Under a Highlander's Spell: A Steamy Scottish Historical Romance Novel

by Maddie MacKenna

  “Some people hate Warrior Kings while others love them, but one thing is for certain. They sing about Warrior Kings long after they are gone. Ye are a warrior king, Naomhan,” his father had said once to him.

  Naomhan crumbled onto his bottom against the wall of the house. The cries from within the house seemed to get louder and louder in his head. He knew he was supposed to cry even though it wasn’t the manly thing to do.

  “Ye have grown soft, son,” the late Laird would have said to him, without judgment.

  His father had always understood him and always saw things from an objective perspective. He would have charged Naomhan on his dying bed to protect his mother and brother with his life, and Naomhan would have gladly accepted that task. He had gotten strong, had sharpened his sword skills, so that one day he could be the shield for his people and his family.

  Naomhan’s eyes stung with withheld tears but he held them still. He could not cry, he told himself. He had to be strong for the mourning family. But why? He wondered. At home, he had to be strong. In Embleton also, he had to be strong for others. Was that his curse? He wondered to himself as he stared up the road that led away from the little town.

  His horse neighed to him and he knew he could simply get onto the horse and ride back to Scotland. With a sword in hand, he could fight his way through the soldiers, he believed. His hands clenched in a fist, an unfamiliar feel as his knuckles shaped up in readiness, before he released his fists again.

  He needed someone to talk to. The priest would have offered without much thought to be his rock but he did not want to talk to the priest. He wanted to talk to something who was still flawed like most humans and yet above them all. Theodora came to him again. The sun was slowly leaving the sky and though he had wished it as much as he had dreaded it, he had wanted her to come, riding on her horse.

  It was quite certain that she wasn’t going to come, though his eyes never left the road. He found that he wanted to see her. He needed to see her. She listened like no other and her eyes were alive, not like that of the priest whose eyes had become bland from all the evil and suffering they had beheld.

  Naomhan decided that he could not mourn his father that way, not in Embleton and not under the understanding eyes of Father Damian. He needed someplace he could yell. He needed someone he could swing a sword at, or someone who did not seem to understand his grief more than he did.

  Having come to a decision, Naomhan got up to his feet and made for his horse. He heard the sound of the door open behind him.

  “Naomhan!” He heard behind him but he did not look back. He untied the horse from the tree trunk and mounted onto its back.

  Father Damian stood outside the house looking at him with a face that held no question. Naomhan had come to dislike that look; the look that knew all and understood all. It seemed the priest knew what he felt, understood the thoughts that must have gone through his mind before he had come to his decision.

  Naomhan kicked the horse without a word and rode away. He rode as fast as he could away from the priest because he feared he would have flared up if the priest had said anything.

  “Do what you must and return,” he feared the priest might have said.

  Naomhan kicked the horse to go even faster as he tried to outrun himself and his problems—his lost integrity, the death of his father, his desire for Theodora, and his weakness to be able to protect his family.

  He knew where he was going and knew he should not be headed in that direction. No good would come of it, even he knew that. He rode still because he needed to follow the words of the wind.

  He should not have been headed in that direction, he knew.

  14

  “Good morning, daughter, how was your night?” Mrs. Kent greeted her daughter with a broad smile. Theodora seemed a tad troubled by the expression on her mother’s face.

  “What are you doing here, Mother?” Theodora asked as she slowly rose and observed her overly excited mother. Her mother had seldom come into her room early in the mornings after her nineteenth birthday. A woman deserves her space, her mother had said then—until Theodora awoke to find her mother seated on her bed next to her that morning.

  Theodora wanted to go back to sleep but she could not, not beneath the stare of her mother and the morning light from the pulled-back curtains. She wanted to roll around in her bed and yell in frustration but she could not enact such displays in front of her mother, so she willed herself to be calm.

  “Did you dream sweet dreams?” Her mother asked her with the same glee. Theodora found herself becoming even more confused. What is happening here? She asked herself. There was a bit of mischief glimmering in her mother’s eyes that she had not seen in a long time.

  “Mother, you are scaring me,” Theodora told her mother.

  Mrs. Kent shifted until she was closer to Theodora on the bed. “Can I not be happy to see my daughter in the morning?”

  No, Theodora wanted to say but she didn’t.

  “You just remind me so much of myself sometimes when I was younger and new to love—” Theodora didn’t let her mother finish her sentence before she jumped off the bed and ran to the desk—the letter. It wasn’t there.

  “What happened to the letter, Mother?”

  “Your father had to leave early this morning, so I decided to come in and get the letter for him,” Her mother’s smile widened. Theodora sighed and sank in her chair. Her mother had read the letter before she had taken it down to give it to her father.

  “You need not be ashamed about it. I just could not help myself. I apologize for being so curious but I won’t be so sad about it if I were you. When I was being courted by your father, I would have run up a hill and screamed at the top of my voice that I was in love with him,” Mrs. Kent recounted.

  That did not make Theodora feel any better. Her face fell so visibly that even her mother noticed. She didn’t know how to tell her mother that she didn’t feel that way. She would not run up a hill to scream words that she wasn’t sure of.

  “I am sorry I read your letter,” Mrs. Kent apologized. She got off the bed and approached her daughter. She put a hand on Theodora’s slim shoulder and lifted her chin to look up at her.

  “It is not that, Mother,” Theodora told her.

  “What is it, then? You know you can talk to me about anything. I am your mother, after all, and I will always choose you before anyone,” her mother assured her. But that was not true anymore and it seemed that only Theodora knew this.

  Colt had already been accepted by the family and everyone simply assumed it would be fine with her. But as much as she wanted to blame her parents for not seeing her anymore, she realized that she had chosen Colt also. He was not to blame for what she felt. The bitter truth was that she had been content.

  Once, not too long ago, Theodora had been content with Colt’s handsomeness. She had been content with the envy that her engagement to him had brought her amongst all the other spinsters in the country. His humor had been enough. His lack of attention had not been much of a problem. The few times when he had been all about her had been enough and flattering enough, until Naomhan.

  “Nothing,” Theodora told her mother. Her mother stared at her for a while. She knew her daughter enough to know when she lied. Theodora had grown to be a terrible liar and her face was oftentimes a giveaway of her sincerity.

  However, Theodora wasn’t a little girl anymore who she could threaten to make her tell the truth. She was a young woman with her own will to choose and decide on things, as much as she was allowed.

  “Breakfast will be ready soon. You should wash up and come join me. I am suddenly itching for an old experience, something to busy myself with,” Mrs. Kent told her daughter.

  “What is that, Mother?” Theodora asked. She had taken the bait.

  “A bakery, Theodora. We are going to make bread,” Mrs. Kent answered.

  It had been an idea that she had ruminated over for a while and had discussed with her husband, who she
knew would have been supportive of whatever she chose as a hobby. The hesitation had lay with her up until that moment. It seemed the perfect excuse for her to spend more time with her daughter and have her open up to her as she had once done so easily.

  Theodora jumped onto her bed as soon as her mother was outside the door. She buried her head in her pillow and screamed loud and hard into it but it came out muffled. She needed it. Naomhan’s image would not leave her head and it felt wrong, terribly wrong, with his image always changing to Colt, her betrothed, and the man she betrayed with every thought she had of Naomhan, his best friend.

  “Bread, bread, bread,” she muttered under her breath until she did not see him anymore. She had lied to her mother when she had said she had dreamt of nothing. He had been there again in her sleep, lying in her bed next to her, with hands trailing the length and softness of her skin as his mouth had teased her, whispering words of sweetness in her ears. The words, she could not remember, but the feeling she could.

  Her thighs still tingled when she thought about him and her heart drummed in her ears, beating truths that frightened her. Was she in love?

  “Bread,” she yelled as she pulled herself off the bed and headed for the garderobe. Her bath that morning was quick as she did not want to relive her bath experience from the day before. The water seemed to hold her down, heavy on her body but she washed herself fast and got out.

  She dressed and headed down to join her mother for breakfast. It was one of those few mornings when they had to have breakfast without her father. Even though he travelled a lot, he always tried to minimize those mornings when he was absent from the table.

  “So what about the church at Embleton, you aren’t going to visit there today?” Mrs. Kent asked her daughter. The sudden drop of Theodora’s spoon onto the floor echoed and disrupted the calm in the room. A maid came to help Theodora but she picked up before the maid could.

  “Might I help you rinse the spoon, my lady?” The maid asked Theodora, who nodded half-heartedly before handing the spoon over to the maid. She turned back to her mother, who had her suspicious eyes narrowed again.

  “What about the church?” Theodora asked her.

  Mrs. Kent’s eyes fell back to her meal. “You went there yesterday and spent quite a while before heading back home. I have nothing against you spending time in the church. In fact, I encourage it. I just want to know how it is.”

  Theodora watched her mother’s expressive eyes long and hard before she chose her next words. She could not tell at a glance whether her mother knew more than she let on and was trying to gauge her, as she gauged her mother also. Both women stared at one another, trying to read what the other left unspoken.

  “It is nice. The deacon was nice and easy to talk to, as was the priest, Father Damian,” Theodora replied, when she was certain her mother was just being her usual curious self.

  “This deacon, he is as old as the priest?” her mother asked her. The maid came back with the clean spoon and handed it to Theodora. She thanked the maid before turning back to her mother.

  “Why do you ask, Mother?” She kept her eyes down on her meal as she dug in, hoping it would prove enough distraction.

  “I just do not see you sitting for hours talking to an old man,” she said with a shrug.

  Why is he in my head? Theodora saw Naomhan again, staring at her with his intense grey eyes. She realized that she did not know much about Naomhan except the things that Colt had told her about him.

  “He is about Colt’s age, Ma.” Theodora stopped there but she could feel her mother staring at her still. She wanted to hear more.

  “What else? Tell me about your deacon. I have nothing to do until later in the afternoon when I have to go to the bakery,” Mrs. Kent asked her daughter, propping her chin on her hands.

  Theodora felt really uncomfortable answering those questions. She didn’t want to talk more about it.

  “Well, he is wise—”

  “The way he looks. All deacons and priests are wise. How does he look?” Mrs. Kent pushed on even more. Theodora knew how he looked. The very details of his body were imprinted in her memory but she could not have such a conversation with her mother. It was in instances like that that she wished Emily was her sister.

  “He is like every English man, only bigger. There is nothing else to tell, Mother,” Theodora said as she got to her feet. “What time are we headed for the bakery?”

  “You want to come with?” Her mother asked, perplexed by her show of interest in women hobbies or business. Theodora was a tomboy and an introvert, two characteristics that Mrs. Kent had feared greatly when the time came for her to be chosen as a bride. However, things had turned out all right in the end, with her choice of Colt accepted grandly by everyone. There wasn’t a gossip gathering where talks of Colt and Theodora were not spoken.

  “Yes, Ma,” Theodora answered sharply and her mother simply shrugged. Theodora was trying to hide something from her and her curiosity was just biting at her.

  “I would like to go visit Emily for a bit, Ma, if that is all right by you,” Theodora asked of her mother. Mrs. Kent waved her off, giving her blessing. Better to let her talk to someone her age then, if it would bring her more comfort, Mrs. Kent thought to herself, even though she was not particularly happy about being ignored.

  Emily’s family were comfortable and wealthy. Only a few English families were wealthier, the Kent’s included. Theodora met Emily behind her house, sitting on the platform made by the lake.

  “Morning, Emily,” Theodora called to her friend and Emily leapt off the side of the little lake with joy. She ran towards her best friend and lifted her up with a bear hug.

  “What a surprise! I must be dreaming. You came here alone?” Emily asked her, as she looked around for Mrs. Kent, who had always accompanied Theodora to Emily’s house ever since they were little.

  “You are not dreaming. I am in the flesh and of course, I am a woman now. I can do what I please,” Theodora told her.

  “Or as your lordship allows,” Emily completed her words and mimicked a male bow before taking Theodora’s hand and leading her to the edge of the lake.

  “I cannot still bring myself to believe that you rode here alone.”

  “Well, I did. I am not a child anymore. My mother cannot follow me everywhere I go. It would take a toll on her,” Theodora replied to her bosom friend. They both lay on the platform and dipped their bare feet into the lake.

  “True, you are more woman than most of us now. You are engaged to Colt Ayers. What woman in entire England is luckier?” Emily turned to her, bright faced.

  “You are luckier because you are my friend,” Theodora corrected her and Emily sniffled away at the bland attempt to butter her up.

  “That does not work anymore, Theodora. I see you for who you are. You only butter me up when you are trying not tell me something that you want to tell me. You know that I know this, and that this will only make me more curious. So, I would ask what it is. So, spill the beans, Theodora,” Emily said, as she propped herself up to her side and looked at her friend.

  “People don’t like me,” Theodora began and Emily fell back onto her back ecstatic with laughter. “I am serious, Emily. The other women do not like me. They look at me as though I am a thief, a man-thief, for taking Colt. No, he chose me—”

  “You make such a terrible liar, Theodora Kent. It fascinates me that someone can be so bad at lying. I do not understand it at times,” Emily said between ripples of laughter.

  Theodora allowed Emily her laughter before she spoke again. “I need you to keep a secret, Emily.”

  Emily propped back up onto her elbow and held her lips in her free hand as a promise of silence.

  “I touched myself yesterday,” Theodora said, with a face both riddled with guilt and the innocence of an infant.

  “And now, you feel embarrassed and ashamed of yourself?” Emily asked, trying to keep a straight face which was never her strong suit.

&nbs
p; “Yes, I feel like a whore in a brothel or a—” Theodora answered.

  “Or a sinner. I know that, especially because it felt so good. I will ask what made you do that. Do you miss Colt so much? Have you and Colt kissed before and you did not tell me of it?”

  Theodora let herself breathe a sigh of relief. She needed to talk to someone about it and there was no other person who would understand her except the one person who always did—Emily. Emily had grown differently and more openly than Theodora had. Theodora had been a Rapunzel growing up while Emily had been let loose from an early age and she was Theodora’s go-to for a lot of things, men being the chief of them.

  It came as no surprise that Emily had done that before. If Emily had not, Theodora would have felt worse about herself when leaving there than she had arrived.