Courage Of A Highlander_Lairds of Dunkeld Series Read online

  Courage Of A Highlander

  Lairds of Dunkeld Series (A Medieval Scottish Romance Story)

  Emilia Ferguson

  MOUNTAINSKY HOUSE PUBLISHING CO.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Join My VIP Readers’ Club List

  A Personal Note From Emilia Ferguson

  Dedication

  About The Author

  COURAGE OF A HIGHLANDER

  PROLOGUE

  *

  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

  *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  *

  EPILOGUE

  *

  A SURPRISE FOR YOU

  A BONUS NOVELLA

  The Highlander's Choice

  Book Description

  PROLOGUE

  *

  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

  *

  EPILOGUE

  *

  Join My VIP Readers’ Club List

  Also By Emilia Ferguson

  Acknowledgement

  If You Have Enjoyed This Book…

  Publisher’s Notes

  Copyright © 2017 & 2018 by EMILIA FERGUSON & MOUNTAINSKY HOUSE PUBLISHING CO.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real or dead people, places, or events are not intentional and are the result of coincidence. The characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author/publisher. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Cover designed by Ms Melody Simmons. Author has the copyrights to this cover.

  Join My VIP Readers’ Club List

  Who Else Wants to Get Freebies, New Cover Reveals, Short Flash Fictions, Characters’ Interviews and much more…

  Emilia Ferguson invites you to join her VIP Readers’ Club List. When you signed up, you will get a surprise gift from her. CLICK HERE TO JOIN NOW!

  A PERSONAL NOTE

  FROM EMILIA FERGUSON

  To My Dearest Lovely Readers,

  There is something picturesque and dramatic about the Scottish Highlands. Not only the landscape, which is mysterious, with its own special wildness and drama. It is the people themselves.

  Scottish people are the original untamed spirits: proud, wild, forthright, in touch with their inner selves. The Medieval period in Scotland is a fascinating one for contrasts: half the country was steeped in Medieval culture - knights, ladies, housecarls and maids - and the other half was a maelstrom of wild clans people; fighting, living and loving straight from the heart.

  If the two halves - the wild and the courtly - meet up, what will happen? And how will these proud women and untamed men react when brought together by social expectations, requirements and ambitions?

  Read on to find out the answers!

  Thank you very much for your strong support to my writing journey!

  With Hugs, Kisses and Love…

  DEDICATION

  Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be man's last romance.

  Oscar Wilde

  This Story Is Specially Dedicated To You, My Dearest Reader!

  It is with gratefulness and gratitude that I am writing to you this personal dedication.

  Thank you once again for giving me this opportunity to share with you my creative side.

  I hope you will enjoy reading this story as much I have enjoyed writing it!

  It is with such great support from you that we authors continue to write, presenting you with great stories.

  Have you checked out my other western historical romance books series?

  Click the link below to get started

  *** AMAZON USA ***

  Do you like what you have read?

  I want to hear from you!

  Please do get in touch with me:

  facebook.com/EmiliaFergusonBooks

  [email protected]

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Emilia Ferguson is the pen name of an author who writes historical romance with her husband. Her hometown is California, but currently she is living in hot tropical Singapore where she enjoys hot summer the whole year round.

  When she is not writing her Medieval Historical Scottish Romance pieces, she enjoys taking long walks with her husband and kids at the nearby beaches.

  It was these long walks where she got inspirations and ideas for her stories. She credits her wonderfully supportive husband John, her great cover designer Ms Melody Simmons and her advance review reviewers for helping her to fine-tune her writing skills and allowing her creativity to explode.

  COURAGE OF A HIGHLANDER

  A MEDIEVAL SCOTTISH ROMANCE STORY

  by

  EMILIA FERGUSON

  and

  MountainSky House Publishing Co.

  PROLOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  “No, Daughter!”

  Lady Amabel's laugh was a gentle thing, only a little mocking. All the same, Rubina frowned at her in innocent confusion, full red lips making a moue of confusion.

 
“Mama? What's so funny?”

  At sixteen, she felt grown-up enough to resent her mother making fun of her. She ran a hand through her own shiny auburn curls, moving them from her eye, obscured in the sweet and stubborn mass.

  Her mother smiled. “I'm sorry, dear. I didn't mean to laugh. I was just...surprised.”

  “Well, I was being sensible, Mama.”

  Amabel grinned. “Well, mayhap too sensible, lass. I wasn't as sensible when I was your age.”

  Rubina smiled fondly. It was impossible to think of age when she looked on that beauty – with a sculpted face, big blue eyes and that raven hair just threaded with sparkling white. However, in truth, Mama must have been eighteen two and twenty years before. Lady of Lochlann, she was dressed in a long blue velvet dress whose richness and simplicity matched her.

  “Mama,” she said carefully, “I am the heiress of Lochlann and Buccleigh – if I married Cousin Callum, it'd be one way to keep the estates under the family hand. So I am sensible, saying it.”

  Amabel smiled. “But, dear, do you love Callum?”

  Rubina was surprised by the question. “Well, of course I do. He is my cousin, after all. And I've known him since I was a child, so...” she trailed off. Her mother was laughing again.

  “I don't mean like a cousin, dearest.”

  Rubina frowned. She was eighteen, and she knew she ought to know about...well...about those things. However, she had been raised at Lochlann more or less alone, save for the cheery presence of her cousins twice a year, and Blaire, her maid. She had almost no dealings with men. Of course there were the sons of neighbors who visited on hunting trips, but they were, well, them. The Camberwells and the Ives and the Braes – family friends. Their sons were what she imagined brothers to be.

  Lady Amabel smiled. “Well, my dear, it's the ball tonight, and perhaps you will find someone who makes you know what it is I mean about feeling differently.”

  Rubina frowned. “But I know everyone who'll be at the ball already, Mama. Henry Brae, Connell Ives, and Brod and Lennox Camberwell...how can I?”

  Amabel smiled. “We did invite some new folk. After all, this is your ball. For your eighteenth birthday.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Somehow, despite the fact that it was her night, she couldn't find it in herself to be excited at the prospect of new people. What was wrong with the old ones? Henry, Lennox, her maidservant, her cousins...

  Amabel grinned. “You know, Rubina, you have a big heart. It's one of the reasons why I simply won't agree to an arranged marriage. No, the choice is yours. As was mine.”

  Rubina stared at her. This was news. She knew the story of her parents and how they'd chosen each other. How would she ever make such a choice though? This was the first her mother had mentioned of this.

  It was highly unconventional: young ladies of her breeding would never have been called on to make a choice themselves. She had always just assumed she'd be married off to Callum or one of her other cousins.

  “Thank you, Mama,” she said slowly. “But how..?”

  Amabel smiled. “Trust me, my dear. When you meet him, you'll know. Nothing will be able to make you make another choice.”

  Rubina frowned. It sounded a bit unlikely. In her world, love was an all-permeating thing, but a simple one. Rubina loved everyone and most people loved her too. Would it really be as dramatic as her mother suggested?

  “Yes, Mama,” she said again. “And I hope I will choose wisely too.”

  Amabel laughed. “Well, I did. Though on paper he was not what my parents would have chosen. A knight, from humbler means than myself. But the heart knows best.”

  “Yes.” Rubina nodded.

  Being eighteen would, it seemed, be a time to find out many things. Though she was fairly sure the kind of love her mother mentioned wasn't one. No, for all that she had seen it in her life, she was sure it wasn't going to happen to her. It just seemed too scary. Too big. Too much for such a simple sort as her.

  CHAPTER ONE

  AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

  AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

  “A plague on it. Why do I listen?”

  Camden McInvering, son of the Baron Istforth, swore under his breath. It was his father he wished he didn't listen to. His horse switched his ears back and huffed as if offended. Camden patted his neck.

  “Easy, lad. I didn't mean you.”

  In the winter landscape, his closest and most fundamental companion was his horse. If his horse, Whisper-swift, chose to let him down, then he'd die out here. He shuddered.

  So cold. So snowy. And I am sure I'm lost.

  He breathed out, watching the reach of his breath through the winter trees, white plumes of condensation visible up to the length of his arm. It was bitterly cold despite his fur-lined cape and boots.

  It was all his father's fault. If he wasn't so over-excited about these problems with England, there would be no reason for him to be riding about in the snow and frost, searching for shadows.

  I'm sure they are just shadows – figments of his over-enthusiastic imagination.

  It must be so. No sensible living, breathing man would be planning an invasion in this weather. The snow was so deep it went right up to the first branches of the trees in places. Bringing an army through the passes at this time was well-on impossible.

  “I know King Edward's mad, but no one's that mad.”

  His horse snuffed as if in agreement, and Camden grinned.

  “You see? Even you agree with me.”

  They carried on.

  As Camden neared the place where the woods grew thicker and the land became less free forest and more the actual property of whoever owned the edifice on the hill, Camden felt his resolve thin.

  I'll go as far as that path and then turn round. No use in running into trouble with someone over trespasses on their land just because Father has Englishmen on the mind.

  He rode on, feeling his honey-dark hair stand on end. There was something odd about this woodland, as if unseen presences watched from beside the boles of the fir trees. There was an uncanny feel about it.

  “Goodness, Cam. You're imagining things.” Whether it was his father's English threat, or whether he feared some other unseen enemy, he had no idea. Yet the feeling was permeating and persuasive. He wanted to get out of here soon.

  I'll just ride to that tree and then turn round again. If there were Englishmen in these woods, they'd have likely shot me by now.

  The forest seemed to wait, to whisper in ancient sibilance. He shivered.

  “Cam, come on. Up to the tree, then go.”

  That was when he heard the scream.

  “What was that?”

  He shivered. A thousand folk-tales, all detailing in gruesome clarity the sort of thing that screamed in woodlands and what it did to unwary humans, rushed through him. He wanted to run.

  He caught himself before he sped off. “Come on, Cam. That's a human scream.”

  He rode toward the sound. Over a decade of knightly training made him curious, and also made him feel the need to help.

  “Hello? Who goes there?”

  There was another cry. This time it was a word.

  “Help! Please...help...”

  That did it. Whoever this was, they needed help. He jumped off his horse and strode forward on foot, unsheathing his sword as he passed through the impassable growth of trees.

  The sight before his eyes tore his heart.

  A horse was stuck in the middle of the frozen river. A big crack had appeared all round the ice below the poor creature. The slightest motion in either direction and both horse and rider would fall in.

  The rider drew his eye and held it. Red hair, curling and lustrous, fell about her shoulders like a cloud. Her eyes were soft brown. Lips dark red. She was crying, her eyes moist, cheeks tracked with soundless tears of fright. She looked no older than twenty at the very oldest: a young, delicate and just-blossoming twenty, if she was. His heart lurched.

  “Don't m
ove. I'm coming.”

  Rope. Tie it to the saddle of Whisper-swift. Pull them both to shore. If the ice cracked below them, it would shift and float and mayhap they would reach him before they sank.