exclaimed, looking her up and down. She tut-tutted, but was smiling as she shook her head. Tavia worked hard, and getting dirty was one of those things that happened when you dug in the earth all day. “Ye look as if ye’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards!”
Tavia laughed at her mother’s strange but picturesque expressions. She had dozens of them, all funny or bizarre or grotesque, but always extremely descriptive.
“I will wash before supper, Mammy!” she laughed. “But I doubt the Laird will be dropping by for a glass of wine.”
“Oh!” Maureen put her finger up, remembering something. “I wis daein’ the flowers at the church an’ Nan Henderson telt me that the young Laird has moved back intae the castle again. He is very bonny-lookin’ so she says.”
“I have no idea why you are telling me, Mammy,” Tavia said in a disinterested voice. “He is very unlikely to come calling on me.”
“I dinnae see why no’.” Maureen raised her eyebrows. “Ye’re a lovely young lass, well-learnt, bonny, artistic—there is nae end tae yer talents, sweetheart. Ye can haud yer heid up above ony o’ they snooty noble lassies.”
“I think you love me too much, Mammy,” she laughed.
Just then the doorway was filled with the tall skinny bulk of Sam Anderson, a youth of seventeen who was the son of the local miller. He was bigger in height than any other man in the village, but in stature he resembled a long skinny tree branch. His hair was an indeterminate shade of brown, and his face was a mass of freckles and spots. He was good-natured to a fault, and Tavia was fond of him. Sam worshiped the ground she walked on and made no secret of the fact, so he was a frequent visitor to the shop.
“Tavvy,” he said shyly, “how are ye?”
“Well, Sam, and you?” she asked politely, smiling at him.
He blushed. “Well, thank ye. Mammy cannae sleep again, so I need a draught for her,” he replied. “Somethin’ that disnae taste too bad,” he added.
She bruised a bunch of lavender blossoms for him and put them into a small hessian sack. “Soak these in very hot water for a few minutes then strain them and drink them straight away,” she told him. “Your mammy will be asleep as soon as her head hits her pillow.”
“Thank ye, Tavvy,” he replied. He stood for a minute awkwardly shifting from foot to foot as if he wanted to say something else, but all that came out was “Good day, Tavvy,” then he turned and strode out.
“That boy is fair smitten wi’ you, lass!” Maureen laughed.
“Don’t start, Mammy!” Tavia replied. “I am not the least bit interested in all that love and marriage and baby stuff yet. I am but seventeen—there is ample time for all that!”
Maureen and Archie looked at each other. “You know there are a dozen young men who would walk out with you at any time,” Archie told her.
“So you keep telling me,” she sighed. “But I am not concerned with them. I want to draw, learn Latin and French, and read books. I want to do what men do, Paw. They are allowed to be clever. Why are women not?”
“Your mother is learned,” Archie pointed out. “She knows everything about herbs and medicines, and she knows how to talk to ordinary people, a skill I have not learned yet.”
“Mammy, you are the exception,” Tavia sighed. “Most women cook and do the washing and look after the children all day, and I want to be more than that. I want to be the best person I can be.”
Maureen gazed lovingly at her daughter. “Ye are a’ we love ye just as ye are,” she said, kissing Tavia. “But dae what makes ye happy hen.”
Tavia lay back in her bathwater and thought about her future. She had seen so many girls of her own age marry into lives of drudgery and endless childbearing, and that was not what she wanted for herself.
However, she did not fit into the working class nor the aristocracy, but was somewhere in between, and so
metimes she felt rather lost. Perhaps I belong in a big city, she thought, but the notion of moving to Aberdeen, Dundee, or Inverness held no appeal for her.
She sighed, got out of the water, and began to dry herself. Looking out of her bedroom window, she could see bulging, bruise-colored rain clouds overhead and already there was a steady drizzle. As she looked, the wind began to howl and toss the trees around.
This was when she felt uneasy and fearful. The eerie sound of the gale reminded her of something unpleasant, something she would rather forget, but the memory would not allow itself to be forgotten or properly remembered. It sat at the edge of her consciousness and refused to budge. Sometimes it came to her in nightmares, but when she was startled awake the image was gone, leaving only a feeling of utter helplessness and terror.
After she dried herself and dressed, she went downstairs and began to draw.
“What are you working on, pet?” Archie asked, coming to look over her shoulder.
Tavia had been commissioned by one of the local ladies to do a portrait of one of her cats, of which she had dozens, and if they kept breeding at the rate they were now, Tavia knew the lady would have to work for the rest of her life!
“You have a fine eye,” Archie said softly, kissing her hair.
“Thank you, Paw,” she replied. She looked up at him with a twinkle in her eye. “Is it not time for my French lesson?” she asked, for she loved the music of the language, and the strange consonant sounds that were so different to Scots.
