The Mammoth Book of Scottish Romance

by Trisha Telep

  Planks dropped on to the rails of the two ships and the MacNeil kinsmen swarmed the flagship, but there were no men aboard to greet them. No clash of swords. No enemy hanging from the halyards or hiding below deck. And no Hector. The flagship was abandoned save for a terrified boy squeezing the tiller that guided the ship.

  “’Tis a ruse,” Sileas announced what Keiran already knew.

  Trembling, he climbed a companionway at the stern of the ship and gawked at Kisimul sitting unguarded in the bay. “Sorcha,” he whispered as fear clutched his entire being.

  Paralysed with worry, Sorcha hugged herself around the middle and watched the battle through the crenellated stone work atop the stronghold. The explosions had dwindled, leaving behind an infernal sea of smoke and belching fire. The waiting had soured her stomach hours before, but questions now left a metallic taste on her tongue.

  Was Keiran safe? Was he suffocating, drowning, burning? The worst possible scenarios escalated in her head. Had he faced off with Hector? Had he won?

  She hated this helpless feeling shredding her insides. She hated the regret eating a hole in her chest. She should have told him how she felt about him before he boarded the ship. Her emotions seemed to attack her all at once as she watched the burning vessels sink. Tears burned her eyes and convulsions rolled through her gut, but she quickly collected herself. She would not show weakness in front of her kinsmen.

  “M’lady, ye are needed at once in the Great Hall.” The woman who’d been Peigi’s wet nurse since her infancy stepped up behind Sorcha.

  “What is it, Edina?”

  “I cannot say more.” Edina clutched the sides of her soiled kirtle and lowered her eyes. “Please, come quickly. ’Tis Peigi.”

  Sorcha didn’t wait for further explanation before she raced down the spiral stairwell of the north tower. She might not be able to raise a broadsword in battle, but she could protect her sister. Her confidence fell to her toes when she entered the Great Hall.

  Warriors lined the perimeter the room, weapons drawn. For a fleeting moment she felt guarded until she realized they were not her warriors. Icy terror froze her feet to the floor when she laid eyes on Hector sitting at the high table shouting at Peigi to refill his drink.

  The scene was surreal, shocking, familiar. His dark soulless eyes found Sorcha’s from across the hall, then his lips curled into a threatening snarl. “Good den, wife.”

  A mixture of fury and fear numbed Sorcha’s limbs as she watched Peigi pour ale into his goblet. Peigi shook, she cried, she lifted her red swollen eyes to Sorcha in a silent plea to help her. Sorcha bit back the urge to scream at Peigi to run, knowing Hector wouldn’t hesitate to give the order to kill her. She was his captive, as was every wide-eyed woman in the hall filling his warrior’s troughs.

  “Have ye no greeting words for your husband?” Hector emptied the contents of his goblet in a single swallow. His arms were wrapped in soiled bandages, no doubt hiding his disease. Unfortunately, it hadn’t killed him yet.

  “Ye are unwelcome in my home.” She wanted to lunge at him and choke him and watch him die while she strangled the last breath from his lungs.

  He held his chest in a mock display of hurt. “I expected a grand celebration to honour my new position.”

  “Ye have no position here,” she snapped back. “I am chieftain over Clan MacNeil.”

  “Ye are my wife. Everything in your possession is mine – the stronghold, the land, the chieftainship.” As fast as a whiplash, Hector threw a dagger that pinned Sileas’s wife to a trestle table by her skirt.

  Maura screamed and dropped the pitcher she’d been carrying.

  The crash of ceramic ripped through Sorcha’s ears like a hot blade. She lurched forwards to aid Maura, but caught herself when Hector rose from the table. His dominant stance bound her in invisible shackles. For four years she’d tiptoed around him. She knew his moods, his warning looks, his gestures, and felt defeated to be submitting to him again.

  He stalked towards Maura, retrieved his blade, and threatened her with the tip. “Go to the docks and await the arrival of your kinsmen. Tell them I have their chieftain, and if they wish to keep her alive, they will abide by my instructions.”

  “What are your instructions, m’lord?” Maura choked out.

  “Have them board a single ship – all of them. Tell them to toss their shot into the water and return to sea.”

  Maura’s fair skin turned ashen against her flame-red hair. She glanced at Sorcha, awaiting approval, which Sorcha gave without pause. Sorcha knew what Hector was capable of and she had no intention of defying him. For now.

  The instant Maura was out of earshot, Hector summoned a dozen of his warriors. “Gather the men off the western side of the isle and board their ships. Go after them, surround them. When the sun breaks the horizon at dawn, load the cannons and blast them to kingdom come.”

  The kinswomen’s sharp gasps hissed through the hall.

  Horror gripped Sorcha with sharp claws. She had to do something to save them. To save Keiran. Pleading with Hector was futile. Cursing him would gain naught. Her surrender was what he wanted and exactly what she would give him if it meant protecting her people.

  “More ale!” Hector shouted at a serving maid.

  Sorcha grabbed a nearby pitcher and hoped her kinswomen followed her lead. They were hesitant at first, but once she informed them of her plan, word travelled quickly. Getting Hector and his kinsmen blootered was the only way the women would ever be able to fight them.

  “We will slit their throats in their sleep. Every last one o’ them,” one woman whispered to another in the cellar as she popped the lid open on another barrel of mead.

  “Nay. There are some I want unharmed.” Sorcha had spoken very little to Hector’s men in the four years she’d been married to him, but she’d known all their wives. “I’ll tell you exactly which ones we shall save.”

  The next few hours proved to be excruciating, but soon Hector’s men succumbed to the drink. One by one, they fell upon the floor rushes to seek their slumber. But not Hector.

  “Stay with the girl.” He issued the order to his seneschal standing beside Peigi, then latched his thick fingers around Sorcha’s wrist and dragged her out of the Great Hall. “Your sister will remain untouched as long as ye continue to behave in the manner expected of a wife.”

  “Where are ye taking me?” Her heels dug into the floor. Her stomach roiled with fear. And her heart beat out of cadence waiting for him to respond. He remained silent as he dragged her up the stairwell and into her father’s solar.

  “Think ye I am ignorant?” He backhanded her across the face, flinging her into the bedpost. “I know what ye and your kinswomen are doing.”

  Sorcha clutched the wooden post and readied herself for his next strike, knowing it would come.

  “Did ye cast one of your spells on the drink?”

  “I am no witch,” Sorcha insisted for what seemed the thousandth time.

  “Nay?” Hector fisted her hair and wrenched her head back. “Then why was it the moment I pushed ye off that cliff did the sun shine over my head? Green clover blankets my land now.”

  A screeching caw sounded outside the arrow-slit reminding her of the last time Hector tried to kill her. “Ye are greedy. If all is right on your land, why did ye even come here?”

  “Because of this.” Hector pushed his plaid and undertunic to his waist, exposing a chest covered with pus-filled boils. “’Tis because of ye my kin fear breathing my air and my mistresses willnae lay with me.”

  Sorcha stared at him, repulsed. “Think ye I can heal ye?”

  “Ye cursed me!” The veins in his neck protruded. His nostrils flared. “My patience for your lies has worn thin. Ye will remove this damned spell or I’ll kill your kinswomen one at a time, starting with your sister.”

  Fury unleashed a strength in her that curled her fingers into her palms. She reared back her fist and threw a punch at him.

  He easily caught
it. “Ye are a foolish woman.”

  ’Twas as if something snapped inside her. “I hate ye,” she screamed at him and reared back her other fist, but before she could follow through, Hector spun a half circle away from her.

  He unsheathed his dagger. “What was that?” He jerked as if he’d been pushed from behind. “Who’s there?” His stance widened. His eyes frantically searched the empty chamber. He’d gone completely mad.

  Sorcha raced out of the solar and was caught mid-flight around the middle by a thick-muscled arm covered with Pagan symbols. Relief washed through her with such intensity she nearly swooned.

  “Ye are safe now,” Keiran whispered and squeezed her tight, but only long enough for her to inhale the scents of smoke and sulphur and sea.

  “The others. Hector is going to—”

  Keiran pressed his finger against her lips. “Magda summoned a gale-force wind that is blowing most of the Ranalds back home. But I’m going to need her help to get our ships back.”

  He pushed Sorcha behind him, then entered the solar, sword drawn. “This is my quarrel, Magda. Ye are needed back at sea.”

  Confused by his words, Sorcha stepped beneath the doorframe and bore witness to a phenomenon like none she’d ever seen. Smoke curled around a figure standing in front of the window. Long white hair framed a face as familiar to Sorcha as her own.

  Hector unsheathed the sword at his hip and circled Keiran. “Who the bluidy hell are ye people?”

  “I am the witch who cursed ye and your clan.” Grandmum smiled at Hector with glittery blue-green eyes, then pointed at Keiran. “And he is your wife’s next husband.”

  “And the future chieftain of Clan MacNeil,” Sorcha added with pride, knowing all would be right.

  No doubt stunned by her announcement, Keiran’s attention shifted away from Hector. A whirling sound echoed through the chamber, then Hector’s blade sank into Keiran’s chest clean to the hilt.

  Time slowed, nearly stopped along with Sorcha’s heart. He sank to his knees, then his strong body fell to the floor.

  “Nay!” Sorcha screamed and rushed to him. She held his head as he struggled to draw air through the blood pooling in his mouth. Pain scalded her chest, her throat, her eyes. Tears rolled down her cheeks and dripped on to his. “Dinnae die,” she cried and brushed his brow with a shaking hand. “I love ye.”

  He went still in her arms the same instant Hector’s boot tips appeared beside her. “The same fate awaits the rest of your kin, lest—”

  “Ye bastard!” Sorcha yanked the blade from Keiran’s chest, fully prepared to stand up to Hector once and for all. She reared back, but an invisible force snatched the dagger from her hand.

  “Wait!” Grandmum shouted and snapped her arms towards Hector, throwing him against the stone wall. “I need him unharmed.” Grandmum raised her arms above her head. “I beseech Thee, Morrigan, and the trinity. Thrust your power upon me.” A howling wind erupted inside the chamber. Thunder rolled, vibrating the floorboards. “The pain and grief he is quick to give, must be returned so Your son might live.” Mist coated Sorcha’s face and bright strikes of lightning blinded her in bursts. “Magick meld love and hate. Reverse the past. Reverse their fate.”

  A high pierced screech scraped through Sorcha’s ears followed by a hoarse wail. Between the flashes of light, she watched with unblinking eyes as the face of the man she loved transformed into the face of the man she most hated.

  A steady rain fell inside the chamber, soaking the carpet where Hector now lay dead on the floor. Confusion was one of many emotions spinning inside her head as she looked to Grandmum for explanation.

  “Be well, Sorcha. I’ll be watching ye,” was all Grandmum said before she transformed into the white falcon and flew out the window.

  “Mayhap your Grandmum is dead.”

  Sorcha whirled and watched Keiran pull himself off the floor. The pain of having lost him still clung to her every nerve.

  “I was not aware Magda and Tàiseal were one in the same.” The man acted as if he’d not been lying dead in her arms only moments earlier. Grandmum’s magick might be commonplace to him, but Sorcha didn’t trust any of this to be a reality.

  “If this is a dream, promise me you’ll be beside me when I awaken.” She trembled as he approached.

  He circled her with his arms. “I promise to always be there to protect ye in this life and the next.”

  “As my chieftain?” she asked, worried he’d not heard her profess her love for him.

  “As your husband.” He cradled the nape of her neck. “Your lover.” He lowered his head to hers. “And your friend.” His lips feathered over hers once, twice, three times. “I fear ye are stuck with me for life.” He swallowed her quiet laughter inside a kiss that felt like Heaven, but ended far too quickly.

  “Come.” He scooped her off her feet and carried her out of her father’s solar. “I want to know what it feels like to be touched by the woman who loves me.”

  The Laird’s Vow

  Anne Gracie

  One

  “You’re letting the estate run to rack and ruin!” Cameron Fraser thundered.

  “Dear boy, I’m bringing civilization to it,” his uncle responded. “Thirty years I’ve lived here,” – he shuddered – “and finally it’s within my power to make something of the place.”

  “Make something of it? You’re letting it fall to pieces. The great storm was more than two months ago and not one tenant’s roof is yet repaired, nor any orders given to begin. Winter’s staring us in the face, and what do you do? Order silk hangings from Paris – silk!”

  His uncle said earnestly, “But dear boy, quality pays. Wait till you see what a difference hangings will make to this gloomy room. Besides, the tenants can fix their own roofs.”

  Cameron’s nails bit into his palms. “Not without money to pay for materials, they can’t. Besides, it’s our responsibility – my responsibility as laird.”

  His uncle smiled. “Laird? In name, perhaps.”

  “Aye, I ken well it’s in name only. Yet I bear all the shame,” Cameron said bitterly. “If Uncle Ian were still alive …”

  “I know. Who would have imagined he’d go before me, being so much younger, but there it is,” Charles Sinclair said. “So you’ll just have to trust me. I have so many plans … Nearly five years is it not, before you turn thirty and gain control?”

  Cameron clenched his jaw. When both his uncles had been in charge he’d had paid scant attention to estate finances. Uncle Ian was a Fraser and his love for the estate and its people ran bone deep in him, as it did in Cameron. But now Uncle Ian was dead and the remaining trustee, Uncle Charles, could do as he pleased. And what he pleased was, in Cameron’s view, entirely frivolous.

  “If those roofs aren’t fixed, come winter, people will freeze.” Cameron clenched his fists. “Do you want the death of women and bairns on your conscience?”

  Charles Sinclair returned to the perusal of silk swatches. “Your conscience is too delicate, dear boy. Peasants are hardy folk. Now, look at this design I drew for—”

  “You’ll not spend a shilling more of my inheritance!”

  His uncle glanced up. “Dear boy, how do you propose stopping me?”

  “Marriage!” The word burst from Cameron’s mouth, shocking himself as well as his uncle. He’d had no intention of marrying, not for years to come, but now he saw it was his only solution. Under the rules of his father’s will the trust would conclude on Cameron’s thirtieth birthday or his wedding day – whichever came first.

  “Marriage? With whom, pray? You’ve not attended a society event in years.”

  It was true. Cameron preferred hunting and fishing to dancing and up to now, he’d avoided the marriage mart of Inverness like the plague. As a result he couldn’t think of a single likely female. And since half the women on the estate were related to him, officially or unofficially – Grandad had been quite a lad – he had to look further afield.

  Cameron’s fist
s clenched in frustration.

  His uncle chuckled. “Dear boy, marriages take time to arrange. Your grandfather and mine negotiated for months over my dear sister’s marriage to your father, and as your trustee, naturally I will handle any such negotiations on your behalf. And by then you will have a home worthy of a bride.” He patted his designs.

  “No negotiations will be necessary,” Cameron snapped. “I’ll marry the first eligible woman I find.” He turned on his heel and stormed from the room, nearly cannoning into his two cousins, Jimmy and Donald, waiting outside. Distant cousins, orphaned and raised on the estate, they were like brothers to Cameron.

  “What did he—” Donald began.

  “Meet you at the stables in fifteen minutes,” Cameron snapped. “I’m off to Inverness to find a bride.”

  Two

  They galloped through the village, scattering squawking hens and setting dogs barking. “Marry the first eligible woman you find? You canna be serious!” Donald shouted over the sound of galloping hooves.

  “Ye’re crazy, mon,” Jimmy agreed. “If ye must marry, at least choose the lass wi’ care and caution.”

  “I’ve no choice,” Cameron flung back. “The longer I leave it the more my uncle squanders what little money we have. He’s already ordered silk hangings from Paris costing a fortune. The sooner I’m wed, the sooner I can cancel the order. And stop any more.”

  Rain set in, a thin, relentless drizzle. After half an hour of it Jimmy edged his horse alongside Cameron. “Ach, Cameron this rain is freezin’ me to death. Let’s go back. We’ll find a solution to your woes tomorrow, when we’re no’ such sodden miseries.”

  “You go back if you want to, I’m for Inverness. I swore I’d marry this day and so I will.” Cameron bent his head against the rain and rode on.

  “He swore to his uncle he’d marry,” Jimmy told his brother glumly. He pulled out a flask, took a swig of whisky and passed it across.