Her Highland Protector (Iron 0f The Highlands Series Book 2) Read online

  Her Highland Protector

  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

  HER HIGHLAND PROTECTOR

  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

  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

  HER HIGHLAND PROTECTOR

  A MEDIEVAL SCOTTISH ROMANCE STORY

  * * *

  by

  EMILIA FERGUSON

  PROLOGUE

  Near Berwick Castle, 1292

  “With all that blood about the place, I’d far rather I was here, and my Brendan with me.”

  “I understand, Abbie,” Lady Irmengarde nodded. She snipped the silk she was sewing with, and reached into her workbasket to find another piece. Something green. As she hunted through the skeins, she listened – not particularly to her maid’s continuing words – but for footsteps on the tower stairs. The threat of war and the recent bloodshed in the forest was not the threat that scared her.

  I wonder if he will be back yet.

  She concentrated on the greens in her workbasket and tried to forget about her fear about his return. She was stitching a tree onto the tapestry. It needed a nice spring green. Something not quite the green of emeralds, but something paler…

  “Milady, have you seen? The snow will come in through that gap in the barn roof this year, if we don’t…” her maid interrupted her thoughts.

  “A plague on it!” Lady Irmengarde snapped. “Excuse me,” she added.

  Her maid looked shocked, but carried on stitching. She was sewing a repair in Lady Irmengarde’s dress – her day dress that had gotten caught in the brambles when she went out for a walk. After a moment, she cleared her throat and made a pronouncement. “Well, then there’ll be snow on the wool and the stock will all be damaged next year.”

  Lady Irmengarde moved a strand of black hair out of her eye, and thought furiously that she would get Abbie to move the wool herself, all thirty pounds of it, but she knew she wouldn’t do any such thing.

  Unlike Lord Clovis, I wouldn’t do such a thing. I would not take pleasure in witnessing it.

  She found her green and cut off a length of it, focusing on the tiny stitches.

  Perhaps if I focus on the tapestry, really stare at the trees, forests and woods on the design, my mind will be so much elsewhere that I won’t even notice him.

  The sewing was her refuge – a place where her mind could focus, and hold on to, when Clovis was near. Marriage to him was unbearable – a frightening mix of unpredictable rages, violence and cruelty. She had wed him when she was two and twenty, a year ago, and she was more grateful than she could say for the one respite she got: his enthusiasm for long rides in the forest. Now that it was autumn, the hunt season, she could look forward to long weeks of his absence.

  “I assume that the fighting you speak of will not affect the forest routes?” she asked.
>
  The maid looked at her in astonishment. “Milady…I reckon it will affect them most. My Brendan said…”

  Irmengarde felt the pressure of fear become too great, and stood up and looked out of the window. “Please. I am severely out-of-sorts today and wish to hear nothing further. I’m sorry,” she added as the maid stood and packed her workbasket, getting ready to go downstairs.

  “I’ll take meself off to the laundering,” the maid said, hurrying out of the room with a hurt air.

  Lady Irmengarde waited until she had gone and then collapsed on the windowsill, burying her face in her hands.

  “She doesn’t know. Nobody knows. I couldn’t tell anybody, even if I had someone to tell. It would be unseemly.”

  She wanted to cry, but her sadness was beyond tears.

  Lord Clovis, her husband – the man her father had decreed she marry – was a monster. Descended from one of the barons from England, instated over a hundred years ago, Clovis DeWarenne had not forgotten his heritage.

  He has also not forgotten his misguided belief that Scottish people are inherently uncivilized and unbridled.

  She made a fist, hitting it into the stone of the turret windowsill. She wanted to show his arrogance that there was something in this castle, in his world, that could not be conquered. Instead, she just felt tears running down her cheeks.

  As she heard boots coming up the steps, she turned in the doorway, her heart thudding. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t make her legs move. She heard booted feet crunch on the cracked step beside the entrance.

  “I am back, wife.”

  “I noticed, yes.”

  His brow shot up. “Is that how you talk to me, wife?”

  “Forgive me. I feel ill,” Lady Irmengarde replied, looking down at the floor. “I have a fever – ask Mrs. McNeal.”

  “I assuredly will.”

  Irmengarde knew that Mrs. McNeal was unlikely to betray her – an old friend, who owed the life of her grandchild to Irmengarde’s siphoning off of some of the costly wool from their barns to keep the boy warm. No, she was one of the few people who Irmengarde was sure she could trust.

  “If you will excuse me,” Irmengarde said quickly. “I will retire to bed. I will sleep in the northern tower.”

  He glared at her, eyes narrowing to slits. “You had best pray you’re sick.”

  “I am. Assuredly so.”

  She hurried to the turret and shut the door. At least tonight she would sleep alone, and unharmed and secure.

  A PERILOUS DAY

  The morning woke Irmengarde to bright sunlight shining through the turret window brightly. Cloud filtered, it fell in pale gray streaks through the window onto her eyelids.

  “Is it that time already?” She stretched and sat up, rubbing a weary hand down her face. She had slept restlessly, as if some part of her soul was aware of Clovis’ proximity even though she was here in the small turret room, safe and alone for the time being.

  It must be about eight of the clock.

  Pulling the bell to summon her maid, who slept on the other side of the curtain, Irmengarde reached for her comb and began brushing her hair. Long and black, it hung in a braid down past her shoulders.

  “Good morning,” she said as her maid came in, rubbing bleary eyes.

  “Slept well, milady?”

  “Yes, I did,” she nodded. “Is it cold outside?”

  “Och, a bit nippy,” her maid nodded. “I wore a shawl as I crossed the grounds to get to the well this morning.”

  “Well, then. I will wear the white linen with the lace trim,” she said, glancing out at the overcast scene. The turret stood on the northern side of the fortress, where the forest grew most densely. Here, tall pines reached up to the sky, their dark green branches tapping against the windowsill. She shivered, though the room – thanks to the fire in the grate – was not cold.

  “Very good, milady.”

  Irmengarde stared out of the window as her maid retrieved her dress from the box where her things were stored. She heard the creak of the lid, smelled the rich scents of the sprigs of rosemary and other herbs that kept the linen fresh.

  “Here we are, milady. My, it is gloomy today. I think it will certainly rain.”

  “It is November,” Irmengarde said mildly. “I think it will, too.”

  “Och, and then the fields will be too slushy to let the lads venture out to tend the sheep. We’ll have a bad year, you mark my words. The signs all show it.”

  With Abbie in close proximity, life would never be too exciting, that was one thing Irmengarde could take for granted. She smiled wryly to herself.

  “Is his lordship already riding?” she asked as her maid finished tying her waistband in place. She tried to keep her voice even, though it wavered and broke on the question.

  “He was in the solar, taking breakfast, when I saw him last,” her maid said, and sniffed with the air of someone somewhat less than impressed.

  Irmengarde wanted to smile. Of all the many things that annoyed her about her maid, the woman had a loathing of Clovis that amused her, lifting her spirits when nothing could. She was glad, for that reason if no other, of her company.

  “I will take my breakfast in my rooms, then,” she said, trying to keep her voice sounding mild.

  “Don’t blame you, milady,” her maid grumbled.

  Irmengarde bit back a grin. One major advantage to having kept her nursemaid working here throughout her life was that the woman felt able to speak as an equal to her, something precious in a world where she had no allies. She nodded.

  “Have it sent up for me, will you?” she asked, checking the lie of the kirtle in the polished brass mirror on the wall.

  “Yes, milady.”

  The image in the reflective surface showed a tall woman, her black hair loose around her shoulders, a long face with high cheekbones and dark lips. She couldn’t really see her own face very well – a pool of still water was a better mirror than the brass – but she knew it to have wide dark eyes that had a watchful, thoughtful expression.

  “I can’t think I look as terrible as he wants me to think,” she murmured to herself.

  That was one lie of Clovis’ that stood out as just that – a lie. She could try hard to believe it, but she could see she was not ugly and past her prime. At three and twenty, she still looked, and felt, young and vibrant.

  And at least Clovis has given me no children to protect too.

  It was, so far, only her he could brutalize. That much was a relief.

  “Milady?” she heard her old nurse’s knock on the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Breakfast, milady. Fresh bread, with butter and cream straight from the buttery.”

  “Thank you,” she nodded. “Put it there?”

  The pewter tray clinked on the wooden table, and Irmengarde waited until her maid had left before sitting down to sample the breakfast. The bread was still warm, the milk creamy and delicious. She poured more from the pewter jug into a tankard and drank it, watching as the mist lifted over the forest.

  “I should ride today.”

  She looked down at her dress. It was a bad choice for a ride – the skirt was too narrow, the sleeves draping over her hands. She would need to dress again, into her new habit. She lifted the lid of the chest.

  “It’s in Clovis’ chambers.”

  She felt her stomach churn. She didn’t want to risk going near him to fetch it. The sickness she’d claimed was protecting her from his attentions, and the last thing she wanted was for him to have an excuse to touch her. The thought made her heart start to thump with alarm.

  “Maybe it’s not worth going for a ride.”

  She looked out of the window, feeling the need to be outside like a physical pain. If she spent all day in the woodlands, perhaps with a squire to accompany her, she could escape this oppressive, threatening atmosphere and the talk of war with England.

  “I’m going to go and fetch it.”

  She took a deep breath a
nd went out of the turret, heading for the room she shared with Clovis.

  At the door, she stopped.

  “Come in, wife.”

  Irmengarde halted, hearing that soft, dangerous voice. He was looking out of the window, his back to the door. His cloak hung down his back, chestnut hair brushed to a rich sheen.

  He’s fine to look upon – the rot is all deeper.

  He turned to face her with one brow raised, and she studied his features with a distant interest, as if she studied a poisonous serpent. A firmly jawed face, with dark, long eyes, the fellow was fine to look at. It wasn’t that he was repugnant – not outwardly. It was the look in those black eyes that made her stomach roil.

  Narrow cruelty and the desire to cause pain, to feel power, that was all that she saw, when she looked into those eyes. She knew it to be true – he had no heart, or none she had ever encountered in two years of knowing him.

  “You are early abroad this morning.” Her voice was a murmur.