Highlander's Forbidden Soulmate
Page 1
Highlander's Forbidden Soulmate
A Scottish Historical Romance Novel
Lydia Kendall
Edited by
Robin Spencer
Contents
A Little Gift for You
Scottish Brogue Glossary
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
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Extended Epilogue
Highlander's Love in Captivity
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Also by Lydia Kendall
About the Author
A Little Gift for You
Thanks a lot for purchasing my book. It really means a lot to me, because this is the best way to show me your love.
As a Thank You gift I have written a full length novel for you, called Falling for the Highlander. It’s only available to people who have downloaded one of my books and you can get your free copy by tapping the image below or this link here.
Once more, thanks a lot for your love and support.
Lydia Kendall
About the Book
His curse is to love the only woman he can't have…
Victoria Moore, the daughter of the powerful Duke of Crowland, grew up with a horrible scandal haunting her family for years: her aunt, disowned by her cruel father, died after giving birth to a Scottish Laird’s lovechild, Andrew.
However, after his birth, the child mysteriously disappeared….
In his journey to find the missing child, Laird Hector MacTavish will fall in love with the only woman he’s not allowed to. The gorgeous but mysterious daughter of his family’s sworn enemy.
As they both embark on the dangerous journey to find the missing boy and finally bring redemption to their families, an impending threat is lurking behind their every step. A ruthless man, blinded by his hatred for the Scots. A powerful ruler who won’t stop at anything until he destroys Hector.
Scottish Brogue Glossary
Here is a very useful glossary my good friend and editor Gail Kiogima sent to me, that will help you better understand the Scottish Brogue used:
aboot - about
ach - oh
afore - before
an' - and
anythin - anything
a'side - beside
askin' - asking
a'tween - between
auld - old
aye - yes
bampot - a jerk
bare bannock- a type of biscuit
bearin' - bearing
beddin' - bedding or sleeping with
bellend - a vulgar slang word
blethering - blabbing
blootered - drunk
bonnie - beautiful or pretty
bonniest - prettiest
cannae - cannot
chargin' - charging
cheesin' - happy
clocked - noticed
c'mon- come on
couldn'ae - couldn't
coupla - couple of
crivens - hell
cuddie - idiot
dae - do
dinin' - dining
dinnae - didn't or don't
disnae - doesn't
dobber - idiot
doesn'ae - doesn't
dolton - idiot
doon - down
dram - a measure of whiskey
efter - after
eh' - right
'ere - here
fer - for
frein - friend
fey - from
gae - get or give
git - a contemptible person
gonnae - going to
greetin' - dying
hae - have
hald - hold
haven'ae - haven't
heed - head
heedstart - head start
hid - had
hoovered - gobbled
intoxicated - drunk
kip - rest
lass - young girl
leavin - leaving
legless - drunk
me - my
nae - not
no' - not
noo - now
nothin' - nothing,
oan - on
o' - of
Och - an Olympian spirit who rules the sun
oot- out
packin- packing
pished - drunk
scooby - clue
scran - food
shite - shit
sittin' - sitting
so's - so as
somethin' - something
soonds ' sounds
stonking - stinking
tae - to
teasin' - teasing
thrawn - perverse, ill-tempered
tryin' - trying
wallops - idiot
wee -small
wheest - talking
whit's - what's
wi'- with
wid - would
wisnae - was not
withoot - without
wouldnae - wouldn't
ya - you
ye - you
yea - yes
ye'll - you'll
yer - your
yerself - yourself
ye're - you're
ye've - you've
Prologue
Eight Years Ago, Monstall Manor, Crowland, England
The servants were at it again – whispering amongst themselves. From her place, hidden in her favorite window-seat, veiled by a fall of thick dark curtains, thirteen-year-old Victoria Moore edged up to the brink of the seat and pressed her ear as close to the whispers as she could.
Ever since she was eight, Victoria had heard the servants of Monstall Manor whispering to themselves on this very day – the fifth of June – a day when her father Geoffrey locked himself in the West Wing and did not come out until nightfall. No matter how she tried, however arduously, she never could learn what exactly they were gossiping about. However, the pieces were starting to come together.
Over the years she had heard snippets – ‘Poor Lady Emily Moore,’ ‘that Scottish scoundrel,’ and, ‘His Grace, Barnard, had no other choice but to remove her.’ Victoria had gathered that the discussion was about her Aunt Emily, a lady that no one spoke about directly and who was only mentioned in hushed and derogatory murmurs.
The thirteen-year-old, on the brink of womanhood, was not as simple as many assumed she was. Victoria knew that something had happened to her Aunt; something scandalous that had sent her grandfather to his grave and her father into solitude on this day every year.
“The boy should be about five-and-twenty now, shouldn’t he?” one servant said lowly.
“Or older,” the second one added as the two looked toward the staircase that lead to the West Wing. “It would have been well with Lady Emily if she hadn’t fallen in love with a Scotsman, and bore him a son.”
Victoria was stunned so deeply that the heavy book resting on her lap fell to th
e floor with a muffled thud. Her heart instantly started pounding in fright as it was not proper for her to be eavesdropping or curled up in a window seat with her once ironed dress now rumpled beyond repair. It was good that her father, Geoffrey Moore, the Duke of Crowland, wasn’t around to see the mounds of crushed muslin as he was a stickler for propriety. Though the Duke was lax on her sometimes, this level of indecorum would call for punishment.
One of the servants turned her head in her direction, and Victoria held her breath so tightly that her chest hurt. Luckily, the woman – apparently deeming the sound unimportant – turned back to the stairs, “They had to rebuild the whole wing. It cost the late Duke a pretty penny, too.”
“I know.” The first one sighed, “Well, there’s not much we can do about it, let’s get back to our chores, Carol, and stop fretting about our betters.”
The two women turned and with another baleful look to the staircase, took the smaller passage toward their quarters and left the hallway and by doing so, the foyer. Victoria breathed a little. Clutching the book to her chest she added the pieces of information she had just heard to the ones she had already gathered. Something shameful had happened to her Aunt and it involved a child.
Nodding to herself, Victoria decided it was time to get the full truth. There was only one person who could give her that, her governess, Miss Ruth Willow, who had been employed with her family since her father was a boy himself.
Hopping off the window seat and brushing any lingering dust off her skirts, Victoria tucked the heavy tome in her elbow and made off to the East Wing. It was lucky for her, too, as the height of the sun told her that her free time was over and it was time to go back to her lessons – French this time.
With her skirts lifted by one hand, Victoria climbed the stairs to the second-floor schoolroom and padded down the carpeted hallway with soft footsteps. Passing a large mullioned window, the young lady looked out at the vastness of the manor house’s grounds and paused.
Low lying golden beech trees, statuesque birches, and dark-skinned solemn cedars took precedence over a well-maintained verdant lawn. Summer was still at its height, and the mélange of flowers in the various garden circles broke up the monotone stretches of the green lawn with their brilliant reds, sporadic light blues, and golden yellows.
Monstall Manor was situated on over a hundred acres of land, some let out to tenants, while some bordered on a hunting forest. The house was made of dark brick, with an E-shaped manor proper, featuring two large wings, East and West, with the front foyer and middle piece receding from the two impressive arms. Once upon a time there was even a wall cloistering the house but that had been broken down.
Pressing a hand to a glass pane, Victoria wondered if this was what her Aunt Emily had seen when she had been alive. She doubted it, though, as she knew that before her own birth, the manor had undergone a vigorous rebuild and the grounds had been replanted.
Turning away, Victoria crossed the hallway and entered the school room to see her governess, Ruth Willow, an aged woman in her mid-fifties, arranging some papers on her desk.
“Ah, Lady Victoria,” Ruth smiled. “Right on time. Let us start your lesson on the–”
“Miss Ruth,” Victoria said quietly but with enough strength to be heard. “What happened to my Aunt Emily?”
The older woman’s hands dropped to her sides in shock, an emotion that was mirrored in the lines of her face. Ruth’s hands then twisted in her black frock and she sighed, “I had feared you would ask this sooner or later, Lady Victoria.”
“So, you do know what transpired,” Victoria said, her spirits lightening with the hope that the veil of ignorance she had carried for years would be lifted and that her questions, building over many years, were going to be answered once and for all.
Ruth nodded, the grey of her hair reflecting some of the sunlight from the window nearby. “I do, Lady Victoria, but it is not an easy tale, and I doubt that His Grace would be pleased with me telling you of it.”
Scurrying to her seat, Victoria pushed the tome she had carried to the side of the desk and said, “I will not tell anyone about it, I promise. Please, tell me anyway.”
Taking a chair over to the girl, the older woman looked with admiration at the eager blue eyes, wide in hope, and the wisps of dark blonde hair that had escaped her ribbons, fluttering near her eyes. Victoria’s face still needed to lose some baby fat, but when it was gone, her high cheekbones and cupid-bow mouth were going to render her a beauty, just like her Aunt Emily.
“This tale, child, is not an easy one to tell but you must know of it. Your grandfather, the Duke of Crowland, Barnard Moore, had two children – your dear father Geoffrey and his sister, younger by two years, Lady Emily. She was a lovely woman, fair in features and pure in heart, but a Scottish man loved her, and His Grace did not take kindly to that.”
Ruth’s mind slipped back to a time that had been one of the darkest in her many years. She shuddered, recalling the prior Duke of Crowland’s face after his child had disappeared from her quarters in the West Wing, secreted away by her rogue Highland admirer, Fergus MacTavish. Even now, six-and-twenty years after the fact, the memory of the Duke’s face, darkened with rage, still made her shiver in fear.
“Your grandfather, My Lady, was not kind to the Scots, and he had no reason to be of a good nature toward them. Our land has a hatred for the Scottish because it is thought that the Scots are less civilized and cultured than we are; in fact, they are deemed savages. The hatred has sunk into the very earth here, child, and your grandfather did not take kindly to his sole daughter being in love with a Scotsman.”
Ruth paused as her mind searched backwards, “Young Fergus, yes, that was his name, was one of the most handsome men in Scotland. A tall man, with a head of dark hair and bright green eyes. He was handsome, and educated, and took a fancy to your aunt, Lady Emily.”
Looking briefly out the window Ruth sighed, and turned back to the attentive girl who was waiting for her to continue. “Your Aunt was an untainted soul, My Lady. In Lady Emily’s eyes, all men were the same under God and, therefore, had the same right to happiness. She loved Fergus with all her heart, as he was not like Englishmen. He was not as proper and steeped into customs like the young Lords here, and that drew her to him.”
Reaching over to place her hand over the young lady’s, Ruth continued, “One night, in the last of September, Fergus stole Lady Emily from her quarters and carried her off to his home at Loch Obha, past Glasgow and far into the Highlands.”
“I was told she had a happy time with her love,” Ruth mused, “until her father, ashamed because his daughter had loved and was taken by a Highlander, a tribe of men that he hated with all his heart, used his power to bring her back to England and locked her in a prison cell.”
“A prison cell!” Victoria exclaimed in horror, “Why a cell? Couldn’t she just go back to her quarters?”
“No, Lady Victoria,” Ruth replied with a sorrowful shake of her head. “She was with child and her father despised that even more. He wanted no grandson tainted with Scottish blood.”
“Kill the bastard child when it comes,” Barnard had spat to his guards while looking at his daughter, twisting in the agony of childbirth, on a cot in the manor’s dungeon, “And burn his body.”
“Your Aunt died in labor. I was younger then,” Ruth said softly. “I was the one called in to help her when the guards could not.” Here Ruth leaned in, “Her child was surely of Scottish blood, tawny skin and dark hair – an innocent soul – and I could not hand him over to his death. With her last breaths, she told me to name him Andrew and find a way to send him to his father in Scotland.”
Victoria’s eyes were wide as she hung onto every word the governess was saying.
“I pretended the child was dead, My Lady, wrapped him in cloths and hid him from the guards.” Ruth said. “I told the guards I’d do away with him myself, to honor a request from his mother. When they left, I took the child and hid him in
my quarters in a basket and nursed him through the night. The next morn, I found a man, a rider with a quick horse, someone who I trusted from the village, and used my own silver to pay him to carry the boy to his father.”
Victoria was solidly entranced now and her body showed her interest, “Did he get there? Did he get to his father?”
“I do not know,” Ruth sighed heavily. “It was some time later I was told that the messenger was found dead and the child was missing. I hoped that someone had taken him and that he was not prey for wild animals. Every day I prayed that the child, your cousin, My Lady, would live. It is a mystery to this day if he is alive or where he is.”
“I would…” Victoria whispered, “…like to meet him.”
“As would I,” Ruth replied. “But the tale is not done, My Lady. Not too soon after I had learned the child was gone, Fergus MacTavish came to England, in ragged throes of revenge, to get back the only lady he ever loved, but realized it was too late. Lady Emily was dead and his son was gone.”