The Chieftain's Daughter

by Frances Housden

  The Chieftain’s Daughter

  Frances Housden

  www.escapepublishing.com.au

  The Chieftain’s Daughter

  Frances Housden

  Frances Housden returns with her best-selling, award-winning Chieftain series in this short novel about a young woman with a strong will and a sharp mind, and the man who has nothing to offer but his heart.

  Maggie McArthur never thought she would meet her fate in a clash of swords. She may wield a sword more skilfully than a needle, but it was more luck than proficiency that led to her piercing Dhugal Robertson through the shoulder. Frightened she has killed her opponent, Maggie stays to give him aid and ensure he returns to Sgian House safely. She may be the Chieftain’s daughter, but she is perfectly capable of playing the healer for a few days until she is sure Dhugal will survive. The tender feelings he seems to inspire is nothing more than concern. After all, no suitor has ever raised her interest, so why should a penniless warrior with no clan to call his own?

  Dhugal’s pride should be as wounded as his shoulder from being bested by a woman at sword play, but the sight of beautiful black hair spilling from under his opponent’s bonnet has not only distracted him from his injury, but intrigued him, body and soul.

  But his attraction is doomed from the beginning. Though he could fall heart-deep for Maggie, she is the daughter of one of Scotland’s most powerful Chieftains, and Dhugal is head of a penniless, homeless clan, a clan stripped of both pride and material possessions. What father would accept the troth of such a suitor? What woman could accept the hand of a man who has nothing to offer but love?

  About the Author

  Frances Housden was first published in contemporary romantic suspense, and even now that she has become immersed in writing Scottish Medieval romance, the elements of suspense always creeps back into her books—a feature that she hopes her readers enjoy as much as she does. Although she now lives in New Zealand, at the other end of the earth from Scotland where she was born, her memories of the Scottish history that surrounded her while growing up now appear in her books. The Chieftain’s Daughter is the fifth book in her successful Chieftain Series in which the first book—The Chieftain’s Curse—was nominated for a RITA award and won the New Zealand Koru Award.

  Acknowledgements

  I am very happy that Escape Publishing and Kate Cuthbert continue to have faith in my Chieftain Series having now reached book five. Also I’m very grateful to have had Laura Daniel as copy editor for each of my books as she has a good understanding of my writing and adds the final tweaks that keep me on the straight and narrow.

  Historically, the Robertson clan was awarded Skene lands when the first laird saved his king’s life by killing a wolf with a sgian—skean duhb. When the Robertson laird supported Donald Bane’s bid to take the throne, twice, King Edgar took their lands away again. It wasn’t until Edgar’s brother Alexander became king that their lands were restored. Set in the correct time period, my novella The Chieftain’s Daughter is my fictional version of how that might have occurred.

  This book is for my mother, Annie Dalrymple Gibb. She and my father had one of the best examples of a true romance one could imagine. My mother worked in London, and when war threatened, my grandmother insisted Annie return home to Scotland. On her first day back, she walked up Main Street in all her snazzy London fashions, and my father, a butcher, looked through the shop window and told the lad he was working with, “There’s the lassie I’m going to marry.” They were together fifty years, and although it took my mother another twenty years to join the man she loved, she missed him every day.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…

  Chapter 1

  Scotland

  Year of our Lord 1106

  Lying atop a sun-warmed rock, hidden by leafy trees of the mountain ash variety, Dhugal watched the intruders ride through the lands his family had spilled their blood to hold—blood that rooted the Robertson clan in Skene soil as deeply as the trees surrounding the rock beneath him.

  To all intents, his clan might have lost their claim to the place, but nae one except God could eradicate the Robertson blood that had drenched the ground while his ancestors defended the land they loved. They might have lost their name; that didn’t mean Dhugal’s heart didn’t ache with every beat for what might have been—if not for his bull-headed uncle.

  His uncle had promised Dhugal was his heir, but to what purpose? What use was there in being heir to naught but memories? Aye, he had an abundance of yon nasty wee things. They crept up on him when he least expected it, reminders of growing up at Skene—the love, the laughter. Now, for all that he and the rest of clan had been banished frae Skene, he couldn’t leave.

  His uncle had sided with the wrong king, been blinded by Donald Bane into going against Malcolm Canmore’s sons; and his whole family—or those left of them—had paid for the last laird’s lack of foresight.

  In Dhugal’s eyes, what had hurt most was being forced to watch his mother and sister travel south to relatives in Fife. He hated the thought that instead of being the ladies of the Keep, they might be living more like servants than family.

  Now that King Edgar had taken away their holdings, all Dhugal could do was scare off any folk who looked too interested in the Keep and therefore the land. The wee group passing through at the moment, their mounts’ noses pointed in a southeasterly direction wouldnae appear to be among them.

  More than likely he would soon be rid of them.

  ***

  Maggie McArthur was trailing behind her companions—dawdling, her father would have said. As for why, she hadn’t the slightest notion.

  Nae that was a lie, in her heart of hearts she knew she didn’t want the summer to end. Mayhap it was that Dun Bhuird was so different frae Cragenlaw, unfamiliar. Added to that she’d had the company of her cousins, Gavyn and Katherine’s children, closer in age than her brother Rob.

  Lhilidh, her only female cousin, was still young enough not to mind getting dirty, scrabbling through the tunnels under the waterfall and rousing the ravens frae their nests—a place Nhaimeth and Rob had explored when she was just a bairn. Then there was Rory, thee years younger and always ready for an adventure, unlike Rob, who grew more serious every day with the responsibilities their father slipped frae his own shoulders onto his son’s.

  That would never happen to her because of the restriction that came with being a daughter. She might dress in leather trous instead of a kirtle and carry the bonnie sword the McArthur had had made specially to fit her hand—one balanced so well that her shorter stature didn’t make it any the less lethal—but her father still saw her as a woman, his wee lassie.

  She shook her head as if that would release all her spirit-lowering thoughts. On occasion Rob thought fit to remind her that if she hadn’t been born a lass she might have been buried on the brae opposite Cragenlaw, might be lying under the turf beside her three half-brothers, dead because the McArthur had been cursed by witch. In Maggie’s opinion, actually being alive was the only guid thing about her restricted life as a female.

  Lately it had gone frae bad to worse. She sniffed, her only outward show of derision.

  Her father had to be daft if he thought she wasnae aware of the reason for all the fine chieftains’ sons and g
randsons that had graced the high board through the years. The McArthur wanted to marry her off. Wanted her to populate the great hall with lads and lassies, toddling around under foot, tripping everyone up the way Rob’s twins Harry and Ralf had.

  Try as he might, the McArthur had yet to find a lad who caught her eye. Suffice it to say, Maggie had her own way of dealing with any man with pretentions to her hand: she scared them off.

  She hummed under her breath, remembering the interminable dinners she had sat through next to the latest suitor. Stupid buffoons. She had a notion they had all expected the McArthur’s daughter to take one look at their so-called handsome faces and, cow-like, begin fluttering her eyelashes at them. Challenging them to a fight didn’t have quite the same result. If they’d had any nous at all, they would have figured out for themselves that a lass who dressed frae head to toe in leather—trous, and short coat—never mind that, as befitting a chieftain’s daughter, she wore a silk shirt underneath. Nae, they saw only the decorative leather lacing that her mother had set her seamstress to embroider her short coat with, thinking to add a bit of femininity. Apparently, all her suitors noticed was the way her clothes fitted the shape of her breasts and the length of her legs, attributes that brought the kind of lustful gleam to their eyes that she was certain had been farthest from her mother’s plans … or mayhap Maggie was wrong about those plans.

  Nae matter. Whilst outside the Bailey, as she was now, she always minded to loop a small worsted plaid over her shoulder, covering those self-same attributes by tucking it inside her belt and under the shield she carried on her back.

  Folk said she resembled her mother, her hair dark as night, the way Morag Farquhar’s had been afore Maggie was born. These days her mother’s hair fell past her shoulders in a pure silver waterfall, as befitted the matriarch of their clan, and made Maggie wonder if she would ever live to grow into that kind of beauty? If she would live in this world long enough for the black silk that spilled straight down her back as far as her hips to change into such a gleaming colour? Not that anyone would see it. Apart frae the times she washed her hair, she seldom wore it loose. The only chance she gave it to flow over her shoulders, happened while she dried its wet strands in front of the fire. In the main, she kept it worn in a long plait that she twisted around her head afore shoving it up beneath her knitted bonnet in a way that made her maid go, “Tsk tsk.” Not that she had done so today with everyone ready and waiting for her. Nae she had but twisted it round her fist and stuck a bone pin through it afore pulling her bonnet atop the lot.

  Wee Jess’s frustration was always writ plain on her face while her nimble fingers danced through her mistress’s hair, clearly dying to try out some fancy-mancy style to make Maggie look “more like a marriageable young lassie.”

  Maggie wasnae bothered. Her father had all the heirs he needed in Rob and his sons, and she couldn’t see the point in losing her virginity to someone who would expect to take her away frae home, frae Cragenlaw.

  Afore they left for Dun Bhuird, her father appeared to have run out of prospects for her hand. Indeed, that’s why he had been quite happy for her to visit with her mother’s brother Gavyn and his wife Kathryn, though in truth she was merely supposed to be accompanying Nhaimeth and Rowena. As Kathryn’s half-brother, Nhaimeth had thought it time his son Ghillie became better acquainted with his Comlyn and Farquhar cousins.

  She had known Nhaimeth since she was a bairn, mayhap afore she was born. That’s why she nae longer noticed that he and Rowena were dwarfs, wee folk. Others, though, weren’t so oblivious—a fact that annoyed her brother Rob, since he and Nhaimeth acted more like brothers than friends. To Maggie’s mind, the strangest part of the whole story was that Ghillie had already grown at least a head taller than his parents.

  She had been so preoccupied with looking around, letting her mind wander, that she hadn’t realised just how far she had fallen behind the others in their wee group. It appeared she had been riding along in a dream long enough for one of her father’s housecarls—Shug—to ride away frae the rest and begin trotting his big lump of a horse in her direction.

  His company was one of the things she had been avoiding. It had been different once, in the days when she was learning to handle her weapon, when Shug, but a few years aulder, had nae objection to her rattling his shield with her wooden sword. He’d always pretended to let her win at archery, and she had pretended to believe him to protect his self-esteem.

  Aye. Back then, they had seemed equal, and training together had been filled with merriment—years ago when they had both been different folk. Then, she had felt sorry for him, and thankful that she didn’t have to live with a bad-tempered father too handy with his fists.

  Maggie had to admit her sympathy had begun to dissolve the first time she noticed him assessing her, shuddering when she recognised the lick of heat in his eyes as they stared at her breasts.

  Flapping one hand overhead she shooed him away, then yelled, “Keep going. Once yer well ahead of me, I’ll give Star a guid gallop to catch up,” she lied, preferring to be alone with her thoughts. “I want to try out the mare’s paces.” Shug said naught. His dour visage was enough as he wheeled his horse and re-joined Nhaimeth and the others. The housecarl’s job was to protect them—she liked to pretend on pain of death if he failed. On the other hand, she was certain the McArthur saw only the lad he once was, not the one who could strip the clothes off her back with a look.

  That was why she had decided to let them get a guid way ahead, giving her some time to herself, with the excuse of working out the jitters in her frisky new mare.

  Her father had given the mare to her afore they left for Dun Bhuird. Such a bonnie horse. She had immediately named it Star because of the white star-like shape on the mare’s black chest and the even larger one atop its rump.

  Bred frae Rob’s fighting horse Gun-eagal—Fearless—and one of the gypsy horses that had come to Cragenlaw with Rowena and her friends, the mare was more suited to her size than Gun-eagal, yet was strong in the legs and wind—a guid mount to have under her in fight.

  Dhugal’s eyes were on the lad riding at the back. He appeared to be trailing farther and farther behind the group. It could be a ploy to put an observer off guard. Mayhap news had reached folks’ ears of the peculiar happenings to strangers who wandered on to the land around Skene Keep, which wouldnae surprise him in the least.

  If only he could recognise a sigil on the shields some carried … but there didn’t appear to be one. In fact, the whole troupe looked to be a bit raggle-taggle. Some of them looked nae bigger than bairns. As for the lad at the back of the line: he would bear watching and, heaven preserve him, Dhugal had become well qualified for that line of work.

  If they were aware of what he was up to, some of his dispossessed clan might be within their right to think him a wastrel—a man with naught to do but lie around all day spying on folk, a scoundrel nae better than the broken man the King had made him into. Dhugal would have to disagree, since they would be wrong. What with winter nae more than a few months away, there might soon be cateran seeking out a canny spot to shelter frae the wind and snow that scoured the landscape at the tail end of the year.

  Aye, but they would be wrong too, for it was love that held him here, and it was love and determination that would help get their land back. He simply needed to come up with right plan … although knowing and doing were two different matters. He laughed under his breath at the irony. It was highly improbable that he was ever likely to save the King frae a wolf the way his ancestor had done generations ago, earning the Robertson clan the land where they had built the Keep, naming it Skene Keep after the lethal Highland dagger that had been used to slaughter the wolf, a sgian.

  After leaving the Cairngorms where there wasnae much in the way of trees, mainly tussock and heather, apart frae the glens, it was a relief to leave the peat bogs behind in the dust stirred up by their horses. Glancing around, she was surprised by how much she liked this countrys
ide. It wasnae actually flat, but compared to where they had been in the Highlands, the hills were softer, and had none of the hard, ragged edges predominant at Cragenlaw, which presided over cliffs high above the North Sea.

  She smirked as a thought struck her that even the rocks looked softer, less likely to take the skin off yer hide as ye fell off, the way she remembered a few had done—Shug’s father for one, though she doubted he had been missed.

  Her mount interrupted her musing by tossing back its head, whickering and snorting. That’s when she saw the burn, amber-coloured and as clear as Uisge beatha in a sliver quaish. She had tasted that fierce brew once, burned her throat with a sip, and learned her lesson; ale or wine was more her style.

  Star obviously liked the look of that water in the burn, and she didn’t blame her. She might even have a taste of it herself since, for most of the day, Maggie and all the others had ridden under an unusually brassy August sky, drinking warm ale frae flasks. The journey took two days, and it was nae secret that there would be nae reaching Cragenlaw that night. With her boot heels, she nudged Star in the direction of the burn, aware that nae matter how hot the day, the water would be cauld as well as clear. Dismounting as soon as Star dipped her nose over the low bank, she slipped her feet out of the stirrups and swung a leg over the saddle, dismounting, but as soon as her feet touched the ground a cloud rose around her knees. Maggie ignored it; as eager as Star to drink her fill of clear water, she cupped in her hands.

  Beside her, Star began to fidget, banging her shoulder with its flank, which she smacked, growling, “Shove over, idiot.” But Star wasnae done, the black and white horse twisted, backing away frae the burn.

  Water dripping frae her chin, Maggie looked up into a swirl of midges that attacked her face. Yelping, she began waving her arms and the already spooked Star leapt across water and galloped toward the trees. “God’s teeth,” she cursed, slapping at her face as she chased Star, splashing through water higher than her ankles, shouting, “Whoa, lass,” and clicking her tongue as she ran, calling, “Come back here, lass.”