Lyon's Bride and The Scottish Witch with Bonus Material (Promo e-Books)
Page 24
Stumbling up to his room, he opened his door and practically fell through it.
Rowan was tidying the bed. He looked up in surprise at Harry. “Colonel, you are not well. Here, let me help you to bed.”
Harry shook him off. “No, not here.” He knew this would not be pleasant. He walked over to the desk by the window, pulled open a drawer and took out a purse. “There is a man, an Alexander Rimmer on Fife Lane, who says he has a cure. Tell him I am coming to his house. Have him prepare a room.”
Rowan took the money, bowed and left, meeting Margaret at the door. She didn’t ask permission but walked in.
Harry sat at the desk, clasping his head in his hands. Just the thought of leaving the crutches he’d used these past two years more than filled him with anxiety.
“What are you going to do?” his sister asked.
“I want to save Neal,” Harry said. “He’s always been here for me. Yes, sometimes he’s been a pain in my backside, but what brother isn’t?”
“I want to help,” Margaret said.
Harry shook his head. “No.”
“Yes.” She walked over to stand before him. “You weren’t here when Father died. He went quickly, Harry. Faster than I could imagine. You will need my help.”
Visions of his men following him into combat formed in Harry’s mind, only this time it was his sister at risk.
“I go alone.”
She didn’t like his command. Margaret was the headstrong one in the family.
He reached over to pick up one of Christopher’s marbles resting on his desk. It was the shooter. Harry had won it from the boy in a challenge. Christopher had enthusiastically vowed to win it back.
“Life has to mean more than what we have here,” Harry said half to himself, rolling the marble in the palm of his hand. “It must.”
“Neal seems happy,” Margaret answered. “Even knowing what is happening to him, he seems at peace.”
Harry looked up at her. “Are you at peace?”
His sister shrugged. “Love is not for me. I’m better alone. Happier.”
She didn’t sound happy, and the thought went through his mind that she was hiding something. Margaret was a beautiful woman, yet she kept herself apart from the rest of the world.
Of course, he’d chosen to be alone as well, but that was because of the curse . . . and besides, what woman with any sense would want him? He was a shambles of a man, a fool. Then again, he had a legion of senseless ladies who vied for his attention, but they weren’t the sort a man loved.
Harry stood, putting the marble in his coat pocket. “I’m going to Glenfinnan, Margaret, but first, I must take a cure.”
“What sort of cure?”
“I don’t know. They say it is successful, but we shall see.”
“Let me help you, brother. I don’t want you to feel alone against this.”
Harry walked to her, leaned forward and pressed a kiss upon her forehead. “You cannot come with me. I do not want you to see me the way I will be.”
“I’ve seen you at your worst.”
He shook his head. “I wish I could erase the memory of those times from your mind. But you need to be here. We don’t know what will be happening to Neal. Thea will need help.”
“Thea sounds as if she can take care of herself,” Margaret argued.
“Does she? I don’t know. Certainly she wants us to do battle in a way no one seems to have tried before. We’ve all been afraid of it. But I’m tired of being afraid. I’m tired of being who I am.”
“Well, who you are is important to us. Please, Harry, be gentle with yourself, and be careful of the world or of searching out this witch.”
He smiled, felt the weight of the marble in his pocket. “I’ve never lost in battle, Margaret. I shall not lose now.”
With those confident words, he walked out the door, feeling less confident than he ever had before in his life. He didn’t stop to say good-bye to Neal and Thea. He could hear them in the breakfast room, laughing and talking with the boys. His brother sounded as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
How he envied Neal.
And Neal dreamed. Harry had noticed his brother’s comments in the journal Neal and Thea had been keeping. Harry didn’t dream. He had nightmares of the men who’d given their lives for him. A dream of a witch would be a welcome relief.
Harry walked out of the house, heading for Fife Lane and Rimmer’s cure.
“A determined man can do anything,” Mr. Rimmer said. “However, I must warn you, my cure may kill you.”
“But will I be done with drink, with laudanum if I live?” Harry demanded. Up and down the hall of the tidy house, moans and shouts could be heard coming from beyond the bedroom doors. It sounded like bedlam or a brothel with unhappy clients.
“We shall see,” was the cryptic answer.
For the next two weeks of his life, Harry found himself in a special kind of hell. Rimmer’s cure was really little more than what Margaret had attempted when she’d ordered him tied and held down to his bed. It had been painful, nauseating, frightening then, and it was worse now.
Rowan stayed faithfully by his side.
Harry cried, swore and begged, but his servant would not release him from the bounds holding him in place. The visions tore at his soul. If he thought his dreams before had been troubled, the visions, the hallucinations he had now were more horrific, and all too real.
And then one day, the pain wasn’t as bad. The anxiety, the delusions lessened.
Rimmer started the next phase of his cure. Harry was treated to scalding hot baths designed to rid his body of poisons. Thea’s cure! Who knew his sister and sister-in-marriage were so wise?
Harry kept Christopher’s marble shooter on the table beside the bed. During his worst moments, he clutched the marble, using it to remind him of all that was at stake.
At the end of two weeks, he was pronounced “cured.” His eye was clear, his hand steady, and, for now, his demons were at bay. He had lost weight, most of it the bloat of his vices, and his hair had gone prematurely gray at his temples.
“Fetch Ajax,” he ordered Rowan, “and bring me my pistols and my sword. I’m ready to hunt for a Scottish witch.”
Harry plucked the marble off the bedside table and placed it in his pocket.
He was prepared to do battle.
And if she would not fight, then he would beg her to take his life instead of his brother’s.
About the Author
CATHY MAXWELL spends hours in front of her computer pondering the question, “Why do people fall in love?” It remains for her the great mystery of life and the secret to happiness.
She lives in beautiful Virginia with children, horses, dogs, and cats.
Fans can contact Cathy at www.cathymaxwell.com or PO Box 1135, Powhatan, VA 23139.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
By Cathy Maxwell
Lyon’s Bride: The Chattan Curse
The Seduction of Scandal
His Christmas Pleasure
The Marriage Ring
The Earl Claims His Wife
A Seduction at Christmas
In the Highlander’s Bed
Bedding the Heiress
In the Bed of a Duke
The Price of Indiscretion
Temptation of a Proper Governess
The Seduction of an English Lady
Adventures of a Scottish Heiress
The Lady Is Tempted
The Wedding Wager
The Marriage Contract
A Scandalous Marriage
Married in Haste
Because of You
When Dreams Come True
Falling in Love Again
You and No Other
Treasured Vows
All Things Beautiful
Coming Soon
Scottish Witch: The Chattan Curse
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LYON’S BRIDE. Copyright © 2012 by Catherine Maxwell, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition MAY 2012 ISBN: 9780062070258
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062070227
FIRST EDITION
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Scottish Witch
The Chattan Curse
Cathy Maxwell
Dedication
For my agent, Robin Rue
Contents
Dedication
The Curse
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Margaret
An Excerpt from The Devil’s Heart
Lyon’s Bride announcement page
About the Author
By Cathy Maxwell
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Copyright
The Curse
Macnachtan Keep
Scotland, 1632
The heart cannot lie, or so she had believed.
Day after day, Rose of the Macnachtan stood at the tower wall staring in the direction of England, believing with all her heart Charles Chattan would return to her. At any moment she expected to see him ride galloping at full speed to Loch Awe’s shoreline to cross to the island on which Macnachtan Keep had been built and anxiously apologize.
He could not marry that Englishwoman. He wouldn’t. She knew it to the marrow of her bones. Charlie loved her. They’d handfasted in a private ceremony of their own making. He would come for her.
Her brothers and sisters all warned her he was faithless. They had never liked him. His mother was Sassenach, and Charlie was too English for their tastes. Her brother Michael had sworn to her that the Chattans worshipped gold more than any other value on this earth, but Rose had argued Charles was different from his parents.
And so she waited, days turning into weeks . . . until, finally, it was the very hour of his marriage to the Englishwoman.
Rose stood at her lonely post, watching the road from the south, waiting—until the bell in the kirk’s tower rang noon.
Only then did she realize her family had been right. Charles had chosen another over her.
The last clang of the bell reverberated in the air around her. The wind had picked up. It lifted her hair, swirled around her skirts, tickled her skin, mocked her.
For a long moment she stood mesmerized by the line of silent, brooding pines ringing the clearing. She knew every trail of that forest. There was no movement, no rider coming for her.
Her heart broke.
The world lost all meaning.
No one could live with the burden of such sharp, forlorn pain.
His name choked her throat. Shame of her own trusting loyalty filled her. They had all been right and she had been a fool.
Rose slowly turned. Below her was the stone courtyard. Her brother Michael was shoeing a horse. The blacksmith had died and his son was a poor substitute. Michael was determined to not give up on the boy, even if he had to shoe the horses a hundred times himself in teaching the lad what he wanted.
Across the way, in the house’s solar, she knew her mother, sisters, and kinswomen would be plying their needles and enjoying a bit of gossip. How long had it been since she’d joined them? Not since that night she and Charles had secretly met and he’d told her he was leaving Scotland. His parents insisted he marry the Sassenach heiress. He had no choice in the matter.
“But what of us? What of the vows we made to each other?” she had asked.
Charles had not answered. Instead, he’d made love to her, and, trusting soul that she was, she had believed that was his answer. She was his mate, his chosen.
Her hand rose to her belly. His seed might already be growing within her. A son, a son whose father would deny his parentage.
Rose shared her mother’s gift of the sight. The book of spells and recipes that had been handed down from mother to daughter, always going to those who shared the gift, would one day be hers—but she’d already used that book. In desperation, she’d attempted a spell to bring Charles to her and she had believed it would work . . .
Sometimes in life, there comes a point when the future holds no gain. When the darkness of reality triumphs over hopes and dreams. Love had betrayed her. It had humiliated her.
The pride of the Macnachtan of Loch Awe flowed through her veins. Rose could not face a life of shame, or let it be whispered her child was a bastard.
She climbed onto the tower wall. For one precious moment, she stood tall. March’s fresh, chilled wind chafed her cheek. Below her, life went on as usual.
Rose glanced one more time toward the road that lay between herself and her love.
Her heart had lied—Charles did not love her. “Life come hither; Life is mine,” she whispered feverishly. Her throat tightened. He hadn’t cared. Tears filled her eyes. She took a step off the wall into thin air.
She fell.
There was no doubt Rose of Loch Awe had taken her life because of Charles Chattan’s perfidy. There would be no saving her memory from the disgrace of suicide.
Her mother, Fenella, wished she had the magic to reverse time and bring her daughter back to life.
For the last three days she’d pored over her nain’s book. Certainly in all these receipts and spells for healing, for fortune, for doubts and fears, there must be one to cast off death.
The handwriting on those yellowed pages was cramped and in many places faded. Fenella had signed the front of the book but not referred to it often, at least not once she’d memorized the cures for fevers and agues that plagued children and concerned mothers.
She’d been surprised to discover Rose had also been reading the book. She’d found where Rose had written the name “Charles” beside a spell to find true love. It called for a rose thorn to be embedded in the wax of a candle and burned on the night of a full moon.
They found a piece of the burned candle, the thorn still intact, its tip charred, beneath Rose’s pillow.
Fenella held the wax in the palm of her hand. Slowly, she closed her fingers around it into a fist and set
aside mourning.
Grief made her mad.
The Chattans were far from the Highland’s mountains and moors. Charles thought himself safe. He was not.
There is no sacred ground for a suicide, but Fenella had no need of the church. She ordered a funeral pyre to be built for her daughter along the green banks of Loch Awe, directly beneath a stony crag that looked down upon the shore.
On the day of Rose’s funeral, Fenella stood upon that crag, waiting for the sun to set. She wore the Macnachtan tartan around her shoulders. The evening wind toyed with her gray hair that she wore loose under a circlet of gold, gray hair that had once been as fair as Rose’s.
At Fenella’s signal, her sons set ablaze the ring of bonfires she’d ordered constructed around Rose’s pyre. The flames leaped to life, and so did her anger.
Did Chattan think he could hide in London? Did his father believe his son could betray Rose’s loving heart without penalty? That her life had no meaning?
That Macnachtan honor was a small thing?
“I want him to feel my pain,” Fenella whispered.
Her daughters Ilona and Aislin stood by her side. They nodded.