A Hellion for the Highlander: A Steamy Scottish Historical Romance Novel

by Lydia Kendall

  Ewan wheezed out a cackling laugh. “Dinnae worry yerself, pet. I’ll survive.”

  “Let George take ye home at least, Da,” Angelica entreated. She nudged her husband, who glanced at Cicilia.

  “Aye, George will drive ye. Ye can take me wee buggy, I dinnae mind. I dinnae want ye here to face the Laird’s wrath for yer wee joke,” Cicilia told him. She turned to the twins. “Did ye hear all that?”

  Both twins’ expressions had brightened considerably. “Ye mean we still get to? Even tho’ it’s the Laird?” Annys asked, hopefully.

  Cicilia smirked. “Aye,” she said. “Nae only do ye get to, but I insist ye go all out. Ye think ye can handle it?”

  “Aye!” Jamie and Annys both said simultaneously.

  “I’ll go see if Bacon is awake,” Jamie chirped, scurrying off with Annys following happily behind him.

  “Come on, Da,” George said to his father-in-law. “Let’s get ye back to Jeanie before she has our heids on pikes.”

  Cicilia watched them all leave, then took a deep, settling breath. She was unsure how the Laird had managed to get so close without anyone notifying her long before now.

  Her father had set up people along the road to the central clan many years past, and they had served Cicilia faithfully since her father’s death. The Laird, surely, would be traveling with servants, grandeur, and the kind of showy poshness that Lillian had called ‘wealth gone to ruin.’

  How had nae body thought to alert me?

  She grimaced. She’d worry about it later. For now, though… “Angelica?”

  “Aye, ma’am,” the cook said, immediately attentive.

  “Let’s get to work,” Cicilia said determinedly. “We dinnae have much time.”

  Let’s let the Laird know what it means when he will nae leave me and me family well enough alone.

  Chapter 5

  Ophidia in Herba

  A Snake in the Grass

  It took approximately three hours before they reached the borders of the Gallagher land and realized that the old man had sent them to chase a wild goose rather than in the direction of the farm. They might not have realized at all were it not for a friendly border patroller of the Magee Clan, who politely pointed out they’d crossed the line in error.

  “The ol’ codger kent precisely what he was doin’,” Alexander fumed. He was angrier than he perhaps needed to be, because he was tired, because his backside hurt from riding, and because he was embarrassed by being corrected by a foot soldier. “I ken he did. He probably went off to warn the farmer that we’re on our way.”

  They’d paused at a small burn to let the horses drink and regain their bearings. Contrary to Alexander’s anger, Nathair seemed to find this whole thing hilarious, which only fueled the Laird’s irritation even further.

  “Is nae it worse if he did mean it, Sandy?” Nathair chuckled. “The mighty Laird o’ Gallagher and his battle-hardened Man-at-arms, brought down by a wee old grandfaither?”

  “Quit yer japin’, ye big fool,” Alexander demanded, which only made Nathair laugh harder.

  Alexander was in no mood for laughter. As soon as they’d re-mounted and trotted for a little to warm up, he spurred Aibreann back into a full gallop, riding as quickly as he could in the direction they’d come. Nathair let out a surprised yelp behind him, then there was a sudden whoop as the Chieftain encouraged Ailill to run faster to keep up.

  They rode as hard as possible, Alexander barely knowing where he’d go as he took turns in the direction they’d been warned away from long before they even reached the crossroads. Nathair cackled at every sharp turn Alexander took.

  I wonder how much it would cost to get meself a new Man-at-arms an’ best friend?

  “Och, ye love me really,” Nathair called after him, as though he could read his mind.

  He did, the cursed man. Like a brother. An annoying brother whose mother should have left him with the midwife who’d helped birth him.

  Despite his annoyance, Nathair’s relentless teasing actually relaxed him a little as they traveled along the road, and it wasn’t long before they spotted the cottage.

  As they slowed the horses down to a trot once more, Nathair let out a low whistle. “Well,” he said after a moment. “That ol’ spunkie was tellin’ the truth about one thing a’ least. We couldn’ae o’ missed this eyesore if we’d tried.”

  Alexander gave an absent nod, staring in something close to horror at the cottage ahead of them at the forefront of miles of farmland. ‘Cottage’ was an underwhelming term for it, really. ‘Monstrosity’ was closer to the word Alexander’s brain was looking for.

  What kind o’ place is this disaster?!

  They dismounted their horses, leading the poor tired creatures to the fence and tying them there until they could find someone to take them to the stables. It seemed oddly quiet. Nobody had come out to meet them, there were no farmhands at all, in fact. Even though it was late, there was usually someone around.

  Frowning, he bid Nathair finish tending the horses while he went to introduce himself at the door. He walked along the fencing until he found the gap, lined on the other side with a wild hedge, and stared at the building ahead.

  It’s like it was designed just to mess about inside me heid!

  It might have been a pretty building, once, but no longer. Everywhere that Alexander tried to rest his eyes, he saw flaws, imperfections. They were the kind of little but glaring details that activated the worst kind of warning bells in his head.

  The roof was tilted when it was supposed to be straight, giving the whole building the illusion of sinking deep into the ground. The windows weren’t in line with where they were supposed to be, either. In fact, they looked like they’d been thrown at random and left wherever they would stick on the cobbled wall.

  Are there even rooms inside, or was this designed right from me nightmares?

  Worse, when he stared along the entrance path, there was no door! It seemed to wind around the house through a thick mud trail. He supposed the way in was directed towards the farm, but that seemed hideously out of the way for visitors.

  Grimacing, he put one step in front of the other and began to move towards this ramshackle backward house that shouldn’t exist. He felt a squelch underfoot as his shoes slid in the mud and tried to hold in the shudder it caused to rip through him.

  Keep goin’, Alexander. Remember, ye’re a Laird. Ye dinnae get scared off by a bit o’ mud.

  This thought galvanized him somewhat, and he took another step forward…only to feel his leg sink deep into the ground as another puddle was considerably less shallow.

  He pulled his leg out with a grump, the wet cold making him shudder and bringing bile to his throat as he tried not to look down at his ruined trews.

  I’m nae even halfway along the path yet! Maybe it is nae too late to just go home…

  But he heard Nathair behind him and knew he’d never live it down if he turned and ran, over a little mud and some strange architecture.

  Trying not to think about it, he walked as quickly and carefully as he could along the dirt path and around the corner of the house. He picked his way around the mud and remaining puddles as much as he could.

  As he walked along the trail, he could see more of the farm—and still, nobody. There were the stables, but no stablehands or stable master. There was a pigpen, but either all the pigs were sleeping inside, or the farmer had decided on a large ham dinner.

  I’ve never heard a farm so…noiseless.

  It made his skin crawl, almost as much as the mud had. What kind of strange place was this?

  Finally, after what felt like ten years, the front door with its big brass knocker appeared at the end of the trail.

  Front. Aye, more like a back door. Ridiculous.

  But he’d made it, and without needing to stop. Nathair wasn’t even around the corner yet. Alexander released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding and lifted the knocker.

  Just as the brass hit, he we
nt very still, because there was suddenly some commotion behind him and he was almost afraid to look. “Nathair?” he called.

  “Aye, hold yer horses, I’m comin’,” Nathair answered, clearly not yet behind him.

  Which meant something else was. And that something else was giggling and snorting wildly.

  Very, very slowly, Alexander turned in place.

  He barely had time to consider what he was looking at. A massive hog was tearing along the path toward him with surprising speed, squeaking, and snorting, and clinging to its back were two small children.

  “What in the name o’—?!” Alexander started, but didn’t have time to finish the curse before the pig was almost on top of him. The wildly laughing children seemed to coax the creature into barrelling right into him!

  He dived to the side, with no time to think, and felt the cold stickiness of the mud as it covered his clothes, his hair, his skin. He felt like he’d never be clean again, but at least he hadn’t been trampled to death by a wild pig and these two demonic children!

  Furious, he scrambled to his feet, slipping and falling back into the mud thrice before he managed to pull it off entirely.

  “Who in the name o’ God do ye think ye are?!” he snarled loudly, his voice echoing around the farm. “Do ye ken who I am?!”

  He wasn’t even yelling at the children, just at nobody in particular, trying desperately to get some of his fury and embarrassment out.

  I wish me voice would lower itself. I sound right silly.

  “Do ye ken who I am?” the little girl mimicked him from underneath her messy, pitch-black hair. She and her brother both started laughing maniacally again atop the now-still hog.

  “I am the Laird o’ this clan, and if I dinnae get to Farmer O’Donnel right now, ye’re all gonnae spend a few nights in me dungeons!” Alexander hollered, though his yelling was only making him feel more embarrassed.

  “Ye’ll all spend the night in me dungeons!” chirped the boy with the wild red curls. “Och, nay, mister Laird! Nae yer dungeons!” And then he and his sister dissolved into laughter once more.

  Of course, that was the second that Nathair choose to walk around the corner. The Man-at-arms slowly took in the scene, and Alexander watched as his eyes went from the children to the pig and then to his Laird covered in so much mud that the only things distinguishable were his blue eyes.

  “Oh, for the love o’ Christ,” Nathair said, and then he was wheezing with laughter, too. “Och, Sandy, what’ve ye done?”

  “Aye, Sandy, what’ve ye done?” the children repeated in unison.

  “That’s quite—” Alexander started angrily, but an odd silence fell again, and neither of the children was focused on him any longer. Nathair’s eyes were on the door, too, and slowly Alexander turned towards it.

  “Oh, dear,” said the small woman who stood there, a half-smile on her heart-shaped face. She could not have been more than five-and-twenty, but she stood there with the kind of authority men twice her age found challenging to command.

  She is just like her house. She could have been pretty, but for all these oddities.

  She was very short, only a little over five feet in shoes at most. She sported a healthy weight without plumpness, most of it showing in the curves around her hips and chest. She was dressed demurely enough, in the kind of wool-spun dress a farmer’s daughter was like to wear, though it was slightly too tight on her figure, as if she didn’t wear it often.

  Her skin might have been smooth in its rose-tinted cream, but it was scattered with freckles all over her nose and forehead, ruining the image. Her eyes were green like the pine trees in summer, and there was pity shining in them. These, too, were marred with an oddity, a glint of gold ruining the otherwise perfect image.

  Her hair was what bothered him most, though. It was cut shorter than most women’s, though not in a boyish style. It was neither straight nor curled, instead gently waved from root to where it stopped just under her chin.

  It was bright red, just like the boy on the pig who sported curls to rival Nathair’s. The woman’s hair was more carrot-colored than deep, and would have been quite pretty if not for the strange streak of crow-black that ran down the right-hand side.

  Has she applied some sort of dye? I dinnae ken it was possible to put it only on one strand.

  It didn’t look like dye, though. In fact, it seemed the exact shade of black worn by the other child, the little girl. In short, this woman was unnatural, odd, with the kind of appearance that triggered all of Alexander’s stressors.

  “What have ye been up to now, ye mad bairns?” the woman asked with her hands on her hips. “Look at the mess o’ this poor lad. Forgive me, sir, me siblings can get a wee bit carried away. Say ye’re sorry, Annys, Jamie, and get down off Bacon.”

  Nathair moved forward to help Alexander regain a little of his composure as the two children scrambled down off the pig. A smirk was still playing at the corner of his mouth. Whether it was at the mess of Alexander or at the name of the pig, the Laird wasn’t sure.

  “We’re sorry, Mister,” the little boy, Jamie, said humbly. “We dinnae mean to run ye over.”

  “It was right funny, though, even yer friend seemed to think so!” Annys added. At a glare from the woman, she quickly added, “But aye. Right sorry.”

  “He is nae a mister,” Nathair informed them breezily. “This is yer Laird, Alexander MacKinnon. Is this the farm o’ Mr. O’Donnel?”

  The woman gasped. “What? The Laird? Oh, goodness, Laird, what a surprise! I cannae believe what a mess ye’re in, how embarrassin’ for us! Please, both o’ ye, come inside, come inside. Let me get ye some beds, and I’ll have me maid draw ye a nice bath.”

  Alexander just stared at her, the gentle kindness in her tone sticking out like an injured thumb against the chaos around them. Nathair moved forward, taking the woman’s hand and bending his lips to meet it.

  “Such a kind woman to honor us so,” Nathair said. “As I said, this is Gallagher, and I’m Nathair Barcley. Ye’ve told us about Annys and young Jamie already. May I have yer name, too?”

  The woman laughed. “Aye, Chieftain Barcley, I ken who ye are. The honor is all mine, I assure ye. Me name is Cicilia O’Donnel. I’m afraid if ye’re lookin’ for me faither, ye’re gonnae be here a while. He’s travelin’, off to some trade show or another.”

  “And Mammy’s deid,” Annys added helpfully. “She died when me an’ Jamie were born. Now it’s just me an’ Cil an’ Jamie whenever Daddy’s gone. Well, and the Humphries, an’ the farmhands, an’…”

  “That’s enough, Annys. Ye and yer brother take Bacon back to his pen and get inside. Ask Katie if she will nae draw a bath for our guests, and Angelica will help ye wi’ yer nightwear tonight,” Cicilia said.

  The two children seemed to be calmed only by the sound of her voice and hurried to obey her orders, taking the pig with him. The second they were gone, Nathair said in a low voice, “Well, I dinnae ken about ye, Sandy, but a bath an’ a meal sounds grand.”

  Alexander said nothing, the cold, disgusting feeling of the slowly drying mud temporarily removing his ability to speak.

  Nathair smiled at Cicilia. “Do ye have a stable lad who can go fetch our horses?”

  Cicilia nodded. “We have plenty o’ farmhands. One o’ them will help.” She called the instruction after Jamie to let someone know, then looked at Alexander. “I understand yer discomfort, sir,” she said calmly and softly. “But will ye nae come inside an’ clean up?”

  “Aye,” he said in a low, rough voice, much to Nathair’s apparent relief. “That would be right welcome, Miss O’Donnel. Thank ye.”

  As he and Nathair followed the woman inside, though, he could not shift a sense of foreboding. For some reason, he felt like there would never be any going back.

  Chapter 6

  Quis Separabit?

  Who Will Separate Us?

  Cicilia had just bid her guests goodnight when she heard the sound of her buggy returnin
g and then raised voices from the kitchens below. She sighed, wiping her hands on the apron of her gown, then heading to the stairs. Her work was never done.

  The Laird was given the biggest room in the house—her father’s old room, though of course, he couldn’t know that. It hurt Cicilia a little to put him in there, but she knew not what else to do. At least it was clean.