Possession of a Highlander Read online

  Possession of a Highlander

  Madeline Martin

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 2015 by Madeline Martin

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

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition August 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-708-1

  Also by Madeline Martin

  Deception of a Highlander

  To the minions.

  You keep my life full of laughter, inspiration and love.

  Chapter One

  Angus, Scotland - June 1606

  Brianna Lindsay’s time had run out.

  Soil caked the undersides of her rounded fingernails and creased her palms like black sin. There was still much to do.

  The sun burned high overhead, baring her deeds to all. Reminding her she could be discovered at any moment.

  She plunged her hands into the cool, moist earth. But she mustn’t delve too far.

  She didn’t know how deeply they’d buried him.

  Her body clenched around another dry retch. There was nothing left for her stomach to give.

  She could go no further. The gouged hole would have to do.

  The rosebush at her side stretched away with twisted limbs, and its leaves quivered in the wind. Did it seek another way out as she did? Did it feel the looming threat?

  “We all must make our sacrifices.” She spoke under her breath in a soothing tone that would fall deaf upon wicked thorns.

  It mattered not.

  She had no other options. None, except this or surrender.

  And there were too many lives at stake.

  A pearl of sweat tickled a path from her brow to her chin. She swiped it away with a dirty fist.

  The moisture upon her cheeks should be tears.

  Edzell Castle had lost its earl the day before. No one could find out, most especially her uncle. Not until she figured out an alternative.

  Bernard, her Captain of the Guard, had left hours before with a letter tucked safely in his vest.

  This would all be over when he returned from Edinburgh. She hoped.

  She grasped the hearty base of the rosebush and cradled its roots. With reverent care, she transplanted it into the freshly turned earth, beside the other three. Only two more remained to be sown into the ground.

  Together, they would cover the makeshift grave in a tangle of fragrant blooms and barbed vines.

  At least he lay in consecrated ground.

  For the countless time, she willed the tears to come. For the countless time, still, they did not.

  She winced beneath a slice of regret.

  No matter how callous he had been, no matter how cruel a position he had left her in, surely Brianna should mourn the death of her own father.

  • • •

  Colin MacKinnon quickened his pace through the maze of curling ferns. Sunlight cut through the trees overhead and flickered around him, hastening his sense of urgency. The rich scent of soil rose from underfoot and mingled with the copper odor of blood.

  He locked his arms beneath the battered old man he carried. As it was, the man’s breath grew shallower by the moment. He would not last long.

  “Do ye see the castle, Alec? Are we close?” Colin asked. He would run if necessary.

  Alec strode several paces ahead, his large body clearing the forest’s heavy growth from their path. “Aye, I see it just ahead.”

  “We’re almost there,” Colin said through gritted teeth. “Ye’re almost home.”

  The man’s mouth moved, and a weak exhale gasped through thin, bloodied lips.

  Colin ducked beneath a veil of thin branches and found himself bathed in the warmth of dazzling sunlight. Lush grass stretched before him, lining his path. Beckoning.

  Edzell Castle rose at its center, nestled like a rare pearl behind walls tinged pink with precious sandstone.

  Colin glanced over his shoulder to where a small white building sat against the forest. A servant knelt in the dirt beside a row of rosebushes, her long brown braid thrown over her shoulder.

  Before either he or Alec could call out, her head snapped up. She tensed. The narrowed look on her comely face was not one of welcome.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, her voice sharp. Suspicious.

  Colin turned, and her gaze dropped to the man in his arms. “We seek Lady Lindsay.”

  All hostility drained from her widened eyes. She lurched to her feet and staggered toward them in a frantic run.

  “What have you done?” Accusation screamed from her wild gaze. Soil smudged one flushed cheek.

  “I seek Lady Lindsay,” Colin said again.

  The man stirred, and a low moan croaked from his throat.

  “He’s alive,” she gasped. “What’s happened? Who has done this?”

  His patience waned. The dying man did not have time for the servant’s lamentations. “Damn it, lass, listen to me. He is badly wounded and requests Lady Lindsay. All questions will be answered later. For now, I demand to see the lady of the castle.”

  Her generous lips fell open, but no words emerged. She dropped her gaze to the man, and her brows knit together. “This way.” She motioned toward the white building and sprinted ahead, her thick braid bouncing against her back with each hastened step.

  The structure was cool inside, a reprieve from the heat of the noonday sun. Costly stained glass windows lined either side of the walls and shot streaks of reds, yellows, and golds across the rows of wooden benches. A church. The location was fitting for a man soon dead.

  Colin glanced down at the man, Bernard, in his arms, and found his face had gone white beneath the streaks of blood. A bad sign.

  The lass pulled a length of embroidered white silk from the altar and spread it on the ground. “Lay him here,” she said.

  Colin hesitated. The workmanship on the fabric was incredibly detailed in its depiction of the Garden of Eden, each leaf and flower crafted with obvious care. He glanced up at the servant. She would be whipped for using so costly a cloth for a dying man.

  “Lay him here,” she repeated, her voice strained with desperation.

  Colin sank to his knees. “He is bleeding heavily.”

  “I understand.” Her tone had lost its edge and was soft, somber. “Please.” She motioned to the altar cloth once more with trembling fingers tinged black and dirty.

  Colin eased Bernard to the silk-covered ground. The old man was finally home.

  The furrows of pain on the man’s weathered face smoothed into a smile. “Thank you.” The words rasped from within his chest. He was still alive. There was still time.

  The woman fell to the ground, her head bent over him. “What’s happened to you?” Her voice broke in a way that would tug at any man’s chest. Colin was no exception.

  “Brianna?” The dying man squinted up at the servant.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

  Colin cleared his throat, an inadvertently loud interruption in the silence of the church. “He needs Lady Lindsay,” he said one final time.

  “What?” The woman looked up at him from where she sat with her rough skirts tucked under her legs. “You don’t understand.” She pr
essed her dirty hand to her chest. “I am Lady Lindsay.”

  Chapter Two

  Blood stained Brianna’s fingers and smeared the floors of the church. Sunlight poured in through the stained glass windows and filled the room with a frantic splash of colors.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  The auburn‑haired Highlander who’d carried Bernard into the church stood in front of her. “We’ll be outside if ye need us, my lady.”

  She gave a nod, a feat difficult to do when her throat swelled with such anguish, and barely registered the sound of two sets of heavy feet leaving the building.

  Her gaze was fixed on Bernard, on the free-flowing wounds peppering his body, on the unnatural gray of his face. Realization sliced through her heart like a sharpened blade.

  Bernard would soon be dead.

  She caught his thin hand in hers and tried to swallow away the tightness of her throat.

  “I failed you.” His words were almost inaudible. From the grimace on his face, they had cost him dearly.

  She blinked rapidly, and yet tears still welled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “You don’t need to speak.”

  He shook his head, a subtle rocking of the back of his skull side to side against the ground. Blood streaked brilliant crimson through his thin, white hair. “The letter was not deliv—”

  “Please do not worry yourself.” Her voice shook. The letter to Parliament could be addressed later.

  His soft blue eyes watered with despair. “They took it.”

  The air quit her lungs.

  No.

  “Who?” She kept her voice low, free of the anxiety clawing inside of her.

  “No livery.” Deep lines of pain etched his face. “Highlanders tried to help.”

  His fingers curled around her hand. Even on his deathbed, he sought to offer her comfort. A sob burst from within her and echoed off the empty walls.

  The sigh exhaled from deep in his chest, and his body went still.

  “No,” she mouthed. “Please.”

  His face relaxed, and all the decades of laughter and earnest joy remained creased around the aged skin of his eyes and mouth. A burning ache exploded within her. Disbelief. Desperation. Despair.

  She bent beneath its weight. Choking cries ripped through the silence, and grief trailed hot down her face.

  She would not think of the letter now, nor what its loss meant. How could she when Bernard lay dead on the floor of her chapel?

  Bernard hadn’t only been Edzell’s Captain of the Guard, he was the only surviving member of the household who could vouch for her legitimacy, the only one of sound mind who had been at her mother’s side and could verify she had been faithful. Bernard had been the father the earl had never sought to be.

  Now he was gone, and Brianna had lost two fathers in as many days.

  • • •

  Colin glanced toward the white building from where Lady Lindsay had still not emerged. Brianna. The dying man had called her Brianna.

  Regret lashed through Colin. He should have been able to stop the band of men attacking the old man, but he and Alec had been a distance away when the first blow landed. The aggressors had moved quickly. Too quickly.

  Their work was that of paid men, not bandits or rogues. The attack had not been a random act of violence.

  He paced in the shade along the edge of the forest, his steps silent except for the whisper of grass against his boots. This was not how he’d wanted to make his appearance at Edzell Castle. Certainly not how he had wanted to meet Lady Lindsay.

  Alec stood immobile beside him, lacking the restlessness plaguing Colin. “No a bad place to live, aye?”

  Colin stopped and stared up at the rose-hued castle. His gaze skimmed the familiar rectangular block-shaped layout common among Lowland nobles. A second building rose lower than the first, the worn stone edges of an older structure never torn down.

  “No a bad place to live at all,” Colin said.

  Alec shrugged beside him. “I’ve slept in worse places.”

  Colin shoved Alec’s shoulder. “Damn right ye’ve slept in worse places.” He glanced to where the entrance to the little white church still stood tightly shut. “Mark my words, Alec. This will be my land.”

  The Lindsay seal marked the arching entrance, declaring the castle’s ownership. A sign meant to ward away outsiders. The MacKinnon seal would grace the delicate stone beside it someday and boldly declare the opulent castle his.

  Thus far, Edzell had proved true every rumor he’d heard of the Lindsay fortune. His chest swelled with resolve.

  He would prove to his father that he was worthy of the family land. He would win the title wrongfully denied the firstborn son of Laird MacKinnon.

  First though, he’d have to woo Lady Lindsay into marriage.

  • • •

  Brianna cracked open the wooden door of the chapel and peered out to where the copper-haired Highlander paced. He waited for her as he said he would. For her protection or did he want coin for his deed?

  The leather of his boots shone with quality, and intricate carvings etched the hilt of the sword slung between his shoulder blades. The man had money.

  His dark-haired friend lurked nearby, scanning her home with a look that could only be described as mistrust.

  Both wore the garb of the Highlands, with loose-flowing white leines on their torsos and plaids slung around their hips.

  She didn’t want to face them—she wanted to curl into a ball on the ground and give in to a fresh bout of grief. But Bernard would not have let her do that. He would have gently reminded her she was the lady of the keep and encouraged her to be strong.

  She brushed a strand of hair from her slick forehead and tucked it back into her braid. Tempting though it was, she could not hide in the chapel forever.

  She pushed the door open and stepped outside. Shards of sunlight splintered in her brain, blazing against the ache of her tears. She ground her teeth against the pain and forced herself forward. The sooner she paid the men for their assistance, the sooner they would leave.

  Highlanders could not be trusted.

  The one who’d carried Bernard stopped pacing and turned toward her. Blood stained the front of his leine. Bernard’s blood.

  The sight gripped her heart in a fresh clutch of pain. She pushed her gaze to his face instead and found it lined with sympathy.

  “I’m sorry we couldna do more.” His eyes searched her face with more scrutiny than she cared for. “Are ye well, lass?”

  “I am, thank you.” She hoped her forced smile would diminish the terseness of her tone and rush his plea for compensation.

  His slow nod indicated he did not believe her words any more than he did her smile.

  She resisted the urge to press her fingertips to her aching temples and tried again. “I am grateful for the assistance you both offered. Is there anything I can do to show my appreciation? Some coin perhaps?”

  “I’d like to speak with yer Captain of the Guard.” His steady gaze did not waver from her face.

  The muscles of her back tightened. Perhaps she should not be honest, but had they meant her harm, they would already have taken advantage of the situation. “My Captain of the Guard lies upon the floor of the church.” Her gaze flicked to his bloody leine once more. “His blood now stains your clothes.” A harsh edge grated in her tone.

  The man crossed his arms over his large chest. “I will need to speak with his replacement then.”

  Brianna stared up at the man in shock.

  Replacement?

  As if she were so cruel as to have a man at the ready in case Bernard were to die.

  She shook her head, unwilling to speak lest her voice tremble. She would not appear weak before such stoic men.

  He tilted his head with measured patience. “The laird then. May I speak with him?”

  Her pulse spiked. This man asked too many questions, sought too many answers. “He is detained presently.”

  The H
ighlanders needed to leave.

  “Ach, in that case, we will wait.” He relaxed his posture and glanced toward the sky in a way that suggested he had more time than sense.

  “You can’t.” Brianna drew a deep breath and fought for composure. “He’s ill and will not be able to meet with you.” It was not wholly a lie. The Earl of Edzell had been ill for over a year before he’d succumbed.

  “Countess Lindsay perhaps?” the Highlander asked.

  Brianna’s heart squeezed with an ache that never seemed to heal. “She has been dead some years. I am the lady of the castle now.”

  His eyebrows rose. “I see.” He narrowed his gaze at her, studying her for a moment.

  She had been incorrect—the man had sense. Far too much for her comfort, in fact. And she was pinned beneath his scrutiny.

  She concentrated on every part of her body, forcing herself to be still beneath his assessment. No straightening her back, no clutching her skirt with her hands or folding her arms in front of her. Such stillness made her feel more exposed than the concealing gestures she longed for.

  His arms opened in surrender, as if demonstrating his lack of threat. “I’m Colin MacKinnon.” He nodded toward the dark-haired Highlander. “And that’s Alec MacLean. I promised yer man we would see ye to safety and that is what I intend.” His eyes locked with hers, and his head lowered as he spoke. “That said, we wish to stay the night in yer castle.”

  Stay within the castle? Her gaze trailed over his broad shoulders, the corded muscle of his exposed forearms, and the powerful expanse of his chest. She craned her neck, taking in his imposing height. He could crush her skull beneath those large hands if he were so inclined.

  The Highlander thought her father feeble and knew her Captain of the Guard lay dead.

  She’d revealed too much and now regretted what she’d so willingly, so foolishly, volunteered.

  He stepped toward her, his face softening. “I believe ye may be in considerable danger.”