Charming the Highlander Laird
Page 1
Table of Contents
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
Charming the Highlander Laird
Highland Warrior Series
Verlin Underwood
Eatan Publishing House
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places, events and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Text copyright © 2017 Verlin Underwood
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Eatan Publishing House
United States of America
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to all my dear Readers.
To You.
It has been a pleasant journey for me in all my writings for this Scottish Highland Medieval Series. And I hope you will also find pleasure in reading them.
Thank you.
Contents
About the Author
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
Also by Verlin Underwood
About the Author
VERLIN UNDERWOOD
A big hello to all my respected Readers. I live in a small town in California, US and I have always been fascinated by the history of Scotland and the highlanders. My overflowing creative juice has led to the incorporation of paranormal and a touch of magic into my writing style.
I hope Readers will enjoy my books, as much as I’ve been enjoying writing them.
What also makes me happy is to see you Readers get in touch with me and share with me your thoughts on my books. I would love to hear from YOU!
verlinunderwood@gmail.com
Prologue
Deep in the realm of the Unseelie Court was a dark forest filled with the dead.
It was where the Unseelie fairies left their deceased. They never bothered to bury them. Instead, they left the bodies on the forest floor for the trees to consume. These trees were neither dead nor alive, but something betwixt and between. They fed off the dead like they would water, drawing their essence with their roots, which were bigger around than a full-sized man and thrust out of the earth like serpents.
In this forest, trapped in the rooted confines of a tree, a creature lay. She was the only living creature around, except for the insects and worms that had found their way through to the Unseelie Court centuries ago. As this creature was very much alive, the tree did not desire to consume her. Instead, it let her lay trapped behind its roots, waiting for her to expire. She seemed almost human in appearance—a woman, perhaps, save that her limbs weren’t quite the usual length and her skin was a luminous blue that lit up the forest around like a lantern.
Some fairies would come and go as she lay trapped there, giving her a wide berth. They knew who she was. They knew if they stayed and interacted with her, she would not hesitate to enchant them. The leannan sith was one of the most powerful fairies of both the Seelie and Unseelie Court, and even the dark fairies were wary of her.
So, Una waited. She was patient. After living for centuries, one must learn to be patient. Even in the Unseelie Court, where there was darkness and decay, seasons still passed, as did time. She lost count of how many years went by as she stared out of her rooted cell, waiting for her chance.
At last, she found it!
A fairy in a humanoid shape came sauntering past her, a pack of his belongings slung over one shoulder, and his arms so long that they practically dragged on the ground. He was hairy and ugly—not the type of fairy she would normally want to seduce—but she could not choose to be fastidious.
She turned herself into a human woman, a guise that most would deem beautiful. Her hair was raven-black and long as it trailed down her lithe body. Her eyes, bright as the moon, were the color of amber and pierced through the darkness.
She called out to the boggart meekly, “Oh, please help me, sir!”
The boggart halted and turned suspiciously toward her. He had one eye missing, and the other glowed sallow. Dark, matted hair clung to his head and face. His clothes were torn, and he wore no shoes, revealing huge, hairy toes. Even from her confinement, far enough away from the fairy, she could smell his foul stench.
“Whattya want?” the boggart growled, his fingers tapping the axe that hung from his waist.
“Oh, I’m stuck here, you see,” Una exclaimed, trying her best to sound innocent and helpless. “I walked into this strange land, and now I am trapped here.”
“And whattya want me to do aboot it?” the boggart asked.
“If you please,” Una said demurely, “I see that you carry an axe by your side. If you cut away these roots that entrap me, I would be in your debt. My father is a king in the human realm, you see. He would pay you a handsome reward for savin’ me.”
“A handsome reward,” the boggart repeated. He licked his lips as though tasting the words.
“Aye, if you help me. My father is the richest man in all of Scotia.”
With his hand on his axe, the boggart took a step toward her, then stopped. He narrowed his one good eye. “What if yer lyin’?”
Una shook her head. “All I want is to escape this realm an’ go back home to my family. If I am lyin’, you can kill me. You have the power to, aye? You seem like a big, strong, powerful fairy.”
The boggart smiled, revealing a set of pointed, gapped teeth. His eye glazed over as Una’s magic worked through him. “Aye, I am strong,” he said proudly.
“Well, prove it to me by usin’ your axe to save my life.”
“Aye.”
He worked mechanically, as though in a trance, swinging his axe at the hardened roots. The old tree groaned angrily as the roots flew apart. Una was able to move her arms first, then her legs.
“Hurry up!” she hissed at the creature. All the patience she had cultivated throughout the years was now gone. She was free.
She was finally free.
When the last of the restraining roots broke apart, she leapt out of her confinement with enough spring that she hovere
d for a moment in the air, her true form revealed once again. The boggart stared at her dumbly, the axe slipping from his fingers.
“Oy, yer not a human,” the boggart exclaimed. Consternation made his face even uglier. “Yer one of them leannan sith, ain’t you? You tricked me!”
He made to grab his axe, but Una was quicker. It was in her hands before he could even reach out for it, and she immediately sent the blade through his neck. The boggart stumbled back and crumpled to the ground, dead.
“What an ugly breed of fairies,” Una muttered. She dropped the axe beside the boggart and brushed her hands together. No, she hadn’t needed to kill the boggart, but she’d fumed so long in her prison that she’d had to do something to release her anger. The boggart was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In her true leannan sith form, Una was almost as tall as the trees she passed while walking out of the Unseelie forest. She stopped at a standing stone that guarded the forest entrance and frowned at it. The surface was bare, whereas she’d expected it to be carved with various runes. That could only mean one thing: the portal to the standing stone at Dunaid Castle was destroyed.
Of course, her daughter would be smart enough to have it smashed to pieces to keep Una from escaping. But there were many other portals in this realm, which meant many other ways for her to go back to the world of men and seek her revenge on all who had wronged her.
She thought for a moment. It had been almost a century since she had walked this land, so it took her some time to remember the next closest portal. It was by the Unseelie castle, the home of the dark-fairy Queen, whom Una had fallen out of favor with. She had to be careful if she were to get near to the castle.
After insulting the Queen a century ago, she had been banned from the Court. She would become imprisoned again if the Queen’s fairies found her wandering near the castle. These royal fairies were not able to fall victim to her enchantment magic, unlike the lowly boggart.
Her true form was too much of a distraction, so she transformed back into her human form. Which was just as well; she would have to get used this form again if she were to go back to Scotia. Nearing the castle, she pressed her back against the wall as a few fairies walked by her. The portal was just around the corner, in the outer gardens of the castle premises. She needed to just make one sprint for the portal, whisper the incantation, and then she would finally be gone from the Unseelie Court.
When she was sure no one else was nearby, Una made her escape. The standing stone stood tall, surrounded by a dark pool of water. She waded into the coolness, moving slowly as her skirts became heavy. When she reached the stone, she rested her hands on the smooth surface, whispering a few words in the dark tongue of the Unseelie. The stone lit up, the runes converged, and the ground opened below her feet.
No!
Before she fell through the opening, she heard a voice, familiar, so much like her own. “Tara?” she whispered, then laughed.
No!
“Oh, don’t worry, Tara. I’m coming for you, too.”
The water sucked her up like a whirlpool, then she was gone.
Chapter 1
Dunaid Castle, December 1355
Tara Maxwell woke with a start. Her bedclothes were dampened from sweat, and her hair was wild, having escaped from its tightly-coiled braid sometime in the night. She sat up, breathing heavily, her heart feeling as though it was about to burst from her chest.
She blinked a few times as she pushed her hair away from her face, remembering where she was. The morning light seeped through the windows. Downstairs, she could hear the routine of the servants and her clansmen starting their day.
Was it just a terrible dream?
Tara rubbed her head with her hands and swung her legs over the bed. She took a cup from her bedside, dipped it into the water basin, and drank deeply. The cool water soothed her dry throat, and she tried to calm herself. Ach, but she needed more than that. She pushed her window open and let the chilled, salty wind blow into her room, making her shiver and come back to herself.
“M’lady, are you awake?” The call came from Bridget, her maid and very good friend. She was probably waiting worriedly by the door, hoping that Tara did not oversleep.
“Aye, I’m awake, Bridget,” Tara said. “You may come in.”
“My, it’s cold in here,” Bridget exclaimed as she opened the door and walked in, holding fresh clothes in her arms.
“You look surprised,” Tara remarked as her maid set her clothes on a chair and quickly closed the window.
“You were up so late last night, I figured you would still be sleepin’ off all of that wine.”
Ach, perhaps it was the wine that had made her dream of her mother. Being half-fairy, she had more of a tolerance to the drink than full-blooded humans, but she did have limits.
Her sister-in-law, Nellie, and she had stayed up into the later part of the night, celebrating the fact that they had finally finished their preparations for the Christmas feast. It had come after much persuading of her half-brother and Nellie’s husband, Laird Adam Maxwell, who would much rather have had the quiet company of his immediate family for the holiday, rather than having all of the nearby lairds and their families come to celebrate. The big feasts were usually saved for Hammish McNill’s parties at Rosach Castle. Adam’s eventual acquiescence to host his own party surprised all of Dunaid Castle.
“Could you be a dear an’ send up a bath with hot water?” Tara asked her maid. She needed a good soaking after that dream. “An’ bring up a bit of that lavender soap, would you?”
Bridget shook her head. “You’re goin’ to run the family’s coffers dry with the fancy soaps an’ perfumes you use,” her maid admonished. “It’s unnecessary.”
“I like smellin’ pleasant,” Tara reasoned. Bridget shook her head and left.
Later, as she sat in the tub, she continued to wonder about her dream. As she remembered it, she began to suspect that the dream was, in fact, a vision. It seemed far too real and unlike any dream she’d ever had before.
If Una had escaped, everyone in Scotia was in grave danger. Almost seven years ago, she had trapped her mother in the Unseelie Court after Una pushed Nellie through the portal that divided the human realm from the dark fairy realm. Una had attempted to get Tara and Adam to follow her through the portal so that they could all live happily together, in Una’s twisted mind. Tara had pushed Adam out of the way and went through the portal to save Nellie. During that time, she managed to find Nellie, bring her back, and seal off the portal. Soon after, Adam and some of his clansmen destroyed the standing stone near Dunaid Castle that was used as the portal.
Tara had always believed that destroying the standing stone would be a temporary fix, that sooner or later, her mother would come back to seek her out. But part of her, a very naïve part of her, hoped and prayed that it would not actually happen.
She had to tell her brother and Nellie. However, the Christmas feast was today. She didn’t want to spoil it for everyone, especially after Nellie had worked so hard to make it perfect. She would need to tell them soon, though. Una knew where they lived, and Tara was confident that her mother would come for them first.
After she bathed, she donned her newly-made dress, which was a festive green with painstakingly-detailed floral embroidery on the hem and sleeves. With Bridget’s help, she braided her hair and pinned it to her head, adding matching ribbons. Bridget handed her a looking glass, and Tara gazed at her reflection.
She had chestnut brown hair, like her brother’s, as well as bright green eyes. She was taller than most women, with long limbs and a slim but curvy body, which the dress helped to accentuate. The only semblance she shared with her leannan sith mother was the strange glow of her eyes, which almost resembled the eyes of a cat in that they glowed uncannily in the darkness. She also had some of her mother’s magic, although Una never did teach her how to properly utilize it.
Tara’s mother was a leannan sith; her entire purpose was to ench
ant handsome and powerful men to fall in love with her and do her bidding. When Adam’s mother died, Una had enchanted their father, Calum Maxwell, until she ultimately killed him. However, during that time, she attempted to also enchant Nellie’s father, Malcolm Lyall, but when that ended in failure she laid a curse upon Nellie’s family.
In the back of her mind, Tara wondered if she, too, would become like her mother, especially since she did not know how to use her magic. She had seen how men reacted to her when they came near, treating her like she was nothing short of the Roman goddess, Venus. That horrified her. Adam and Nellie assured her that her constant attention was because she was a beautiful and eligible young woman and men were interested in her because they wanted to marry her, but she didn’t quite believe that.
Tara loved to be around people and meet new faces, but sometimes she felt more like a social pariah. She continued to distance herself from any suitors for fear of enchanting them with an inadvertent spell.
There were going to be eligible men from all over Scotia attending the feast today, and it made Tara nervous. Adding that to the sickening dread she felt from her mother escaping the Unseelie Court and all she wanted to do was hide in her room all day. No, she would face her family and her guests, then wait until the festivities were over to start considering the options.
When she was ready, Tara walked out of her room, only to be bombarded with Nellie, who had one young girl in her arms and two boys, just past the toddler years, trailing after her. Nellie still wore her bedclothes, her golden hair unkempt and her eyes a wee bit desperate.