First Time with a Highlander

by Gwyn Cready

  “Dinna worry,” she said pertly. “I intend to buy my own ship. I dinna need Edward for one.”

  “And how is that?” Gerard asked. “By plying your considerable talents on the—Oof!” Duncan elbowed him hard enough to bruise a kidney. “I was going to say ‘sea merchants’ circuit.’ She could hire herself out as a captain. Sheesh!”

  Duncan grunted apologetically.

  “No,” Serafina said. “By plying my considerable talents—well, yours too—as dress merchants.” She threw her arms around Gerard. “Thank you for your advertising. Between this cargo and the dresses, I’ll have enough for a down payment on a small ship of my own soon enough.”

  “Which I can captain,” Gerard said.

  “Which you can advertise in your leaflets,” she said. “And I can continue to assist my countrymen in their fight for independence.”

  “Just make sure the ship stays in Serafina’s name,” Duncan said to Gerard. “One never knows how long relationships are going to last.”

  “The only problem we didn’t solve was the bribes,” Serafina said sadly. “Undine said there was nothing in Hiscock’s papers about how the gold was being sneaked into Scotland, and we’ve all looked through the cargo. There’s certainly no gold there either.”

  Undine shook her head. “Don’t worry. My colleagues and I won’t give up till we know.”

  “I wish I could trade some of our luck for some for Scotland on the bribes,” Serafina said. “With Scots lords willing to take bribes from men like Edward, Bridgewater, and Hiscock, I hate to have the fate of Scotland hanging by a thread—a gold thread, at that.”

  Almost in unison, an agitated wonder came over the group and their eyes fell slowly onto Serafina’s gold-threaded gown. She grabbed a handful of the fabric and scratched at the pattern. She looked up, amazement growing, and scratched even harder. The threads of brown and cream began to fall away, leaving only the crisscross of gold. “It’s metal,” she said. “Not thread.”

  “The gold’s in the dress.”

  “But why did Edward have it made for Elizabeth?” Abby asked.

  “He didn’t,” Gerard said. “I asked Elizabeth about it. She said she hardly knew him. Her father had it designed for her.”

  “Lord Hiscock designed it?” Duncan said. “But he’d hardly bribe himself.”

  “No, but having the gold in the dress in his daughter’s wardrobe meant he could access the gold whenever he needed it,” Undine said. “And Elizabeth wouldn’t notice a gown or two more or less in her collection. Hiscock has probably already discovered this dress is no longer in his daughter’s possession.”

  Serafina’s gaze swung instantly to the horizon. “They’ll come after us.”

  “I doubt it,” Undine said. “First, they don’t know you know the gold is in the dress. Second, this is just one shipment. They probably have other shipments on other ships coming in. Third, and most important, ’twould be very unlucky for them for it to be known publicly that they’re tinkering with Scotland’s future. London may want it, but publicly they’ll have to censure them. Bridgewater might lose his position in the army. Hiscock will be drummed out of Parliament.”

  “That,” said Gerard, “is what we in the branding business call bad word of mouth. I sure hope they have a crisis management team in place.”

  Duncan took a protective step toward Serafina. “They’ll come for the dress. Even if they think Serafina doesn’t know what she has, they’ll come for it. They might make a threat, trade Serafina’s safety for the dress.”

  “The hell with that,” Gerard said. “We’ll go to them. If they’re looking for a trade, we can offer them silence on the matter in exchange for the ship.”

  Serafina said, “I’ll burn the dress before I’ll give it to them.”

  Undine said, “If you’ll give me the gift of your silence on the matter for the time being, I’ll work with my allies to come up with a plan that is advantageous for Scotland and for you. We may help Scotland more in the long run by hiding our knowledge and continuing to allow Hiscock and Bridgewater to think they have not been found out.”

  Serafina met Gerard’s eyes. “I can do that.”

  “If you can, I can.”

  “Come, Undine,” Duncan said, offering his arm. “I require one final chance to talk you out of your Bridgewater plan.”

  “Jeez,” Gerard said, rubbing his side when they were gone. “He’s so protective.”

  Serafina grinned. “Like a brother, aye. I rather like it. The only relative I have is a cousin on my mother’s side, up in Dingwall.”

  Gerard swung around so hard, he nearly hit his head on a spar. Abby was in a similar state of shock.

  “Dingwall?” Gerard repeated.

  “Aye. It’s up north, near Inverness. My mother lived there until her marriage to my stepfather.”

  Gerard felt a strange prickling sensation on his neck, and he met Abby’s eyes. He remembered all too clearly Duncan’s story about his time-traveling red-haired grandfather having a liaison with the lass from Dingwall in a tinker’s cart. “What color was your mother’s hair? I’m curious. Yours is so beautiful.”

  Serafina’s cheeks, always the window to her thoughts, turned pink. “Hers was blond.”

  “And how did she get to Edinburgh?” Abby asked. “It’s quite a distance from Dingwall.”

  “What an odd question,” Serafina said. “I believe a carriage was the arrangement she’d made.”

  Gerard let out a silent sigh of relief.

  “But the carriage never arrived,” Serafina said. “She took a tinker’s wagon instead.”

  Gerard blinked. “I’ll bet it was hard to sleep. With all the banging, I mean.”

  Abby covered her mouth to stifle a laugh.

  Serafina regarded them both strangely. “That’s exactly what she said. You two are acting very odd. Is something wrong?”

  “Not at all,” Gerard said.

  Abby gave Serafina a warm hug. “It seems I shall finally have the sister I’ve longed for.”

  “And I will have a wedding gift to give you that fits my budget,” Gerard said, “in the form of a bit of surprising news.”

  “I shall make my exit now.”

  Abby waved a good-bye and hurried off.

  “Tell me,” Gerard said, slipping his arm around Serafina’s waist, “how much do you know of genetics?”

  “Nothing,” Serafina said, lifting a tempting brow. “But if the lesson is to be verra long, may I suggest the crow’s nest?”

  Order Gwyn Cready's first book

  in the Sirens of the Scottish Borderlands series

  Just in Time for a Highlander

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  Acknowledgments

  I’m especially grateful to the Dr. Rosalind K. Marshall, writer and historian, at St. Giles Church in Edinburgh, who happily answered the questions of a romance writer. Thanks as well to Mary Nell Cummings, who motivates me during wonderful coffee-fueled work-with days, and Madhu B. Wangu, Meredith Mileti, and all my colleagues at Mindful Writers, for the encouragement and friendship. I couldn’t do what I do without the expertise of Skye Agnew, Susie Benton, Eliza Smith, Amelia Narigon, and Deb Werksman at Sourcebooks. Claudia Cross is my guide on this adventure and always makes me laugh, even when I occasionally want to cry. Lester, Cameron, Wyatt, and Jean: I love you.

  Read on for an excerpt from

  Just in Time for a Highlander

  by Gwyn Cready

  With a shriek of frustrated bloodlust, Duncan jerked to a stop as the crossing signal turned red. The musket-wielding French soldier he’d been chasing sprinted to the safety of the opposite sidewalk, nearly knocking down two young women carrying Macy’s bags in the process.

  Och, Duncan thought with irritation. There’s only one thing you can count on with Frenchmen: they run better than they fight.<
br />
  One of the women looked at Duncan and grinned. At six foot one with flaming red hair and a Scottish burr, he was used to being noticed. However, the kilt—his grand-da’s from the Korean War—inevitably turned the looks into something more prurient. A gust of wind blew down Pittsburgh’s Grant Street, and he palmed the wool against his thighs. Sometimes he wished he lived in a world where a man’s bare legs weren’t the object of such fascination.

  “Reenactor?” the woman called.

  He lifted his carved wooden sword and blank-filled pistol and gave her a lopsided grin. “Battle of Fort Duquesne.”

  A roiling gray now edged the blue sky. Duncan hoped the storm they were predicting would hold off until after he was in the air tonight. He hadn’t been home to Scotland since Christmas, and by all rights he should have skipped the reenactment since he could only spare a week of holiday time. But there were so few battles in North America in which the Highlanders had fought, he’d hated to say no. His grand-da was his last immediate family member still around, and the old guy was in his eighties. Duncan knew a visit was in order, and he fought off a wave of guilt he knew he deserved for putting the reenactment first.

  The walk light turned green just as a band of Seneca warriors, bows drawn, emerged on Fourth Street. In this particular battle, they were allied with the French and therefore his enemy. Not only that, but their leader, a blustery fellow named Dylan, had been a complete arse the night before in a debate over rugby versus gridiron. The Senecas spotted him and Duncan’s adrenaline surged. Time to teach the old boy a lesson. With a nod to the women, he lifted his sword and flew directly into the hail of rubber-tipped arrows.

  God, how he loved a battle.

  Two

  “Nothing could happen to make this day less perfect.” Smiling, Abby wiggled her toes in the cool grass, happy that, for once, her clansmen had lost themselves in the joys of a late summer afternoon rather than in the potential it held for a clash with the English.

  Undine smiled and shook her head. “That is an invitation to trouble if ever I heard one. Besides, do you not see those clouds? There is a blow coming to be sure.”

  “Bah. I have no interest in your portents, my friend. This is 1706. We have abandoned the world of superstitions, potions, and charms, or have you not heard?”

  “Perhaps you’ve abandoned them. But there are more than enough believers among your clansmen and on England’s side of the border to keep my coffers full.”

  The bodhran’s beat echoed, slow and steady, across the field, and the tin whistle’s seductive notes hung in the air like summer cherries on a tree.

  “You are right, of course,” Abby said. “And I would never begrudge you an income, though I cannot help but wish it were different. I tire of fighting their superstitions.” She sipped Undine’s velvety smooth pear wine. Undine was a renowned fortune-teller and conjurer. Pear wine was the least potent of her elixirs. “This is wonderful,” Abby said, “but different than the last. What did you put in it?”

  The corner of Undine’s mouth lifted. “No more than you can handle.”

  Abby watched with longing as the young couples made their harvest dance promenades across the freshly cut field, their eyes aglow and hands held fast. That sweet, besotted time held a faraway charm in Abby’s mind, like a childhood pleasure one had outgrown. No more than half a dozen years separated her from the dancers, but at times it felt as if it might be a thousand.

  “Don’t they just look as if they might burst with the pleasure of it all?” she said with a sigh.

  “What you need is a dance.”

  “What I need is a man.”

  Undine’s brows rose. “At last, something I can help you with. I know a lover’s spell that will—”

  “Not that sort of a man.”

  “A husband then? Of the two, I can tell you which I’d recommend.”

  “Ha! If I needed a husband, we both know where I might find one.”

  As if he’d heard her, Rosston Kerr, Abby’s cousin and leader of the family sept that had broken from Clan Kerr in Abby’s youth, lifted his gaze from the circle of men at the far edge of the dancing area and met Abby’s eyes.

  Undine sat up, inserting herself neatly between Rosston and Abby, though Abby was certain Undine could not have seen him from where she’d been lying.

  Undine drew up her knees, wrapping her arms around them. “Help me understand, my friend. You do not want a husband, and you do not want a lover. For anything else, I recommend a dog.”

  “But I have a dog, don’t I, Grendel?” Abby scratched her beloved wolfhound’s ears, and he lifted his head briefly and made a wuffle. “What I need is an agent. A strong arm. A fist. A mind possessed of ideas.”

  “So few parts of a man are truly useful, and you have not mentioned a single one of them yet. There is, of course, Rosston.”

  Abby grimaced. “And a will that lacks a selfish motive.”

  “I am intrigued,” a voice said, interrupting. “Were such a man to be found, he would be the object of every free-thinking woman between Edinburgh and the Irish Sea.”

  Abby turned. A woman her age or slightly older with bright red hair, deep blue eyes, and an open smile stood behind them.

  “I’m Serafina Fallon. I am here to seek help.” She gave them an anxious smile.

  Miss Fallon’s hair had been pulled into an efficient knot but a few loose tendrils framed her face, and the contrast of the copper against the pale skin was striking. Abby was reminded of a Norse goddess.

  “I beg you to rest easy,” Undine said, standing to offer her hand. “I’ll be able to help you.”

  Miss Fallon hesitated. “How can you know? You do not even know what I seek.”

  “I know what you seek, just as I know what finding it will mean to you.”

  Abby was not surprised to see Miss Fallon’s forehead crease. Despite Undine’s gentle air and willingness to help, she had a way of making those who sought her counsel uneasy.

  Undine, sensing too late the impact of her words, said, “But, here. Join us. The wine is cool, the cheese is sharp, and the grapes, plump and sweet. I am Undine, which you undoubtedly know, and this is my friend, Abby Kerr.”

  “So you’re a part of Clan Kerr then?” Miss Fallon said. “Your musicians are wonderful. I was told I would be well entertained here. Please tell your chief he has exquisite taste.”

  “I’ll be sure to pass along your compliments,” Abby said, giving Undine a private smile.

  Undine handed their visitor a mug of wine. “Here. Sit down. Relax a bit before we turn to the business that brought you here. We were talking about the sort of men we would choose if describing them were as easy as finding them. I was just about to tell Abby my own requirements.”

  Abby gave Miss Fallon a smile. “This should prove interesting. Never in life have I heard Undine express the need for a man.”

  Miss Fallon’s gaze went immediately to her boots.

  “Ah,” Undine said with a wry chuckle. “I knew you had heard of me. One can hardly be the whore of Cumbria without generating some sort of reputation.”

  “Do not let Undine mislead you,” Abby said. “She is no more a whore than I am the queen of France. Such a reputation is the blind behind which she hides her true profession.”

  “Which is…spell casting?” Miss Fallon said, with a note of both hope and uncertainty.

  “Spell casting, aye.” Abby smiled. “And other things.”

  “Oh, I am glad,” Miss Fallon said. “For I, too, am in need of a man.”

  Undine twirled a lock of her pale hair. “Three lovely women, each in need of a man. If the Kerr clansmen had the slightest inkling, we’d probably be bowled over by the fiercest charge Scotland has seen since the days of William Wallace.”

  Abby laughed. “Hang on to your mug, Miss Fallon.”

  “I shall.
Oh, but please call me Serafina.” She took a quick sip of wine. “I’m afraid my situation might be a bit different than yours. I want a husband, ’tis true, but only for a night.”

  Undine choked, and Serafina flushed.

  “The situation you describe is hardly unique,” Abby said, and Undine added, “If we could only find the man uniquely hard for it.”

  Serafina whooped, then immediately slipped a hand over her mouth when two nearby clansmen turned. “Bah,” she said under her breath. “Hard I have had. I cannot recommend it. Give me biddable any day.”

  Abby snorted, and one of the clansmen lifted a disapproving brow.

  “You are a widow, then?” Abby said. But the look of discomfort on Serafina’s face made her wish she hadn’t asked.

  “My fiancé left me,” Serafina said flatly. “And the blackguardly bastard left me with a pile of debt so steep I can hardly—” She stopped herself. “But this is not the time. You have been gracious enough to invite me to sit with you. The ride here was long, and the wine and music are wonderful. Please, continue. I should consider it a great kindness to listen to something for a quarter of an hour other than the sound of my own complaints.”

  Before Abby could respond, she spotted Murgo, one of her clansmen, striding toward her. The way his hand rested on his hilt made her certain the day’s pleasantries were over.

  “I beg your pardon, milady,” he said. “We have received a report of a party of English soldiers on foot two miles south of the Greenlaw Bridge.”

  Abby groaned inwardly. Colonel Bridgewater of the England’s northern armies would not rest until the clans were obliterated. He was a prig, more concerned for his own glory than the safety of England’s citizens. Men like that were dangerous—sometimes more dangerous than the most bloodthirsty opponent. She weighed her options. “Tell the men to gather in the field beyond the river. I will give my orders there. Everything here should be ended and the families taken to the castle.”

  He gave her a pained look. “I dinna think we need to go to such an extreme over a handful of English soldiers.”