by Elisa Braden
Copyright © 2020 by Elisa Braden
Smashwords Edition
Cover design by Dar Albert at Wicked Smart Designs
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form by any means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without express written permission of the author.
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.
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
For more information about the author, visit www.elisabraden.com.
Books by Elisa Braden
Midnight in Scotland Series
The Making of a Highlander (Book One)
The Taming of a Highlander (Book Two) – Coming soon!
Rescued from Ruin Series
Ever Yours, Annabelle (Prequel)
The Madness of Viscount Atherbourne (Book One)
The Truth About Cads and Dukes (Book Two)
Desperately Seeking a Scoundrel (Book Three)
The Devil Is a Marquess (Book Four)
When a Girl Loves an Earl (Book Five)
Twelve Nights as His Mistress (Novella – Book Six)
Confessions of a Dangerous Lord (Book Seven)
Anything but a Gentleman (Book Eight)
A Marriage Made in Scandal (Book Nine)
A Kiss from a Rogue (Book Ten)
TlU
Want to know what’s next? Connect with Elisa through Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for her free email newsletter, so you don’t miss a single new release!
Contents
Title Page
Books by Elisa Braden
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
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
More from Elisa Braden
About the Author
Chapter One
TlU
September 30, 1825
Glenscannadoo, Scotland
“Did you wear it betwixt yer bosoms, as I instructed?” Mrs. MacBean’s squint was an accusation of imbecility—one Annie Tulloch did not appreciate.
Annie tossed the foul linen pouch on the old woman’s table. “I could tuck it betwixt the cheeks of my arse, ye daft crone, and the result would be the same. It doesnae work.” She planted her hands on her hips and nodded toward the silent, pale boy by her side. “He’s nae better.”
Mrs. MacBean shook her peppery head and pursed crinkled lips. “The sage mightn’t have been strong enough. ’Tis best to harvest during a new moon.”
“It smells like stew cooked in a chamber pot.”
“Aye. The mushrooms are a wee bit pungent. Mayhap I used too many.”
“Mayhap ye ingested too many.”
“Och, I havenae done that in ages, lass. The first time ye wake up naked with a goat, shame on the devil. The second? Shame on ye.”
“You havenae the foggiest notion what you’re about. I’d have better luck beggin’ a remedy from Ronnie Cleghorn.”
“The simple lad who gnaws rope when his father isnae looking?”
Annie raised a brow.
Ordinarily, Mrs. MacBean’s milky left eye tended to wander. Now, it twitched with annoyance. “Listen well, lass. I’ve lived three of your lifetimes in the mists of these lands.” She swept an arm around her dingy hovel strewn with old books and dried weeds. Slapping a cobweb from her sleeve, she continued, “Ancient knowledge runs in my blood. My mother’s mother’s—”
“Mother was a seer,” Annie finished, rolling her eyes. “Aye. So ye’ve claimed. Over and over—”
Sniff. “’Tis true.”
“—and over until I’d prefer to eat whatever foul substances you stuffed in that pouch than to hear the tale again.” Annie glowered. “Perhaps after four generations, your blood’s weaker than an innkeeper’s whisky.” She glanced down at Finlay, who hid behind her hip. His blue eyes were shadows. His wee hand clutched his middle. Her own middle twisted as dread gripped hard. “But it’s plain you cannae help him. Nor me. Just admit it.”
The old woman’s glare gentled into sympathy as her good eye roamed Annie’s expression. “Ye mustn’t fash yerself, lass. We’ll discover the cause of the laddie’s affliction.”
“He needs a cure. I’m wastin’ my bluidy time with ye.”
“And who do ye suppose would offer better, eh?” She scoffed and blew her nose on her woolen sleeve. “Go on, then. Beseech the laird’s surgeon.” The old woman’s sarcasm burned Annie’s aforementioned arse. “See how much he can tell you about it. ‘Course, he’d have to acknowledge the lad’s existence first. Trouble, that. Mayhap the priest—”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
The old woman’s expression darkened. “Precious little that priest does for God’s sake, lass.”
Annie turned and paced to the open front door of the cottage, her chest squeezing. Something was wrong with Finlay. He’d grown increasingly silent over the past year, shadowed and absent and frail. Annie had tried to coax answers from him, but he couldn’t explain what was wrong. The only one who might know how to fix him was a woman whose sanity was in greater doubt than Annie’s.
The old crone was an outcast. She’d been forced from her home by her former laird to make way for more profitable tenants—namely, sheep. Several years past in a fleeting mood of generosity, Glenscannadoo’s laird, Gilbert MacDonnell, had welcomed such castoffs as Mrs. MacBean.
The foolish popinjay could scarcely pay his own mortgage and had long ago sold most of his lands to settle debts. But the Laird of Glenscannadoo fancied himself quite the paragon of Highland courtesy, so he’d invited Mrs. MacBean to live at the edge of the village in a cottage no one else wanted, a castoff woman in a castoff house doling out herbs and midwifery to villagers who called her a witch.
That woman was Finlay’s last hope—the only hope.
Annie’s stepfather and two of her stepbrothers had helped repair Mrs. MacBean’s roof, rebuilt the hearth, and reattached the door. In return, Mrs. MacBean routinely made liniment for Annie’s stepfather’s aching joints, and carved ugly trinkets she swore would bring Annie’s stepbrothers “wives to please yer very soul.”
Mrs. MacBean owed a debt to Annie’s family, and the MacPherson men tolerated her gestures. Annie was not a MacPherson. The woman owed her nothing. And yet, she’d been kind. She’d seen Finlay, acknowledged Finlay, when no one else did.
Feeling the laddie’s co
ol, dark hair slide through her fingertips, Annie sighed and leaned against the open door, trying to stifle the fear that clutched with a cold, relentless grip.
At midday, the sky was like iron. Drizzle had started up again. Had it ever stopped?
She gathered her plaid tighter around her, folding her arms across her chest and watching mud deepen along the lane. “Have ye enough bread to see ye ‘til Wednesday, Mrs. MacBean?” she asked over her shoulder, eyeing the basket of loaves she’d brought.
“Oh, aye,” came the vague reply. “I’m obliged to ye, dear.” The chair near the fireplace creaked its familiar groan as the old woman sat. “The brown book with the acorn on the spine might say somewhat about spiritual afflictions. Now, where did I bury that one?”
Annie caught Finlay’s gaze and crossed her eyes. He glanced toward the muttering Mrs. MacBean and smothered a laugh.
“We’ll return in a few days, then,” Annie said, plucking her hat from the hook.
The old woman scratched her head. Then her leg. Then her elbow. She stood and searched beneath her cracked wooden chair.
Annie raised a brow at Finlay, who shot her a crooked grin. She was pleased to see it. He’d been so unwell of late she’d begun to despair of ever seeing that Fin Grin again.
Perhaps this would be one of his better days.
As she left the cottage, he remained tethered to her side. She tugged her hat lower, cursing the sullen rain and the wilting brim. She’d inherited the worthless thing from her stepbrother Broderick, who’d inherited it from her eldest stepbrother, Campbell.
Blasted MacPhersons had heads the size of washtubs.
Huffing as she resettled the hat on the back of her head, she added four strapping stepbrothers to her silent cursing and tromped through deepening mud.
Down the lane that ran from the foothills along the loch toward the village, two MacDonnell women lingered outside a tidy cottage. The younger Mrs. MacDonnell resettled a bairn on her broad hip and grumbled to her mother-in-law, “Cousin Dougal says work at the kelp beds has dried up. Next, I expect he’ll be bletherin’ about Canada again. That wife of his, no doubt. Glaswegian tart.” The bairn fidgeted until his mother pinched his leg. He whimpered but stopped squirming.
Grisel MacDonnell was Annie’s age, four-and-twenty, and already had four wee ones. Annie pitied those children. Grisel had a spiteful temper. Two of Annie’s scars had come from her teeth. They’d been lassies no bigger than Finlay when the injuries occurred, but still. Spiteful.
The elder Mrs. MacDonnell glanced up at the rain. “Warned him, I did. Naught remains in the coastlands but seabirds. Canada might offer better prospects.”
Grisel’s full lips twisted. “My fool husband says the same. Mayhap we should all board a ship, then.” Her gaze snagged upon Annie. “Christ’s blood,” she hissed, shifting her bairn to the opposite hip and backing toward the garden gate. “’Tis Mad Annie. She’s been to see the MacBean witch again.”
Her mother-in-law spun with a darting, wary stare in Annie’s direction. “Best get inside,” the older woman muttered, gesturing with nervous fingers. “Out the rain.”
A devilish impulse took hold of Annie. She caught Finlay’s eye.
Ah, there was that Fin Grin again.
She winked then whispered, “Watch this.” Spinning mid-stride, she began walking backward as she passed the two women. She extended her arms, letting the folds of her plaid drape like wings. “Och, ’tis the rain that delivers the curse, Mrs. MacDonnell.”
“C-curse?”
“Aye. Dinnae ye feel it?” While the two women watched with saucer eyes, she raised her arms above her head as though calling down the powers of heaven. Her voice dropped to a thrum. “Whosoever causes a bairn tae greet an’ wail shall suffer the selfsame miseries twelvefold. Beware. Beware. Beware!”
Grisel’s ruddy skin whitened with each “beware.” She frowned at the tear-stained bairn on her hip then eyed Annie with disbelief.
Annie didn’t blame her. If she were the sort of mother Grisel was, she wouldn’t want to believe in retribution curses, either.
Fluttering her fingers for added effect, Annie didn’t have to tell Finlay to join in the fun. He crossed the lane and tickled Grisel’s back. The woman shuddered and paled further. Finlay darted back to Annie’s side, covering his laughter.
The elder Mrs. MacDonnell ushered her stricken daughter-in-law through the gate as Grisel stammered, “D-does it seem colder of a sudden?”
As the women scurried inside the cottage, Annie chuckled, ruffling Finlay’s hair. “Ah, that trick never loses its shine, Fin. Well done.”
They continued into the village square, a rather grand description for anything in Glenscannadoo. In truth, it was an irregular, roughly cobbled strip bounded by a single inn, three taverns, and five shops. At the center towered a statue of a MacDonnell laird. Annie supposed it was meant to represent Gilbert MacDonnell’s father, but the likeness was far handsomer—and assuredly had more sense—than the man she remembered. He stood proudly in a kilt, cap, sporran, and brogues, gazing over haggard rooftops toward Loch Carrich. One hand rested upon his sword as though prepared to battle beside Bonnie Prince Charlie for the honor of his family name.
And he was that foolish, she thought, sniffing as she passed through his shadow.
Finlay clung to her side as they entered the haberdashery, but the moment her laddie spotted the tartan display, he drifted toward the colorful bolts of wool at the rear of the shop.
“Dinnae go far,” she murmured.
He gave a distracted nod and continued on.
Behind the counter, the portly Mr. Cleghorn glanced about his empty shop and shot her a suspicious frown.
She ignored him to peruse the skeins of thread. Plucking a fine ivory and a rich blue, she bent to consider the greens on the lower shelf.
“Ye’re puddlin’ my floor, Anne Tulloch,” Mr. Cleghorn grumbled.
Annie glanced down to where her plaid ended and her trews tucked into her boots. A cascade fell from her hat’s brim. “So I am,” she said, feigning surprise. She swiped a finger across one of the shelves and held it up so he could see the grime. “Seems somebody should introduce this place to a bit of water now and then.”
“Do ye intend to buy that thread or steal it?”
Knuckling her hat back, she replied, “Well, now, I didnae reckon you’d be amenable to thievin’, Mr. Cleghorn. Generous of ye to give us an option.” She pretended to weigh the skeins between her hands. “Pay or steal? Pay or steal? A pure dilemma.”
“Wee harridan. Ye’ll nae steal from me.”
Grinning, she called, “Hear that, Fin?” Her laddie turned. “Mad Annie isnae merely mad, but a thief in the bargain.” She glanced down at the wet spot around her boots. “A proper storm come to drench the haberdasheries of Glenscannadoo.”
Cleghorn drew back, his expression edged with fear. “Who are ye talkin’ to, lass?”
Disgusted, she plucked a green skein from the lowest shelf and stalked to the counter. “Add these to Angus MacPherson’s bill,” she snapped.
“Yer stepfather didnae approve—”
“Angus likes his shirts mended. That’s all the approval I need.”
Cleghorn frowned until his shaggy brows knitted together, but he didn’t argue further. Moments later, the bell above the door rang. The next thing Annie felt was a collision in her lower half.
“Ooph!” She twisted to see freckled arms hugging her waist and a mop of russet against her hip. The lad’s hair wasn’t quite so fiery as her own, rather the color of autumn leaves. But his smile warmed her better than any hearth. She chuckled and stroked rainwater from his cheek. “Ah, ’tis glad I am to see ye, Ronnie. Only this mornin’, I was sayin’ how one of your smiles would cheer this pisser of a day.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Finlay approach. “Isnae that so, Fin?” He nodded and Ronnie laughed.
“Ronnie, leave go,” Mr. Cleghorn grumbled
to his son while penciling her purchase into his shop accounts. “Miss Tulloch must be on her way.”
“Must I, now?”
Cleghorn glanced up with hard eyes. “Aye. Ye must.”
Ronnie’s arms slid away with his usual reluctance. She glared at his father a moment before kissing the boy’s russet head. His smile faded into mild confusion. Finlay distracted the lad by waving him toward the tartans. They raced off together while Annie leaned close to the shopkeeper.
“The youths in this village knock yer son flat on his arse for the sport of it, Mr. Cleghorn. ’Tis a wonder he isnae skinned elbow to knee. Ye might consider such things when ye’re deciding his friends for him.”
“He has enough troubles,” came the accusatory answer. “He doesnae need yours.”
Galling, but likely true. The lad was simple—a pure delight, of course, but different and, therefore, scorned. Being friendly with Mad Annie Tulloch wouldn’t help matters.
“Go on with ye, lass,” Cleghorn said. “Yer stepfather will be wonderin’ after ye.”
“Wonderin’ after his dinner, perhaps,” she muttered beneath her breath. She formed a pocket in her plaid by tucking a loose corner of the blue-and-green wool into her belt. Stashing her thread inside while Cleghorn disappeared into a storage area behind a curtain.
The bell rang again just as Finlay showed Ronnie a favorite trick: making a piece of rope appear in the boy’s hand. As usual, Ronnie collapsed into giggles.
A man entered, pausing to glance about the shop. Bearded. Tall. Dressed like an Englishman.
Because he was an Englishman—the only one in Glenscannadoo.
Long strides carried him past the first row of shelves. He removed his hat—an Englishman’s hat, once fine and black, now gray and tattered—and raked a hand through sun-streaked brown hair. Mist decorated his shoulders, which were at once lean and powerful beneath his black coat. He plucked up a bolt of linen, a tin of buttons, and a pair of shears.
His motions were efficient. Decisive. The Englishman often moved with purpose, she’d noticed, as though he didn’t bother expending effort until he’d locked upon whatever he desired. Then, he pursued his quarry as though nothing else existed.
