Consumed By The Lost Highlander (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance)

by Maddie MacKenna

  How she said the word Scot…she hates me people…

  As they continued to speak, he heard no mention of a male presence in the house. That was a bit strange. Was the aunt a widow and her niece unattached? He kept pretending to sleep when he heard the niece say, “He’s very handsome, Aunt. He probably has a wife and children waiting for him at home. I can see that as the reason to run for one’s life.”

  Duncan held in a snort. Wife waiting for me at home…I wish.

  “Should he be sleeping for so long?” the niece, Isabella asked, this time he felt her hand smooth his hair from his forehead. A soft scent of rosewater filled his nose as she came near. He even felt the heat from her body, “I know he is injured but…is that normal?”

  “I can’t tell,” her aunt replied, her tone grave. “Perhaps there is some internal injury we did not see. But Isabella,” and here, her voice changed to admonishing, “why were you out so early? I had expected to find you in your bed, not coming from the backyard with grass stains on your coat. You just arrived last night.”

  “I apologize Aunt but it is not in me to sleep past dawn,” Isabella softly explained, “I was still upset about Ralf’s deceitful actions so I decided to walk it out. I promise I won’t do it again.”

  “You better not. If this soldier could make it here, what’s to say others wouldn’t? And some of them might have…evil intentions, they could easily take you away,” the aunt said in one strict, admonishing breath. “But what is done is done, stay here, Isabella, I’ll go make us some nettle tea. If he wakes up, call me immediately.”

  He heard the scrape of the chair and the soft padding of feet out the door. With the aunt gone, Duncan decided it was time to wake up. He shifted his head to the side once and twice, then opened his eyes. His lids were heavier than he had expected them to be but the moment his gaze met the lass’ golden ones—a hue that literally stole his breath away—Duncan felt his heart grip. Instantly, he knew he was in trouble.

  The lass did not move but her eyes widened. The world seemed to narrow in on them, excluding all who existed, leaving just the two of them.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  Duncan thought of what to say. This was an English house, a home where the people that hated his kin lived. He needed an ally in this house until he was strong enough to leave and this lass was his best option. If he was proven wrong and this English lass, like the rest of her kin and country, hated him and his people, he could count it as that he had signed his death warrant.

  “I’m nay who ye ken I am, lass,” he whispered. “I’m nae English, but I am nay yer enemy either.”

  At the sound of his voice—not his voice, but his accent— her mouth slipped open and she yanked herself away from him, making him drop his hand. Then, they both heard footsteps coming toward them. The aunt came in, bearing two cups of tea and when she saw him awake, she tripped over her feet. Isabella rushed to help her over to a chair and she moved, Duncan saw the lovely curtain of hair flow with her.

  “He’s awake!”

  Isabella looked at him and then at her aunt. “Yes, Aunt Matilda, I was shocked too but he…” she looked at him again before swallowing, “he cannot speak, Aunt. I saw him try but he couldn't. Do you think that perhaps an injury to his head could have caused it?”

  “It’s possible,” Aunt Matilda said as she sat. Her skin was tanned perhaps because she was so close to the lowlands of Scotland, with dark hair like her niece, but her eyes were pale green-blue that had a hint of coldness to them. Her face also had soft lines of age and deep tiredness embedded in it. Clad in a dark, somber dress she sat with her hands cupping her tea. “The physician should be here soon. Isabella, you have not had any rest coming from Sunderland, you should go try to sleep.”

  Isabella turned those spellbinding eyes on him. “But Aunt—”

  “No, Isabella,” Aunt Matilda ordered in a no-nonsense tone, her face going hard with her authority. “You have had less than three hours rest. You came here past midnight and woke up before dawn, when you found him. It is past midday now, and you need to go and rest.”

  Looking between them again, Isabella sighed and stood to kiss her aunt on her cheek. “I understand, Aunt. I’ll help you with supper when I wake.”

  She left but lingered at the doorway to look over her shoulder at him. He felt his heart throb extra hard when she finally slipped away. He closed his eyes but he could feel the aunt’s eyes on him.

  Isabella…what have ye done to me?

  3

  Her footsteps were slow as Isabella walked away from the room. She had not wanted to go but her aunt had ordered her to and it made sense. She had risen early that morning as her body did not allow her to sleep past dawn and had gone to take a walk in the early day. It was not safe as she did not know the place but she had to do something to get the lingering stains of anger in her body out.

  She still had not come to the reality that Ralf had sent her away like an unwanted child being shuffled between distant relatives. The cold English—or was it Scottish—air was making it clear to her when she had seen the man, bloodied from head to toe, lying against the barn’s wall.

  Immediately, she recognized the English army uniform, and thinking he was a dead man, had screamed but had never expected his eyes to open. After clapping her hands over her mouth in shock, she still doubted her eyes. She was seeing a man with a head of thick hair the color of a raven’s wing, loose and tangled about his shoulders.

  When she had run for help and her aunt and two of her yard hands had followed them into the room the men had laid him in. She had left when the men stripped him of his shirt and cleaned off the splatters of blood from his body but when she came back, she had seen his body and felt her stomach tightening.

  He was tall, possibly past six feet with a body that was honed to perfection by years and years of training. His face sported a slightly crooked nose perhaps broken from a fight, noble cheekbones, thin firm lips, and some days’ worth of stubble on his square jaw. No English man she had ever seen—though she did not know many—had a physique like that.

  Then, he had opened his eyes and she had seen a hue of unfathomable blue that rivaled any precious gem. If that had not been enough, he had spoken and his voice had threads of—she was not even sure what to call it—wrap around her heart. His highland voice was so soft, lyrical, and entrancing she had felt mesmerized. He was a Scot in an Englishman’s uniform. That was a mystery she wanted to solve as soon as possible.

  Isabella took the wooden corridors toward the main staircase. Her aunt’s house was plain, a soft whitewash over the bare stones but nothing else. There were no paintings, no tapestries, and no ornaments at all, except the many plain wooden crosses, nailed to the walls.

  A thin dark strip of carpet was the only thing between her feet and the cold stones. In the main rooms, fresh rushes were on the floor but lines of dark English carpet were laid in the corridors. Her aunt’s house was a balanced mix of Scottish culture and her English blood.

  The rooms were sparsely furnished, with only the bare essentials; a bed topped with straw mats, a chest and a footstool. The walls were bare and though Isabella wanted to shy away from the issue staring her in her face, she was forced to admit that the bareness of the house spoke volumes of her aunt’s loneliness.

  She took the stairs to the room her aunt had given her last night. She did not really want to rest as the mysterious man in her aunt’s guest room had her mind spinning like a carriage wheel but she was not going to disobey her aunt. As she was about to disrobe, someone knocked and she went to open it.

  A young woman, probably a few years older than her, with dark hair and light blue eyes, dressed in servant browns curtseyed. “Good day, Miss, I am Agnes Polver, Miss Dellendine’s maid. She sent me to check if you needed anything.”

  “That’s very sweet of her but I don’t need anything right now,” Isabella said with a smile. “I’ll surely call on you if I need anything.”

 
Another curtsy, “Good day then, Miss.”

  Closing the door, Isabella disrobed, put on her night shift and braided her hair into one thick rope. Sliding under the covers, she turned to her side and examined the hand the Scot had held. She could still feel his touch, warm and callused with a soft strength to it. But what really made her shiver was his eyes.

  Blue, deep blue like the lochs that surrounded her aunt’s property on both sides. Never had she seen a man like him, but then again, she did not know men in general. What she did know was that no Englishman could walk near him when it came to looks or bearing. The man was injured but she hoped to see him back to his full fitness as soon as possible. She had a feeling that he would be magnificent.

  “A king resurrected from the old times…” she said while plucking at the sheets, “a warrior…fierce but gentle.”

  She had not believed herself to be tired but laying down on the soft bed had her drifting off. The journey from her coastal home had taken longer than expected and as her brother had almost accurately predicted, she had gotten at her aunt’s some hours to dawn. Thankfully, no wolves.

  Her sleep was light but long enough to have her walking up in the afternoon. Blinking awake, the first thought that sprang to Isabella’s mind was the Scot and if the physician had come. Dressing quickly, she hurried to the man’s room and but then hesitated while her hand rested on the latch.

  Was she ready to see him again? More importantly, was it worth angering her aunt if she got caught? Her aunt held onto every rule of propriety made from the dawn of mankind, and a principal one was that no unmarried woman should ever be in the presence of an unmarried man unchaperoned.

  But…I have to see how he’s doing…

  She pressed her ear to the door to listen in first then took in a deep breath and pushed the door in. The windows were shuttered and the man was asleep on the bed. She had come the wrong time and she began to backtrack out when his quiet voice came, “Nay…please come in.”

  She softly closed the door and took two steps closer to him. He was still topless and the sheet was resting on the jut of his hip-bones. Isabella bit a section of her inner lip. Her eyes skimmed up his ribbed stomach up to the broad spans of his upper chest. She saw a fresh bandage on his upper arm and realized the physician had come and gone. She came to the edge of his bed, but no further, “How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” he said, “much better, thanks to yer aunt’s generosity.”

  His voice pulled her and her knees rested on the edge of his bed, his head canted to the side, arresting her again with those eyes. He didn’t even have to reach out to her to have her sitting on the edge. Isabella felt like she was watching herself from afar. Having grown up mostly in solitude she was a bit cautious of most people, now she was getting close to a man she did not know and worse, he was a Scot; from the country that was in war with hers.

  “Aunt Matilda is a generous person,” Isabella agreed. “But don’t you ever dare take her kindness for granted or you’ll see another side of her.”

  “Is she yer mother’s sister or yer faither’s?” He asked.

  “Father’s,” Isabella replied. “But she moved away to here, to Cumbria, a long time ago, a year after I was born really,” pausing Isabella looked around. “I don’t know why she came all the way out here but I do know she’s lonely.”

  “And ye came out here to be with her,” he said.

  Not really, but you don’t have to know that, “Yes,” she replied. “You have me at a disadvantage, you know who we are but I don’t know anything about you.”

  “Really…” his smile was slow, crooked and utterly charming, “me name’s Duncan, and I—”

  They both heard footsteps coming toward them and she shot a panicked look to Duncan who shut up immediately. Isabella shot up and stepped away from the bed just as the door pushed in and Aunt Matilda’s strict voice snapped. “Isabella, what are you doing here?!”

  She turned to her aunt, trying to keep her voice calm, “I just came to see how he’s doing, Aunt.”

  “Well, you should not be here, and you know that!” Aunt Matilda said while reaching out to grab her hand. “Go to my room, I’ll speak with you there!”

  Nodding, Isabella ducked her head and left the room without a look back. She did not look back when she heard her aunt say something inside the room. Her voice was muffled but the tone was direct and straightforward. Isabella didn’t need to hear what she was saying to know her aunt was delivering a warning.

  She hurried to her aunt’s room, passing Agnes, the maid, on her way. She met the woman’s contemplative look for a moment but could only nod before she made her way up the stairs and to the last room on the floor. Entering the room, she began to pace knowing that she had earned herself an earful from her aunt.

  All I can do is stick to the truth.

  Her pacing stopped and she found a chair to sit. Her eyes moved to a large window and she drank in the lovely sight she saw far off. The window was faced to the north, toward Scotland and its majestic mountains rising into mist far off. Those must be the Highlands.

  She rose and went to the window, looking. As the house was nestled in a wide plain, she saw miles and miles of flat land, some of it broken by tiny hills and knolls along the way. Her eyes were tracing over the thick forests clothing the lands as they crept up the mountainsides when her aunt came into the room.

  “I do not ever want to see you back in that man’s room alone, do you hear me, Isabella,” Aunt Matilda ordered. “It is not good for a woman of your innocence to be with a man we know nothing of.”

  Wrong, I know something about him, his name is Duncan.

  “Aunt, please, I was only—”

  Matilda raised her hand up sharply, as was her gaze. “I do not care what you went there for, it is not safe and I will not have you go there on your own anymore.” Matilda said as she gestured for Isabella to sit, which she did, “There’s another issue I want to talk to you about.”

  Not sure what that was about, Isabella clasped her hands on her lap and nodded. “Starting from tomorrow, you are to wake up early and pray with me. I’ll need your help cleaning the house and attending various needs, but that is not all. Isabella, you are a young girl and I know you don’t know what is best for you yet. I’ve been told Ralf has arranged a most fortunate marriage for you and if you don’t accept it you might, not might, you will end up alone and with no money or prospects.”

  Irritation bubbled in Isabella’s chest but she swallowed her anger, “I assume he also told you that the man he had engaged me to or rather sold me off to, is three times my age and is rumored to have had a slew of women and bastard children before, but all are suddenly missing?”

  Her words clearly shocked her aunt, but the expression vanished from her face quickly, “Nevertheless, he is the best fitting for your hand.”

  “And my brother’s coffers,” Isabella rebutted. “He is only doing this for money, Aunt, money, soldiers, and acclaim. He does not care about me or what I want. He’s always been that way, Aunt, if you don’t know this before but Ralf has always been selfish. He looks out only for himself.”

  Matilda’s look was patient, “And what do you want, Isabella?”

  “In my family,” Isabella asked cautiously, “or in my marriage?”

  “Both, but let me see if I can take a guess at what you want in a husband,” Matilda replied while tucking her legs under her chair. “The prospective husband you’ll want is a strong man, old enough to be responsible but young enough to be fun and loving. You want someone with strong family ties but independent enough to defend you against any slurs his family might throw against you. You want someone handsome, a bit mysterious, caring, loving, wealthy, good tempered, and educated, but he is completely fictional.”

  Isabella had been following her aunt, checking off those points on her mental checklist as Matilda had gone down them, until those last words. She jerked away, feeling as if her aunt had just slapped her in her face
.

  “A man like that does not exist, Isabella.” Matilda continued calmly, “No man has all those aspects. You’ll find some with some and others with others, no one has them all. You will have to sacrifice what you want with what you will need and the three of them are: safety in a fixed home, financial security, and peace of mind.”

  “What about love?” Isabella asked after a moment of silence. “Should not that be important too?”

  “For those who find it, yes,” Matilda said and something flashed through her eyes before Isabella could catch it. “But for those who do not, we take safety before all others. You have to pick and choose the most important things.”

  “Love is important to me,” Isabella said. “I might be foolish in saying this, Aunt, but if he loves me, I’ll go with him, poor or rich. As for my family, I just wish that…” she sighed and looked to the window as dull pain and sorrow bubbled up in her heart, “I wish father or even mother was alive to stop all this madness.”

  “But they aren’t!” Aunt Matilda snapped. “Isabella, one day you will have to leave all these ideals behind and start looking at the reality before you have to face the cold hard truth all alone.” Again, Isabella saw something flash across her face but her expression grew cold and uninviting.

  “Aunt—” Isabella’s words were cut off by a knock on the door. Aunt Matilda looked up and gave permission to enter. Soon after, Agnes came in.

  She curtseyed, with her eyes down, “Pardon me for the interruption, Miss Dellendine, but the man we’ve rescued is awake. What should I prepare for him?”

  “Something easy,” Isabella blurted out even when she saw her aunt was about to speak, “like stew or soup.” She then slid cautious eyes to her aunt before she amended. “I don’t think he would be able to eat harder things now that he is injured.”

  Agnes nodded but looked to her mistress for confirmation as all trained servants would do and Aunt Matilda nodded, “She’s right, Agnes. soup or broth will be best.”