Laird of Twilight (The Whisky Lairds, Book 1)

by Susan King

  Laird of Twilight

  The Whisky Lairds Series, Book 1

  Susan King

  (Writing as Sarah Gabriel)

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Copyright © 2007, 2019 by Susan King. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Previously published as To Wed A Highland Bride by Sarah Gabriel, Avon Books/HarperCollins Publishers, 2007

  Cover design by The Killion Group, Inc.

  www.thekilliongroupinc.com

  Book design by eBook Prep

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  Published by ePublishing Works!

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  eBook ISBN: 978-1-64457-116-3

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Before You Go…

  Laird of Secrets

  Also by Susan King

  About the Author

  For Jennifer, who knows all about fairy crystals

  Prologue

  Scotland, the Highlands, Autumn, 1801

  Buffeted by wind gusts, Donal MacArthur struggled as he climbed a rocky hill in moonlight. Hunched against the chill, his plaid billowing and snapping against his trousered legs, he walked along the shoulder of the slope to face a tall concavity in the rock, shadowed black in the darkness. He reached up to grope along a natural shelf formed by slate and gray stone.

  There, he had it—the chunk of blue crystal he had hidden there seven years earlier. Clear crystal, a pretty blue agate, a pretty stone more mysterious than some would ever believe. It fit the palm of his hand, its outer crust just rock, its inner heart a delicate cluster of points forming a tiny hollow. Pressing it against a small encrustation in the wall, he felt it slide just so, with a chink and a settle.

  He pulled the drape of his woolen plaid closer over his jacket and clamped a hand over his bonnet, for the wind began to whip as soon as he inserted the key—the crystal itself. He waited, knowing this was not his usual appointed time, but they expected him. Every seven years throughout his adult life, he had come here, according to the agreement he had made. Seven years, and seven again, until seven-times-seven was reached. By then, he would be an old man. Tonight, just a year and a day had passed since his last visit. But he had to come back—for this, he would visit again.

  She always expected him, and welcomed him into her presence, and into her arms. There, he would lose the sense of time for a bit, the sense of himself, his home, his dear ones at Kilcrennan. Inside the hill, he would revel in the pleasures offered, golden wine and ripe fruits, sweet crystalline music, dancing like joyful madness, the laughter as that of angels. Some said that was what they were, the Fey: fallen angels. He could well believe it, given their sweetness and their cruelty.

  And the private pleasures with her—sinful, luscious passions, her body perfect and never aging, fitting exquisitely to his own, and he strong despite his years. That sensual feverishness lured him back again, the craving that pulsed through blood and soul and slowed his own aging. He could not resist her, nor had she ever denied him. Lips, touch, thrust, magic—the blend was powerful and deep.

  Inevitably, she would release him and he would find himself standing outside the rock again, in moonlight or at dawn. Just Donal the weaver, tall and handsome, blessed in his friends, fortunate in his business; just Donal MacArthur, who as a young man had made a dark bargain with a queen of the fairy ilk.

  But this time he returned for a different reason.

  Now the rock wall shifted, opened like a door. Light glowed within, and he heard the pipes, the laughter. Oh, he wanted to go inside. Not tonight, he told himself.

  “Donal, dearest!” She stood before him, and he dared not even think her name for its power. Inside the threshold, she stood tall and elegant, glowing like a slender moonbeam. Her garments were gossamer, her face and form beautiful. He caught his breath.

  “I am here, a year and a day from the last time we met, as agreed. I have come for the return of my son. You agreed to the bargain.”

  “Did I?” She laughed, silver music. Glancing over her shoulder, she beckoned. The sound of merriment, the fragrances of wine, apples, and cakes wafted toward the entrance. Donal drew breath, tempted.

  Then his son appeared, Niall, dark-haired, handsome, and brawny. With him stood the one who had lured him inside, an uncommon beauty, black gloss hair and silver-green eyes. Sensing sadness in her, Donal hoped it was because Niall would be leaving.

  “Niall, my own, are you well?” he asked, heart thumping fast.

  “Very well, and happier than any man ever was.”

  “You must break their power over you,” he began, but Niall shook his head.

  “The Fey have won, what’s done is done,” the queen of the hillside said. “Niall has found true love’s enchantment here, something all humans long for. He quite reminds me of you, Donal.” Her eyes gleamed, and lust darkened her lips to rose.

  “Do not dare,” Donal growled.

  She laughed. “Come inside forever. Come with me.” She opened her arms.

  Though it took effort, Donal ignored her to look at his son. “Come out, Niall.”

  The young man shook his head. “I cannot cross this threshold now. I gave my promise. I must remain.” He gathered the black-haired beauty close. “I am happy, and will gladly stay forever.”

  Donal knew that feeling too well. His heart sank. “Och, my Niall.”

  The queen, his own lover, reached out. “Forever would be bliss for us, too, my bonny weaver. Come inside to me.”

  He loved her in his way, but shook his head. “I will return at my allotted time, as we agreed long ago. Every seven years for you and I.” He stepped back.

  “Fine, then. Oh, the gift! I keep my promises.” She beckoned. A Fey girl appeared beside her, holding a bundle. Niall’s black-haired lover reached out, but the queen snatched it up, pulling the blanket down. “Donal, do take this home with you.”

  He saw an infant swathed in glittering fairy cloth, a small, perfect creature wi
th dark hair and wide eyes, so impish and lovely that his heart melted, there and then. “What is this?” he asked. “A changeling, who will be not so lovely a thing when I reach home?”

  “No changeling. She is half our kind, half yours.” His longtime lover touched the child’s brow, and a blue glow like a beam of moonlight appeared and vanished. She offered the infant to Donal, stretching her arms through the moonlight. “I have given her a gift. She will see what cannot be seen.”

  “The Second Sight.” Such gifts were freely bestowed by the fairies, it was said, though there might be a hidden cost. Donal accepted the feathery weight in his arms, and looked at his son. “Yours?”

  Niall nodded. “Your granddaughter. We lend her into your keeping.” His lover bowed her head, and Niall kissed her hair. Donal understood, then, why she was sad. The Fey had good hearts for their own; for humans, too, sometimes.

  But his granddaughter! Oh, she was perfect. His heart filled with new love.

  “Take the child in exchange for your son,” the queen said. “That is our bargain. She is called Eilidh”—Ai-lesh, she pronounced softly—“it is her fairy name, and so holds great power. Take care not to say her name aloud often.”

  “Then I will call her Elspeth, after my wife. I will love this child as if she were my own.” He moved back quickly, before losing his son could tear his heart again, before they could change their capricious minds and take back the babe. The wee squirming bundle was dear to him already. Tears stung his eyes. “Niall–”

  ”We will meet again, Da. Take care of her.” Niall sighed. “The power of the Fey flows in her blood, so she will feel the lure of it sometimes. Let her live with you in the Highlands until we call her back to us when she turns twenty-one.”

  “Let her stay with me always,” Donal protested. “She will thrive and be happy. I have already lost my son to your ilk.” He looked at the queen.

  She shook her head. “The girl must come back to her kind. But if you find the treasure stolen from us long ago by one of your own name, she might stay with you longer. Return that to us, and we could make a new agreement.”

  “The fairy treasure? No one knows where that is, or if the legend is even true.” The Fey were prone to exaggeration, Donal knew. Daoine Síth, they were called in the Gaelic—people of peace. Yet they were not peaceful if crossed. He must be cautious.

  “A MacArthur stole our treasure long ago. One of your own line.” Her voice was ice cold now. “We will have it back, or we will take souls from this glen until we do, just as we have done since the day it disappeared. Your land for this treasure. Your sons and daughters for our treasure. You are fortunate that we even let you take this little one.”

  “I do not know how to find the treasure.”

  “Somewhere in these hills, or in some earthly hall, it lies. You will need two keys to open it. You already have one, the blue stone.” She meant the pretty thing he had set into the rock earlier. “The second key lies in your arms.”

  “The child? I do not understand. Tell me where to look for the treasure.”

  “If we knew that, we would not ask your help,” the queen snapped. “Find our treasure and escape our thrall—or bring back the girl when she is grown. There is a binding spell around her.” Her beautiful gaze held his. She lifted her arms high.

  Sensing her power igniting, Donal stepped back. “This is a wicked bargain. The lass should choose what she wants in her own life. There must be another way.”

  “Love,” Niall said suddenly. “Love can break any fairy spell. It is the strongest magic in any realm.” He drew his dark-haired lover closer. “If our daughter finds true love, the spell that binds her will dissolve.”

  “But if she finds that, she would not come back to us,” said the mother. “Oh, Donal MacArthur! She must never fall in love. I want my child back.” Her voice trembled.

  Donal moved back further, knowing he must leave now, with the child—and leave his son behind.

  “Farewell, Niall,” he forced out. His son lifted a hand sadly. Shielding the infant with his plaid, Donal moved backward again. He dare not turn his back on the beautiful ones who watched him, or on their shining world. Only when they had faded into the mist did he turn toward the cold wind and moonlight, blinking away tears.

  Wee Elspeth would never return to that realm if he could prevent it, he thought as he hurried away, holding his granddaughter, his treasure. Somehow he would keep her safe in the earthly realm. He was obligated to return every seven years to the hillside portal, but he would keep the lass away from the glamourie of the Seelie court and the irresistible enchantment of her ilk.

  She must find true love, Niall had said. That was something few ever found. But if she married and moved far away from this place, and from the Highlands, that might be enough to break the hold of the Otherworld. He would arrange a marriage for her one day. A Lowland match. Otherwise, the Seelie Court might take her, just as they had taken Niall.

  If he could only find their treasure, that would release all their hold. But he had searched for years and did not know where else to look. His MacArthur kin had lost much because of that missing treasure. Lands, loved ones—

  He would never let this precious lass spend forever in their realm. Determined to protect her, he hurried onward.

  The Highlands, 1808

  Elspeth sat beside her grandfather in a wing chair like his, two chairs in green brocade flanking the fire. She watched small blue flames licking around peat bricks, and traced her fingers over the worn texture of the chair arm. Sitting proper and straight, as their housekeeper Mrs. Graham had taught her, she smoothed her dress of pale pink sprigged with flowers, and reached up to pat the green ribbon wound in her dark hair. Crossing her feet in white stockings and black slippers, she watched her grandfather.

  He was studying the pages of a little leather book, the one where he kept all the notes and curious criss-cross drawings for his weaving. He marked a page with his pencil, scritch-scratch.

  “Grandda, will you teach me the weaving?”

  "I will, someday,” he said, distracted.

  She swung her feet like the clapper of a bell. “Tell me about the Fey again.”

  He looked at her. “So beautiful,” he replied. “Like you, hey. Quick-witted and joyful, like you. And so fickle, which of course you would never be.” She laughed, and he continued. “Remember, if the Daoine Síth like us and love us, good fortune is ours.”

  “Only so long as they are pleased,” she prodded, for she knew all his tales.

  “True, if they become annoyed, they will turn their hearts and their backs to us, and their blessings and gifts will become curses. And we must never look back if we walk away from them, or we will be in their thrall forever. Such happened, to…my son.”

  “Never look back,” she repeated dutifully, nodding. “My father looked back.”

  He nodded sadly. “They love and live joyfully, but they have a hidden power, and they do not forgive easily, if ever. That’s the Fey.”

  “What do they look like?” She had heard the stories often and delighted in hearing them again. She wanted to know more about the realm where her father lived still. Her grandfather had a storyteller’s way about him so that even a repeated tale sounded new.

  “Some are golden as sunshine, some dark as midnight. You are like the dark ones,” he added, reaching over to tap her knee. “Hair like jet, eyes like moonlight in that perfect wee face. You take after your fairy mother, though you have your father’s stubborn chin and his temperament, too. You do not always do as Mrs. Graham and I ask.” He looked stern for a moment.

  “I listen, but sometimes I do as I please.”

  “Just like your father. Willful and smart, with a mind of your own.”

  “Are my parents truly in the fairy world?” she asked. Her grandfather was silent. Was this another of his tales, this talk of fairy blood, so she would not be as sad to be an orphan? She shrugged. “Grandda, can I try the game again? Let me gue
ss what page you are looking at in the book.”

  “Very well,” he said, and covered the page with his hand.

  She closed her eyes. She liked this game, for she often knew the answers. “It says, blue, blue, green, green, and five threads of yellow for the weft threads. It is MacArthur! You are looking at the pattern for our own plaidie!” She opened her eyes.

  “It is indeed the MacArthur tartan. My cousin wants a length of wool for a new waistcoat.”

  She smiled. “Peggy Graham says I have the Sight.”

  “Mrs. Graham,” he corrected gently. “And so you do. The fairies gave it to you.”

  “Someday, perhaps I will find the hidden fairy gold they want returned to them. And they will be grateful and happy, and my father will come back to us.”

  Donal MacArthur sighed. “I fear Niall and the treasure are lost forever. But anything is possible, aye?” He returned to his notes. Scritch, scratch.

  Elspeth looked into the leaping, delicate flames, and wished she could see the fairies too, as Grandda had done. She squeezed her eyes shut. Nothing came.

  Sometimes she had lovely dreams in which a handsome young man and a beautiful dark-haired lady came to her, laughed with her, hugged her. She hoped they were her parents, hoped they were of the fairy people, but she did not know. She closed her eyes again. Nothing.

  Someday she would see them, she promised herself.

  Chapter 1