The Lass Defied the Laird (Explosive Highlanders Book 1)
Page 1
Manuscript Name: The Lass Defied the Laird
Pen Name: Lisa Torquay
Legal Name: Lisa Torcato
e-mail: lisatorquay@ymail.com
Phone No: +5511 9 8946-8260
Genre: Romance, Historical, Scottish
Word Count: 53,000
THE LASS DEFIED
THE LAIRD
#1 in Series Explosive Highlanders
Lisa Torquay
2017
COPYRIGHT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION
FROM THE BACK COVER
EXCERPT
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 THRIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Connect with Lisa Torquay
Other Books by Lisa Torquay
DEDICATION
To Scotland’s natural beauty, which inspires me ceaselessly.
FROM THE BACK COVER
Aileen McKendrick is on the way to her aunt when The McDougal abducts her. Both clans had been rivals for more than a century. No matter because seeing its chief Taran makes her so dazed she forgets everything. But he abducts her to seal an alliance between both clans with marriage. Not to him. To his eighteen-year-old son. No way will she allow her destiny to be decided by the implacable giant. Defying him makes millions of sparks fly over the loch as her will to resist their attraction dwindles by the minute.
Taran McDougal has had a bad marriage with his long-deceased wife and no intention of repeating the mistake. His plans for an alliance sound solid up to the minute he sets eyes on the uncompliant, dazzling lass. The untamable shrew fakes a scandal to thwart his designs and now they must marry. She makes his blood boil with vexation and desire. As the later starts winning the race, he is on the verge of losing control and giving in to their explosive passion.
Level of sensuality: hot, sizzling.
EXCERPT
“Stop it, Aileen.” He muttered the command with a trace of urgency, lacing her waist with one muscled arm. “Stop it before I go crazy imagining it!” Their bodies clashed.
Then she had to as his mouth came down to plunder hers in an assault of her senses. A blunt tongue pillaged her, entering full, merciless. The avalanche of sensations left her no choice but to hold on to him. Her arms seized his thick neck as she arched into him and lifted her head to meet is height.
His other hand tore out her pins making her glossy chestnut hair fall around her shoulders. His fist rolled her hair around it, dominating her while his tongue plunged deeper.
A moan originated in her throat, a veritable conflagration taking over every single corner of her skin. Her fingers sank in his sable hair, pulling him flush to her, their frames touching everywhere. His impressive erection imprinted on her belly and the fire melted her centre, transforming it in scorching liquid.
He turned his head to the other side, pulled her tighter, invaded her deeper, hotter, harder. She followed, her decaying person giving in to everything he demanded, wanting to fall lower, wanting him to appease the ache. Wanting relief for this desperate crave.
Hell broke loose. There existed no more limits. They went far, beyond any sensible boundary. They unleashed the demons and let them raze the little that stood yet.
Still not enough.
In whimpers, she demanded total perdition, and he responded pressing her firmer against the wall, his manhood a cement sculpture against her softness. A mirage of quench and an agony of hollowness rolled into one.
He came up for air, their eyes meshing, foggy, full of insane passion. Ragged breaths mingled, he dropped her hair, his mouth falling open on her silky neck where the pulse throbbed. A fuel they did not need, but hungered for anyhow. Gasps escaped her. Then this same hand grabbed her sleeve and yanked it down her shoulder to bare one full breast. He clutched his sinful stubble mouth to the mound as if his life depended on it. Her head fell backwards, the heat so overwhelming she thought he would morph her into ashes. He did not. He just made famine acquire an unsupportable new meaning.
His calamitous lips suckled relentless, she pressed his head to it on the verge of imploring him to do something, anything. Everything.
But no. It all worsened when he nibbled the poor dusky nipple only to fill his mouth again and drench her even further with torment.
CHAPTER ONE
The Scottish Highlands – 1809
Both carriage horses neighed at that moment, as the carriage quaked and stopped so abruptly, Aileen almost fell from the seat. A shout, more shouts, male, sounded out of it. An attack, if her instincts proved right. Mairi startled awake, but Aileen paid no heed. Quick as lightning, she opened the seat top and took a pistol and two sheathed daggers, stuffing them in her bodice and stocking. Her palm shoved the carriage’s door agape, and she jumped out. Greg and Brody already lunged at the men. The attackers displayed red and black plaids, McDougal clan. The same which had more than a century of blood feud with the McKendricks.
She would not die today!
More than that. She would reach her destination. By not meeting her destiny.
Crawling, if necessary.
Before this sudden and outrageous interruption, Aileen McKendrick’s bones had been about to crack with the carriage jostling. The Highlands roads anything but smooth. Her aunt’s manor lay a day away of the previous one they had already covered. Surprisingly enough, the late September weather did not hinder their progress, remaining rather pleasant.
A book had been forgotten on her lap, her clear mahogany eyes had admired the landscape outside, which gained the colourful shades of autumn. A sigh had escaped her lips at the fleeting perception she loved the Highlands, her place of birth. Against her father’s and brothers’ approval, she insisted on this trip, their pressure on her to choose one of the suitors too invasive, in her opinion. Alright, so at five and twenty, her late mother birthed her second child. But Aileen had no interest in marriage, not yet, at least. In search of a little breathing room, she used this expedient of a trip. And she intended to visit with her aunt for as long as it took for the stubborn men in her clan to realise she would decide for herself. Stubbornness being a strong trait in her family, one must say.
Well, she would visit with her aunt as soon as she got rid of these intruding McDougals.
A snore had taken her out of her musings while the wheels had ploughed the bumpy road. Mairi, her lady’s maid, with her head bent against the backrest, across from her, in fitful sleep. How the lass could sleep with this ceaseless rattle made up for an obscure mystery for Aileen. Mairi, Brody, the footman, and Greg, the coachman, accompanied her for protection and help.
From the carriage, her feet landed on dust, dry leaves and dung. Legs apart, torso inclined, she surveyed the skirmish.
Bloody villains!
Not pausing to question how they obtained information on her whereabouts, she threw herself fearless in the pell-mell of the fight. Her skirts not a problem since her brothers taught her to engage wearing them, to get used to it. Three McDou
gals, good, one on one. She advanced on the second threatening Greg from behind with a knife.
The stocky man’s arm flew up to threat the coachman, she grabbed and twisted it behind him. The man’s face flabbergasted as he turned to see a woman caught him. Not a match for his brawny constitution, he shook his arm free, a smug smile in his coarse features indicated he thought it would be an easy skirmish.
Poor him!
She dodged his advances, her slight body more agile than his. A powerful kick on his knee took him off balance, giving her time to snatch his dagger from a greasy hand with her left hand, leaving the right one for fisting. She registered Mairi screaming, Greg grunting and Brody yelling, but she did not waver the focus from her opponent who relied solely on his fists.
Brawny continued trying to take advantage of her less muscled person, to no avail. She punched and kicked in his weak points, like knees, elbows or neck, at the same time her swiftness got him tired, sweat and panting. In a jump behind him, she laced her left arm around his throat, the dagger on his skin and seized her pistol, which glued to his temple. The man froze, a scared twist in his ugly face.
“Everybody stop or he dies.” She thundered in a tone that admitted no questioning.
The entire tableau went dead still; the only sound, her finger pulling the safety slide with a meaningful click.
“You!” She pointed her high shin to the other attackers. “Slowly, put down your weapons.” Her stance more military than a general’s.
The men in red and black took whichever weapons they held and placed them carefully on the dry-leaf ground, faces crumpled at being bested by a woman.
“Smart lads.” She praised derogatory. “Brody, Greg, take the ropes from the carriage. We are going to tie them.”
“Not so fast.” A deep steely voice came from the woods nearby, matched with another pistol click.
Stillness resumed.
Without relenting her hold, her neck swivelled to her left. A man, no, a god, sat on a huge horse, coming out of the woods. She must consciously prevent herself from gaping. He must be one of the most magnificent males she ever lay eyes on, unfortunately. Long powerful legs clutching the horse’s flank, the broadest shoulders she could remember in a white shirt, all wrapped in red and black plaid. The worst was yet to come. Pitch black hair long enough to cover his shirt collar, framed high brows, sharp square jaw, hawkish nose and eyes as green as a panther’s with a glacial glint in them.
“What took ye so long?” Brawny asked scared.
“A tenant stopped me on the way here.” When her gaze fell to the lips which answered that, she was as struck as though a thunderstorm had assailed her on the spot. Sensuous and grim at the same time, they invited a thumb to smooth them down to show their lethal beauty in full.
“And you might be…“ She said, shaking the effect the go—man wrecked on her.
A sardonic smile came to decorate those impossibly shapely lips. “Taran McDougal, Lady Aileen.”
No! It could not be! The McDougal? She never knew he was that—that—well, that.
“The devil himself.” She mumbled unconcerned if he heard.
Aunt Bridget’s seemed farther than ever.
If he was the devil, she must be the witch, Taran thought. The McKendrick chit was no chit at all. Much on the contrary. Chestnut wavy hair fell in glossy waves down her back, and even standing behind Seamus, she did not disguise her curvy person, even if not tall. What undid him was her face. Delicate, with wide eyes of a colour so intense, it swallowed a man whole in them. He lost it when his moss-green attention fell to those tart-speaking lips. Full, upper and lower lips, they induced the dirtiest of fantasies.
His eyes snapped back to hers before his underwear-less tartan gave him away. “Weapons down, lass, or things will get serious here.” He had an aim to carry out, dirty fantasies or not.
Their gazes collided then and Taran must tense his muscles to impede his body’s ‘natural’ reactions. The lass did not move at his menacing tone. Seamus and his peers would have run to Aberdeen and back already. If anything, the diminutive witch rotated her body to face him, Seamus shielding her. A McKendrick to the marrow.
“No.” She answered solid. “Leave us to continue our trip and we will let the shrinking violet here free in four miles.”
Affronted rage crossed Seamus’ ruddy face. With a look, Taran commanded him into immobility not to risk a bloodshed. This would not be the point here. He would not tell her this, certainly.
So, he directed her a fierce stare, unwavering pistol angling to the carriage a few yards back on the precarious road. A girl stood inside the open door terrified and motionless.
“Do it or the girl dies.” An ultimatum by all accounts.
At this, said girl shrank lower on the seat as if she wished to mingle with the wood, a terrified contortion on her common face.
A battle of wills ensued while everyone continued frozen waiting for the impasse to resolve.
Slowly, she uncoiled the arm around Seamus’ neck, causing the man to put a safe distance from her. Unhurried, her left hand lowered along her body and the knife fell to the ground. Together with the one on her waist.
He followed it to make sure she would not recuperate it. Stupid mistake! She used this distraction to point the pistol at him.
“A duel, McDougal.” She proposed, straight back, chin up, defiant glint. “Whoever survives can leave here unharmed.”
More stubborn than a mule, was she? Irritation and inevitable admiration crossed his mind.
Ignoring her proposal, he insisted on his own ultimatum. “The girl, then.” He adjusted the angle more precisely on the carriage. His plans depended on the success of this. If she could be stubborn, so could he.
His target emitted a sound too kin to a cornered animal.
She snapped her attention to the carriage and when it came back to him, it fulminated him with such anger a lesser man would have balked. Her fingers loosened their hold on the pistol and it too lowered to be placed on the ground. Good. For a second there, he thought she would sacrifice the girl to win over him. A check-mate it would be. A pawn for the king. Not that he should be called a king but in the scheme of things… No doubt she must be an excellent shot.
He would not have killed the servant which could have unleashed another bloodshed between them. He should only be satisfied his bluff worked.
Only when he became certain she gave up did he move his horse towards her. His torso inclined to lace her waist and lift her to sit in front of him, legs to one side. She did not utter a sound, her body rigid on the saddle.
The horse gained the road while he turned to his men. “Tie the servants and bring them together with the carriage.”
~.~.~
She did not die today. Not yet at least.
Neither would she reach her destination.
Talk about reviewed plans.
Her dress consisted of a white underdress and a spencer with the green and black McKendrick colours. Her cloak remained in the carriage where she got rid of it to undertake the fight. The fabric overlaid that of the McDougal’s tartan, a combination she never imagined she would see in her life.
The feud between the McDougals and the McKendricks started more than a hundred and fifty years ago, and it had to do with land ownership, though their lands did not stay on neighbouring areas, thankfully. From then on, robbery, ambush and assassination featured in their relationship. Or lack thereof, more like it. Since early in life, her clan told and re-told the stories as a warning to stay away from them. The road to reach her aunt passed through their lands. The possibility of anything happening did not occur to her neither to her father and brothers, it seemed. In later years, both clans kept to themselves and no mishap had taken place.
The McDougals stood as a proud lot and struggled to keep their Scottish traditions, despite the English efforts to dispel them after the Jacobite rising. English rule and customs reached the Highlands weak and sparse, which favoured the kee
ping of old ways. The English policy strived to assimilate Scottish culture by distributing English titles to varied clans and making them participate in public life, like the Scottish Parliament. Those existed who refused to play this game, the infamous McDougals included.
Aileen’s grand-father had been awarded an earldom, but her family gave little importance to it. They did not participate in the Jacobite uprising, like their enemy, so the English left them mostly alone. She learned her clan’s rivals had suffered severe English retaliation after they won at Culloden. But the clan stood up to them and gained enough terrain to keep traditions as they had been before the uprise. Something to look up to if nothing else.
Gaze firm on the road, she avoided looking at the man behind her. It did little to put distance between them. The horse’s pace made her swing back and forth, the saddle not large to the point she could keep her personal space.
The bay trotted ahead, her shoulder bumped taut muscle, evident even under his shirt and tartan. A shiver ran through her as said muscle flexed with the movement of his arms. Frozen in place, she avoided looking at the McDougal. Her torso tilted to the other side in an attempt to avoid the touch, but the ride made it nearly impossible.
And when she looked down, strong, big hands held the reins one on her front and one on her back controlling the animal. Even clad in his long-sleeves, thick, bunched arms touched her middle. Spine locked straight, she tried not to feel his limbs on her. But it was almost all she felt, warm, solid biceps disquieting her already tense posture.
A pothole on the road cause the horse to sway abruptly. In a flash, those powerful arms held her to him firmly, her back meeting his broad chest, his nose an inch away from her cheek. Tendrils of something searing vibrated on her nerves. The proximity availed his scent to her. Woods, horse, man. Earthen man. Beguiling. So beguiling, her nostrils inhaled deep in it. Without thinking, her head turned to him, only to clasp on moss green stare trained on her. Those eyes darkened at the same time a hot flush suffused her delicate skin. Unable to hold his bone-melting gaze, her eyes snapped away. Not before his hold tightened a notch, to loosen her at once, and guide the horse anew. The loss of his warmth not so relieving as it should be.