Awakening His Highland Soul (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance)

by Maddie MacKenna

  “It is I, Jeames, Miss Turner. May I come in?”

  To her shock and discomfort, Beatrice felt herself flush slightly at the sound of the deep Scottish voice. She had also, she realized, sat up a little straighter in her chair.

  “I–um, yes–yes, of course,” she stammered.

  I can perform tricks on horseback in front of hundreds of people most nights, but turn into a stuttering mess at the sound of this man’s voice? What is happening to me?

  Jeames entered the room, his strapping frame seeming to fill the doorway. He closed the door softly behind him and stood with his hands on his hips, regarding Beatrice where she sat, taking her ease in the armchair.

  It cannot be denied that a young man in his prime, standing in the light of a flickering fire and dressed in a kilt, is quite an impressive sight.

  “And how dae I find ye, Miss Turner?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, I suppose. I have just been resting.”

  Jeames nodded.

  Beatrice sensed a certain ill-concealed eagerness around the young Highlander, something akin to boyish excitement.

  “Oft,” her riding tutor had once said to her, “age is confused with maturity.”

  It was a phrase that had stuck with Beatrice over the years, and it popped unbidden into her mind just at that moment.

  I think old Rose had been referring to horses, but I don’t doubt that the same logic could be applied to men.

  “Can I help you at all, Mr. Abernathy?” Beatrice asked.

  Jeames seemed to come to himself.

  “Oh, aye,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Well, I was just wonderin’–ye havenae taken yer evenin’ meal yet, have ye?”

  “No.”

  “Excellent. Well, if ye’d be so kind, I’d love tae show ye somethin’ that I doubt ye would have ever seen afore. A show of sorts. We can eat whilst we watch.”

  Beatrice’s eyes narrowed. Jeames’s own eyes were shining with a sort of impatient excitement that told her it was only his gentlemanly upbringing that was stopping him from telling her to hurry up and come with him.

  “Where do you want to take me?” she asked. Despite her intrigue, the thought of going back down all those stairs was not one that appealed greatly to her. “Must we descend to the main keep?”

  “Ah, nay, that’s the beauty of it,” Jeames said. “We’ll actually be goin’ up tae the battlements at the top o’ this tower.”

  “The roof?”

  “Aye. Which reminds me, best ye bring a warm cloak with ye.”

  “A warm cloak?” Beatrice said, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “I must confess that, since I left the circus in haste, I forgot to pack.”

  Jeames looked about the room, strode over to the bed and grabbed a woolen blanket from the foot of Beatrice’s bed. Then he turned, and there was something new in his eye, something that transcended the societal boundaries between Laird’s son and English commoner.

  He tucked the blanket under his arm, walked over to the stand in front of Beatrice and held out his hand.

  “Will ye trust me, Miss Turner?” he asked. “Will ye come wi’ me? I swear tae ye that ye’ll nae regret it.”

  Beatrice looked at the large, callused hand that he offered to her. It was quite steady. There were little white scars across the backs of some of his knuckles, that she could pick out in the firelight.

  “Very well,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand. “I shall accompany you.”

  It turned out that the roof was far fewer flights of stairs upwards from Beatrice’s chambers than the entrance hall was downwards. When they reached the top of the third and final staircase–a winding one that Beatrice thought that Jeames might get stuck in–her ankle was causing her quite the deal of pain. Staunchly though, she bit back her complaints. She would wait to see whether what Jeames had to show her was worthy of complaint before doing so.

  Jeames applied a shoulder to the door at the top of the staircase and shoved it open. Then he helped Beatrice up the final few steps and she stepped out into the chill night air.

  After spending all day in her snug chambers, the wind that blew across the battlements at the top of this tower acted as a reviver of sorts. The Highland breeze filled her lungs, pure and cold as a stream out of the hills.

  “Over here,” Jeames said, indicating a nook where two of the battlement walls met.

  Beatrice, on hobbling over, saw that there were thick iron bars set into the floor of the overhanging part of the battlement.

  “Sit down here,” Jeames said. “We’re just in time!”

  Beatrice gulped. As hardy a woman as she was, she was not a great one for heights. The iron bars of the grating, clearly designed as a means to drop boiling water or oil onto any attackers that managed to get into the main bailey of the castle, gave an unimpeded and dizzying view of the courtyard far below.

  Squinting, Beatrice saw that there was a crowd of people gathered around three other people in the middle of the courtyard.

  “What–?” she began to ask, as she sat down and leaned against the wall, continuing to observe the scene through the grate.

  “Just wait a wee moment and listen, lass,” Jeames said. He pushed a small basket across to Beatrice, and she saw that there was a selection of cold meats and hard chesses and bread inside.

  Then the bagpipe sent its first haunting note quivering through the air.

  Of such ethereal and melancholy beauty was that one drawn-out note, Beatrice actually gasped and clutched instinctively at Jeames’s arm. The note seemed to stretch out like silver into the brisk Scottish night, as hard and cold as the stars above.

  As that note faded, the next rose ghost-like to join it and the another.

  I don’t think I have ever heard anything so moving before. Never heard anything so beautiful and so sad.

  A few subtle notes from the harpist thrummed into life, reverberating off the stone walls so that they were carried even to where Beatrice and Jeames sat like statues on the battlements.

  Then Beatrice’s mouth fell open and she gaped through the grate, as a female voice unlike any voice that she had ever heard rose into the night.

  “A ghaoil, leig dhachaigh gum mhàthair mi,

  A ghaoil, leig dhachaigh gum mhàthair mi…”

  Beatrice had no idea what the Gaelic lyrics meant, but it was immaterial. The words, the melody, and the instruments all seemed to weave themselves into a spear that pierced right into the very fabric of Beatrice’s soul. It was the kind of music that called to her across the ages and across generations.

  To her astonishment, she realized that there were tears prickling the corners of her eyes, so moved was she.

  “What–what does it mean?” she whispered to Jeames, not taking her eyes off of the woman singing.

  “Basically,” Jeames said in a low voice. “It’s the tale of a young lass who encounters a kelpie–a waterhorse, ye’d call it.”

  “What’s a kelpie?”

  “A creature who is said to lure unwary travelers onto its back fer a ride, then dive with ‘em to the bottom of lochs or rivers, drown ‘em and tear them asunder.”

  Beatrice started from her trancelike state.

  “And that is what this song is about?” she asked.

  “This song is about a young lass who meets one o’ these creatures. She pleads wi’ it tae let her go, tellin’ it that, if it daes nae let her go, her three brothers will avenge her and kill it.”

  Beatrice frowned. “But the music…the singing…It’s all so heart-breakingly beautiful. Yet the song is full of violence.”

  “Aye. Beautiful and dangerous, sad and yet filled wi’ hope, and sung in such a wondrous way that ye almost feel that ye’ll start bleedin’ from the sweetness of it.”

  Jeames sighed and smiled.

  “It’s a song that captures the very spirit o’ the Highlands themselves.”

  Beatrice marveled at the juxtaposition of the lyrics and the actual sound of the song i
tself. The harp and the bagpipes and the woman’s evocative voice blended and seemed to fill the whole courtyard, wrapping the people and the buildings themselves up in their spell.

  As the song wound to a close, Beatrice realized that Jeames was singing along softly. Listening more carefully, she made out that the words were in English: he was translating for her.

  “My mother promised me a gown,

  Decorated with the newest of ribbons,

  And she promised me a new plaid,

  If I return home the way that you found me.”

  And with that, the words and the music faded, and the night seemed suddenly a more lonesome and empty place than it had been before.

  Beatrice huddled closer to Jeames. She took a small chunk of sheep’s cheese from the basket but did not eat it.

  “That was…that was…” she tried.

  Jeames nodded and patted her hand. “Aye, ‘twas that. Sometimes, words daenae do things justice dae they?”

  Beatrice shook her head. She was finding it quite hard to frame her thoughts after the performance. From down below came the patter of applause from the assembled watchers.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you dragged me up to this windy, cold spot to witness that.”

  Jeames started. “Beatrice,” he said, “I apologize, I got tae caught up in the music. Here, put this on, afore ye catch yer death o’ cold.”

  He threw the woolen blanket around her shoulders.

  “Will you be alright?” Beatrice asked. She found that her heart had become a very tender place since that song had woven its magic over this little corner of the Scottish Highlands. She felt a lot less ill-disposed towards Jeames than she had done in her room earlier.

  “Do you not want to share this rug with me?” she asked.

  Jeames looked at her and then smiled. “Nay, thank ye. Tis a balmy Scottish night tonight!” He laughed. “Ye may nae think so, but this is almost like a spring eve fer the like of us!”

  Beatrice nodded, trying to ignore the feeling of disappointment that had crept into her stomach.

  “Thank you for this,” she said again, annoyed that she could find no better words to offer Jeames. She opened her mouth to say something else, but Jeames inclined his head towards the grate and said, “It’s nae over yet lass…”

  The next song came alive so spontaneously that it was almost as if it burst from the very stones of the castle itself or emanated from the hills of the surrounding country. It was another sweet, sad song, with barely any musical accompaniment.

  “What is this one about?” Beatrice asked. The song was so lovely that she felt an almost irrepressible urge to huddle into Jeames, to get close to him so that they could share this magical moment.

  Jeames smiled again. “Tis a very old song, this one. An old lament written in the year of our Lord fifteen–hundred and seventy by the widow of a MacGregor clan chief.”

  “It’s a song for the clan chief?” Beatrice asked.

  “Nay, it is fer the widow’s child that the song laments,” Jeames told her.

  Somehow, strangely, the music and the sublime Gaelic lyrics made her homesick for a place that, up until a few days ago, she had never been and, what was more, was still currently residing in.

  How to describe the feeling? It’s like the music has awoken a bond for this land that had lain dormant and unknown inside me for years.

  “The child died too?” Beatrice asked.

  “Aye, the child was the heir tae the Lairdship and so was murdered along wi’ the Laird.”

  Beatrice shook her head once more at this.

  “Another traditional Scottish bedtime song?” she asked with a wry smile.

  Jeames snorted but did not take his eyes from the singer below. “Aye, that’s about the long and short of it,” he said.

  Beatrice could not be quite certain how long the two of them sat up on those battlements for. The music robbed her of the notion of time. She ate and drank a little bit, but mostly she feasted on the music and voice of the woman below. After what might have been only a few songs or a hundred, Beatrice stirred.

  Did I fall asleep?

  She was very warm and feeling very safe.

  I feel as if the music led me along the tightrope that lies between the waking world and dreams.

  With a dull thrill of consternation and gladness, Beatrice realized that she had been dozing under one of Jeames’s arms. Her head had been lying on his chest!

  Making a bit of a show of seemingly waking up, Beatrice sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  “My goodness,” she said, “I think I might have fallen asleep, or into a light doze, but the music carried on playing through the pathways of my dreams. Does that sound silly?”

  Jeames was looking at her with a slightly bemused expression on his face. Beatrice had the rather uncomfortable feeling that he knew exactly what she was doing: avoiding the awkwardness of having been snuggled right up to a comparative stranger.

  “It doesnae sound silly at all, lass,” he said. He stretched his neck from left to right. “Ye wouldnae be the first tae be ensnared by the magic o’ the Highlands. It’s a wild and dark and wonderful place. The poetry, tales, and music reflect that.”

  The Highlander got to his feet, tidied up the basket of food, which was hardly touched, and helped Beatrice to her feet.

  To her surprise, the equestrienne found herself as stiff as if she had spent all day in the saddle.

  “How long were we listening for?” she asked.

  “A goodly while,” Jeames said. “Dawn is nae far away, I reckon. Best we get ye back down tae yer room. I’ll leave the provisions with ye, should ye get hungry in the night. Ye need tae eat tae keep up yer strength and tae mend, otherwise that Mr. Ballantine will have me guts fer garters!”

  And, with that, they left the roof and stepped back into the warmth of Castle MacKenzie.

  Lying in her bed some few minutes later, it was not long before the memory of that haunting music lulled Beatrice into the most peaceful and soothing sleep that she could ever remember enjoying.

  8

  The following day saw the heavens over the Highlands open. The skies darkened to a slate gray, the clouds massed until they melded into one sheet of impenetrable lead-colored wool and the rain came down. It was the sort of patient, steady rain that meant to set in all day, and was in no rush to clear off.

  Beatrice was sitting by the cozy fire, nursing a nice, warm mug of mulled cider. There was no wind to blow the rain about and so she had the window open. It sounded like one, long, endless sigh coming in over the hills, as if everything that was green and growing was exhaling with relief and pleasure.

  The music of the previous evening was still running through her head.

  There came a knock on the door, a knock that she realized that she had been waiting for–hoping for.

  “Yes?” she said, her voice mellow and peaceful.

  Jeames entered. He closed the door behind him as he bade her good morning.

  “Good morning to you,” she replied, running her eyes over the Highlander. He was freshly and crisply dressed, but Beatrice noted that his hair was damp and slightly wild, as if he had just dried it off.

  “Have you been abroad this morning?” she asked him.

  “Aye, that I have.”

  “Even in this downpour?”

  Jeames laughed, and it was a one that seemed to come straight from the belly.

  “Ah, lass, somehow I’ve already started to forget that ye come from south o’ the border. Then ye say somethin’ like that and I’m reminded o’ how English ye really are.”

  “What do you mean?” Beatrice asked, taking a sip of her mulled cider and feeling the warm glow it left as it travelled down her throat to her stomach.

  “Just that out there is, as Scotch weather goes, nae bad weather at all. Aye, ye may get fairly wet if ye stay out in it fer long, but there’s nay wind. Endurin’ a wee bit o’ good Scottish rain when it
’s bein’ obligin’ enough tae just fall straight down is far less difficult than sittin’ behind me desk until luncheon.”

  Beatrice could not help but be disappointed by this comment, although she tried to keep this feeling out of her tone when she replied.

  “You’re busy this morning?” she asked.