by Alisa Adams
Highlander’s Fate
Alisa Adams
Contents
1. Alexa
2. The Sutherlands
3. Alexa's Suitor
4. Alexa's Party
5. A Conversation of Equals
6. Strategies
7. A Meeting in the Dark
8. Hector Sutherland
9. Gregor and Mairi
10. The Raid
11. A Meeting of Women
12. Sewing and Dreaming
13. A Death in the Family
14. The Fortress
15. Treasure
16. Speculation
17. Capturing Hector
18. Lorraine's Decision
19. The Laird and Lady of Ness
20. The Arrival
21. The Treasure
22. Alexa's Decision
23. The Hanging
24. The Departure
25. Another Betrothal
26. Mairi and Davie
27. Lorraine and Graham
28. Father Columba
29. Dinner with a Monk
30. Negotiations and Prayers
31. Young Men's Concerns
32. Gregor's Decision
33. Weddings and Other Matters
34. Setting Off
35. Towards Inverness
36. Castle Ness
37. Allie Macroon
38. Auguste
39. Trying To Be Free
40. A Lesson From Shona
41. Alexa's Letter
42. 'I Told Ye So!'
43. Road To The Sea
44. Off With The Tide
45. Destination
46. A Month Later
Extended epilogue and thank you gifts
Also by the author
Highland Rebirth
1. Marooned
2. Awakening
3. More Memories
4. The Kiss
5. Consequences
6. Some Conclusions
About the Author
1
Alexa
Alexa Montgomery had been madly in love with Graham Hamilton since she was six years old and he was ten. She first saw him when he had been fighting with a wooden sword against one of the stable boys who had a long wooden stick. Of course, the stable boy lost the duel and fell down dead, mortally wounded by a stab through the heart. The young groom got up and gave Graham a friendly pat on the back.
"Aye, wee laird," he said, laughing. "Ye'll make a fine swordsman one o' these days!"
Alexa, standing on one of the walls looking over the courtyard of her uncle's castle, felt her heartbeat quicken and her cheeks flush. What a beautiful, big strong boy Graham was! He had long golden-brown hair, but she could not see the color of his eyes, only that they were light in color too. He was sturdily built with strong calves and shoulders that were already broadening into manhood.
Why can't I be grown up? she thought with fury.
Just then he looked up and gave her a beaming smile and a low bow. She gasped, suddenly overcome with shyness, and ran along the parapet, downstairs, and all the way to her bedroom where she dived onto her bed and grabbed her doll, Aggie, to whom she told all her secrets.
"Oh, Aggie!" she said rapturously. "One day I am going to be a lady. Then I will get married to that beautiful boy down there. Look how big and strong he is! I will make him fall in love with me, and we will have ten children."
At six years old, Alexa had no idea of the sheer size of a family of ten children, but it sounded wonderful. She had but one sister, fifteen years older than Alexa and married to the most boring man in the world, or so it seemed to a child of six who wanted nothing more than to run around the courtyards and corridors, play with the village children, and ride horses.
Nanny Joan said she was a tomboy.
"What does that mean, Nanny?" Alexa asked one day.
"That means ye're a lassie that wants tae be a boy!" Nanny laughed.
"But boys have short hair and wear kilts or hose," she replied, puzzled. "They have a lot more fun than I do!"
Then she thought for a moment.
"Nanny, if I put on a kilt and cut my hair, will I be a boy too?"
Nanny looked alarmed.
"Naw, lass!" She shook her red head vehemently. "Ye'll never be a boy. Ye'll grow up tae be a lovely young lady an’ one day a handsome laird or even a baron will come an' ask for yer hand in marriage."
"I only want to marry Graham Hamilton," Alexa said, her voice firm. "And I want to be a boy."
Nanny again looked at her in astonishment.
"I think ye're tae young tae be sayin' things like that, Miss Alexa! An' if the good Lord had wanted ye tae be a boy, he'd a' made ye one!" She laughed. "Onyway, how can ye be a boy an' marry a boy?"
"I will turn back into a girl before then, Nanny," Alexa said airily. These complications were as nothing to a six-year-old. "I am going to marry him, Nanny. You wait and see!"
Alexa stuck her nose in the air, which was usually a sign of trouble.
* * *
Alexa did not believe Nanny Joan, but she waited patiently to prove her wrong – since she wanted to grow a bit taller before her transformation.
One day when she was eight, and she was supposed to be taking her afternoon nap (for which she was far too old!), Alexa stole Nanny's sewing scissors and cut her hair up to her ears in a ragged crop. She took all the excess hair and tossed it out of her window where it landed on some astounded stall holders in the courtyard. She had bought some hose and a shirt from one of the stable boys and put them on, even though they were ragged and dirty.
When Nanny Joan saw her, she was speechless.
When she recovered her voice, she wailed: "Oh, Miss Alexa! What have ye done tae yersel'?"
"I'm a boy now, Nanny." Alexa wore a smug smile. "Now I can go and have sword fights and ride ponies!"
Nanny shook her head. "Hen..." She sighed. "Ye will never be a boy. I have told ye before."
"But I've got short hair! And I'm wearing hose!"
"Yer uncle will kill ye!" Nanny Joan groaned. "An' then me!"
* * *
When Moira Drummond saw Alexa, she was horrified.
"Oh, my God, Alexa!" Her eyes were wide in horror as she looked at her younger sister. "Who did this to you?"
"I did it myself!" Alexa replied indignantly. "I want to be a boy!" She stamped her foot on the floor in a tantrum. "And I want to marry Graham Hamilton!"
"But a man cannot marry another man," Moira pointed out, trying not to laugh.
"I only want to be a boy for a while – then I will turn back into a girl again," Alexa said reasonably. "Nanny can make me some new dresses, and I can be a girl again."
"Mistress, I am so sorry." Nanny was practically in tears. "But I thought she wis sleepin'. If I had kent she wis gaunnae dae this—"
"I think we need to tell her some things," Moira said, matter-of-factly. "About why girls cannot be boys. I have been dreading this day." She sighed.
Moira was Alexa's guardian. Their mother had died when Alexa was two years old and their father a year later, leaving them penniless and alone. Fortunately, Laird Drummond, a handsome widower in his early thirties, was looking for a suitable second wife. With a young sister to look after and no means of support, Moira was glad to accept his offer of marriage. He was a fairly quiet, dull man, but he was kind to them and treated them well, accepting little Alexa as his own. Even though he was her brother-in-law, she called him 'Uncle' because he was so much older than she was.
So Moira an
d Nanny Joan went on to explain the different things that happened to boys and girls as they grew up, and Alexa's eyes grew wide.
Eventually, Moira said, "Do you understand all that, Alexa?"
Alexa considered it for a moment.
"You're not joking, Sister?" she asked, somewhat anxious.
"No, wee lass, I'm not," Moira answered affectionately.
She tucked what was left of Alexa's fair curls back behind her ears, then she laughed, suddenly seeing the funny side of it.
"Bath – now!" she commanded. "Nanny, I think we had better take her to the barber in the morning to cut this mop into shape – or mayhap I will get the shepherd to attend to it with his shears!"
Alexa squealed in mock-terror and ran along the corridor back to her bedroom.
"I am sorry, mistress," Joan repeated. "The master—"
"Pfft!" Moira flapped her hand. "Don't worry, Joan. I will handle him. Just get those rags off her back before she infests the whole castle with fleas!"
Graham had paid little attention to Alexa while she was growing up. She was a familiar figure at Mass on Sundays, and sometimes she accompanied her father to his own father's castle when they had business to do, but he said very little to her unless it was to pass the time of day. The only unusual thing about her was her habit of wearing boys' clothes sometimes. He had never seen a girl do that before and thought it was very odd. But he had plenty of male friends to play with and his choice of fine horses to ride. He was becoming tall and muscular, and at the age of sixteen was already sporting a little beard.
* * *
When Alexa was twelve, she suddenly became self-conscious. Boys and young men were beginning to pay attention to her, giving her compliments, offering to help her mount her horse and opening doors for her. They talked in a way that seemed to her disrespectful yet alluring, and she found it confusing in the extreme, so she asked Moira about it.
"It's called 'flirting'," Moira said, sighing, "and it means they find you attractive. They just have a funny way of showing it."
"Aye," Nanny Joan said gloomily. "Noo's when all the trouble starts!"
"What trouble?" Alexa asked, frowning.
"Ye'll soon find oot, lass," Nanny replied, sighing.
Graham was trotting his dappled gray mare, Esme, toward Castle Drummond one morning when he saw in the distance a teenage boy shooting a crossbow at a target on a big pine tree. He decided to stop and warn him about the outlaws that infested the nearby mountain since there was a notorious ambush spot nearby.
However, as he drew nearer, he realized there was something not quite right about the boy, and as he came alongside, he realized that the figure he had thought was a boy, in fact, was a girl, and a very pretty one.
Alexa Montgomery had grown up to be a beauty, with shining blonde curls and huge blue eyes. Her figure was as slim as a boy's except for her breasts which were full and womanly. She was almost eighteen, breathtaking, and suddenly Graham wanted her very much indeed.
"Miss Montgomery!" He dismounted and strode up to her, smiling. "I did not recognize you."
Alexa gave him no answer for a moment but loosed another bolt into the dead center of the target, where it joined three more, all within a fraction of an inch of each other.
"Mr. Hamilton."
She was wearing a tunic over her hose with leather boots on her feet. Around her hand-span waist, she wore a thick leather belt from which hung a vicious-looking sheathed dagger. He could see a tartan cloak draped over her horse's saddle, with a sharp shape underneath it which looked suspiciously like a claymore. The combination of beauty and wildness was arousing in the extreme, and Graham could not keep his eyes off her.
Alexa noticed the look at once since she had become very familiar with it in the last few months, but this was Graham, the boy she had idolized since childhood.
He was not that boy anymore though. Now, he was tall with a thick mane of golden-brown hair, light hazel eyes, and broad shoulders. He was very close to her, and she took an involuntary step backward, feeling threatened by his nearness. He noticed, and bowed slightly, stepping back. Alexa would have curtsied politely but felt that it was foolish to do so while dressed in men's clothes.
"I'm sorry for standing so close," Graham said, "but I feel protective when I stand near a lady in such a dangerous place. There are outlaws nearby."
She smiled and loosed another bolt into the tree. Then, almost too fast for him to see it, the dagger jumped into her hand, and she was holding it at his throat before he could do anything to stop her. He froze. She looked into his eyes steadily for a moment, and the fierceness of her gaze made him want to beg for mercy. Then she lowered the weapon and put it slowly back in its sheath. She took a slingshot from one of the panniers on her horse and placed a large stone in it.
"See that rock over there?"
Alexa pointed to a boulder about fifty yards distant, then spun the slingshot around and above her head. When she loosed it, the stone bounced off the rock with a loud crack and chips of stone sprayed into the air.
"If that had been someone's head," she informed him, "the skull would have been shattered."
She put the weapon back in her saddlebag.
"Would you like to see my sword?" she added, smiling mischievously.
"I think I have seen enough, Miss Montgomery," Graham replied. "But even all these weapons will not protect you against a dozen armed outlaws."
"Mayhap you are right." She nodded in agreement and mounted her horse. "But they would have to catch me first, and my Jenny is the fastest steed for miles around. Where are you going?"
"To see the Laird Drummond." He still felt a bit shaken, in more ways than one.
"Would you like me to be your escort?" she offered politely. "You look as if you need one!"
Graham gaped at her in amazement. This was not the little girl he had once known, who ran wild in the castle’s courtyard. Alexa Montgomery had grown up into a fierce, beautiful warrior woman, and at that moment he knew he wanted her, and wanted her forever.
2
The Sutherlands
Hector Sutherland may have been the patriarch of a large family, but not one of them loved him. He was a greedy, ruthless, capricious man whose only loves were power, riches, and the eldest of his four daughters, Mairi. Despite the cruelty of his nature, he was not ugly. Indeed, he was a fine-looking man with gray-streaked black hair and dark gray eyes.
Mairi could almost twist her father around her little finger, but not quite, for his cruelty knew no bounds. She was like him, in looks, not in personality, being brown-eyed and dark-haired with shapely, almost masculine features but with a feminine cast.
She was tall and strong, and from a distance could have been mistaken for a man, but she had feminine wiles aplenty. She had to suffer the attention of the other bandits, though, who made very free with their roaming hands all over her body. Her father always struck out if one of them tried to go any further than a caress though.
In some ways, he was very protective, and he had never struck her, unlike the others.
Her brothers and sisters were terrified of Hector, and her mother cowered every time he came near, for his method of discipline was cruel in the extreme. He used his fists, a wooden rod, a leather strap, and the sheer force of his brutal personality. The most trivial of infringements could result in a dozen or more strokes of the lash, even for little Sam, who was only three years old. Often one of the older children would have to hold him down under pain of being beaten themselves. Mairi often pleaded for mercy for them, but it never came.
Mistress Donella Sutherland had already suffered three miscarriages on account of his violence, but she thanked God for them because she had no wish to bring another life into the world to suffer as much as the family she had. She had often thought of smothering the little ones in their sleep and jumping off the high walls of the Sutherland house, but she had never had the courage.
Now, the oldest of her sons, also called Hector, wh
o was twenty-one, was growing up to be just like his father, violent and abusive, especially after a few drams. There were signs that the other two, Alec and Bearnaird, who were twenty, were going the same way too.
Every night Donella Sutherland prayed for deliverance from her husband's wrath, but God had either been rendered deaf or was ignoring her pleas. She thanked him that she was at least too old for childbearing any more. She had nine living children and had endured one stillbirth as well as all the miscarriages.
When Hector came in with plunder from neighboring farms, he was always in a state of high excitement, and these were the times Donella dreaded the most, for then he used her body in the worst way, and clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her screams. Donella tried to acquire some milk of the poppy during those times both to numb her pain and put her to sleep.
But her husband, for all his savagery, was not stupid. Hector took livestock, crops and sometimes even women from the farmers, but he left them enough to live on so that they could always sustain his and his family's needs. His 'estate' as he liked to call it, stood on the plateau of a low mountain with almost sheer sides, almost impregnable from attack by the forces of the two lairds in the valley, and the others, whose land was more distant but in just as much danger.
