Highlander's Moonlight Seduction (Scottish Medieval Historical Romance)

by Adamina Young

There were so many questions running through his head as she looked down fondly at it and smiled. “How long have ye been hiding it in yer dresses?”

  Moira was quiet for a moment while she turned it over in her hands and watched the light flicker off it. “When I was walking home that day, I was…there was…well, I was worried that something might happen to it, so I slipped it inside my shift. That is when I got the idea to have pockets sewn into my dresses.”

  He had to fight to demand that she tell him what happened. “Ye still didnae answer my question, Moira.”

  “Fine. I’ve been hiding it since that day, but it was not from sentiment. I just wanted to keep it safe until I could return it to ye. After all, it was made to replicate yer mother’s, and I assumed…” A strange look crossed her face. “’Tis a replica of yer mother’s.”

  “Aye,” he said impatiently. “All the Sinclair betrothals’ pendants look the same. ’Tis not passed down because the women are buried with it.”

  “No, sorry.” With a frown, she held it up and looked at it. “Something just occurred to me.” Hurrying over to the corner of the cottage, she pushed some of the blankets off and uncovered the chest that had been found with the cottage. “Connor, look at the lock.”

  Spurned by the urgency in her voice, he hurried to her side and looked down at the chest. The lock was round, like her pendant. “Ye really think?”

  “I do.” Fitting the pendant into the lock, she turned it until they both heard a pop. After a look at him, she stepped back. “’Twas yer mother’s. Ye should open it.”

  Slowly, he lifted the lid, and he was assaulted by memories. “There was a chest like this in my mother’s room, a hue darker. It was her bridal gift passed down from my grandmother. Moira, I think this was meant for ye, a present from my mother.”

  The chest was packed. Slowly, reverently, he lifted out the items. There were dresses and quilts, even a few baby clothes. At the very bottom were two sealed letters. One was addressed to her. The other to him.

  “Connor.” Moira’s eyes were filled with tears as he handed her the letter. “I doonae think I should keep this. Perhaps, if ye have a daughter, we could pass it to her. Or even to Grace. I amnae yer real wife. I doonae deserve this.”

  Fury pierced him, and he stood and glowered at her. “Ye are my real wife, and I willnae listen differently. I married ye, Moira. Ye are a Sinclair. Ye share my bed, and ye will mother my children. And for years, ye have carried the Sinclair pendant. Because our marriage was not conventional does not mean that this marriage isnae real.”

  After a moment, she reached over him to close the lid and lock it. Tucking the pendant back into her dress, she fingered her envelope and gave him a brave smile. “’Tis late. We should get back home.”

  After tucking the chest back in the corner, he saw her giving it one last look before she grabbed the lantern and hurried to the door. “Moira,” he said quietly, “if ye want to feel like my wife, truly my wife, then ye need to let yer guard down every now and then.”

  “Connor…”

  “Tell me what happened to ye when I exiled ye. Tyree told me that it took ye two weeks to walk home. He said that ye were different when ye arrived.”

  “It doesnae matter. In hindsight, things could have been much worse. I survived, I made it home in one piece.”

  “Tell me, Moira,” he whispered. “There are nights when I feel ye wake in the dark, and ye panic. I can feel yer fear. If I know why ye are scared, if I can understand, then I can help ye.”

  He waited for her to tell him that it was all his fault and she didn’t want his help, but she just walked quietly next to him as they headed back to the keep. For a moment, he thought she would hold her tongue, withhold the truth like punishment, but she eventually sighed. “First of all, Connor, I need ye to know that I doonae blame ye. As I told Grace, I cannae understand the pain and fear that ye were going through. I have seen some dark times, and I have made decisions that I regret, so when I tell ye what happened, I doonae want ye to feel any guilt.”

  Connor could make no promises. He was responsible for all of her pain and suffering, and whatever she said next would only add to the weight on his shoulders, but he needed to hear it. He needed to understand all of it if he could ever truly make it right. “Tell me, Moira.”

  There was no escaping it. Deep down, Moira knew that she would eventually have to tell him. Now seemed like the worst time. Her engagement pendant burned through the thin fabric of her dress, and her mother-in-law’s letter seared her skin as she rubbed her finger over it. He’d just learned something personal about her, was holding something personal from his mother. She wanted to do nothing but hug him and tell him that everything was fine.

  But the past simply could not stay dead.

  “I was so distraught that I wasnae keeping a keen eye on my surroundings,” Moira admitted quietly as they walked. The cool air from the night touched her skin, and she shivered, but she needed the distraction to keep from getting pulled back into the nightmare. “Not that it would have done me much good. I should have stayed off the roads. My father had taught me that much because of his fear that I would be kidnapped by a feuding clan.”

  Connor remained quiet next to her although she could feel the tension in his body. She continued. “They were an organized group of highwaymen. I suppose it was the nice dress that I wore, but even though I had no carriage or horse or possession on me, they surrounded me anyway. They had weapons, but there was no need to use them on me. I would have been powerless against one, let alone five, but I would not stop screaming, so they hit me over the head with something. I still have a scar. When I woke up, I was in a small shelter. Dark. No windows. It smelled of mold and men. I knew I wasn’t alone because I could hear scuffling, but it felt like hours before someone came in and spoke to me.”

  “They wanted to keep you for ransom,” he said darkly.

  “They thought I was a Sinclair because I’d come from Sinclair lands. And…” She swallowed hard.

  “And ye wore my medallion.”

  “Aye, so when I tried to tell them that I was no longer yer betrothed, they didnae believe me. The leader sent someone to send a missive for my safe return, and that is when they saw the keep under siege. When he returned, he was furious and scared.”

  “He didnae want to get caught up in it.”

  “They abandoned me in the shelter. By then, I was so scared and exhausted. I started walking in the wrong direction. It took far too long for me to get home.”

  “They didnae touch ye?”

  “Nay, the leader told his men to leave me alone. That I was to be returned unharmed, but they thought I was a child. Perhaps because I cried like one.”

  “Moira, I expected ye to take a horse, but in any case, within an hour of banishing ye, I intended to send someone after ye to escort ye home safely. Unfortunately, I was detained.”

  “Detained?”

  “Imprisoned, Moira. I was imprisoned in my own cells by the enemy. Alec had seen Grace to safety, and it took a week to get enough men to get into the keep and rescue me. I had assumed by then that ye had made it home. I should have checked. I should have sent someone…”

  Stepping in front of her suddenly, she put a hand to his chest to stop him. “Connor, I have seen the scars on yer back. I know that ye were not just imprisoned. We cannae continue blaming each other for what happened. We both survived, and now all we can do is move forward.”

  “Is that what we’re doing, Moira? Moving forward?” In the moonlight, he reached down and tipped her chin up. “Sometimes I feel as though all we are doing is moving in circles.”

  She felt the same way, but it was not something that she wanted to admit.

  20

  To my dearest son,

  It has always been my hope that love would find you in this life, the same love that has blessed me in the guise of your father. We raised you to believe in strength and power, to make the hard choices between yourself and your clan,
and to let your head guide you in all matters.

  I feared that we had forgotten to teach you the most important lesson, that the heart can be just as powerful, but as soon as I saw you and Moira together, I knew that there was no lesson I could teach you that would be more powerful than what you experience with her. There is nothing but love in your eyes when you look at her, and when she smiles at you, I see myself at her age, looking at your father. With her love to guide you, I know that you will be all right.

  Our lives are hard and sometimes cruel, and I beg of you to never shut her out. As long as you allow her to love you, as long as you allow yourself to love her, there will always be a light guiding you out of the darkness.

  I write this knowing that tomorrow, you will ask her to be your bride. Your love is young, but it will mature over the years, grow stronger and hardier. I know you will continue to make me proud as you have always done. You have taken your brother under your wing and helped turn him into the brave boy that he is today. When he becomes a man, I know that he will be like you. You have protected your sister and encouraged her, and I know that someday she will be a powerful woman in her own right. And you, my wonderful Connor, will be one of the best lairds this clan has ever seen because you will let love lead you.

  Be brave, Connor, for life can be unexpected, but trust that you will always go where you need to be.

  You are forever in my heart.

  * * *

  Several weeks had passed since Moira had opened the chest. Alone in his chambers, Connor read the letter again by the flickering candlelight and swallowed the lump in his throat. No matter how many times he looked the letter over, he came away with more questions. His mother must have written this the day before she died. Had she known, somehow, that the end was near?

  Had she known that he was soon to make the biggest mistake of his life and lose the one chance he had at love? If only he had found the note sooner, maybe he would have trusted his heart more, kept Moira by his side, and he would not be constantly wondering if she could ever forgive him, if she could ever love him.

  Knowing his mother, she had probably written something similarly moving to Moira. Maybe it would be enough for her to open her heart to him because as much as Connor feared the consequences, he could no longer deny the inevitable.

  He was desperately in love with his wife.

  At the tentative knock on the door, he folded the letter back up. “Enter,” he said gruffly as he walked to his wardrobe and tucked it back into the drawer.

  The door opened, and Clyde stuck his head in. “Laird, the hunting party has returned.”

  Tonight they were planning a huge feast to celebrate the finished kitchen. It was a snub to the fire-starter and also a way to break the tension in the clan. He was doubling the patrols, daring the perpetrator to strike again so they could clap him in irons and this whole nightmare would finally be over.

  “Then let us go meet them. My wife has informed me that the cook is chomping at the bit to see what we will bring her. No need to delay.”

  Clyde grinned. “Aye, Laird. Tonight is just what we all need.”

  Indeed.

  “He is handsome, isn’t he?” Grace asked with a sly grin while she, Moira, and Ainsley nearly collapsed in the grass from their last dance. Moira’s feet ached, and she was starting to feel a little dizzy. Perhaps it was all the spinning. She couldn’t remember the last time that she’d danced so much, but tonight it had nearly sapped her of all her energy.

  “Who?” Ainsley asked.

  Grace exchanged a secretive look with Moira. A week ago, they had decided that the best way to help Ainsley was to find her a husband who would make her burn during the night and make her feel loved and cherished during the day. It couldn’t be all that difficult. Ainsley was beautiful, after all, and there were plenty of Sinclairs stealing second and third looks at her.

  “Nathair,” Grace continued with a nod. “I used to have a crush on him when we were younger.”

  "Something about seeing him run naked through town?” Ainsley asked dryly, and they all laughed at the memory. “Aye, I suppose he is handsome, but I am surprised at ye, Grace. I thought ye had decided not to marry.”

  Inwardly, Moira groaned. She didn’t really think that they were looking for a man for Grace, did they? Although, now that it was in her head, it wasn’t a terrible idea. Grace was lovely. A little unconventional, but certainly there was a man who would love that about her.

  Once they got past her need to ride out to the training fields every morning and challenge the guards. And her need to test the defensive patrol every night by trying to sneak past.

  “I doonae want a husband,” Grace said hotly as she wrinkled her nose. “But ye are built for love! How many times do I see ye sneaking glances at Connor and Moira, and sighing with longing?”

  “Sighing with longing?” Moira echoed with a snort. “And why would ye do that? We arenae a blissfully loving couple.”

  “Please! The two of ye cannae keep yer eyes or yer hands off each other. I thought I might be sick earlier when ye two were dancing.” Grace rolled her eyes and grinned. “I know that he was trying to convince ye to leave the festivities earlier so the two of ye could…”

  “Doonae finish that sentence!” Moira said as she blushed. “Ye are an unmarried woman. Ye should not know about these things.”

  “I pick up all kinds of information listening to the men,” Grace giggled. “I know things that would make yer hair curl.”

  Moira could believe it, and Grace was right. Connor had been trying to get her to leave the festivities early, but she wasn’t in an amorous mood, at least not at that time. Grace might have felt sick, but Moira actually was sick. It was all she could do to keep her dinner down until she could make it someplace quiet. With all that was going on, the last thing she wanted was for the clan to believe that she was sick. She was still trying to win them over. She wanted them to believe that she was strong.

  Besides, now that she was sitting down, the sickness seemed to be passing. Perhaps it was nothing more than something she ate.

  “I have no plans to remarry,” Ainsley said quietly. “One husband was enough for me.”

  Grace shrugged. “A lover, then. As a widow, ye are entitled.”

  “Moira, are ye all right? Ye look a bit pale,” Ainsley said as she ignored Grace. “I saw ye hurrying away earlier. Is something wrong?”

  The nausea had passed, but she was so tired that she feared she might fall asleep right there by the bonfire and be trampled by enthusiastic dancers. “I am exhausted,” she admitted. “I think I really will turn in now and try to get some extra sleep.”

  Standing, she swayed on her feet and would have fallen if Grace and Ainsley hadn’t immediately jumped up and caught her. “Moira, what is it?” Grace said anxiously. “Should I get Connor or the healer?”

  “Nay!” Moira said sharply. “There is no need. I doonae want the clan to think that I am weak. I am just so tired. Ainsley, if ye will walk with me to my chambers, then I will be grateful. Grace, ye can tell Connor that I went to bed early, but doonae let him leave. He is enjoying himself, and I want that to continue. Doonae tell him that anything is wrong because nothing is wrong. I think I’ve overdone myself planning for the feast.”

  “If ye say so.” There was a note of uncertainty in Grace’s voice, but she nodded, and Ainsley tightened her hold around her waist.

  “Put yer arms around me,” she whispered. “Everyone will think that we are just two silly women, stumbling back after having too much fun.”

  Moira did so, knowing full well that she might not make it back on her own, and it wasn’t until they were outside her chambers that Ainsley finally released her to open the door. “Moira, ’tis not just exhaustion, is it?”

  “Tis true that my stomach has been upset lately, but I amnae running a fever,” Moira said defensively. “I am certain that I will feel better after a good night’s rest.”

  “Does Connor know that
ye are feeling unwell?”

  “Nay, he has been so busy during the day, and at night…” Moira blushed. “Let’s just say that my husband is one of the reasons that I have been so tired.” Ever since the night where he’d been shot at it, he’d been more attentive than ever. Their nights together were urgent, almost desperate, and she didn’t know what was wrong, but she clung to him in an effort to let him know that everything would be fine. No matter what, they would find a way.

  “I will keep yer secret,” Ainsley said finally after studying her. “If ye doonae want half the clan to know, ye shouldnae tell Connor. Ye know how he will dote on ye.”

  Moira knew, and she agreed. “Just one night of sleep,” she whispered. “’Tis all I need.”

  Two days later, Moira had to admit to herself that it was not just exhaustion. Something about the way dinner smelled turned her stomach, and Moira held the nausea at bay until she could excuse herself. Pretending to want to give Maevis a few carrots before she went to bed, she hurried to the stables and nearly made it halfway before she leaned over and wretched. A strange feeling settled in her stomach, and she put her hand over it and shuddered.

  It couldn’t be, could it?

  Feeling a little better, she clutched the carrots and made her way to the stables. There wasn’t a groom in sight, but she didn’t mind being alone. She greeted her mare and held out a carrot. “Hello, sweeting.” The horse ambled from the other side and carefully took the snack. “I suppose ye will be the only one I can share my suspicions with for awhile. ’Tis appears that Connor has done his job as a husband far sooner than I had expected.”

  It was ridiculous to hope that it would take longer. She had spent almost every night in his arms, so it only made sense that he might get her pregnant sooner rather than later. “I doonae understand why they might call it morning sickness when it hits whenever it pleases.” She sighed. “For four days, I have been nauseous. I suppose I will have to see the healer soon, but now that I think back to my last monthly, I realize that I should have been more vigilant.”