Page 127 of Taming the Highland Misfits

TANGLED IN A HIGHLAND CONSPIRACY

PROLOGUE

Lady Davina McBain both relished and dreaded the hour when her daughter Ailsa went to bed. She looked forward to it because after that she could spend the rest of the evening in relative peace and quiet with her husband and relax wrapped in his tender embrace.

However, she dreaded it because Ailsa always put up such a spirited resistance to going to sleep, no matter how exhausted she was. She recognised this trait as having come from her own character since she had always had to stand firm to achieve the greatest of her own desires.

She was telling Ailsa a story that made up herself about a unicorn who had been sent by the Faerie Queen to take her to her one true love when Ailsa interrupted, shaking her arm to gain her mother’s attention.

“What is it, lovie?” she asked fondly, even though she knew the answer already.

“Tell me our story,” Ailsa asked. It was not so much a request as a command and one that Davina had heard frequently before.

“But you have heard it hundreds of times!” her mother protested. “The tale I am telling you is a very good one, darling. Let me finish it, and if you are not asleep I’ll tell you ours after that. What do you think?”

“I think you should tell me our story first,” Ailsa said firmly. “It’s a better one, and when you have finished you can tell me the new one.”

Lady Davina sighed heavily. She could have recitedourstory off by heart since she had told it so many times. She tried a different tack. “Why doyounot tellmeour story, then?” she asked reasonably.

“Because then I will not fall asleep,” Ailsa pointed out, her bright green eyes glinting with mischief. “I cannot fall asleep while I am talking, can I?”

Davina gave her a mock frown of disapproval and then shook her head. Ailsa had played this game so many times before that she knew exactly how to handle her mother. She began to giggle, and then Lady Davina tickled her tummy for a few moments, making Ailsa scream uncontrollably before she pulled her mother down to kiss her. They lay cheek to cheek for a moment, both of them laughing. Lady Davina sat up again and Ailsa knew she had won, as she always did.

“Once upon a time,” she began, placing Ailsa’s favourite doll in her arms, “there was a handsome Laird, whose name was Malcolm McBain. He was very tall and muscular and all the young ladies wanted to marry him, not just because he was handsome, but because one day when his father died, he would become very rich.

All the young ladies tried to make him notice them, but it did not matter how much they tried, because his parents had already picked out a bride for him.”

“Who was the bride?” Ailsa asked eagerly.

“Her name was Moira Ormond.” Davina sounded as though she was reluctant to say the name. “You know her now as Moira Lamont.”

“So why did Laird McBain not marry her?” Ailsa persisted.

“Because one day he was practicing sword fighting with one of his men,” Lady Davina answered, “and he was wounded. He had a great gash on his thigh and it was bleeding heavily, so they sent him to a healer?—”

“And the healer was you, Mammy!” Ailsa said triumphantly, pointing at her mother.

Lady Davina smiled and her eyes became dreamy as she looked back into the past, to the day the young Laird had come to see her, his face twisted with pain. He was being supported by two men, one of whom had a wad of white fabric pressed to his wound, which had already become red with his blood.

He had been slumped over between the arms of his helpers, but when he looked up and his gaze met hers, both their eyes widened with the shock of something magical passing between them.

Suddenly it seemed as though there was no one else in the room but the two of them. A long time later Laird Malcolm McBain would declare that it had been love at first sight. They both had green eyes; hers the colour of green apples, his shading towards grey. It took a physical effort for both of them to tear their gaze away from each other.

Davina had begun to bathe and tend to his wound, using the herbs that she had been taught to grow and mix into medicines. Her teacher had been her mother, a gifted healer herself.

Davina had become lost in her thoughts for a moment but came back to reality when Ailsa shook her arm.

“Go on, Mammy,” she said impatiently. “What did the healer do next?”

“She washed the wound with wine,” Lady Davina answered. “Then she stitched it together and bandaged it, which must have hurt very much. Then she gave the man a dose of poppy milk for the pain. He asked for her name, and she told him and said it was a lovely name. Then he fell asleep.”

“And she sat watching him for hours, did she not, Mammy?” Ailsa loved this bit of the story.

“All day and all night, and she fell asleep just as dawn was breaking,” her mother answered.

“And she was lying with her head on the bed,” Ailsa went on, “and when she woke up the young man was stroking her hair and smiling at her.”

“Yes, and she was very embarrassed and a bit scared,” her mother replied, “because she thought she should have stayed awake. She thought he would be angry with her, but he was very kind and said that everybody needed their sleep.