Page 1 of The Cruel Highlander’s Healer (Highlanders’ Feisty Brides #1)

CHAPTER ONE

C onall dipped his head a little more, the candlelight flickering gently as he squinted at the paper resting on the desk before him. His mind raced as he poured over the tax ledger, ensuring everything was accounted for. Conall would be damned if he allowed anyone to steal from his people.

A knock rang through the room, drawing his attention toward the large oak door across the room.

“Aye,” he grunted.

The door creaked open, revealing one of his maids, Kate. Her bright green eyes were creased with worry, and Conall’s stomach immediately sank.

“The children?” he asked, trying to keep his nerves from seeping into his words.

Kate shook her head in answer, honey-brown hair glinting in the candlelight as she did so.

“They’ve gotten worse,” she answered, her voice alight with the same worry that Conall felt. “I think ye should come.”

He nodded, pushing himself back from his desk and moving to follow her. The pair was quiet as they walked through the manor, nothing but the sounds of their footsteps filling the space around them.

They reached the great hall, and Kate paused outside the large, closed wooden doors.

“Brace yerself,” she said, giving him a concerned glance before pushing open the door.

Conall did his best to heed her warning, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw when the doors were pushed open.

Within the last week, the children of his clan had begun to fall ill.

It had all begun so rapidly, with the bairns falling ill one after another. And, once one began to show symptoms, they only continued to progress each day no matter what they tried to do to ease their suffering.

It had only affected the bairns. No one else had fallen ill, which had left everyone perplexed. Not knowing what else to do, Conall had opened the great hall of MacKinnon Manor.

He’d had small cots brought in, advising the people of his lands to bring in their sick children. Conall promised them that they would get a healer. He had promised them that he’d find a way to save their precious wee ones.

It was a promise that he had been unable to keep so far.

As he stepped into the cot-filled hall, eyes roving over the tiny, barely moving bodies, he felt the gravity of that promise weighing on him more than ever.

“What is happenin’ to them?” Conall asked, keeping his voice as low as he could so it wouldn’t carry.

“I wish I could tell ye,” Kate answered, her eyes sad as she glanced between him and the children closest to them. “But they’re gettin’ worse. See for yerself.”

She turned and walked farther into the hall, and Conall followed. He looked down into the wee faces of the children as they passed. They all looked the same. Their skin was pallid, contrasted by the press of dark lashes on cheeks and a sheen of sweat across their brow.

Two rows over, a girl leaned over the edge of her cot, vomiting into the bowl at her bedside. Another let out a wet, rattling cough. But most of them were still, with no sound other than the rasping of their breaths leaving them.

That silence seemed to creep into Conall’s soul as he walked deeper into the hall. Staring down at their small, flushed faces, he realized that many of them were unconscious, lost to the fever almost entirely.

He knew as sure as he knew that the sun would rise in the morning that they did not have much time left.

“I’ve used almost everythin’ I can to help them,” Kate said in a low, hushed voice as they walked. “How is the search for a healer goin’?”

“I’ve tracked down all but two healers that I ken of, and all their answers have been the same,” Conall explained. “They refuse to help the Beast of the MacKinnons’. And they willnae risk spreadin’ the sickness to their own wee ones.”

Kate nodded, her eyes dropping as she turned her gaze back to the children. A rush of gratitude filled Conall, thinking of all the young maid had shouldered in the last few weeks.

She had worked for him for quite some time, and he’d always found her more than capable. When the illness had struck, and he couldn’t find a healer to help them, Conall knew he’d have to resort to extreme measures to treat the bairns.

Kate had been that extreme measure. A maid stepping forward had not been what he’d envisioned. But as soon as she’d stated she had some experience with healing, he’d known that she was the only option they had.

Of her own admission, the experience hadn’t been much. And she’d been honest about that. But the Laird had accepted the offer graciously.

At the time, Conall had prayed that Kate’s services would just buy him some time to find a true healer. But as the days passed and every healer had turned him down, he’d begun to wonder if maybe she was the only help he would ever be able to find.

These bairns are the future of our clan .

Anger began to bubble in his belly.

I cannae watch the future of this clan die. I cannae do nothin’, nae again.

Conall balled his hand into a fist at his side, noting Kate’s eyes flicking down to it and her brow creasing with concern.

“I’ll find ye a healer,” he growled, the words coming out almost like a threat to God and the heavens above if they tried to stop him.

Kate opened her mouth to speak, but Conall didn’t give her the chance to utter whatever it was she was about to say. He turned on his heel, stalking through the cots of dying children and towards the hall's doors.

He made quick work of finding Eliot. As expected, his best friend and man-at-arms was in the game room, pouring over a game of cards.

“Eliot,” Conall barked when he walked through the door, causing his guards to drop the cards in their hands immediately. “We’re headin’ out.”

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Clyde said, shaking his head as he sat before Conall. “I cannae help.”

Conall brought himself to his full height, staring daggers at the man. He felt the rush of heat to his face and knew that the jagged, brutal scar that ran down the side of it was standing out white against his flushed skin.

Good , let him see the beast they made me in all its glory.

Clyde’s wizened face blanched as he looked at Conall, and the man took several steps back, increasing the distance between them.

“The wee ones of our clan are dyin’,” Conall hissed, bringing his hulking form closer to the man. “They need a healer. Ye wouldnae be helpin’ me; ye would be helpin’ them. Are ye truly such a spineless, snivelin’ coward that ye would curse bairns to die for the sins of their Laird?”

Conall couldn’t stop the hope that bubbled up inside him as the man cowered before him. But that hope was quickly dashed when Clyde began to shake his head again.

“I’m sorry,” the healer stuttered over his words, face as white as the sparse hairs jutting out of his head. “But I cannae help ye.”

Conall fought the urge to send his fist flying into the man’s face before him. But he knew that that wouldn’t help his cause. Not in the slightest.

He stamped down that urge, that need for violence, as he turned on his heels and stormed out of the house.

There had been two healers left that he hadn’t yet spoken to when he’d left Kate that morning. Clyde had been the second, and both men had been adamant in their rejection despite their fear of the Laird of the MacKinnon clan showing with every tremble of their limbs.

Eliot’s eyes darted up from where he sat atop his horse, holding the reins of Conall’s stallion. The man-at-arms could read the emotions on his friend’s face immediately, and Eliot shook his head as he processed the truth of what had happened.

Conall snatched the reins from Eliot’s hand, wordless in his rage, as he threw his legs over his horse’s back and settled himself in the saddle. A thousand thoughts rushed through his mind, all too quickly for him to fully flesh out.

“What do ye plan to do next?” Eliot asked, his brow creasing with worry as they both spurred their horses into a mild trot.

Conall shook his head, the thoughts slowing until they died down to only one. He hated the idea of it, hated the fact that with Clyde’s rejection, he was now down to his last resort.

He turned his attention to Eliot, knowing for sure that the moment he uttered the words, his man-at-arms was going to think his Laird’s mind had been addled.

Just get on with it.

Conall took a deep, steeling breath and uttered the words. He didn’t miss how his friend blanched as he spoke the words fell from his lips, and Conall truly couldn’t blame him.

Not as the words “we’re goin’ find the witch of the woods” seemed to still flicker in the air around them.