The Chieftain's Yule Bride - a Highland Christmas novella (Clan MacKrannan's Secret Traditions #10)

by Carmichael, Jonnet

  "Let's wait and see if she's here to do something about the weather first."

  Freya was reluctantly drawing away from the whole idea of a Medieval theme for her wedding. The way Zavier had said she'd 'gone all Maid Marion' rather put her off. It was his wedding too and she must do something to make him happy after his disappointment at all his glitzy ideas being thrown out.

  Over dinner she explored different themes with him. They were a bit limited to historical Scottish in a setting like this, and he flipped his lid at the thought of wearing tartan in any shape or form. The Jacobite look was out. In fact, any kilt look was out except for the men on her own side of the guest-list who wouldn't be seen dead in anything else.

  The complications of marrying an Englishman sank in dolefully. She pushed her half-eaten entrée away, determined to find some era to suit them both – and to suit the castle that she wanted more than ever to be married in.

  "Roaring Twenties?" he suggested. "Turn the Banqueting Hall into a Speakeasy with bathtubs full of gin and you coming down the aisle in a chic flapper dress dripping with ostrich feathers... oh god, yes, I like the idea of that."

  "It could work," she said vaguely. "Zavier, why do keep turning round? Somebody we know?"

  He shook his head. "Thought I was imagining it, but I'm not. The staff here – they're always staring at you, especially the older ones. I've been noticing it since we got here."

  "You're in Scotland, darling. They're being friendly."

  "What I'm saying is, they only stare at you. And lots of whispering and grinning going on."

  "At me? Why would they do that?"

  He winked at her. "Sure you haven't been here before? A naughty weekend at the seaside with some caber-tossing lover before I came on the scene?"

  "Never been anywhere near it. Honestly, have you any idea how many castles there are in Scotland? This one's quite far off the usual tourist routes. I've always had my heart set on a Scottish castle wedding and came across it when I was looking up venues. You know Auntie has always had her heart set on me being a Celtic princess for a day."

  "And so you shall be, my love. Have I talked you into the ostrich feathers yet?"

  Freya wrinkled her nose. "Not really me. Tell you what, though, let's have a Speakeasy Party back in London afterwards for all the people we're not inviting to come here. That would be fun."

  "Fantastic! Yes! God, that old waiter's in trouble. Looks like he's seen a ghost and needs oxygen."

  A thundercrack came at that moment and she nearly jumped out of her skin when lightning flashed through the windows. She followed Zavier's sightline to find the gentleman being steadied by his colleague and helped onto a chair. It was herself he was staring at. He raised a friendly hand in greeting when she smiled in concern, and kept staring at her as if she came from another planet.

  A shudder ran through her as she turned away again, one that had nothing to do with Zavier's hand squeezing her own across the dining table. She'd always been pale of color, her blonde hair so naturally near white that it was the envy of many. With her eyes being so pale a blue also, the ghost jokes had worn a bit thin over the years.

  "Maybe I should go brunette and stop spooking people."

  "Don't you dare."

  "No... but you're right about the staring. It's them spooking me now."

  "Want me to have a word? Be your knight in shining armor?"

  He had the grace to laugh at his own joke. Half her working life was spent shielding him from the difficult people in their world.

  "I'll deal with it myself if I have to, thank you. Maybe we're overreacting. Let's wait and see if there's more of it."

  Morning came after a turbulent night for Callum. The continuing storm did no' help, but the contractors had upgraded the castle's lightning protection system this year so he knew everyone was safe. He'd slept through worse.

  What kept him awake was the thought of Freya Harper sharing a bed with that man. With any man. And she was doing it under his roof.

  Jealous. Admit it, man. Way, way beyond envy and into eating at his soul.

  He lathered his face and began shaving. So strong was the blonde image in his mind that he saw the ghost of her behind him in the mirror, wearing the white floaty frock and her hand outstretched like in the portrait.

  In front of her image was his own hulking great frame, handed down from his warrior ancestors and muscled out with physical work and horse-training and historical sports done the hard way. Would she be interested in a man like him? Or would she think him some big oaf from a building site compared to her choice of the sleek Zavier who looked like a proper day's work would kill him?

  The Wisewomen had been right. Once he knew Freya was in his destiny, it never occurred to him that her purpose in being sent here could be anything else but personal.

  Intimate, for sure.

  She had a body to kill for and a mouth that he couldn't keep from looking at, speaking or silent. What he would do to have that hair in his hands while he kissed her till she moaned. Ah, but it was more than that. He did no' even know her, had hardly been in her company more than a few minutes, and yet he knew his life had been altered.

  Maybe even permanent... a thought that would have sent him running before now, and which settled in his chest as if it had always lived there waiting like an engine primed and ready to go.

  Centuries ago he'd have had to find a virgin to marry – and prove she was a virgin in front of the whole clan, so that the bloodline was kept pure. That 'Coupling of the Chieftain' Tradition would never be tolerated nowadays, thank the stars, even if such a lass were to be found past the age of twenty-one. His own mother had been divorced before marrying his father. Nobody thought any more about that than his grandfather marrying a widow. Either of these unions would have been strictly forbidden in earlier times for a MacKrannan heir.

  The Jacobite kilt in the clan's muted hunting tartan that he wore for his work hid much, and luck for him that it did, because his cock had burned from the time he'd shaken her hand until he'd gone for a shower and taken his ease in three quick strokes... and he'd no' even seen her again after that first meeting in the Banqueting Hall.

  The power of the chanting at the oak table yesterday had fired him up so high that he still hadn't returned to his usual self. There was something he carried deep in his blood that reacted mightily to the ways of the Elders, a distant race memory in his genes which rose up on demand, the same as their own.

  He felt it still, had dreamed fitfully of battles and feuds lost and won. Feasts that lasted a week. The clan's Secret Traditions carried out with the Elders and witnesses in attendance. Chiefs and chieftains standing bared and proud as they serviced woman after woman like horses at the stud in solemn ritual with chanting and incantations. Females of the bloodline who gave their all in the wild rites that ensured the clan's survival. Jousts with real lances and axes that got men killed. Swords that could slice a limb off as easy as carving meat. Visits from successive Scots kings heralded with blaring trumpets in times long past.

  The shows put on for the tourists here were pathetic shadows of what had once been the harsh realities of daily life, and the threat of death never far away. Now they needed a First-Aid tent and a pile of forms to fill in if a bairn got a wee splinter off a fencepost.

  Would he want to have lived back in the day? No. Too grateful for the de-fib machine that saved his father from an early death some years ago. Too much enjoyment to be had with flying his four-seater plane round the islands, showing guests and girlfriends the magic of his homeland. And far too keen on the emancipation of women that gave him some of the best staff he'd ever have – and the best bedsport without the constraints of female garments that took far too long to get off.

  But the blood in him still screamed out for Freya Harper. Modern politeness and political correctness would no' get her. The spirits of his ancestors were calling out to him, and they were telling him to fight for her in the old ways. The MacKrannan ways.


  A few weeks was all he had. One full day of her now before she got in that rental car and headed back to the airport. And she was currently in another man's arms, planning to return for them to be wed right here between Christmas and Hogmanay.

  Freya Harper, the Fair Lass of Monlachan. What would she say if he told her about the portrait... showed it to her?

  Dammit! What if some of the older clansfolk made the connection too? He dried himself quickly and grabbed his phone to send a quick text round the four Elders, but stopped first to check his incoming messages.

  The Elders were ahead of him in this game. He did no' like it one bit, yet his training to be Chief had been strict about placing his full trust in them. Nothing new there. He trusted them with the management of the whole estate in his frequent absences. This was different. He hadn't their powers, nor their knowledge of the esoteric. The hell with that. He had his own ancestral power, and the spirits of his ancestors to guide him when needed, and his own experience of how to make things work.

  Tara's message was: Hives unsettled – seek her company.

  Disastrous for next year's honey production if the bees were unhappy in December. Problem and solution given in one message, Tara's usual way.

  Gillian's message was: Clear your own clouds.

  Fair advice, and sent during the night before he'd done exactly that and felt the better for letting the truth in with the dawn.

  Kenzie's was: Callum Darcy – you heard it from me first.

  What was she on about? Kenzie was the one with the most developed Second Sight and he never underestimated her... but Darcy? Was she meaning the Regency era when the minstrel had been here? No. Kenzie's 'you heard it from me first' messages were always for the future.

  He gave himself a shake. Time would bring explanation.

  The final message wasn't from Robbie but from the Reception Desk. Miss Harper had made a comment this morning about the castle's staff staring at her wherever she went, and wondered if she had two heads. Though not an official complaint, she wished to discuss it with Mr MacKrannan himself before booking her wedding – if he wasn't in a meeting, like all his senior staff had been yesterday when she'd attempted to speak with them.

  He forwarded that text round the four Elders. No instruction required. They'd know what to do to caution the clan, if they hadn't already. Then he made two calls before getting dressed.

  The first was to Robbie and the second was to the Reception Desk.

  "Invite Miss Harper to come to my office at nine... no... make it the Banqueting Hall."

  He'd start again with her, same place. And she'd be coming alone if it was herself had mentioned the problem. Irked though he was that Zavier Campbell was avoiding doing his bit to protect her from harm – and how sodding basic was that for a man, women's equality or no' – being alone with her was exactly what he wanted.

  Seeing Callum MacKrannan again was a jolt Freya hadn't expected. And that was a big fib for a start. Planning a wedding with one man while her mind was full of another was a betrayal of the dirtiest sort. She'd tossed and turned so much during the night that Zavier had gone off in a strop to sleep on the chaise-longue. She might have felt the guilt of it more keenly if she hadn't so recently left him in the four-poster eating room-service breakfast and ogling some tarty diva in a magazine, and one hand sneaking under the sheets as she waved from the door.

  Well, maybe a bit of guilt for her there, because it was her fault they'd done nothing in that line since they got here. She just couldn't, and she wasn't about to tell him the true reason. She'd left Scotland and immersed herself in the modern world to get away from her heritage. This place made it bubble nearer the surface with every passing hour. Maybe she should have gone for that venue in Oxford? Impossible... it had to be a Scottish castle. Choosing this one was her mistake.

  Callum MacKrannan's hands were clean and his gaze startlingly direct. All of him was clean, and without any overpowering aftershave. Six and a half feet of decency with shoulders like a weightlifter and that lock of hair dipping onto his forehead. She itched to touch it just once. She had touched it before. The feeling that she knew him was very real.

  In her mind she'd been through every possible place they could have met and drawn a blank. Her phone wasn't working at all, even after an overnight charge, and she certainly couldn't use Zavier's beyond messaging everyone important to tell them to use his to reach her or leave a message at the castle.

  "Call me Callum, please. Come – we'll sit at the highboard. Let you try out the historical equivalent of a top table."

  "I'd like that, thank you. I'm Freya."

  "Freya..." he said with an incline of his head, as if he hadn't known, and he had... no, the smile that went with it told her he just liked the name... or more likely she trying to read far too much into the way he said it.

  His manners were impeccable as he walked beside her through the hall, obviously slowing down for her benefit, for she'd seen the length of his normal strides. He extended his hand for her to steady herself as she climbed the three stairs onto the dais where a long table was laid with fresh linen. Again the jolt at his touch, like a fright running up her arm and making her heartbeat jump.

  He pulled out a chair for her, a high-backed antique upholstered in the finest damask and with carvings that spoke of the long ago. She felt quite out of place wearing her Fifth Avenue trousers with a matching plain cashmere sweater under the coat she'd put on for the walk to the Spa after this. This place begged for full-length gowns and rich elegance, a femininity lacking in her current clothing.

  "A problem with my staff, I hear. Tell me what's been happening."

  He sat far enough away from her to be polite, yet not nearly far enough away for her to avoid drinking in the manly scent of a clan chieftain. He leaned forward a bit with his hands between his knees in the habit of Highlanders to keep people from seeing up their kilts. This man was the real thing. True Scotsmen never crossed their legs.

  If it hadn't been for the electric lighting and the sound of a car revving in the distance, she could have been in a timewarp. Except she was the one wearing trousers, and it was his legs that were on show. Solid muscle. She would bet anything he played rugby or shinty and rode horses like a pro.

  Oh god! He'd caught her looking!

  "Your staff... well, so many stared for no reason." As if she hadn't been doing exactly that. "Zavier noticed it first, and then at dinner last night there was a waiter..." She couldn't go on. The blush must have reached her ears by now and there was never any hiding it with such a pale skin. "Never mind. It's too silly."

  "It's no' silly at all. The answer is this. There's a portrait used to hang in the castle of a lassie that looks like you. She's your double, Freya. We're a superstitious clan, especially the older folks. You know the way of that, aye?"

  "Oh... right."

  Stunned, she was, as much by his easy use of her name as by the news he delivered. She hadn't imagined it at all the first time. He really did say the word Freya like a command from the sky and she was absolutely melted.

  "They could no' help looking and wondering. It also explains why I thought we'd already met. Are they forgiven? Am I?"

  His grin was infectious. With anyone else she'd think this was a weasel charming his way out of trouble. Not Callum MacKrannan. There was an honesty beamed out of this man, a directness in his gaze that told her he was telling the truth. Some of it, anyway. There had to be more to the portrait story and she would very much like to know what it was – or see it for herself, which she had every intention of doing.

  "You're all forgiven if I get to see the portrait. Only fair, isn't it? When so many others have?"

  "I thought you would. It's been brought out of storage for you this morning. There's a condition, though. If you'll agree to it, we can go and see the painting right away."

  "A condition. I see... and what is that, Callum?"

  She couldn't resist voicing his name while he was there i
n front of her. Callum... The way her mouth had to move to say it felt like taking a lick and savoring the taste. She blushed all over again as her imagination ran wild. A glint in his eye told her that he'd noticed. There was a bit of mild flirting going on here and she was worse than him.

  "The condition is that we go alone. The clan historian's official order, no' mine. That portrait was never for outsiders and remains so. Again, a superstitious thing. Will you trust me on that, as I trust him?"

  Freya didn't need asked twice to leave Zavier out of this.

  "Of course I understand superstition. I'm from Monlachan!" Did she just see him flinch? "You'll have heard of our famous Clootie Well? Okay, I trust you. Where is this portrait?"

  "Leave your coat in my office if you want. We're no' going to the dungeons."

  "Ah! So you have dungeons, do you?"

  "What castle doesn't? Best wine cellars you'll get."

  Callum took her the complicated way round for two reasons. He didn't want her to remember where the Turret of the East was, and he'd be bringing her back to the public part of the castle by a different route as well. The main reason was the simple fact that he wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. His Assistant was under instruction to treat him as absent from the estate except for dire emergency.

  He'd reacted none to Robbie's 'alone' condition beyond making sure the man was no' inventing it on the Wisewomen's orders for the purposes of matchmaking. They were never off his case about providing an heir or six for the MacKrannan dynasty.

  He should have known better than to question any of it, including why the portrait had to be brought to this particular room. The Elders had their ways and the Bard the strangest of all four.

  It took more than half an hour to make the journey, stopping as they did when she asked about other artworks, suits of armor, antiques and the like. Freya Harper was surprisingly knowledgeable about history. Knew next to nothing of his own clan but could put dates to important battles and monarchs' reigns. Could even name a few of the Scottish artists whose unsigned works adorned the corridors beyond the secure doors.