Only a highlander will d.., p.1
Only a Highlander Will Do, page 1
Only a Highlander Will Do
A Guardians of the Isles Romance
Gerri Russell
Only a Highlander Will Do
Copyright© 2022 Gerri Russell
EPUB Edition
The Tule Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
First Publication by Tule Publishing 2022
Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-956387-58-2
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Dedication
To my publishing and editorial team at Tule Publishing:
Jane, Meghan, Sinclair, Nikki, Cyndi, Lee, Beth, Helena, and Marlene, working with you is a constant source of joy and pride. Thank you for everything you do for me and all of Tule’s readers.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Author’s Note
Guardians of the Isles series
More books by Gerri Russell
About the Author
Prologue
Dunvegan Castle, Scotland
Friday, October 22nd, 1742
A lone horse and rider galloped at breakneck speed towards the castle gates. From high on the north tower of Dunvegan Castle, Tormod MacLeod watched the approach, waiting until the pair were a little closer to see if he could identify his brother, Orrick. Or if the rider was someone else.
That there wasn’t an army behind the rider eased some of the tension in Tormod’s shoulders. The MacDonald clan would not attack Dunvegan this morning. Each day since Tormod had led an attack on the MacDonalds after what the clan did to Gwendolyn, his brother’s wife, Tormod’s anxiety built, and he wondered when or if their enemy would retaliate. For three hundred years the pattern of strike and retaliation remained unbroken, with neither side willing to put an end to their feud.
As the rider approached the gate, Tormod signalled for the gatekeeper to raise the portcullis. Tormod was in the courtyard by the time the rider entered and came to a sudden halt. “What news have you?”
The young man drew in a ragged breath. “Dunvegan village. It is under attack.” He paused to draw another breath. “’Tis the MacDonalds. They are slaughtering everyone.”
His worst fear had come true. “A call to arms!” Tormod shouted to the guards nearby.
Men and horses filled the courtyard. The MacLeods had prepared for this moment in the past few weeks. Alastair, the laird, appeared on his big, red stallion, leading Tormod’s black charger by the reins. “The MacDonalds?”
“Aye.” Tormod swung up onto Midnight’s back. “Orrick is there.”
“Our brother is a formidable opponent,” Alastair said as though trying to convince himself.
The two brothers hurried through the castle gates with fifty heavily armed men. Free from the enclosed space, they pressed their horses into a run as they headed south towards the village.
Tormod’s body tensed, his gaze seeking out the village in the distance. Orrick was formidable, aye. But how could he fend off an entire army himself? God’s blood! Tormod hadn’t seen it before, but now he could make out a hazy greyness in the sky that indicated fire.
Even at a full gallop, it would take them ten minutes to make it to the village. Would anyone be alive when they arrived? Would Orrick? Tormod swallowed against the tightness in his throat. He couldn’t think that way. Orrick was resourceful. If there was a way to survive, his brother would find it.
“Nearly there,” Tormod said from between his teeth as they neared a rise in the road. Instantly, the whisper of frantic voices came to his ears.
He urged his horse to a faster pace, racing over the rise and down into the village below. The scene before him became merely a blur of images—spirals of smoke, charred remnants of wood where houses used to stand, motionless bodies upon the ground, while others in singed clothing wandered in states of dazed confusion amongst the ruins of the village.
The MacDonalds were no longer in sight. The villainous clan had attacked, then departed before the MacLeods arrived to exact revenge. Tormod’s stomach roiled at the scent of burning wood and human flesh. A wrenching sadness mixed with his rage as he gazed at the ruins.
Bringing his horse to a stop, he dismounted beside a mother and her two children who had been struck down. A finger laid against their throats confirmed what Tormod already knew. They were dead. “When will this madness end?”
Alastair slid off his horse and came to stand beside his brother. “It could end with us if we pursued peace.”
Tormod’s gaze flew to his brother’s. “Death and chaos are all around us, and you can honestly talk of peace?”
“How many more will die if we do not?” Alastair asked softly, knowing the two brothers had very different approaches when it came to dealing with their enemies.
Tormod turned away and strode into the midst of the village. “We must find Orrick and Mrs Honey. Only then might I entertain such a thought. But not likely.”
Tormod clenched his jaw. Alastair had put Tormod in charge of the castle’s defences—but that protection also extended to the surrounding villages. He’d been kept so busy at the castle with too many fires to put out that he hadn’t considered the villages. He’d failed these villagers. All of them.
The smell of earth mingled with the tang of the blood that had been spilt this day. Unable to restrain the pain and rage spiralling within, Tormod released an inhuman sound that reverberated through the village. When the sound died down and the edge of his pain subsided, the voices he had heard upon their arrival grew louder. He followed the sound to a group of men who stood beside a burning cottage.
At his and Alastair’s approach, two bedraggled men with soot on their faces spun towards them, their swords drawn. “Who are you?”
Unafraid despite their weapons, Tormod continued forward, his hands open at his sides in a motion of peace. “Tormod and Alastair MacLeod of the clan MacLeod.” Tormod nodded towards his brother. “We mean you no harm.”
Instead of relaxing, the men’s stances became more rigid and their gazes moved beyond where Tormod and Alastair stood. The sound of hoofbeats thundered.
Tormod twisted around, his sword drawn, ready to attack until he saw who approached. It was his brother, Orrick, with a limp and unresponsive Mrs Honey cradled in his arms. The gash at her temple indicated she had been injured, but Orrick appeared unharmed. “Praise heaven, you are safe,” Tormod said as his brother drew near. “Were the MacDonalds behind this attack?”
Orrick nodded. “They gave no warning as many of the villagers went about their daily lives.” He clutched Mrs Honey to his chest. “Of the forty-three villagers, I estimate nearly half are dead. The rest are injured, and certainly without homes.”
“We will take them all back to the castle with us,” Alastair said. “They will be safe there.”
“Are these men MacLeods?” one of the younger men before them asked Orrick.
He nodded once more. “They are my brothers.”
With solemn faces, Tormod and the two other men lowered their swords and returned them to their scabbards. “We’d heard the new laird had come home weeks ago.” The oldest amongst them turned an angry gaze on Alastair. “We’d hoped yer return would mean a time of prosperity fer us, nae destruction and death.”
“What happened here today is a tragedy,” Alastair said, his voice hard. “I am so very sorry for the loss of all those who died this day. What happened here will never happen under my watch again, I promise you.”
The older man’s face squeezed as if in pain. “Yer pretty words will nae bring any of them back tae us.”
Alastair touched the man’s arm in a gesture of caring. “Justice will come in time. Right now, we must bury the dead. Those who still live will be provided with any medical attention that is necessary, and a means to move forward with their lives.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “And what of revenge?”
“Revenge has never resurrected the dead, and it will never solve the problem.”
“Then what do ye suggest?” the eldest villager asked.
Alastair’s eyes narrowed. “That we take care of this current crisis before we start another. As your laird and protector I will see this never happens to the MacLeod clan or anyone associated with it again.”
The old man’s bravado vanished, his face paled, and he took a step back as if he suddenly remembered who he challenged. “As ye will, m’laird.”
The tension in Alastair’s stance relaxed, but not for Tormod. As the cries of the villagers mixed with the pop and sizzle of the burning structures, Tormod’s right hand tightened against his thigh. There would be revenge for the MacLeod clan and soon, if he had anything to say about the matter. And since Alastair, the appointed heir, had put Tormod in charge of the defences of the castle and her people, he had quite a lot to say about what happened next.
He could wait until they helped those in the village find shelter at Dunvegan Castle, but once that task was complete, nothing would stop him from seeking revenge upon the MacDonalds, as the MacLeods had done for centuries.
Chapter One
Ulster Castle, Scotland
Sunday, October 24th, 1742
Fiona Fraser sat on a stone bench that was simply several rocks piled together of similar sizes to create a perch, tending the garden her father forbad her from growing. All her life she’d had a love affair with all growing things—whether weeds or cultivated flowers. They were all beautiful to her.
Young ladies of breeding do not sully their hands with soil. You have servants to attend you. Let them grow whatever you like, but stay out of the dirt.
It was just one of his many rules followed by the typical chastisement her father foisted upon his only child. Why couldn’t she have been born a son? Then she could do whatever she wanted, and her father would have been a happier man. Instead, he worried, night and day, about every little thing. It was the reason Fiona sought out her private refuge. To escape her father’s anxiety for even a short while.
Fiona tipped her face up to greet the morning sunshine and smiled. The warmth of the sun and the secretive whispers of the breeze through the stalks of the wild flowers at her feet brought a sense of tranquillity. Here in her wild and untamed garden, the days were long and lazy, and the nights painted with starlight, fragrant with the scent of wild roses and heather.
Since she was alone and had every intention of remaining so for the foreseeable future, Fiona reached up and tugged at the wide ivory combs that kept her hair in a restrictive knot at the nape of her neck. She shook the thick red cascade free and ran her fingers through the curls. Free and unrestrained. That was how she wished she could live her life, but her father had other plans for his daughter.
Fiona felt her smile lessen as she stood and walked back into the centre of her garden, kneeling once more amongst the wild flowers. With her spade in hand, she rid the soil of the grass growing near a clump of wild radish, and nurtured the long vines of common vetch to climb on a small trellis she’d built herself from scraps of wood and twine that had been discarded around the crumbling castle where she and her father lived.
They had no funds with which to renew the ramshackle ruin of Ulster Castle, nor had their ancestors. They were the only branch of the Fraser clan remaining on the Isle of Skye and had no great wealth or warriors to protect them. It was only their tentative alliance with the MacDonald clan that kept them from being taken over by their neighbouring clans—the Nicolsons and the MacLeods.
Even if their situation wasn’t ideal, Fiona tried her best to make the castle liveable by keeping the furnishings in good condition, the draperies repaired, and the tapestries from being eaten by moths with carefully placed sachets of dried herbs and wild flowers. And despite her father’s rules and worry, the few servants they had were devoted to her and kept her company. Even so, there was always an emptiness inside her. She longed for a friend to share her own thoughts and feelings. Fiona shook away the thought. She had no time for such trivial things. There was very little time in her day left for friendship after taking care of Ulster Castle and her little garden.
Ulster Castle meant everything to her, even though it would never truly be hers. Once she married it would become the eventual property of her husband. Yet she never let that irritating fact dampen her love of each and every reddish-brown stone. She knew the history of Ulster Castle as well as she knew her own. The castle was first a fortified site that was developed into the early origins of the castle in the thirteenth century, complete with a moat that had been filled in a century ago and the curtain walls removed once cannons made the defences obsolete. The stones from the walls had been used by the ninth laird to build the small dower house where she, her father, and their three servants lived.
Fiona gathered stems of wood sage and sheep’s sorrel to create a bouquet she would take back to her home. She’d been gone over an hour, and soon her father would come looking for her—though she doubted he would ever look for her in the ruins of the shell keep that was right next door. Without a roof, the castle ruin was the perfect place for her to grow her flowers. They got enough rainfall through the open ceiling, and without shutters in place the wind could still tempt them to grow strong, but here amongst the confines of the castle walls meant the sheep could not graze upon them as they searched for new sources of food to fatten their bellies.
Before she left, she had one final task to accomplish. She knelt before a patch of purple-, white-, and yellow-headed wild pansies and plucked several along with their stems. She carefully wove them into a small wreath, then sitting back on her heels, she smiled down at her handiwork. Twisting to her left, she set the wreath inside a ring of mushrooms that had sprung up overnight.
Every time she visited her garden she made a gift for the fairies. Mrs Bagley, their cook and Fiona’s nanny while growing up, had told her stories all her life about fairies—about their kindness, mischievousness, and villainy.
Fiona preferred to believe fairies were not evil, but good. Thoughts of their world entertained her when she was lonely, and even though she had never seen a fairy herself, she believed in their existence with her whole heart. She saw their existence in every blossom of her flowers. In the way the moss grew on the northern side of trees, grounding her in her location. She felt their presence in the softness of the rain as it fell to the earth.
She did not need to see them to believe in them. Returning her thoughts to the present, Fiona nestled the ring of flowers atop the mushrooms, then reached for a little bell she kept in her basket. A tiny tinkling sound came from the decoration as she set it in the centre of the flower ring. She hoped the fairies would like the shiny bell and the cheerful sound it produced.
A fairy circle could be a dangerous place or, conversely, it could bring good fortune. Fiona hoped her gift to the fairies who created the ring of mushrooms might shift their favour towards the latter. More than ever, she needed luck to smile upon her since her father had been acting very secretively as of late.
Knowing she could delay no longer, Fiona twisted her hair back into a knot and slid the combs in place. She tucked her spade back into her basket, which she kept hidden nearby, then stood and dusted the dirt from her hands on the skirt of her simple and unadorned muslin gown. The gown had once been her mother’s, but that was what Fiona liked about it; wearing the garment kept her mother’s memory close to her. She allowed herself a sentimental smile as she made her way through the heavy wooden door that used to be the entrance to the castle and exited into what must have been a splendid courtyard at one time.
Her smile slipped at the sight of her father’s herd of sheep, their only source of income, grazing on the grass that grew around the ancient stones of Ulster Castle. Fiona sighed. How she would love to restore the castle to its original glory. Perhaps in time, if her father selected her a husband with a similar temperament to herself.
She hoped to marry a peaceful man who loved a simpler life. A man who was interested in preserving their Scottish heritage and staying far away from the political tension that grew between the isle’s clans each and every day. He would be a gentle man, who smiled easily, laughed often, and gave his wife the freedoms she desired.
