The Highlander’s Passion (Iron 0f The Highlands Series Book 3) Read online

  The Highlander’s Passion

  Iron Of The Highlands Series (A Medieval Scottish Romance Story)

  Emilia Ferguson

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  A Personal Note From Emilia Ferguson

  Dedication

  About The Author

  THE HIGHLANDER’S PASSION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  EPILOGUE

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  Also By Emilia Ferguson

  Acknowledgement

  If You Have Enjoyed This Book…

  Publisher’s Notes

  Copyright © 2017,2018,2019 by EMILIA FERGUSON

  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.

  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…

  ~ Emilia

  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

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Emilia Ferguson is the pen name of an author who writes historical romance with her husband.

  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.

  ~ Emilia

  THE HIGHLANDER’S PASSION

  A MEDIEVAL SCOTTISH ROMANCE STORY

  * * *

  by

  EMILIA FERGUSON

  PROLOGUE

  Leith, near Edinburgh, 1293

  The sea air lifted her dark locks. Seonaid stood on the quay and felt the calm of certainty hold her the way the sea held the carracks that bobbed against the docks.

  This is my place.

  As daughter of Captain McCarrick, Seonaid had been born and raised here with the crash and thunder of the sea in her bones as her lullaby and her anthem. The wind lifted her hair and she tucked it behind one ear, turning, as somebody called her.

  “Miss! Miss!”

  A tinker, his pack on his back, gestured to her. She raised her hand, indicating that she had no interest in his goods, though she smiled while she did it.

  It’s not so long now before another voyage. I don’t want to go flashing my silver about.

  She wouldn’t be going on the voyage herself – her father would be. However, that meant she’d be here alone, the lone occupant of the dockside house she shared with her father. For a woman, that was not a safe situation, especially if passing miscreants knew she was in possession of cash.

  She stepped nimbly down from the quay into the street, avoiding a group of rowdy sailors who were heading from the inn towards the boats.

  “Miss McCarrick!” A woman called to her, struggling past with two buckets in her hands. “A blessing on ye! Thank ye for the help ye brought tae me wee laddie.”

  Seonaid smiled. “I’m glad I could help, Barra.”

  “Thank ye, Miss. It were a grand help.”

  The woman clanked off, her progress slow, her back bent. Seonaid felt her heart clench in sadness as she watched her leave, heading towards one of the wooden, ramshackle houses built against a warehouse.

  I am glad such a life is not for me.

  Barra McNeil was the wife of her father’s assistant, a reliable man with a weakness for drink. She had, to Seonaid’s knowledge, six children, which may have had compensations. Combined with McNeil’s habits and the squalor in which they lived, it seemed a full-time job with no bright spots.

  “Daughter!”

  She beamed as she walked past the house front, where she saw her father, sitting at a small desk outside, taking advantage of the daylight. The pale light shone on his white hair. His compass stood on the table, which was littered with charts.

  “Good afternoon,” Seonaid called.

  He grinned and
waved, but bent immediately over the charts again. He was busy plotting the course for the new voyage – he mostly plied a trade route between France and Scotland, but he was planning a route to Norway. She knew it was best to leave him to his work.

  “I’d best buy us food for supper.”

  She headed across to the marketplace.

  Later, in the cottage, serving up two dishes of stew and bannocks, she was surprised to find her father in a particularly serious mood.

  “Daughter…I worry for ye. It’s no’ safe for a lass here alone.”

  Seonaid stared at him in surprise. “Why do you say that, Father?”

  He had left her alone since Old Mrs. Drover, the woman who had lived in the cottage beside them, had died when Seonaid was fifteen.

  “I dinnae rightly know, lass,” he murmured. “It’s just…with this land as it is. I feel there’s something unsafe here in Scotland. I feel it in here.” He put a hand on his chest for emphasis.

  She patted his other hand fondly, feeling the hard knuckles, swollen with hauling wet ropes out at sea. “I ken these are dark times, Father. But I’ll be alright. The people here know me. You’re not really leaving me alone.”

  “I’d feel happier, to be honest, if ye had a man at yer side.”

  Seonaid stared at him, pushing her chair back as if to get up from the table. One thing her father had never tried to do was to push her into a union against her choosing. If he was about to start now, she…

  “Easy, lass,” her father murmured. He smiled at her. “I’ll no’ make ye do a thing against yer will. Ye ken that.”

  “I know,” Seonaid murmured.

  “Lass,” he said, his green eyes holding hers. “Be safe?”

  Seonaid blinked back tears of her own, blue eyes brimming with them. “Father…” she murmured. “You, too. You’re going far – you’re the one in danger.”

  He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “I trust the Norway coast, lass. I dinnae trust these brigands around here.”

  Seonaid giggled. “There, I’ll agree with ye, Father. I trust the ocean more than I trust mankind.”

  Her father smiled at her and squeezed her hand. He said nothing and she found it hard to fathom the sad, wistful light in those green eyes.

  I will be far better off alone.

  The docks were her home and her guardian, more than any man could ever be.

  She stood and went to the fire, trying to ignore the strange look on her father’s face, and the feeling in her bones that everything was not quite as it ought to be.

  AN ILL WIND

  Seonaid looked out over the sea, frowning to see how it stirred and heaved below a gray sky. It was a scene that presaged storms, and she felt her heart thud in her chest, seeing it.

  “Father leaves on Saturday.”

  It was far from a promise of a safe journey. She frowned at her reflection in the small sheet of silvered mirror that her father had brought back from one of his voyages, and tried to feel calm.

  “Come on. Hurry up,” she reprimanded herself determinedly.

  It was almost dinnertime, and her father had said they would be having guests. That was why she was dressed in her best gown, one of pale blue linen, a long dress with a v-cut waistline and wide sleeves that overlapped her fingers. Her wild brown hair hung in loose waves, refusing to be tamed by the brush. She did her best to brush it into behaving, then gave up, tucking it back from her forehead with a band of unbleached linen.

  “Coming, Father,” she called. Their house was one of the few this close to the dock that had two floors. Her bedroom was on the top floor, beside her father’s. It had a wonderful view out over the waves. She reached the top of the wooden staircase and hurried down.

  At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped.

  “Father?”

  A man was with him. Tall, with dark hair and green eyes, the man was dressed in a soft cloth cap of black velvet, a black cape and fine white wool hose over which he wore a knee length tunic that did much to emphasize his broad chest and wide shoulders.

  He was handsome, she had to admit. With those watchful eyes and a fine bearing, he was a man such as she might have dreamed of as a young lass daydreaming on the settee by the big window, looking out to sea.

  “Daughter,” her father said. He looked decidedly uncomfortable. He stood before her awkwardly, eyes everywhere except on her face. “May I introduce Captain Alec Westford? He’s going to be joining us for dinner this evening.”

  “Oh.”

  Seonaid looked at the floor, feeling a need to compose herself before she spoke. She ran her tongue nervously across her lips. Her father might have warned her!

  “Greetings, Captain Westford.”

  Impeccably mannered, he bowed low, removing his hat to let it briefly dust the boards before he straightened again, replacing it. “Miss McCarrick. I am honored to meet you.”

  Seonaid regarded him levelly. His green eyes held hers and they seemed sincere. She turned her gaze on her father, who swallowed uncomfortably.

  “Daughter, I, um…would like to speak to you later. For now, shall we eat? I have been smelling something marvelous wafting from the kitchen, and I’m very hungry.”

  Seonaid smiled, though inside she was tense and nervous. “Yes, Father. We have fish stew, and freshly baked bread, and then a dish of baked haddock.”

  “I am honored that I get to share a meal with you, Miss,” the captain said politely. “It will be a pleasure to sample something prepared by your own hand.”

  Seonaid swallowed hard. “I trust it will at least exceed what you eat on your long voyages, sir.”

  Her father roared with laughter, and she saw Westford’s watchful eyes light with cautious humor.

  “I reckon that even I could cook sommat as exceeds that swill, Daughter,” her father grinned.

  Seonaid chuckled. “One day, if I am particularly brave, I reckon you should try,”

  They were still laughing as they sat down at the kitchen table for supper.

  Captain Westford favored her with a mild smile. “I take it you have been performing the duties of the household since your mother passed away, some years ago?”

  “My mother passed away when I was three,” Seonaid said tightly. “I was a little young to clean floors then.”

  Her father smiled nervously from one to the other and Seonaid took a breath. “Mrs. Drover helped us until I was fifteen,” she explained, deciding it was best to start off on a good note. “I started performing household tasks when I was thirteen.”

  “A good age to begin,” the young captain agreed earnestly.

  Seonaid raised a brow at her father, but he was focused on something fascinating apparently only he could see in his fish stew. She bit back a wry smile and continued eating.

  “Well, then,” he said after they had finished the stew. “A fine meal, Daughter. Shall we take out the drink?”

  “That was the first course,” she said softly, and pushed her chair back swiftly, heading to the oven to take out the baked haddock.

  When Captain Westford had left, the dinner finally consumed, Seonaid’s father turned to her with a sorry frown.

  “Lass, I hope ye’re no’ vexed with me?”

  Seonaid looked at him with a firm stare. He seemed to understand, for he dropped his gaze. She sighed. “I was somewhat…surprised by your choice of dinner guest,” she said slowly.

  “Daughter, I ken I said your choice is your choice, but…well…Westford is a good man. A grand captain. I trust him and I want ye tae be safe. I cannot be sure I’ll always be here tae support ye. We live in such uncertain times.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I cannot rest easy without knowing ye’re safe ashore.”

  Seonaid swallowed. “I know, Father,” she agreed. “And he seems a good man. A little serious,” she added.

  He smiled. “I think he had no idea how tae take our banter. Ye’d think he’d never seen the like. Two happy people seem tae scare him.”

  Seonaid laug
hed. “He is a bit grim. But a fine man.” Her eyes sparkled and her father laughed.

  “Go on wi’ ye,” he said. “I’m glad ye’re no’ vexed with me.”

  She was still smiling as she sat down at the small table on which her brush and ribbons lay and looked out of the window.

  “I reckon I could do worse.”

  Captain Westford might have had no conception of life or women outside of household tasks and duty, but he was clearly serious. As well as prosperous. His clothes were easily the most richly appointed things she’d ever seen.

  She frowned, imagining what her future might be like with Alec Westford. It would be comfortable, probably. Secure. Likely, it would be a little tedious. She felt no spark of interest in the man. Indeed, she found him pompous and annoying, and his comments about household tasks and cooking still rankled, as if he were acquiring a servant, not a companion. However, she was sure she would manage, and she’d have the house for herself when he was away at sea. It couldn’t be too bad.