by Fiona Faris
Highlander’s Mysterious Lady
He thought he would never see her again but fate had other plans...
Fiona Faris
Contents
Thank you
About the book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Extended Epilogue
Afterword
Do you want more Romance?
A Healer for the Highlander
Never miss a thing
Thank you
About the Author
Thank you
I want to personally thank you for purchasing my book. It really means a lot to me. It’s a blessing to have the opportunity to share with you, my passion for writing, through my stories.
As a FREE GIFT, I am giving you a link to my first novel. It has more than 160 reviews, with an average rating of 4.4 out of 5
It is called “A Maid for the Grieving Highlander”, and you can get it for FREE.
Please note that this story is only available for YOU as a subscriber and hasn't been published anywhere else.
Please click on the cover to download the book
About the book
She believed that he would be hers for just one night of passion. She had no idea...
Despite her wealth and title, Lady Beatrice Smythe feels empty. The Duchess of Marlow has lost a husband, whom she loved dearly and the chance to have a child. Her misfortune continues, when she is attacked by criminals on her way to Scotland to visit her best friend. Injured and weak, she meets a handsome Scottish man, who takes care of her and makes her body feel alive again in every possible way.
Brodie Paterson was on a journey towards self-discovery. Mourning the death of a loved one, Brodie was content with his loneliness. One night, a beautiful stranger enters his life and awakens his senses and desires. But when dawn breaks and the mysterious woman has disappeared, Brodie is convinced that he will never see her again. Unbeknownst to him, she is much closer than he thought, and she is bringing a lot of trouble with her...
How will these two handle their undeniable attraction? And what is the danger that follows Beatrice?
He thought he would never see her again but fate had other plans...
* * *
Chapter One
October 13th, North Yorkshire, England, 1890
Beatrice Margaret Smythe, Duchess of Marlow and widow of James Bartholomew Brown, the late Duke of Marlow, was sitting in her morning room, re-reading one of her favorite novels, when she heard the sound.
Chirping. An infernal chirping that, on a spring day in May when the sun was shining and all was well with the world, would be more than welcome—even rejoiced over. But at the current moment—when the clouds in the sky spoke of imminent rain and the trees were bare of their leaves, reminding the world that October was nearing its middle and winter would soon be upon them—the chirps were the very opposite. These happy sounds had no place in Beatrice’s melancholy life; not now, and (she suspected) not ever again. Not for her the sound of two birds merrily hopping about their nest.
Perhaps one bird crying out for its partner would be more suited to my situation, she thought morosely. She slammed her book shut and stood up from her chair.
Walking towards the window, she looked at their little forms hopping around their nest, balanced precariously on the windowsill.
It was dark enough outside that Beatrice could see a glimpse of her own reflection in the glass. Her black curls were set in a complicated twist, with rows of ringlets stacked back from her forehead. In the fashion of the time, her gown left her collarbones and neck bare, exposing her shockingly white skin, accentuated by the deep blue silk of her gown.
Beatrice noticed as she turned this way and that, looking at herself, that the silk elbow-length sleeves of her gown were loose. It was one of her older dresses, made just before James died. Back then, the sleeves had been fetchingly tight, showing off the curved shape of her arms. Now, however, they hung off her body in a way that would feed the gossip hounds.
I’ve lost weight, she realized with apathy. In the past, this would have worried her, but now, with no one left to care about her appearance other than herself, it was hardly worth fretting over. It didn’t matter how her gowns looked, how her body looked.
Looking back at the birds, Beatrice noticed they were both looking back at her, their small heads tilted, assessing and finding her wanting.
These birds were taunting her. If the chirping day in and day out wasn’t enough proof, this surely was. They had appeared just over two weeks ago, on the second anniversary of James’ death.
Beatrice had woken up feeling terrible; both because her beloved James was dead and because her walk in the rain the previous day had saddled her with an abysmal head cold. She had been hoping that exercising would boost her spirits, or rather, her maid Sally had supposed so, sending her out with a shawl and instructions not to return for at least an hour.
However, Beatrice had been walking not ten minutes when the previously sunny day with a sky dotted with only a few clouds rapidly disappeared, replaced by an angry sky full of rain clouds that seemed to burst directly above her, soaking her to the bone in what felt like seconds. Beatrice had walked on, hoping that maybe the rain would wash her misery away, but instead, it had just given her a clogged nose and a headache that was still throbbing at her temples.
When she had returned to the morning room later to lie down, the chirping had started, those joyful little sounds making a mockery of her grief and sorrow on a day when all Beatrice wanted to do was lay down on the floor, curl herself into a ball, and disappear completely.
The birds had settled in the window just outside the morning room, building a nest right next to the glass, like they were trying to get as close to her as possible, to mock her more easily.
Beatrice could have had the nest moved, of course. She had thirty servants, and any one of them would be more than happy to help. She knew they all worried about her. They would jump at the chance to do something to relieve the near-permanent frown that had graced her formerly “cherubic cheeks,” as James had liked to call them, for the past two years.
But Beatrice needed those birds. Needed to watch them frittering about their nest, feeding their chicks and looking lovingly into each other’s tiny, beady eyes. These birds were living the life she had always wanted. They had each other their children and a home. Watching them allowed her to carry out a fantasy of how her life could have been, if only James hadn’t died. If only she hadn’t been deficient…if only her body had been able to do what God and nature intended.
The two of them and their babes, sitting happily in Charleston House with a roaring fire. Laughing, loving. No sadness, no death, no heartache to be seen. This was a fantasy, of course. The life they ought to have had...
After her miscarriages, Beatrice had felt so defeated, so empty.
If I cannot sire an heir, what
use do I have? she had often thought after the loss of their second child. Now, she looked back and scorned her past self. Who cared about children? She had James back then. He was enough. Hadn’t she seen that? Why hadn’t she realized how truly blessed she was to have a husband who adored her? Maybe if she had appreciated him more, he would still be here. He wouldn’t be dead; Beatrice wouldn’t be a widow. She would have a purpose, a family.
Now, I have nothing, she thought, looking around the silent room. Just a large house, and no one to share it with except pitying servants.
“Bea, you’re not really starin’ at them birds again, are ya?” a voice called from behind her, and Beatrice turned to find her maid, Sally, giving her a withering look.
Such insolence from a servant would not be tolerated in most of the noble households of England, but Beatrice ran a very different kind of house from most women of her set.
Even before James died, they had both made a point of treating their servants more like family than people who were tasked with waiting on them hand and foot. After all, they were not so very different—for all that one set wore working clothes and the other elegant frocks, overcoats, and cravats.
James had grown up the bastard son of the previous Duke of Marlow. His mother, a former maid in his father’s house, died in childbirth and left James in the care of her neighbors, a butcher and his wife, who were rich in love but poor in fortune.
The butcher and his wife knew of James’ origins, but neither of them expected the Duke to recognize his bastard son. It wasn’t done then or now, nearly thirty years later. James and boys like him were meant to keep to the class of their mothers—which, in James’ case, was very low indeed.
But when Richard Bartholomew, the Duke of Marlow, lost both his legitimate sons on the ship ferrying them back from their Grand Tour of Europe, James’ fate changed. His father sought him out, traveling to the small village outside of York where James was living. It turned out that the duke had no other living relatives whom he could pass the dukedom. He wanted to officially recognize James as his son, and thereby instate him as the next heir.
Practically overnight, James shifted from being a poor butcher’s son to the heir of one of the wealthiest titles in all of Britain. And when his father died a year later, James became the eighth Duke of Marlow.
It was a stark change from his previous life. James was used to cooking his own meals, washing his own clothing. He even knew how to make his own soap from leftover animal tallow. He was, in short, a working man, and though the dukedom gave him more fortune than he could ever dream of, it did not change his essence. James never forgot where he came from, never forgot that only luck separated him from people like his parents, people like his servants.
For her part, Beatrice was part of the nobility from birth, but she had the misfortune to be born the daughter of a man more interested in gambling away his fortune than investing it. By the time she was twenty-two, and meeting James at a bookshop in the middle of Mayfair, her family’s financial situation had grown so dire that she was forced to dismiss all but the cook from the family’s rapidly deteriorating household.
As a result, she rapidly had to adapt to completing many of the tasks that the household servants had formerly done. She learned how to mend dresses, adding small, inexpensive embellishments to them to make old gowns look new. She dusted the house, scrubbed the floors, sold off some of her father’s possessions when they lacked the money even to pay their chandler bills.
While her father deteriorated in wealth and in health, Beatrice learned to be almost totally self-sufficient. Her best friend Helena was her only connection to the outside world, to the nobility of which she was still technically a part. For all that she had been born into a different class, she and James were equals by the time they met at that bookshop while she and Helena were looking for a copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress.
James’ humble nature was part of what made Beatrice fall in love with her husband. He was so different from most of the men of their set. He wasn’t frivolous, didn’t overly concern himself with his appearance. He didn’t waste money at the card tables or on women of the night. He donated as much as he could to charity, made a point of hiring the most destitute and desperate to work in his house, and treated everyone he met—no matter their race, age, or gender—with deference. He treated his title with respect and devotion, doing everything he could to ensure he lived up to the reputation the Kingwood title had in society.
James was, in short, the perfect man. And Beatrice missed him terribly.
I should have known he was too good to be true, she often thought. Thankfully, Sally interrupted then, preventing her from further destructive thoughts.
“You’ve got to stop punishin’ yourself, Bea. Stop staring at them birds, imaginin’ how it all could’ve been. Focus on the present, love. James would’ve wanted that for ya,” Sally said, taking Beatrice’s hand in hers.
Beatrice allowed herself to be led back to her chair and tucked into its overstuffed cushions, gratified to have someone else telling her body what to do and where to go. After she was settled in the chair, Sally shoving a hot cup of tea in her hands.
“Drink up. It’s sweet and milky, and exactly what you need at this moment, I expect,” Sally said, glaring at Beatrice until she dutifully took a sip from the cup in her hands.
It was pure bliss going down, the acidity of the black tea cut with the fresh cow’s milk and two generous helpings of sugar. In the circles Beatrice traveled in, sugar was de rigueur, a sign of wealth and privilege. But until James died, she had never taken her tea sweet. Now, however, she couldn’t get enough. The sugar never failed to revive her, those first few sips making her feel for like life might no be so wholly awful.
“Better?” Sally asked, crossing her arms over her ample bust and staring fixedly at Beatrice. Sally’s white-blonde hair was fixed in a serviceable bun at the nape of her neck, her blue eyes sparkling under her thin, dark eyebrows. Her small but curved figure was fitted into her usual uniform of smock, petticoat, corset, and apron, all of which were spotlessly clean. Sally was beautiful, more so than almost anyone Beatrice had ever met, with the exception of her friend Helena. If Sally hadn’t been born to a farming family in South Yorkshire, Beatrice was sure that she would have been spotted by some nobleman traveling through the area who would have proposed marriage to her on the spot.
However, for as good a turn of fortune this would have been for Sally, Beatrice was glad her friend had not been turned into a proper Lady, because then they never would have met, never have become friends. She never would have had Sally to save her and keep her from descending completely into oblivion after James died. Sally was now the most precious person in the world to her.
“Much. Thank you, Sal,” she said, answering her friend’s question before taking another sip of the delicious tea. She moaned softly, thankful for the warm liquid settling in her stomach, taking away the shivers the drafty room always gave her.
“Good. You’ve got a letter from Helena, and Frances has left a message requesting the pleasure of your company at dinner this evening,” Sally said, retrieving a card and letter from a pocket in her apron.
The calm from a moment ago disappeared with the mention of James’ cousin. Frances Bartholomew was the opposite of James in every way. He didn’t use the vast fortune inherited from his father to better himself or society. No, he did the exact opposite. In many ways, he reminded Beatrice of her late father—and that, more than anything, made her detest Frances. He was a selfish, pompous man who thought the world owed him something only for his noble birth.
James, kind heart that he was, had always made time for Frances, convinced that if he just mentored the man enough, he would eventually mature into someone who actually gave a fig about things. Beatrice thought Frances a lost cause, and meeting with him a waste of time, but James never wavered in his devotion to his cousin.
However, neither had ever gotten through to Frances. After he die
d, Frances seemed only more intent on bankrupting himself and frittering away his fortune. Beatrice sympathized with Frances; Lord knew she wanted to destroy herself sometimes, her grief was so intense, but she never did, because she had people that depended on her. That was the difference between people like her and James and people like Frances. The former recognized their responsibilities and knew they had to act for the good of many, not few. Frances and his kind, however, pretended that only their own lives mattered, and no one else’s.
“How many times have I begged off dinner with him?” Beatrice asked Sally, bracing herself for the answer. If it were more than three, then she really would need to accept his invitation this time. It wasn’t a matter of keeping up with appearances; it was more that if she didn’t check on Frances every now and again, he was liable to ruin himself—and as his only living relative, she would be forced to help him pick up the pieces.
