The Highlander's Harlot (Sword and Thistle Book 1)

by Adams, Laurel

  CONTENTS

  Product Description

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  Part One

  DEAR READERS

  EXCERPT

  ABOUT LAUREL ADAMS

  ALSO BY LAUREL ADAMS

  The Highlander’s Harlot

  When her father is to be hanged by the laird, young Heather pleads for mercy. As a poor crofter’s daughter, Heather doesn’t have anything to offer the but her maidenhead—a payment John Macrae is willing to take in exchange for her father’s life.

  The laird intends to ruin her, to shame her father as punishment for his crimes. But when Heather returns to the castle to be debauched by the laird and his men, she finds that the man she thought cruel is unexpectedly kind and protective. Strangely reluctant to take what she’s offered, he warns that she won’t like the man he becomes in the bedchambers…

  But he’s awakened desires inside her that she never knew existed. Between lust and loyalty, Heather finds the courage to prove to the laird that whatever his darkest desires, she is the only woman who can fill them. And that his needs, no matter depraved, can’t scare her away.

  Reader Advisory: This is an erotic romance novella of approximately 20k words that contains sizzling scenes of voyeurism, exhibitionism, spanking, dark kink and taboo acts. For adults only.

  THE HIGHLANDER’S HARLOT

  Laurel Adams

  The Highlander’s Harlot

  Copyright © 2014 Laurel Adams

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Cover design by Laurel Adams. Plaid Attribution: Sg647112c at English Wikipedia under Creative Commons. Photo of castle by Dave Conner, also licensed under Creative Commons: https://www.flickr.com/photos/conner395/6469038583. Use of photos and art shouldn’t be taken as an endorsement of those artists of this work.

  Part One

  I was sixteen years old the first time I saw the laird, and even that first sight of him awakened something in me. He’d emerged on horseback from a thicket near my father’s cottage, returned with his men from a skirmish on the border. And though the laird was dirty from battle, slumped in his saddle and bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow, John Macrae had about him an undeniable aura of power.

  Even without the sword at his kilted hip, the power of his muscular legs pressing into the sides of his horse, and the strength of his hands on the reins, he was the sort of man to be obeyed. So when he called to me to fetch water for his warriors and their horses, I lifted my skirts to my knees so that I could run to obey him, my long legs through the grasses of our highland croft, scattering bleating sheep.

  “What is it?” my father asked, looking up from raking hay. He scowled when he saw our clan chieftain and his men dismounting.

  Though we owed the Macrae our fealty and service, my father didn’t like our chieftain. Whenever the tacksmen came to collect our rents, Papa would mutter darkly, “I’d have paid his brother gladly, but not him, with all his Donald Clan blood.”

  Macrae’s had been feuding with the Donalds for longer than I could remember; my father lost most of an ear in one of those battles. As a young man he’d been willing to fight for the old laird, but he resented the new one because John Macrae was the youngest son, born of a second marriage, and his mother was said to have kin amongst our enemies.

  Nevertheless, he was our chieftain, and we were tenants on his land; we survived at his pleasure, so I hurried to fetch the water he wanted. I tore a strip of cloth from my coverlet, too, to clean the blood. And when I slipped back out of the cottage into the blinding afternoon light, daring to come close to the great big beast of a man, long enough to bandage his wound, he caught my wrist as if I meant to do him harm.

  My breath caught in my chest while my heart pounded against my rib cage. Meanwhile, he stared into my eyes, which must have turned to violet glass in my surprise. “What’s your name, lass?”

  For a moment, so mesmerized was I by his touch, I couldn’t answer. “Heather,” I finally whispered.

  “Heather,” he repeated, as if he liked my name. “Purple, like your eyes. Never seen eyes that shade before. Is that why you have the name?”

  “No, I think my parents chose it for a honey made with heather…”

  He smiled. “My favorite. I have it on my bread.”

  “T’was my mother’s favorite, too.” I said, swallowing a bit over the pain of having lost her. She’d died giving birth, and the baby along with her, leaving me to care for all my little siblings in her stead. I missed her, but my father missed her more. In fact, I think he lost his wits the day they put her in the ground. “Your cut, my laird…it’s bleeding badly.”

  “It’s only a scratch,” the laird said, letting go of my wrist so that I could tend him. And I felt somehow more adrift in the world when his skin pulled from mine. “But it’s blinding me with the blood.”

  I dabbed at the cut, washing it with water, wrapping the bandage around his head in the hopes it would stem the bleeding. “This might help until you return to the castle.”

  “Good lass,” the chieftain said, rubbing his hands clean upon his plaid kilt. “A bonnie lass too. Your father is lucky to have such a daughter.”

  “Her and a bunch of bairns to feed,” my father replied, a bit testy as our chieftain’s hungry men helped themselves to the raspberries we grew along the line of the fence.

  The laird snorted. “Aye, well, she’s almost grown now. She’ll be married soon and you’ll have one less mouth to feed.”

  Then he was gone.

  That’s what I remember of our first meeting. And I believed, for years after, that the Macrea was commanding but gentle, and kind.

  First impressions, of course, can be deceiving…

  ~~~

  Two years later…

  “Hang him,” the laird said, directing his men to drag my father to the nearest tree while all my little siblings shrieked with terror. Papa had been caught by the holding back rents owed, a tiny cache of coins found hidden beneath a haystack.

  And not for the first time.

  My father’s face went pale as the kilted warriors bound his hands with rope, and my nearest sister Arabella screamed, “Papa!” We all tried to rush to him, to huddle with him and protect him from our chieftain’s wrath, but the laird’s men kept us back.

  There was no question but that our chieftain had the right to take justice upon my father, who had twice tried to cheat him. But I couldn’t think he meant to condemn us all to starvation, as he most certainly would if my Papa was hanged.

  And so I didn’t rush to my father, but rather to the laird himself, dropping to the dirt by his feet, “Please! I beg of you, sir. Spare him, though he’s wronged you.”

  “I spared him once,” the laird said coolly, as a noose was fashioned over the tree. My god, he’s going to do it, I thought. He was going to kill my father here, in front of all his children—who were, in some sense, after raising them for years now, my own.

  Tears bit at the corners of my eyes, and I clutched desperately to his bare knees. “Please, laird, for the love of god!”

  But these were the sounds
of a girl begging for mercy without reason. And men who are leaders need reasons. “By what right does a crofter’s daughter touch her laird without leave?” Then, without warning, he snapped. “You have no right even to look me in the eye unless granted permission to do so. Lower you head, you impertinent lass, or I’ll slap you to the ground.”

  I reared back on my knees, my hands twisting in my apron. Shocked, shaking, hating him. I couldn’t recognize this man or reconcile him with the one I’d first met. And clearly he didn’t know me. Didn’t remember me. Some lairds cared very much for their people—more for their clan than for themselves. But I felt as if I was nothing and no one to him. We were only his tenants. He wouldn’t care, even if he did remember me. He was as uncaring as my father had always accused him of being, but I couldn’t stop a hanging if I responded in a fit of temper.

  My voice quavered as I swallowed down my terror and rage. “I beg your pardon. And I beg your mercy. Mercy!”

  Since I couldn’t look at him without his say so, I don’t know what his expression was, but his voice softened. “I’m sorry lass, but wrongs must be met with punishment. Your father’s guilt is without question.”

  It was. I couldn’t argue it. But neither could I let him die. “I know he’s guilty. That’s why I plead not for justice but mercy. If it be in this humble girl’s power to offer you anything in exchange for your mercy, I would give it gladly.”

  “What could you offer me?” the laird asked, stooping down and tilting my chin, his thumb brushing over my cheek, as if he felt some remorse. “You may look at me now…” I glanced up, terrified. Unable to form words. “Answer me. What can a crofter’s daughter have to offer her laird?”

  His warriors laughed at that, an uneasy, lewd laugh that did nothing to cut through the tension of the moment. But my father knew why they laughed, and barked, “Girl! Leave the laird be. I go happily to my death if it means keeping you from his clutches.”

  At that, the chieftain’s eyes narrowed to slits. My father’s words had provoked him somehow. He seemed more interested, than before, in my offer. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen,” I said, quietly from my position of supplication.

  “Old enough,” one of the warriors said.

  The rest of the men laughed again.

  And I felt my skin grow hot with embarrassment.

  Holding my chin between finger and thumb, the laird twisted and turned my face as if to take in my features. Did he find me attractive? I knew that I had windswept red hair and with blue eyes, dark-lashed. After working the farm and rearing up so many little children, I hadn’t the soft beauty of a lady; the calluses upon my fingers marked me of the peasant class. But I knew I had a sturdy frame. A nicely curving back, breasts that heaved up over the top of my skiff, and wide hips. Men in the castle on market day always looked at me with wanting…but I never looked back. John Macrae was different. I couldn’t help but look back at the laird; indeed, I shivered at the touch of his fingers upon my chin.

  Finally, he seemed to make a decision. "Good. You wish to save your father and I wish for him to suffer for his crime. Instead of his life, I’ll take his daughter's virtue—assuming you still have it."

  I dared not look at my family now, who watched this spectacle of my humiliation. “You bastard,” my father snarled at the laird from where the warriors held him near a dangling noose. “I’d rather die!”

  The laird did not even dignify my father with a reply. His gaze was on me. Intent. As if we were the only two people in the world. “Are you still a virgin, girl?”

  I nodded, miserably, choked with tears. Somehow finding my courage anyway. “Yes, laird. I offer my virtue to you in recompense for my father’s crimes if that is what will keep him from the noose.”

  Maidens offered themselves to him simply because of who he was, but I was offering him something more than sex. This was being negotiated before my father, my family, and all his warriors. I felt keenly that I was offering him my shame.

  I only hoped he was fiend enough to want it.

  Maybe that’s why it was so strangely gratifying when he said, “To be clear about the bargain, I want it stated before these witnesses that you offer your body to me for the purposes I decide, until such time that I’m sated of you. I want you to say it aloud.”

  He didn’t need me to say it. He didn’t need witnesses either. But he wanted them. He wanted to humiliate me and my father, and shame me before all my siblings, who sniffled, wide-eyed as I bargained for our father’s life. He did want my shame.

  Or, at the very least, he wanted my father’s.

  The condemned man nearly spat with rage. “I’ll not have my daughter be your whore!”

  One of the laird’s warriors landed a blow on my father’s kidney that sent him down to the ground, and renewed a chorus of wailing from my terrified siblings. Meanwhile the word echoed in my mind.

  Whore. If I gave myself to the laird, is that what people would think of me? Everyone in the village would know what I’d done. But they would know that I had no choice in it, wouldn’t they? It wouldn’t make me a whore, but a good daughter. The chieftain took mistresses and when he did, they were treated with respect because he demanded it. Would it be so different for me?

  The chieftain’s mistress. That thought alone, traitorously, intrigued me. I’d never even been left alone in the company of a man before, and now a mixture of curiosity and desperation rose up in me. The embarrassment of having to offer myself again in front of these sniggering warriors made me shudder and hug myself, as if to hide myself from their leering view. And when I met the laird’s gaze, it was dark and terrible. It set me atremble.

  Still, I said the words he wanted me to say. “I offer my body for the purposes you decide, until such time that you are sated of me. I offer this so that my father may be absolved of his crimes.”

  A flicker of warmth sparked in his stormy eyes, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Lust? Admiration? Or something else? Then he quite nearly smiled, but it was more of a sneer. “Your father is quite right, girl. I do want to make a whore of you. Do you understand and consent to that?”

  One look at the tear-streaked faces of my sisters and brothers, and my father’s body prone, in pain, and I gave a quick nod.

  “Say it,” the laird barked at me.

  “Yes, I consent.”

  “To what?” he asked, impatiently.

  Oh, yes, he did want my shame.

  And I wanted to give it to him.

  “You refuse him even if they run me through and spill my guts on the ground,” my father raved. “Do you hear me, Heather? You let them kill me rather than submit to the mad bastard or you’re no daughter of mine.”

  The laird was waiting for my answer and I lifted my chin against the anger that roiled up inside me. Then, without looking at my father, I spoke the words. “I consent to be made a whore by you, my laird.”

  The Macrae stared at me hard, without satisfaction. “I don’t even think ye ken what that means.”

  “I do,” I said, defiantly.

  “Oh? Then understand that I’ll sate myself then give you to my men to use, too. And when I finally return you to your father, you’ll be so well trained that you can contribute to the family fortunes by selling your charms to men for coins.”

  With anger and more primal emotions burning my cheeks, I said, “I understand what a whore is, my laird.”

  At last, the chieftain did smile, then nodded to his sniggering men. “Ye heard her. Release the father, and take the girl.”

  Without looking back at me again, the laird mounted his horse with an athleticism that belied the effort, then rode far ahead, leaving me in the company of his warriors.

  I tried to say goodbye to the children, but the leering warriors grabbed me up and threw me into the saddle. “Papa!” I cried as they rode off with me. But the last thing I saw was my father’s disgust as he turned away from me, happier to put his face into the dirt, surrounded by his sheep. And
though I’d saved his life, I feared he might never call me daughter again.

  ~~~

  Eilean Donan is a castle on an island, and the Macrea is its constable. I expected to find him there, once we cross the mist-damp footbridge and pass into the stronghold. Held in the saddle by one of my chieftain’s warriors, I caught my reflection in the rippling waves of the loch, and I looked more anxious than I’d ever been. But more resolved, too. After a life of doing as I’d been bid, of being dutiful, of obeying my father, I felt the strangest sense of freedom even though it meant I would now obey a different man. Even though it meant passing into the moss-covered walls of an impregnable castle from whence I might never escape…

  The laird wasn’t waiting when I got there, which surprised and unnerved me. “You’ll sleep in the servant’s quarters,” one of the warriors said, giving me a small shove as he surrendered me into the care of a mousy little housemaid wearing a frilly cap. Given his tone—and the darting gaze of the maid—I expected to find a dirty berth, cold and miserable. But instead, I was taken to a tiny room inside the castle with a pretty window, myrtle-wax candles that burned a lovely scent, and a bed finer than the one I had at home.

  It reminded me that the people who lived in the castle—even the least of them—lived better than a crofter’s daughter. An impression made even stronger when I was brought some tea, a bowl of stew and bread. It was finer food than I ever had at my father’s table, and I was surprisingly hungry. I ate every bit of it—slathering the bread with fresh churned butter.

  And then it sank into the pit of my belly like a stone.

  What had I done? I hadn’t any choice in agreeing to the laird’s terms. He would’ve killed my father and then I might have ended up some man’s whore anyway, just to keep the children fed. I’d only done what had to be done, and the sin was not mine in giving consent but, rather, the sin belonged to the laird who asked it of me. And yet…the fact that the laird thought I was the kind of woman who might be suitable as a whore—did that not speak against me? If he had looked upon me and seen the virtuous girl I’d always been, loyal to him and to the clan, perhaps he’d have shown some mercy without this wicked bargain. So what flaw in my nature had he discerned that led me to this place?