by Blair, Willa
TEARS GLIMMERED even though the fierce frown never left her face. “Ye were always what was best for me. Why do ye think that has changed?”
Damn it, he was going to have to tell her. “My feelings for ye changed when I met a lass in France.”
Cat’s hand flew to her throat and she gasped as if he’d punched her in the belly.
“She taught me everything a wee country lass like ye never could,” he continued, fury at having to hurt her this way making his voice gruff and sharp. “Now any lass I bed must–”
“Teach me.”
Kenneth’s throat closed on an icy knot of shock that quickly melted into burning—unquenchable–desire. He should have known better than to trade challenges with Cat. She’d always taken any dare of his and thrown it back in his face. She’d just done it again and by God, if they were anywhere else, he’d do just what she asked. He’d always enjoyed their battles of wits, but not this time. This time, there was too much at stake
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HIS HIGHLAND LOVE
His Highland Heart Series Book 2
Willa Blair
Copyright © 2017 by Linda Williams
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN-13: 978-1-946153-04-3
Cover Art by: Tamra Westberry
* * *
Other Titles Available at www.willablair.com
Heart of Stone (Highland Talents Prequel)
Highland Healer (Highland Talents Book 1)
Highland Seer (Highland Talents Book 2)
Highland Troth (Highland Talents Book 3)
The Healer’s Gift (A Highland Talents Novella)
When Highland Lightning Strikes (A Highland Talents Novella)
Sweetie Pie (A Candy Hearts Novella)
Waiting for the Laird
His Highland Rose (His Highland Heart Prequel)
His Highland Heart (His Highland Heart Book 1)
His Highland Love (His Highland Heart Book 2)
His Highland Bride (His Highland Heart Book 3 - Coming Fall 2017)
Created with Vellum
To my youngest brother, who swears he does not read my books, but who is still one of my biggest fans.
Contents
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Afterword
Chapter 1
St. Andrews, Scotland, 1411
Kenneth Brodie woke before the sun came up to the sound of someone pounding on his door. He rolled from his cot, cursing under his breath at being awakened from a particularly delicious dream of his Cat. Nay, not his…merely the lass who’d stolen his heart. The lass he’d left behind in the Highlands. He pulled on his breeks, willing his body to subside. “Come,” he called, moving toward the door as he fumbled with his ties.
A junior cleric opened the door before Kenneth could reach it, letting in the damp chill of this early summer morning. It sent a shiver across Kenneth’s bare upper body and finished removing all trace of the heat of his dream.
“You are summoned to fetch a shipment from the port for the bishop,” the man announced without looking anywhere near him, and then immediately stepped out and closed the door.
For one wild moment, Kenneth thought the man meant he would go alone. The opportunity seemed too good to be true, then he realized it surely was. He was a hostage—one short step up from a prisoner. He would not be allowed free access to the harbor and its ships. Domnhall, the Lord of the Isles, had started the latest crisis by claiming to be the rightful Earl of Ross—a title and holdings the Duke of Albany also claimed. In response, Albany had demanded a hostage from each of the Highland clans, intending to use them to keep their lairds from joining forces with Domnhall. It was an ancient tactic—and one that occasionally worked.
This visit to the harbor was probably only what it appeared to be, taking advantage of a strong Highlander hostage. Since Kenneth had been in St. Andrews, he’d been in Father Anselmo’s charge. Father Anselmo had found another way to drive home the lesson that whatever status he once had in the Highlands did him no good here.
The Italian was one more curse upon Kenneth’s blackened soul. Everyone suspected Anselmo was the Pope’s man, here to report back on the doings of one of Scotland’s most powerful bishops. By placing him in the Italian priest’s care, Kenneth supposed Bishop Wardlaw hoped to keep all his troublemakers clustered together, the better to observe and control them. He couldn’t blame the bishop for that. He just wished he knew how long he would have to endure being at Anselmo’s beck and call.
Kenneth got himself ready in record time, knowing if Anselmo didn’t see him walking out into the castle courtyard within moments, he would come to his chamber to retrieve him—then make him pay for the inconvenience on his knees during evening prayers. All of them, through the entire night.
At least the bishop hadn’t assigned Father Phillippe as his keeper. He still couldn’t believe God would play such a low trick on him, putting that man here, too. He’d had little contact with Phillippe for the most part, but his conscience weighed heavily at every glimpse of the Frenchman. If being here was his laird Iain Brodie’s idea of penance for all he’d done wrong in the Highlands, Phillippe’s presence was a constant reminder of all he’d done wrong in France. Even though he’d saved Phillippe’s life, he apparently gained no favor in heaven.
As he expected, Anselmo awaited him in the courtyard when he arrived. At his gesture, Kenneth walked beside him out the castle gate and through the town toward the fisher gate that breached the town wall above the harbor and beside the wall surrounding the bishop’s grand cathedral.
Once they passed through the fisher gate, the path fell quickly down the cathedral hill to the harbor below them. Two-story buildings like the ones in the upper town lined the quay. Kenneth picked out storefronts common to all ports—sailmakers, weavers, an ironmonger, and several pubs. Cheap accommodations occupied many of the upstairs spaces. Those were typically used by visiting sailors eager to sleep in a bed that rocked only with the movement of whatever doxy they’d purchased for the night. They interested him less than the ships lining the quay and visible beyond it, awaiting access to the harbor.
“If it didn’t mean the ruin of your clan, you would take the first ship out of here, sì?”
Kenneth stopped counting the ships tied up at the quay—fifteen at least, from skiffs to larger birlinns to schooners in from the Low Countries—and glanced aside at his companion. The view of the port pleased him a great deal more than the severely smug expression on Father Anselmo’s face.
“Ye can rest easy,” he assured the dour Italian priest. “I wouldna dream of causing harm to those I left behind.” In the interest of playing up to Anselmo’s arrogance, he added, “I’m simply unaccustomed to the sight of such a busy port and such a prosperous town. The Highlands have naught to approach this.” He waved a hand to
ward the merchants’ stalls and the ships tied up at dock. He might be laying on naïveté a bit too thickly with that claim, especially if Anselmo had made a progress into the Highlands as part of his priestly training or duties and had seen Inverness or a western port.
But the priest failed to react to Kenneth’s veiled sarcasm. “I should think not,” he replied. “St. Andrews is the seat of the bishop, the true Pope’s representative. A center of worship and commerce for all. Its port has few rivals.” He cleared his throat and continued, “Enough, now, of sloth. We must retrieve what the bishop requires. I see the merchant he named, avanti.” He gestured ahead.
Kenneth let his gaze rove over the ships at dock as they walked along the quay, dodging sailors loudly intent on finding the nearest pub and merchants hurrying to buy or sell or trade goods. Several craft, from their size and the cargo being loaded, would be heading south to Flanders or France for profitable trade, carrying good Scottish wool, coal, and likely some whisky, too, and returning with wine in stout oaken barrels, delicacies, and fine crystal. Several smaller craft might be from Highland ports, but if so, the crews had chosen to forego Highland dress in favor of breeks, shirts, and waistcoats that allowed them to blend in with the crowd on the quay and up to Market Street, at least until they opened their mouths to speak.
He didn’t see anyone he recognized, but that could change. He expected the mix of ships in port altered daily. And as long as he was seen by enough sailors, someone might carry word back to his laird, Iain Brodie, that he was here. A note would be better, but Kenneth dared not be caught with one. The bishop’s castle had a bottle dungeon. He had no wish to be tossed down its narrow throat. His current accommodations might be simple, but they had the advantage of fresh air, a hearth for heat, and the freedom to move about the castle grounds. Even outside its walls with an escort such as Anselmo. He supposed he owed his privileges to the difference between being a hostage for his clan’s good behavior and being a prisoner. A fine distinction, perhaps, but one worth retaining.
Stirling, where Kenneth had initially been held, had been bad enough, full of royal lackeys vying for attention from Albany and each other. Then he and an escort had ridden two long days cross-country to St. Andrews. The move meant he was farther from home. His clan had no idea where he was.
He’d been closely guarded on the way to St. Andrews, but truly had given little thought to escape. He was here in the Brodie chief’s stead. If he ran, the Duke of Albany would send men after Iain. Kenneth was certain Iain meant to punish him for taking off to France, like many Scotsmen who’d gone seeking their fortune as mercenary soldiers in its long war with England, without his laird’s permission. The disappearing act Kenneth had pulled resulted in this banishment—for that was what this was. His adventures on the continent had strained his relationship with Iain more than he’d expected, given Iain’s own history of roaming about Scotland and bedding lasses before he met and married Annie Rose, Cat’s older sister. Kenneth had returned to Brodie just as Albany’s demand for a hostage arrived. Ever practical, Iain endeavored to teach Kenneth another lesson, while at the same time mollifying the Duke of Albany. Kenneth wasn’t angry enough about being exiled to bring the kind of trouble to Brodie that defying Albany would cause.
However, if Kenneth was interested in absolution, the bishop’s seat was the perfect place to seek it.
He wasn’t.
At the merchant’s stall, Anselmo quickly concluded his trade and motioned for Kenneth to carry his purchases. Bloody hell. Reduced from heir-apparent of a proud Highland clan to pack mule for a sour-tempered cleric. Without comment, Kenneth lifted the bundle onto his shoulder and followed Anselmo. They went back up the hill, passing the majestic cathedral on the left on their way to the castle.
Girlish laughter drifted on the breeze like birdsong, sharp, bright, and impossible to ignore. One laugh in particular brought Kenneth up short. He stopped, head cocked, listening as his blood turned to ice in his veins. Nay, it could not be.
Anselmo turned back to him and gestured at the package on his shoulder. “Come. Surely you bear little burden for a man as well endowed with strength as you appear to be. Here is no place to stop, unless you have the sudden urge to confess some sin?” He waved a benedictory hand at the cathedral.
God’s bones. He could burn Anselmo’s ears with tales of what he’d experienced in France. Better to keep walking and let hope bleed away from the wound that bit of laughter had sliced in his chest. It had sounded like Cat…
It didn’t matter. She was in his past, the same as his allegiance to Brodie and to Iain. He was here only because honor demanded he stay, but once his presence as hostage for Brodie was no longer necessary, he’d leave. Return to France, perhaps, though not to Marilee, the woman whose arms he’d stumbled into after learning Cat was to marry. Rescuing Phillippe after Marilee betrayed both of them made doing so impossible, thank God. He would never be tempted back to her bed. Or he’d go to Italy, though a glance at Anselmo made him doubt he’d enjoy living there.
Just then, two lasses and a lad came through some trees on one of the paths from town and headed directly for the grounds of the cathedral. He only got a glimpse before they turned away, but in that brief moment, his breath caught again. One moved remarkably like Cat. But that couldn’t be possible. She’d be married away by now, at Mackintosh, not here, far from the Highlands. He saw only what he wanted to see after hearing a similar laugh, nothing more.
Nay, it could not be her. But curiosity—or hope—made him try again to see her. Risking Anselmo’s displeasure, he stopped and nearly dropped the package, suddenly shaking with the urge to run to the lass, grab her by the arm and spin her about. Anselmo would be scandalized, no doubt, and have him confined. He fought for control as the group passed a dozen yards uphill. He couldn’t tell which lass had laughed. Since neither of them turned her face in his direction, he never got to see if one really resembled the image of Cat he held in his heart. Gazing up at him with wide eyes as he asked her to be his, her plump lips slightly parted, a bow of pleasure he longed for in the depths of the night, especially once he’d learned in France what such lips could do. The longing filling him was intense and shocking, having been brought on by a mere glissando of laughter. The laugh had been so like a voice he hadn’t heard in a very long time, it gripped his throat and nearly stopped his heart.
If only she were here…. They were older now. They might find a way to rekindle what they had two years ago. The affection. The attraction. This time, he would finish what they’d started. She could be his in more than the dreams he woke up with at night, hard and sweating.
But nay. The trio passed on and entered a gate in the cathedral’s wall, apparently never even noticing the priest and his draft-horse companion. Kenneth’s jaw tightened. It seemed he ranked lower even than a draft-horse. He was invisible. If he could manage it around the lump in his chest, he’d laugh at how he’d come down in life.
But right now, missing Cat hurt too bloody much.
* * *
Catherine Rose could not believe her eyes. As she, her cousin Abigail Duncan, and Abi’s betrothed, Colin, approached the magnificent St. Andrews Cathedral for the early-morning mass, their path from town came near a short, swarthy priest escorting a workman with a bundle on his shoulder that hid his face. The big workman caught her eye because he reminded her of someone. Then it hit her.
Kenneth Brodie.
For one all too brief pause, she stopped and stared while Abi and Colin continued on without her.
But Abi, eager to show her newly arrived cousin the largest cathedral in Scotland, came back and pulled her away. “What are you doing? We’ll be late for mass!” she remonstrated.
Catherine shook her head and didn’t explain. She couldn’t. She had to be imagining the resemblance. This man was bigger and more muscular than she recalled Kenneth being. Of course, she’d last seen him two years ago, and if he’d been fighting in France, as she’d been told, he would h
ave filled out and put on muscle.
If only she could have seen him better.
Well, it didn’t matter. As she and Abi caught up with Colin, she decided that man could not have been Kenneth. He would never be in St. Andrews. If he’d returned from the continent, he’d be at Brodie with Iain and his wife, her sister, Annie. Annie would have mentioned his return to her in a letter. Worse, since he’d abandoned her, he might have married someone from another clan or brought a bride back from France. In an effort to protect her feelings, Annie might have kept such news from her.
For one sharp moment, Catherine missed him, missed home, missed her middle sister like a knife twisting in her gut. Annie visited Rose all too rarely since her marriage to Iain Brodie. And Catherine visited Brodie not at all. Her father, determined to keep her and Kenneth apart, had not allowed her to visit her sister, where she might come into contact with Kenneth. He had kept her away long enough for Kenneth to leave for France, and afterward, too, in case he returned without word reaching Rose.
Surely if Kenneth heard about the betrothal offer from Mackintosh, he would have also heard what followed. Rose, at first, accepted the betrothal offer. But before long, they heard rumors her intended was a brute with a history of beating women. The lad himself had ultimately revealed his true nature by beating a Rose servant. To Catherine’s great relief, her father had refused the betrothal and sent the bully back to Mackintosh.
Kenneth could have written. Annie would have sent a letter to Mary, who would have given it to her. But she’d received nothing.
