A Temptress in Tartan

by Gerri Russell

  Lachlan’s brows drew together. “Elizabeth and I really haven’t discussed our options yet.”

  “Hear me out,” Cameron said. “As you left Ravenscraig, heading for the harbor in Kirkcaldy, I saw the way both of you looked at the sea. There is a bit of a sailor in each of you if I am not mistaken.” He looked to Elizabeth for confirmation or denial of his claim.

  “I cannot deny that I felt an inner restlessness as well as a sense of peace aboard The Golden Rose. I’ve been so sheltered all my life. There is great attraction to discovering just how big and how wonderful this world truly is.”

  Cameron turned to Lachlan with an arched brow. “And do you feel the same?”

  He put his arm around Elizabeth and held her tight against his side. “I could not agree with my wife more.”

  Cameron nodded. “Then please accept as a wedding gift my carrack Destiny’s Song and a crew to go with her. She is a fine three-masted ship with twelve cannons, and she’ll see you safely wherever you choose to set sail.”

  Both Lachlan and Elizabeth gaped at him in amazement. Lachlan recovered his voice first. “That is truly kind, Cameron, and we are honored by your thoughtfulness, but that is far too generous a gift.”

  Cameron’s features darkened. “Are you not my brother-in-arms?”

  “Aye,” Lachlan responded.

  “Would you not give me whatever you had if I needed it?”

  Lachlan could not deny the truth of that. “Aye, without hesitation.”

  “Then accept what I offer you—a chance to be free from Scotland for a time, surrounded by an ocean that will keep you in relative safety, and take you wherever your hearts desire.”

  Lachlan covered Elizabeth’s hand with his. “We are starting a new life, my love. What would you say if we continued that journey upon the sea?” His gaze searched her face.

  She smiled. “My heart and my home are where you are. I think I would like sailing across the sea at your side.”

  “And the bairn? Do you think you could be with child while we are nowhere near land?”

  Lucy’s eyes widened. “You are with child?”

  “Only my husband seems to think so,” Elizabeth said with a soft chuckle.

  “Hmm,” Lucy said, studying his wife’s face. “Your skin is glowing and there is a bloom of something in your face.”

  “Only time will tell on that matter.” Elizabeth’s cheeks pinkened. “Aye, Lachlan, I will do perfectly well as your wife or the mother of your children on land or at sea.”

  “Then the ship is yours if you accept it,” Cameron said.

  “We accept it,” Lachlan said, taking Elizabeth’s hand in his. “And the rest of you must promise to stay hale and hearty while we are away.”

  “We promise,” they replied in unison before they returned to their breakfasts.

  When they were seated again, Lachlan slipped his fingers beneath her chin and angled her head back for his kiss. It was a long, slow, deep kiss—a kiss of thankfulness that they were together and safe, a kiss of hope for all the days that lay ahead, and a kiss of promise for all the other kisses their future held. When Elizabeth could speak once more, she asked, “When will we leave?”

  “Is tomorrow too soon to head to Kirkcaldy? No sense in setting down roots here only to rip them up shortly after.”

  “I agree,” she said with a sad smile.

  “What is it, my love?”

  “Do you think our life will ever be one of calm serenity?”

  “Is that the life you want?”

  She squared her shoulders as she smiled up at him. “Not really. I have a feeling every day with you will be a new adventure, for the rest of our lives.”

  Lachlan laughed, content with the feel of the woman he’d always wanted in his arms. God had answered his prayers. For that fact, Lachlan was grateful. “Life for us will always be filled with twists and turns, storms and sunlight, moonless nights and star-filled skies. Would you be happy with anything less?”

  “Never.” Elizabeth put her arms around his neck. “Your brothers-in-arms made you a promise. Will you make one to me as well?”

  “Do you not know by now I will do anything for you?”

  She arched a brow. “That is not an answer.”

  “Aye.” He smiled. “What would you have of me?”

  “Promise to never think of me as your enemy again.”

  “You are my life, my heart, my soul. I think I can safely promise you that.” And with those words he kissed her.

  The End

  Author’s Note

  Lachlan Douglas’s experiences as an accused warlock in A Temptress in Tartan are based on the experiences of hundreds of real-life accused so-called witches and warlocks. In sixteenth, seventeenth, and early eighteenth-century Scotland, witches were hunted with fanatical zeal, some of which was a result of a reappraisal of religious values, practices, and attitudes as the Reformed church took hold of Scotland. Another force that exacerbated the supposed rooting out of all evil in Scotland was the Witchcraft Act of 1563.

  Queen Elizabeth I signed the act into law in England, and Mary Queen of Scots was encouraged by her advisors to do the same but with two differences. It was those differences in the law that proved disastrous for Scottish witches. The first was that witches were considered heretics, and therefore subject to the death penalty. The second was that the law declared those who refused to accept that witches and witchcraft existed and those who consulted, aided or abetted a person suspected of witchcraft were equally guilty of the crime. This technically denied the Scottish legal profession any chance of success in the defense of a witch.

  King James VI fanned the flames of witch-fever with his own superstitions. He encouraged religious leaders and civic leaders to cleanse their kirks and villages of all who were suspected agents of Satan. The most common suspicions concerned disruptions with livestock, crops, storms, disease, property and inheritance, sexual dysfunction or rivalry, family feuds, marital discord, step-parents, sibling rivalries, and local politics.

  Trial by local commission was by far the most common practice in Scotland. Using local commissions freed the central court and circuit courts from unmanageable caseloads. They also offered a convenient solution for dealing with groups of witches, since inevitably when a witch was apprehended and tortured, she usually informed on other ‘witches’ in the district.

  The methods used to try witches were simple. Before a secular trial took place, the kirk session, with its ministers and elders, examined the suspect. Usually a witch pricker was called in to search the victim’s body for a Devil’s mark. These humiliating body searches were only a foretaste of the tortures to come. The most common marks were warts or moles that when pricked with a long, thin brass pin, often inserted to the depth of three to four inches into the flesh, failed to produce either pain or blood.

  Once it was determined that the victim was a witch, they were either forced to sign a confession written in Latin that they usually could not read, or they were subjected to further torture in order to coerce them to reveal the names of other witches in their presumed covens. The forms of torture used were so horrific, victims usually admitted to anything just to make the agonizing pain stop.

  It is not known for certain how many men and women were executed during the witchcraft trials in Scotland, but the total is estimated to be between 3,000 to 4,000 between 1560 and 1707. Only the most fortunate were able to escape certain death once charged. If they escaped prosecution it was because they either survived their torture without confessing, were delivered by a “seer” who could look into the accused’s eyes and see a special mark proving their innocence, or by some strange test like the one used to free Lachlan Douglas.

  Coscinomancy is a form of divination that was used in ancient Greece, medieval and early modern Europe, and seventeenth-century New England to determine a guilty party in a criminal offense. Cornelius Agrippa wrote about this technique in the first volume of his Three Books of Occult Philosophy
, the Opera Omnia. Using this technique, a sieve was suspended from shears in such a way that the cutting edges of the blades made contact with the outer rim of the sieve. The shears were held by two middle fingers or by a string, making it almost impossible to keep the sieve still for any length of time and thus ensuring a prognostication.

  King James wrote about this technique for revealing a guilty party in his book, Demonology, which was a philosophical dissertation on necromancy and the historical relationships between the various methods of divination used from ancient black magic.

  During the days of the witch hunts, familiars were said to be given to witches by the Devil. They were, in essence, small demons that could be sent out to do a witch’s bidding. Although cats, especially black ones, were the suspected favored vessel for such a demon to inhabit, dogs, toads, owls, ravens, and other small animals were sometimes used.

  The facts about the witch hunts and witchcraft trials in the All the King’s Men series are difficult to process in a modern era where human life is valued and respected. The books highlight the brutal treatment meted out to those accused of practicing the black arts. I chose to make my hero suffer some of that torture in this work in order to illustrate what did happen during the witch trials. However, Lachlan’s torture was minimal compared to what others would have suffered in these historical times in order to gain confessions, which made ridiculous and outrageous claims.

  The books in this series are meant to draw attention to the farcical and absurd beliefs held not only by the uneducated population, but also the upper class. We will never know the true number of victims caught up in the witchcraft trials, but what is certain is that several thousand men and women went to their deaths unnecessarily.

  There are no memorials to those who perished in Scotland, other than the odd placard or place name that marks an execution spot or where supposed witches held their covens and Sabbats. However, through stories like those in the All the King’s Men series, it is my hope that the lessons of the past are remembered, and that we, as a people, never forget the best part of being human is our humanity toward others.

  If you enjoyed A Temptress in Tartan, you’ll love the next book in….

  All the Kings Men series

  Book 1: Seven Nights with A Scot

  Buy now!

  Book 2: Romancing the Laird

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  Book 3: A Temptress in Tartan

  View the series here!

  Enjoy an exclusive Excerpt from

  Seven Nights with a Scot

  Gerri Russell

  Book 1 in the All the King’s Men series

  Keep reading below or buy now!

  Prologue

  Edinburgh Castle, Scotland

  December 1st, 1590

  “Lady Sinclair, the king wishes tae see you.”

  Vivian Sinclair looked up from her worktable. The footman she knew as Andrew watched her from the doorway of her work chamber belowstairs near the kitchen. He never came inside the room. It was as though he feared, like so many of the other servants in the castle, he might somehow be affected by whatever herbal remedy she created. Potions, they called them with shuttered eyes.

  “I haven’t finished my tisane for His Grace yet.” Vivian didn’t bother to hide her confusion as she continued to grind the willow bark into a powder with her mortar and pestle. “Only a few minutes more.”

  “The king said the matter was urgent and I was tae bring you straight tae him,” Andrew said, easing away from the doorway as she set her pestle down. He watched with a patient face as she wiped her hands on her apron.

  Vivian tried to hide the shaking of her hands as she removed her apron. She took a moment to smooth away from her cheeks the fiery-red locks that escaped her ribbon. She knew all too well the look of displeasure that would come to King James VI’s face the moment he saw her.

  She did not resemble the noblewoman she was or even a lady of fashion. Her wild hair could never be tamed into the ringlets that were so popular among the other courtiers and she hated wearing it up; her gown was simple, unadorned and several years out of date. Vivian didn’t wear the fine dresses the king, her guardian, had had made for her, preferring to wear things she didn’t fear soiling when she tended her patients instead. “Do you have any idea what this is about?” she asked as she followed Andrew up the main staircase.

  Andrew wouldn’t meet her gaze. “He dinna say. But his mood is rather foul.”

  “Thank you for the warning,” Vivian said as she stifled a spurt of dread. Why did the king want to see her now? She had attended him earlier this morning and had been crafting a tisane to help ease the pain in his joints. The pains came over him ever since his return from Denmark with his wife, Anne. Or could he have finally heard the whispers that had started last week after she had cured Lady MacPhearson’s fever? The older woman had been pleased but her husband had called Vivian’s abilities nothing less than witchcraft. No matter the reason, the king wanting to see her for a second time in one day did not bode well for her.

  Vivian and Andrew walked in silence until they came to the doorway of the great hall. Andrew bowed to her there and remained at the door while she entered. The opulent chamber was one of the king’s favorites with its magnificent wooden ceiling, paneled wainscoting, and red walls. Standing tall, she continued toward the massive fireplace where the king sat alone. He looked up when she stopped before him. “Vivian.”

  “Your Grace.” She bowed and placed a grateful kiss upon the hand he extended to her, as was proper. “You wished to see me again, my lord?”

  As she suspected, an irritated scowl came to his face as he took in her tidy but rather plain form of dress. “I can no longer put off my duty as your guardian. We need to discuss your impending marriage.”

  “My what?” Vivian gasped. She reached with an unsteady hand for the chair beside the king, wilting into it. Even though marriage was expected of young women, such a state was the last thing she wanted.

  “I believe you heard me.” Leaning back in his chair, King James appraised her. “I’ve betrothed you to a very dear friend of mine, Laird Dugald Campbell. He is a seasoned lord, and he will be good to you, my child.”

  Vivian clutched the arms of the chair. Her mother and father’s marriage had been no love match, arranged by James’s father as a means to join two estates in a consolidation of power between two clans. Her parents had tried to make their marriage work, but they were too dissimilar. Her father had been strong and domineering, great strengths on the battlefield but those same traits followed him home during times of peace. As the years went by, her mother became fearful and dispirited, slowly becoming a shell of the woman she’d once been—a woman with no heart, no happiness, and no will to live. Vivian had always feared something similar might happen to her.

  And yet her fears were of little concern to the king. He wanted her married. She had little choice in the matter. “What do you mean by ‘seasoned’?” she asked, unable to hide the slight tremor in her voice.

  Hearing her fear, the king sighed. “A mature man has a lot to offer you, Vivian. He is settled in his ways. He already has an heir. He will welcome your skills as a healer. And, while this is no love match, I know, he and his clan will protect you from . . .”

  The king did not finish his sentence but she already knew what he meant to say. The witch hunting that had been rampant in Denmark had followed him back to Scotland through his own fears of the unknown.

  “Darkness is coming, and I fear I may not be able to protect you here at court any longer. You are too different, too vulnerable, and I will not sacrifice you because of something I can no longer ignore.”

  Vivian shook her head, trying to clear her chaotic thoughts. “You do not have to believe what others believe. Witchcraft is not real. You are an intelligent man. Look at the facts. Look at things logically. I do not understand—”

  “You do not have to understand,” the king said brusquely. His face reddened.

 
; Not many at court would have talked to him in such a fashion, but she had to make him see some sense. “Witches are not real.”

  His eyes flared. “I am your king and I know what is real and what is not.” A moment later he settled back in his chair with a sigh. “Why must you always challenge me? You are very like your dear father, you are.”

  “I mean you no disrespect, my lord. I care about you as I would have my own father.”

  “And I care about you, Vivian. Trust that I am doing the right thing for you. To protect you just as your father once protected me. I owe him that much.”

  She’d heard the tale many times of how her father had placed himself in harm’s way in order to save the king’s life. It was ultimately how she’d ended up as a ward of the king after her mother’s death. The king had been nothing but kind to her over the past six years. Even so, she knew the king’s kindness would not last forever, especially now that he had taken a wife himself. Vivian had been of an age to marry for years. It was a miracle he hadn’t tried to marry her off before now.

  “You leave tomorrow for Kilkerran. Pack only the supplies you cannot replace. And never speak about your visions to anyone ever again. Do you understand?”

  She drew a breath, trying to slow her wildly beating heart. “My visions have been helpful to you. I helped you avoid an assassination attempt. I predicted your marriage to Anne of Denmark. I revealed you would see eight children born into this world, and that you would not only become king of Scotland, but England as well.”

  Vivian stood, no longer able to contain her agitation. “I predicted your mother’s death. And foretold of your success as a scholar, and that it would be you who made the words of the Bible accessible to not only the nobility, but the common man as well.”

  “It is hard to know what is true when so many things have yet to transpire.” The king frowned. “Have you seen any future attempts on my life?”