Scotland, 1998. American Morgan Lafayette is in Scotland to enjoy the history, not to ogle men in kilts. So when she stumbles upon a brawny man in a kilt, she is less than enthralled. She is certain he’s drunk for he claims Morgan is a powerful sorceress who has brought him to her magical kingdom! Despite her reluctance, she is intensely drawn to this handsome Highlander and the mystery surrounding him, a mystery that has the power to alter history – and her heart – forever…
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Praise for The Last Highlander
“With an ending guaranteed to bring a tear and a smile to your face, The Last Highlander is a quick-paced, thoroughly entertaining read. A winner!”
Writers Club Romance Group on AOL Reviewer Board
“The Last Highlander is a tremendous time travel tale that stars two wondrous lead protagonists. The brisk story line will grab onto readers from page one and not let go until the story is complete.”
Harriet Klausner for Affaire de Coeur
“At times humorous, at times heartwrenching, this unique time-travel deftly combines historical facts with a shimmering romance that defies time and place…The resolution is simply wonderful, and I’m not going to give it away. You will just have to read it yourself to savor the feast Ms. Cross provides.”
Tanzey Cutter for Old Book Barn Gazette
“Sensual beyond belief and romantic enough to quench even the most thirsty of those who read the genre, Ms. Delacroix scores a big ten out of ten with her latest novel. One peek between the covers is all it takes to hook you. An exciting delight and a marvelous read; clearly one of this year’s best.”
Kathee S. Card for Under the Covers Reviews
“The best time travel I have ever read!”
Michelle Sawyer for The Literary Times
“A touching and heartwarming story. Cross’s characters are easy to love and the story is fast paced. Anyone looking to escape with a Highland rogue will definitely love The Last Highlander!”
Kemberlee Lugo for Compuserve Romance Reviews
“You’ll love this story of how love can bring two people back together to give each their heart’s desire. Splendid!”
Donita Lawrence of Bell Book & Candle.
“The Last Highlander is a delightful tale of a love that crosses centuries.”
Lynne Remick for The Romantic Bower
“Long after the last word, you will bask in the afterglow of this fascinating story.”
MT for Rendezvous
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The Last Highlander by
Claire Delacroix
This book was originally published under the pseudonym Claire Cross. This new edition has had only minor corrections from the original text.
©1998, 2011 Claire Delacroix, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Cover by Kim Killion.
Smashwords Edition
Without limiting the rights under copyright preserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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The Last Highlander
by
Claire Delacroix
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Prologue
Edinburgh Castle - March 1314
“Have another swallow of the old barley bree, laddie!”
“Aye, let us see what the lad is made of!”
Alasdair choked on the healthy measure of whisky being poured down his throat by his gleeful compatriots. ’Twas not the first he had sipped this night and his difficulty in focusing on the faces of those about him showed the result. At one and thirty, he was no wee laddie, but he did not correct the old codgers.
After all, this was a moment to celebrate! This very night they had routed the English and claimed Edinburgh castle for Robert the Bruce. Now, flushed with victory, they roamed in victorious exploration of their newly gained prize.
’Twas only a matter of time before Robert the Bruce took Stirling Castle, as well. Then, Scotland would be free, for once and for all, of England’s heavy hand.
The men jostled each other good-naturedly, peered down darkened corridors, dashed up and down twisted stairs like children granted free rein. The goodly quantity of whisky they had imbibed did naught to aid their collective sense of direction.
Alasdair had just noticed that this corridor seemed particularly dark and roughly-hewn when a voice rose from the shadows ahead.
“Halt all ye trespassers!”
The men stumbled to a dumbfounded halt. Alasdair found himself unexpectedly at the front of the awkwardly silent pack. The two torches the men held high illuminated the corridor with fitful orange light.
A pinched old harridan of a woman confronted them with a boldness that belied her humble garb. Her white hair hung tangled about her face, and her garb was tattered. Though she looked no better than a beggar, there was an authority about her that made a man shiver in dread.
But Alasdair folded his arms across his chest and braced his feet against the stone. He had faced foes much more deadly than this wraith of a woman.
“This castle is ours!” he declared. “’Tis fairly won and we shall do what we will within it!”
The men muttered agreement, but the woman shook one finger in their direction. “Morgaine le Fee will not take kindly to your intrusion,” she hissed.
The men took a collective step back, but Alasdair could not stop himself from snorting with scorn. “Morgaine le Fee?” he echoed. “You threaten us with a child’s tale?”
The men gathered closer to Alasdair and murmured approvingly.
“Aye, a wee bairn’s tale is Morgaine and Arthur’s fable,” said one with newfound bravado.
“A tale fit to frighten the wee ones, ’tis no more than that,” muttered another in agreement.
A roar rose from somewhere deep beneath their feet at that moment, and made the stone tremble in a most unsettling way. Alasdair was not the only one to glance to his companions in uncertainty. He looked back to the woman to see her eyes alight with a strange glow.
“Oho!” she cried and flung up her hands. “Morgaine’s dragon awakens! Your bold words have disturbed its slumber and will tempt her wrath!”
“And who might you be?” Alasdair demanded. Even the whisky was not enough to give him tolerance of this woman’s nonsense.
His attitude seemed to reawaken a similar attitude in his companions.
“Aye, and how did you find your way here?”
“There was no woman in our ranks when we arrived, so you must be of the English!”
The woman’s glance was chilling. “I have no name that you might care to say,” she intoned ominously. “And to no country of men do I owe allegiance.” She closed her eyes and swayed slightly on her feet. “To Morgaine alone do I pledge allegiance, and it is she alone who summons me.”
Clearly the woman was mad.
All the same, she evidently knew another way into the fortress that they had yet to discover. It was Alasdair’s obligation to ensure that every passageway, however narrow, was secured against any retaliation.
“Enough of your haivering about,” he ordered when his companions fell silent. “Show us how you entered this place.”
The way the woman’s gaze locked
with Alasdair’s sent a curious chill tripping down his spine. “So, you would meet my queen?”
“I demand only to know your means of gaining this keep.”
The woman smiled to display crooked and yellowed teeth. “Then you must ask my lady Morgaine,” she said simply and offered her hand to him in invitation.
Alasdair stared at the taut pale flesh of the woman’s hand, not in the least bit certain that he wished to touch her, let alone follow her.
A great rosy orb of a nose appeared close by Alasdair’s shoulder when he hesitated. Alasdair did not have to look to know that that nose belonged to Iain. All the same, he did look and saw that man’s bushy silver brows working energetically up and down, and his eyes glittering.
The man fair lived to make trouble.
“Not afraid of witch’s tales, are ye, laddie?” he demanded.
“I have naught to fear from a wee witch, if indeed she is even one,” Alasdair retorted. Though he led these men well, Iain still liked to rile him because of his age.
“I, for one, would know if we sit atop a dragon or not,” Iain declared. “’Twas you who challenged her and you who should see the matter through.” Before Alasdair could answer, Iain leaned closer to whisper. “Truly, if there be no Morgaine and no dragon, ye have naught to lose. And if there be, you might ask her the fate of our bonny land.”
Alasdair cast a quelling glance at the other man. “Any fool knows that Scotland will soon be free again. Robert the Bruce will see it made so.”
Iain smiled slyly. “Then naught have ye to risk by asking.”
“Dare you, we do,” asserted another.
Alasdair did not have time to consider the matter before Iain whispered a taunt. “Unless the lad is afraid?”
“Are you afeartie, laddie?”
That accusation and the men’s chuckles hit a sore point. Alasdair had never shirked his duty or covered before a challenge, however unpleasant either might be.
And he would not begin now.
“I am afraid of naught a woman might cast my way,” Alasdair snapped, certain that this was all a bit of foolery that would cost him little. “I shall indeed meet this Morgaine!”
The men about him crowed with delight, and a flask of whisky was shoved into his hand. Alasdair threw back his head and took a long draught of the fiery liquid under the woman’s steely regard.
He heard his blood pounding in his ears as he reached out and took her hand.
The witch’s flesh was as cold as the grave.
Alasdair had noted no more than that before she began to run like a wild thing. Despite his greater height, he had difficulty in matching her pace. She led him down one convoluted path and another, and the sound of his pursuing companions fell away behind them.
Alasdair quickly lost his bearings and could only cling to the harridan and dog her steps. She flew down a shadowed corridor and darted up a course of unevenly cut stairs but Alasdair galloped directly behind her
And caught his breath at the cold when he stepped through the doorway at the summit.
Witch and warrior stopped as one, the puffs of their breath mingling in the chill of the air. Innumerable stars dotted the indigo sky, their twinkling light surely just beyond the reach of Alasdair’s fingertips. The rise of Arthur’s Seat was a still darker silhouette against the blackness of the night far to his left.
Evidently, it was to the top of some high tower they had climbed. Alasdair wondered at its age. The stone rim of the parapet was broken here, and he had a dizzying view of the drop, straight down the side of the mount to the market far below.
He swallowed and looked skyward. A lump rose in his throat as he recalled how brightly the stars had burned on his last night at home. His heart had been heavy then with the weight of what he had wrought and what he must do to make it come right.
Could he ever have imagined ’twould take so long?
Alasdair deliberately looked out toward the hills, fighting against the unruly tide of emotion that set his heart to pounding. He could not bear to think what had become of those he had left behind – he did not dare to consider it.
He had never imagined that the good fight would take so long to win. But soon Robert the Bruce would reign victorious and Alasdair’s debt would be paid.
Soon he would be able to go home.
The stillness of the night was disturbed when the first man stumbled onto the small landing behind Alasdair. The remainder of his companions spilled out in quick succession, their breathing heavy after their face.
“A fair chill night it is, indeed,” muttered one man.
“Aye, enough to steal the warmth of the drink away from a man’s bones.”
Surely the witch’s nonsense need not take all the blessed night.”
Alasdair met the gaze of the woman who yet held fast to his hand. A glimmer in her eye made Alasdair wonder whether she read his thoughts, his doubts, his fears.
“It is time,” she said simply and released her grip. The men fell silent as she dug into a concealed pocket in her dress. Alasdair frowned when she shoved a plant cutting into his hand.
Heather.
“From the bonny hills around the Stone of Scone,” whispered the woman. “Where all grows thicker, for the old forces are stronger there.”
Alasdair looked at the plant again and noted that the flowers were white, not the usual plum shade. Uncommon luck, his gran had foretold, whenever anyone found the rare white heather.
Would he have uncommon fortune this night?
The old woman pushed something cold into his other hand. “And from the regalia itself is this,” she confided as Alasdair touched the smooth edges of the gemstone.
“The regalia?” Alasdair’s frown deepened, and he felt his own displeasure echoed in the mood of the men around him. “But what…?”
“Morgaine said a tall man would come to this place – a man young yet bold, a man with hair of gold,” the woman intoned hoarsely. “’Twas he, she said, who should be the one to venture into the beyond. ’Twas he she would have for her very own.” The woman leaned closer, and a shiver of trepidation rippled over Alasdair’s skin.
“You are the one,” she confided.
“Bollocks! I will be no witch’s toy!” Alasdair squared his shoulders, well done with listening to this lot of haivers. “Summon your lady Morgaine for me. She and I have matters to discuss if she thinks to make a captive of me!”
The woman cackled. “Nay, laddie, you must go to her!”
“Where?”
“Ah, my lady lurks in the hidden corners of the beyond.” Before Alasdair could ask for explanation, the woman pointed a bony finger at his feet. “Turn thrice in this place while I chant her spell.”
Alasdair could not keep his brows from rising in skepticism. “And then?”
“And then we shall all have another sip of whisky!” concluded one of the men, an idea that was greeted with great approval.
“And then…” the woman said loudly enough for her voice to carry over the men’s foolery. “And then you will have the opportunity to ask of Morgaine your questions.” She leaned closer and her voice dropped yet lower. “If you dare.”
There was such certainty in her tone that Alasdair suddenly feared there was more to this matter than he had suspected. A shiver danced down his spin as the cold wind ruffled his hair. He stared into the mad witch’s eyes and for a fleeting moment doubted the wisdom of taking his men’s dare.
“Are you man enough to confront a harridan?” teased one of the men.
Alasdair aimed an unappreciative glare over his shoulder. “Man enough?” he scoffed in turn. “It seems to me that I have fallen into a company of whispering old women. Turn thrice and see myths come to life. Ask witches about the future. Dragons beneath the mount!” He spat with vigor. “Nonsense all of it!”
His men cheered.
Alasdair braced his feet against the parapet and nodded to the hag. “Chant your ditty, woman, and I will turn as you bid me – if o
nly to prove this whimsy for what it truly is.”
“Hold tight to the charms,” the woman cautioned, her tone ominous. “They might well be your only route of return.”
Return? Surely he was not going anywhere? Alasdair frowned, but the woman began to drone a verse in Gaelic that was vaguely familiar to him. At her imperious nod, he started to turn in place.
Once.
Twice.
Alasdair’s annoyance rose as the air seemed to swim about him. Curse the strength of that whisky! He closed his eyes tightly.
Thrice.
“Wish!” hissed the witch.
Alasdair wished with all his heart and soul to see the future of his beloved Scotland, to see the freedom he fought to ensure his son would inherit.
He stumbled then, the woman’s chanting faint in his ears. His heart stopped cold when his steadying foot encountered naught at all.
He had stepped off the parapet!
Alasdair swore vehemently as he fell, bouncing off the walls of the staircase. He roundly cursed his companions, who did naught to aid him as he tumbled. Blithering fools! His neck would be broken for their foolish dare!
Alasdair landed at the foot of the stairs with a thump so resounding that it stole the breath from his lungs. His hands flew open. The gem danced away and the heather crumbled to naught, though but a moment before it had been green and fresh.
Time Travel Romances Boxed Set Page 35