A Highlander's Gifted Love (Blood 0f Duncliffe Series Book 9)
A Highlander’s Gifted Love
Blood of Duncliffe Series (A Medieval Scottish Romance Story)
Emilia Ferguson
Table of Contents
Copyright
A Personal Note From Emilia Ferguson
Dedication
About The Author
A HIGHLANDER’S GIFTED LOVE
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
EPILOGUE
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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
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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
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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 ***
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Do you like what you have read?
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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
A HIGHLANDER’S GIFTED LOVE
A MEDIEVAL SCOTTISH ROMANCE STORY
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by
EMILIA FERGUSON
PROLOGUE
April, 1746
The wind ruffled Chlodie’s red hair. She reached up and tucked a strand of it aside, feeling her heart flutter with a sort of wary unease. All things considered, she thought, blinking with a sort of dazed awareness as she looked about, unease is somewhat natural. She was on the battlefield.
On her left, the armies were massing. The troops were stretched back to the horizon, the sound of pipes carrying to her on the breeze, high and keening, the drummers making a crisp, rolling counterpoint to the sound. A man raised a sword, stepped up beside her, and her vision shattered into black.
“Chlodie? Chlodie! Mattie…help me? Something’s happened!”
“What, Lady Amalie?”
“Something’s amiss with your mistress! Can you help..?”
The words floated dully through the fog in Chlodie’s brain. She tried to open her eyes as she heard the urgent voice of her neighbor fill the silence.
Silence.
The battlefield had retreated, disappearing from her vision. The sounds of pipes and drums were gone, as was the wind that stirred her hair. She was lying on something hard, surrounded by the silence that, suddenly, filled her head. She felt as if a band was tightening round her forehead, blocking out all thought and feeling and sight. She tried to sit up, straining.
“Amalie..?” she heard her own voice calling. It sounded querulous and slurring.
“Hush, Chlodie. Alec? Fetch Doctor Barnes, will you..? Lady Chlodie’s feeling poorly!”
“I’m fine,” Chlodie whispered. A plague on it, she thought inwardly. The Sight. Why ever did it have to come now, of all times?
Groaning – for the descent of the Sight upon her always made her feel ill – she tried to sit up.
“Chlodie!” someone exclaimed.
Strong hands lifted her up, gripping her wrists. However, they hurt badly. Chlodie opened her mouth to protest, but she couldn’t find the words. Her mind was still wandering, jumbled images that the Sight had brought her crowding it – soldiers, pipers, the shine of sunshine on steel, and, somewhere, the biting, burning pain of a sword, cleaving through her arm.
“What…happened?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.”
Chlodie opened her eyes, and found herself looking into the troubled eyes of her neighbor. Red hair tucked neatly under the chiffon cap of wifely modesty, Amalie’s big eyes were fixed on her, full of confusion.
“I don’t know, Chlodie,” she said again softly. “You were here one moment, sitting on the settee and then…suddenly, you fainted.” S
he chuckled, nervously. “I suppose it might have been this new tea…it is a little strong.”
Her smile was tight, her eyes still concerned. Clearly, whatever had happened, it had worried her neighbor.
Chlodie looked down. She was sitting on the settee again, the low occasional table between them supporting a tray with a teapot and fragile china cups. Her hands rested on a skirt of figured linen, the cream background decorated with darker cream designs in the shape of leaves and flowers. The sunshine slanted a late afternoon orange through the window behind Amalie. In the darker part of the room, a youth of about fifteen stared at them, dark eyes troubled.
“Alec?” she called to him. “It’s alright. I’m not dying,” she added dryly.
“Shall I tell Mattie not to come?” the youth asked steadily. His handsome face looked troubled.
“Yes,” Chlodie nodded, and reached for her tea, trying to act as if nothing had happened. It wasn’t easy – her hand was shivering. She bit her lip and lifted the cup, letting the sweet tea wet her lips. Perhaps it would revive her.
“I can ask Bronan to fetch the doctor..?” Amalie still sounded worried. “You can’t be too careful, Chlodie. In these times, it pays to send early – you never know, the doctor could be busy with the returning…”
“I know, Amalie,” Chlodie cut her off, in no mood to discuss the wounded. The Rebellion had taken place a little over a month ago, but the men were still returning from the front and reprisals were still being made. She knew she had seen something important with the Sight. She just didn’t want to think about it.
“Should I go, Chlodie?” Amalie asked, sounding worried.
Chlodie leaned back on the settee. She felt too weary, almost, to answer.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Sorry, Amalie.”
“Not at all. You need rest. I’ll close the door on the way out.”
“Yes, please,” Chlodie whispered dryly. “Please do that.”
“I will. Alec?”
“Yes?”
“Lady Chlodie needs to rest. We’ll go now. See you tomorrow, Chlodie.”
“Tomorrow,” Chlodie agreed.
She lay where she was, listening to the retreating footsteps. Only after they had left, the door shut behind them, did she let herself collapse sideways.
Only when they were gone could she risk letting her body react to the ravages of the Sight. It was her secret. A shameful secret.
Lying on the settee, her head resting on the hard wood of the chair arm, she let her mind fill again with the imagery the Sight had brought her.
Somewhere, the pipes played a tune for marching. A pennant streamed overhead, catching the wind, and men in tartan fought men in red or other men, in other tartans too.
Again, before her vision, a man with red hair and a big, un-patterned cloak raised his arm and was struck with a dagger.
She sighed. The man was tall, auburn-haired and with a handsome, square-jawed face. He had long, dark eyes and they sparked with keen intelligence. They filled with pain, face twisting, as the dagger struck, again and again.
Watching him fall, the scene repeated before her transfixed gaze, she tried to scream a warning, but no sound came out.
All that happened was that he fell, and her heart was left bereft.
For a stranger she had never even seen.
A WALK IN THE WOODS
The memories of the battle were fading. Already, if he tried to think about it, the memory evaded him, like salmon darting into shadows in the lake. His mind was taken up with the moment – the slow trudge, the silence. As well as the pain.
“Confound it, Domnall. We’ve been walking all day now. When are we going to stop?”
Domnall, bent over to better support his weight on his crutches, slit his eyes at his sergeant, whose groaning had just brought him back from his thoughts.
“We’ll stop when we get somewhere, Bethann.”
His sergeant stared at him. Then, abruptly, he chuckled.
“You’re a one, Domnall.”
“Yes, I am,” Domnall said, spitting into the leaves. “And I’ll remind you I’m Lieutenant Dunning when we’re marching. If you don’t mind giving me at least a modicum of dignity back?”
Bethann nodded.
“Aye, you’re right, sir. I mean, Lieutenant Dunning. Don’t mind me, sir. We’re keeping on.”
“Aye,” Domnall said, struggling to breathe. “We’re keeping on.”
He leaned forward on his crutch – a tree bough he had lifted and trimmed for the purpose while his men recuperated – and headed on into the forest. Confounded woods. I don’t think they’re ever going to end. And if they do? Well, we’ll still be stuck on the road and in the same sorry state we’ve been in for a week.
“It’s sunny, sir,” his sergeant said. Domnall turned to see him pointing up at the gap between the leaves, where the sky showed, a faint pale white.
He glared at Bethann.
The last thing he wanted was someone trying to make him act cheery. He was miserable, and he had a right to that. He would have liked to see Bethann being cheerful if he was the one who’d been stabbed three times with a dirk.
No, instead it’s me here leaning on crutches, with the stench of soiled bandages in my nose and the dull ache in my ribs, while he wanders around blithe and hale, like a young lambkin.
He twisted round to glare at Bethann again.
A country sort, born and bred on farmland, Bethann was irrepressible. He smiled at everything, from the invading army to the thrush, calling out from the trees overhead. He at once felt annoyed and admiring of the fellow’s indefatigable mood.
“No use standing about under trees in the sunshine, sir,” Bethann said, brow raised. “I’ll be glad to be out of the woods.”
Domnall stared.
“You know how to get out of the woods?”
“Sure, I do, sir,” he said, grinning. “Look up there! There’s a road there, see? All we need do is follow this path. Then we’ll be on that road before nightfall. Easily done.”
Domnall bit back an enraged rebuke. If he knew how to get out, why hadn’t he led them out by now? Of all the…
“Fine,” he admitted grudgingly. “You know the way. Now, please, let’s go?”
Bethann blinked, as if noticing for the first time that he’d come to a halt in front of Domnall.
“Aye,” he nodded. “Let’s go.”
Domnall swallowed hard, held back his temper, and struggled, slowly and painfully, up the hill.
As he went, he was struck by a painful vision of home. His father’s Manse, the stone walls rearing up from the surrounding woodlands, the roof steeply pitched in a design that must have dated back to the reign of the first Bruce. Inside, the silent halls. Lady Seonaid, regal and quiet, hair pulled back from her pale, fine face.
And I wonder how Father’s getting on with that little lot, eh?
He sighed. Lady Seonaid was the woman his father intended him to marry. From the McNeill clan, she would bring with her a powerful allegiance. However, she was not the woman who stirred Domnall’s blood. Seonaid was beautiful and accomplished. As well as soulless.
At least, that’s how I feel about her.
He sighed again, wishing he could have made himself feel something for the lass. With her fair hair and blue eyes, she was everything he ought to have been thanking the angels of Fate for sending him. Yet instead, he found himself shuddering. He would be far better off without the likes of her.
If Father needs this alliance so badly, he can wed her to Arthur.
Arthur was his cousin, cheerful and mild-mannered. Arthur, Domnall reckoned, would be happy with almost any arrangement, provided it didn’t take him away from his hunting or stop him from having Gatherings.
“What’s that, sir?”
“Nothing,” Domnall grunted, realizing he must have spoken aloud and flushing, bitterly. “You’d best hope we reach your road, soon.”
“Ain’t my road, sir,” Bethann pointed out w
ith irritating exactitude. “If it was, stands to reason I would have made it longer, so as we’d have found it already, right?”
Domnall shot him his best “spare me,” look. Bethann seemed to feel some of the scalding anger beneath. He looked sensibly at his feet and headed on up the pathway.
Which continued to ascend.
By nightfall, Domnall was starting to feel desperate. He had walked for a week, feeling his strength sapped and his body tire as his flesh putrefied. He knew at least one of the wounds, though not that serious, was badly infected – he could smell the ill-humors when he tried to change the bandages. He knew he needed to find shelter, and a doctor, soon.
I’ll be dead if we don’t find someone in a week or two.
“How much longer?” he asked Bethann.
“I dinnae ken, sir,” Bethann squinted at him.
Domnall stared. He was sure he looked desperate though he did his best to hide his feelings from his sergeant. He saw the fellow’s eyes widen and he looked round, suddenly worried.