Page 1 of Kidnapped by her Highland Enemy
Spring, Scottish Highlands
Inbhir èireann
“ L aird Barclay ! Damned be thy son!”
The shatter of Laird Gunn’s pewter goblet on the stone wall of their great hall had Maisie Hendry flinching. Even worse, the tirade of curses her father let out, damning Laird Barclay from his ancestors down to his fifth grandson, made her want to curl into herself in shame.
They had lost another skirmish with their neighboring clan, and the wounded warriors, nursing fresh injuries seated along the long trestle tables in the hall, showed it.
“Fergus!” her father hollered. “Get ye up here, McCrie, and tell me why we lost, again !”
Her father’s war chief stood and went to the table, his auburn hair still thick despite his sixty years. With one hand on his sword, Fergus knelt at the foot of the dais. “Me laird.”
“Why have we lost to those braggarts, thrice in a row!” her father, Angus, demanded. “Answer me!”
“We were taken by ambush, me laird,” Fergus said calmly, utterly unfazed by her father’s blustering. “We’d expected a frontal assault, but they came from the west. Our men were taken by surprise and were trapped by the barricade we’d erected to stop them instead.”
Angus’s face went mottled red with fury. “Utterly ridiculous! Ye ken better than that, McCrie! Are ye getting too old to lead me men? Tell me now so I can have ye replaced!”
As much as Maisie wanted to tell her father to temper his rage, she knew it would be fruitless; her father never listened to her. Hanging her head, she kept her eyes down on her stew and forced herself to eat.
“Nay, me laird,” Fergus said calmly. “I assure ye, we’ll nae lose again.”
Angrily sloshing more elderberry wine into another goblet, her father huffed. “Ye said that before and we still lost to those peasants!”
“We will nae lose anymore,” Fergus vowed.
“By the King, ye’d better not,” the laird snapped. “If Barclay gets to gloat again and gains more favor with King Balliol, I will not be happy.”
“‘Tis about time this foolish feud ended,” Maisie muttered under her breath. “Years an’ years of war and we’re not getting any closer to a result.”
“Did ye say something, girl?” her father snapped.
“Nay, Faither, nay,” she rushed.
“Hmph,” he snorted before turning back to his men. “Get out of here, all of ye lot. I’m ashamed of ye.”
The three dozen men filed out, some limping, and others having to loop their arm over another to hop away. When the room emptied, Maisie swallowed her nervousness, “Faither, do ye nae think it’s time to stop this war? What has it brought us other than injury and more hate?”
“Be quiet, girl,” he snapped. “This is a matter of honor and clan pride. If anyone will stop it will be the blasted Barclays when they cower under me blade.”
“But Faither—”
He slammed the goblet down and the wine sloshed over his hand. “Ye ken nothing about war, girl. For half a century, the damned Barclays have tested me faither and his faither before him. They’re a lot of entitled fools.”
If they are fools, how is it that they have won five battles this year and we only gained one victory?
“Faither—”
“Nay, girl,” he said with a dismissive wave. “Get ye to yer quarters and go sew something.”
Maisie clamped her lips shut and with a swallowed huff of disconcert, she stood and hurried out of the wide chamber and up the stone staircase to a higher level. Hurrying to her quarters, she slipped through the doorway and into the bedchamber.
The meager light from the curtain-covered windows revealed a spacious room with a large, heavily-draped poster bed in the corner and a thick carpet before it.
Tables, laden with books and scrolls, were scattered around the room, and two chests of drawers, both filled with dresses and riding clothes, with two other standing wardmantles were at the end of the room.
A large marble fireplace commanded a third wall, and stacks of wood sat in the corner near it.
“Me lady?” her maid, Heather Cowie, said while Maisie swept into the room. “Are ye all right?”
“Nay,” Maisie shrugged. “But when is it ever all right with Faither and me? Especially since we keep losing to the Barclays, he’s turned on me as if I were a part of their camp.”
“I’m sorry,” Heather said while brushing a hand over her mahogany brown hair.
“There’s nothing for ye to be sorry for,” Maisie said as she went to a table to find one of her scrolls about medicinal plants.
As she rifled through the pile, she caught sight of her face on her polished brass mirror.
Her thick brown hair was fixed in a braid and her light golden eyes glimmered with unhappiness.
At two-and-twenty, Maisie had more interest in becoming the healer her mother once was instead of marrying like her father wanted. There were a fair number of Lairds and noblemen in the countryside she had met who could put in an offer, but Maisie was not interested in any of them.
Nae to mention, there are few men who have interest in an educated woman like I am. If Faither willnae listen to me, why will anyone else?
“I daenae mind,” Maisie added while finding a chair. “I’m better off without his attention, anyway.”
Barclay Castle
Resounding cheers of delight met Lucas McCormack as he and his fellow fighters entered the great hall of his home.
He glanced up to see his father, Cinead, the protector of the castle, with a pleased face, sitting in the middle of the high table.
Though Lucas was the Laird of the clan, his father shared control over the castle and Lucas did not mind.
Barely tempering his grin, Lucas stopped and with a with a flick of his wrist, he spun the claymore sword around and tossed it hilt-first to his shield bearer, Peter.
The lad caught it easily but stumbled when Lucas handed off his halberd.
Made of sturdy ash wood, the haft of the great axe was more than four and a half feet long with a wicked blade.
His father stood, lifting his goblet high, “Welcome victorious warriors, led by me son, Lucas, and his man-at-arms, Oliver Jamieson. Ye have made Clan Barclay proud in routing those flea-bitten dogs of the Gunn’s clan back into the mutt pit they had crawled out of. Hear, hear!”
A resounding cheer, mixed with stomping feet and the clang of swords on shields made the sturdy hall tremble down to its ancient foundation.
“And to me son,” Cinead added. “Might and brave is he to have led five victories in a row. Let there be a sixth!”
Another cry of victory went up and minstrels began to play while women wove between the crowd bearing tankards and goblets of spiced wine.
Oliver, a man of two-and-thirty, five years Lucas’s senior, stood at his leader’s side and clapped a hand on Lucas’s arm. “Well done, me laird.”
Raking a hand through his blond hair, Lucas grinned, “Aye, thank ye.”
“This victory deserves a hearty meal, a long bath and a lusty wench in yer bed,” Oliver grinned, then cocked a brow. “But I daenae ken ye’ll be without company tonight, will ye? There are lasses forming lines to get in your bed.”
“All in good time, Oliver,” Lucas said as he mounted the steps to the high table.
Taking his seat beside his father, Lucas felt the rush of power, which had possessed his veins three hours before, in the heat of the battle, begin to fade. Seated, he reached for his goblet and sipped the heady wine.
“Did those mangy mutts give you any trouble?” his father asked.
“Nay,” Lucas shrugged. “We had them trapped against the same snare they had set for us. From there, it was easy to scatter them as they were as confused as headless fowls.”
“That is their natural state,” his father chuckled.
As Lucas gazed around the room, he felt the tiredness of seven hours of marching and fighting begin to settle in his bones. He loved the skirmish, he loved seeing the fear on the faces of his enemies and he loved the sweet taste of victory.
Lucas, like his father before him, had trained alongside the rest of the warriors and made his way up the ranks to leader, just as he had to work his way to the Lairdship.
No one got a free pass in the McCormack Clan, not by wealth and certainly not by birthright.
He had to earn his place, just like the rest of his brothers.
“I reckon its time ye start looking for a wife, son,” Cinead said while sipping his wine.
“Eight-and-twenty is a good age to start yer family. I ken ye love the fight, the rush, the spoils of war, but more pleasures come from having a wife and a slew of bairns too. We have enough resources to provide for them all.”
“Och,” Lucas grunted. “I daenae want more than two bairns. A slew is too much.”
“Daenae discount yerself, son. Our bloodline is strong and produces great sons,” Cinead replied. “Ye are proof of that.”
“Aye,” Lucas allowed just as a maid sat a trencher of roast fowl and boiled turnips and potatoes, basted with butter. “But what ladies are here who willnae run knowing that I prize the fight more than their notions of romance?”
“A smart one,” Cinead said. “One who will understand her place as yer helpmate and give ye an heir.”
Hearing the terms explained so frankly in black and white, Lucas flattened his lips. “That doesnae sound too right either.”
“It’s one or the other, son,” Cinead said with a shrug. “Ye can marry for love or ye can marry for convenience.”
“Surely there is a line between both circumstances I can straddle,” Lucas replied. “I’m nae against marriage, but I’d like to nae go home to a cold bed at night.”
“Well, God’s grace ye find it, Lucas,” his father replied. “But if ye cannae, a wife to bear ye a son will do.”
The welcome feast carried on right into the night when the tables were shifted to side and dancing started. The fiddlers struck up a merry tune that tempted Lucas to join the reveling throng, but he amused himself with only looking on.
Before midnight, he excused himself to his rooms, where his bath was ready and waiting for him.
Doing away with his dirty shirt, Lucas unhooked his leather belt and eased his kilt down to reveal a bloody cloth right under it, covering a cut to the right side of his lean waist close to his pelvic bone.
It was the lone injury he had sustained in the battle and for him, it had been enough. The cut hurt like the devil, and he had managed to bind enough for him to fight. Prodding at it, he winced but felt happy it was starting to scab over.
He had some healing ointment that he could slather over it after his bath, and so happily sunk into the water. Leaning his head on the lip of the copper tub, he sighed — marriage. He always knew that he was going to marry, but the lass was where he had to pause.
I’ve been with lasses since I was six-and-ten, but I have not found a lady among me fellows worthy of marriage.
Lucas laid in the water until sleep began to draw at him and he stood, stepped out and reached for a drying cloth.
After stepping into a pair of braies, he went to a trunk, unearthed the tub of salve and dug his fingers into it.
He rubbed it over his cut and then, with a sigh, slipped under the sheets of his bed.
It had been a long day and he was ready to sleep like the dead for the next day and a half. Victory had been won over the damned Dunns and he could not be any happier.
Just as he grew comfortable, a hurried knock on the door had him groaning. “What the devil is this now? Havenae I deserved me rest?”
Scowling, Lucas swung his legs out from under the fleece blankets and went to the door, not caring that he was mostly naked. Yanking the bolt back he groused, “What?”
Oliver looked grim, “I’m sorry, me laird, but this is important, nigh worrying.”
“What is it?” Lucas asked through grit teeth.
Stepping inside, Oliver handed him a slip of parchment. “Yer in danger, me laird.”
Someone from Clan Dunn is planning to kidnap and kill ye by dawn. Ye need to run.
“What in the name of the God is going on?” Lucas spat. “Kidnap me?”
“Aye,” Oliver said grimly. “I can only ken of one way around it, me laird. Ye need to beat this blackguard to it and turn the tables on Dunn instead.”
“And how do I do that?” Lucas demanded.
“By taking one of their own,” Oliver grinned. “One they cannot bear to lose—and I ken the perfect one.”