Awakening His Highland Soul (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance)

by Maddie MacKenna

  Waving swathes of bright yellow gorse hugged the almost vertical slopes directly below where they stood. This riot of flowering color looked like a golden waterfall falling down the cliff face. It met the rippling, rocky country of the moorland below and spread out in great splash of thinning yellow.

  It feels like I’ve ridden into a poem.

  The land itself reminded Beatrice of a picnic blanket hastily thrown out. It was rumpled and crumpled, made up of every shade of green that she thought there ever was. Great, dark gray granite boulders perforated the heath, jutting spikily through the greenery. And, through it all, a river ran. Beatrice could just make out its voice over the noise of the wind hissing through the heather and bracken.

  “It’s–it’s truly wonderful,” she managed to say. “Just…beautiful.”

  She saw, out of the corner of her eye, Jeames turn in his saddle to look at her.

  “Aye,” he said. “That’s the word for it right enough.”

  They rode in a wide circle for the rest of the morning through dales, down into glens and out of them again and past lochs of various sizes. Beatrice listened with sincere interest and delight as Jeames pointed out the wildlife, explained why some plants grew in certain places whilst others did not, and educated Beatrice on a few of the Highland myths.

  “Cu Sith,” Jeames told her, as they trotted companionably along by the side of a little brook, “is one creature that ye daenae want tae meet on a misty moor at night.”

  “Cu Sith? What’s that?”

  “It’s a large, green phantom dog that haunts the Highland regions. The size of a large calf it is, and what makes it so terrifyin’ is that it hunts in absolute silence.”

  “Oh, I know how to deal with the likes of that,” Beatrice said in an offhand voice.

  “Ye dae, dae ye?”

  “Of course. As soon as it pounces, you throw a stick for it and off it’ll go wagging its tail. Doesn’t matter the about the size or the color, a dog is still a dog at the end of the day.”

  Jeames laughed. “Are ye scared of nothing, Beatrice Turner?” he asked.

  “I try not to be. Fear can rule your life if you let it,” she replied.

  As they sat with their backs against the fallen trunk of an ancient oak tree and enjoyed a lunch of cold grouse, breads and goat’s cheese, Beatrice pointed out an eagle floating high above them.

  Jeames glanced up. “Nay,” he said. “That’s nae an eagle, lass.”

  Beatrice narrowed her eyes. “But look how it sits in the air. Surely, that’s an eagle? Besides, you only looked at it for a moment.”

  Jeames shook his head. “Nay, that’s a harrier hen. Ye can tell by the splay of the feathers at the wingtips.”

  Beatrice covertly watched the handsome Highlander’s profile from under her lashes. The man was quite an enigma to her. It seemed that he had layers upon layers. He was attractive–undeniably so–rough, weathered and roguish in his demeanor. But she also knew that he was tender-hearted and honest, as he had shown by the very act of bringing her back to Castle MacKenzie.

  Now I see that he’s knowledgeable, too. Learned in the ways of this land.

  There was no fooling herself that this glimpse into his personality struck a deep chord within her. She felt something stirring, a feeling that, when she had fallen off the horse, she would never have expected to feel.

  Perhaps it’s because it shows how deep a connection he has with this land, with the plants and the beasts and everything else under this sky. That’s something that I have never really had. The circus is not a place, so to speak.

  “You love it here, don’t you?” she blurted out suddenly.

  He turned. Held her eye for a long time, so that she realized that she had ceased to be looking at him in secret and was, in fact, openly regarding him with keen interest.

  “It’s me home,” he said simply. “It’s where I belong. Where me heart will always lie, whether me body rests here or nae. My feet might take me many long leagues away, but there’ll always be a part o’ me here. Likewise, I’ll always carry a part o’ this place with me.”

  Beatrice realized that they were sitting very close together. Their hands lay on the grass only a couple of inches from each other. Beatrice’s finger twitched. She suddenly ached for Jeames to reach out and take his hand in hers.

  “I’m jealous,” she said, in a quiet voice.

  “Jealous? Of what?”

  He really was very close. Beatrice could make the individual hairs in his rough, unshaven jaw. Could make out a faint scar running across his temple and into his eyebrow.

  “That you have such a place to call home. I wish I did.”

  “What about the circus?” Jeames asked.

  Vaguely, Beatrice realized that their faces seemed to be inexorably drawn closer and closer together.

  “It’s a place that I’ve lived for years,” she whispered. “A place where I spend my time. Not my home, though.”

  Jeames’s breath was warm on her cheek. “Well, lass, I reckon it’s never tae late tae start lookin’ fer the place that ye belong.”

  Beatrice closed her eyes, surrendered herself to whatever it was that was going to happen next.

  A sudden, dull crack of thunder burst from the heavens, so loud that it sounded like the very fabric of the sky had been torn apart.

  Beatrice’s eyes shot open. She saw Jeames jerk back from where he had been leaning towards her. They looked at each other. Then Beatrice laughed nervously. The spell, however, broke around them.

  Jeames got to his feet and held out his hand to her. Beatrice put her small, tanned hand in his callused palm, and he pulled her up as easily as he might a child. They stood close together and, for the space of time there is between heartbeats, Beatrice was sure that the big Highlander was going to kiss her then.

  Then Jeames smiled, looked up at the abruptly darkening sky and then back at her. Beatrice thought how fetching he looked, standing there with his raven hair blowing about his face like black flame.

  “Tell me, Miss Turner,” he said, his eyes shining with excitement. “Have ye ever tried tae outride a storm?”

  11

  The hooves of Jeames and Beatrice’s horses thundered over the soft turf as the two of them galloped as fast as they could back towards MacKenzie Castle. In their wake, the storm winds gusted the threatening thunderheads along, driving them over the Highland hill country. Forked lightning split the sky, threading through the leaden clouds like veins of silver through rock.

  Jeames looked over his shoulder as he urged his horse on. Beatrice was right behind him. Her dress was flying behind her in her speed and she was grinning from ear to ear.

  That woman was born and raised in the saddle. There’s nay doubt in me mind that she could outride me as easy as breathin’ if she fancied it.

  The two of them raced across the lush grass of the heath, whilst behind them thunder rolled and boomed through the valleys.

  “Can you feel the rain?” Beatrice shouted across from where she had pushed her mount up to run alongside Jeames’s. Even at a full gallop, the girl rode one-handed with complete ease.

  “Aye, I can feel it,” he said, a few stray drops speckling his face. “The storm’s an eager one. It’s nippin’ at our heels.”

  “Will we make it to the castle, you think?” Beatrice shouted.

  Jeames felt a sudden gust of icy cold wind roaring up from behind him. It blew up his coat and shirt, set his horse’s mane to blowing.

  Both his and Beatrice’s mounts seemed to understand what this meant because they both put on an extra spurt of speed. The bracken and heather flew underneath them as they tore around the bottom of a low hill and emerged onto a grassy flat.

  “Nay, we’re nae goin’ tae outrun it,” Jeames yelled.

  They crested a low rise and vaulted a hedge.

  Then Jeames saw the shepherd’s hut–a crude stone building built from river rock and thatched with turf and peat.

  “There!”
he cried, turning his horses head towards the shelter.

  When they were only a few moments away, the two riders were buffeted by another strong gust of wind. Then, with a shockingly icy abruptness, the rain hit them.

  Jeames had been expecting it but, even over the roar of the wind and the grumbling of the thunder overhead, he heard Beatrice cry out. He’d been caught in such deluges more often than he could remember whilst out hunting and riding, but it was never what he might call a pleasurable experience. Like jumping into a loch in mid-winter, only this was more like the loch jumping on top of you.

  Nay far now!

  The world had turned narrowed into a circle of visibility about twenty feet in diameter. Curtains of gray rain hemmed him and Beatrice in. Thankfully, after only a few seconds, the ghostly shape of the shepherd’s hut loomed out of the freezing gloom.

  Jeames sawed on his reins, bringing his horse to a sliding stop. There were a few stunted yew trees outside of the hut, and Jeames jumped off his horse, led it into the shelter of these trees and tied it to a low-hanging branch.

  Beatrice stopped just behind him. Without waiting for her permission, Jeames reached up, put his hands around her slim waist and lifted her down.

  “Get inside!” he yelled, his hair plastered to his head. “I’ll take care of yer nag!”

  The equestrienne, no less saturated than he was, nodded and limped as quickly as she was able to inside.

  Jeames tied the dejected looking horse next to his, muttered a hurried apology to both animals and dashed for the hut. He wrenched open the simply made door, ducked under the low stone lintel, and slammed it to behind him.

  * * *

  Beatrice looked up as the door to the shelter opened and the Highlander stepped inside. He closed the door and leaned against it.

  “Welcome,” he said, with his accustomed roguish grin, “tae Scotland!”

  Beatrice tried to smile back, but all that happened was that her teeth started chattering worse than they already were. Apart from her dress–the skirt of which she had hiked up to make riding easier–all she was wearing was a sort of thin woolen mantle. It had been warm enough for the weather they had left in but was now extremely wet and chilly.

  “Ah, lass, ye’re freezin’!” Jeames said.

  Beatrice tried to tell him that she was fine, but all that came out was a sort of garbled clattering sound as her teeth rattled in her head.

  It turns out that Scotland is the sort of place where you can experience all four seasons in a day.

  It was an interesting thought, though without much comfort just then.

  Beatrice stood with her arms wrapped about herself and leaning on against a wall to take some of the weight off of her injured foot. She watched as Jeames stripped off his coat and shook it out.

  The front of his white linen shirt, which had been exposed to the rain, was stuck to the front of his body. Beatrice could make out the clear-cut muscles of his shoulders and chest, the hard, defined ridges of stomach muscles that looked as if they had been hewn from rock.

  Beatrice had not had much to do with men–not in the romantic sense, anyway. Obviously, being raised in a circus, she had been around males all her life. Fit, muscular males.

  Never, in all that time, have I ever looked upon any of them as anything more than extended family members. Muscles have always just been a mark of how strong someone is and how likely they are to be able to control a panicking horse.

  She had never felt the swooping surge of hot yearning that rushed suddenly through her stomach and into her groin. For the merest instance, she stopped shivering.

  Then Jeames had wrapped his coat around her, rubbed her shoulders a few times, and then stepped away.

  “Are you…will you not be cold yourself?” she asked, pulling his damp coat around her. It was made of thicker material than her shawl and was mostly dry on the inside. It was also still suffused with Jeames’s own body heat.

  Jeames shrugged good-naturedly and stamped his feet. “A wee bit, perhaps, but it’s nothin’ that I havenae experienced before. These rains sweep up from the sea, into the hills, and give the Highlands a drenchin’. Should nae be too long before we can head back tae the castle.”

  They stood listening to the pounding of the rain on the earthen roof of the shepherd’s hut.

  “Will you not be missed?” Beatrice asked. Her shivering had abated somewhat.

  “Nay, I doubt that.”

  “Not even by the Laird?”

  “Me faither? Nay. Nay, he is a fine man, me faither. The finest man, I reckon. He kens people well–it’s what makes him such a popular and beloved Laird. He remembers what it’s like tae be young, and so he lets me come and go as I please.”

  “That’s very good of him,” said Beatrice. She crooked a smile at the Highlander. “He trusts that you won’t get yourself into trouble then?”

  Jeames smiled humbly back at her. “That’s just it,” he said. “The only thing he asks of me in return is that he be able tae trust me. And so, in everythin’ I dae, I aim tae make him proud, and never give him a reason nae tae trust me as I ken that I can trust him.”

  This is a man with big heart. A good heart.

  Beatrice felt that same swooping sensation in her insides again, only this time it was a little higher. It felt as if someone had touched off a spark in her breast, and it had kindled something that felt akin to joy and to hope and to happiness.

  The beginnings of love? Don’t be stupid! In a couple of weeks, you will be back to full health and on the road again. In a couple of weeks, this, whatever it is, will cease to be.

  “It must be nice,” she said. “To have someone that you love so, in your father.”

  “Aye,” Jeames said. “I’d count meself blessed if I turned out tae be half as good a man as he.”

  In an attempt to lighten the tone, Beatrice said, “Rather handy too, when it comes to missing dinner and things.”

  Jeames face took on a slightly pained cast.

  “Usually, yes,” he said. “But last night, me faither told me that Lady Margery would be joinin’ us at table. He expressly bid me nae tae miss it.”

  Beatrice frowned. Felt a stirring of unease in the pit of her stomach that she could not account for. “And who is this Lady Margery? She sounds a formidable woman.”

  “She is at that,” Jeames smiled. “Lady Margery is my betrothed.”

  * * *

  Jeames knew that he had said something terrible as soon as the words had left his lips. As soon as he saw the playful smile slide like cold porridge off of Beatrice’s face.

  “Your betrothed?” the equestrienne repeated.

  “I–uh–aye… My–my betrothed.”

  A long, brittle silence stretched between them, a silence that seemed to go on and on and fill with black ice.

  “You’re betrothed?” Beatrice said again.

  This time there could be no missing the anger licking around the edges of the words.

  “Aye, I am. Tae Lady Margery Brùn.”

  Jeames had the distinct impression that he should have said something about this far sooner.

  But when was the right time? There wasnae one.

  He had not meant to keep anything from this gregarious woman. The right moment just hadn’t presented itself. He had brought her back to MacKenzie Castle in an almighty rush and she had been whisked away. Then he had tried to ingratiate himself with her by showing her around his home, taking her on tours of the castle and just sitting with her and talking of this and that.

  There never seemed a point in which marriage or anythin’ like that had come up. I hadnae wanted the lass to get the wrong end o’ the stick, regardin’ my intentions.

  The problem with being a scrupulously honest man was that, even during times of introspection, Jeames found it almost impossible to lie to himself. He had a sneaking suspicion that the real reason that he had not said anything about his betrothal to Margery, to Beatrice, had been because he had been rather enjoyi
ng the enigmatic equestrienne’s company. Far more so, in fact, than he did Margery’s.

  Ye daenae even ken anythin’ about the women, man! Ye barely ken a thing about her past.

  Beatrice was everything that Margery wasn’t: vibrant, witty, courageous, although she was also prone to acting inexplicably reserved when it came to her past. Jeames liked her, but he also felt slightly guilty as his feelings betrayed the pact that had been made between his father and Margery’s.