Heart of a Highlander Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Other books by Collette Cameron

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  HEART OF A HIGHLANDER

  About the Author

  Also by Collette Cameron

  From the desk of Collette Cameron

  HEART OF A HIGHLANDER

  A Regency Novelette

  By

  Collette Cameron

  Blue Rose Romance

  in cooperation with Windtree Press

  Portland, Oregon

  Copyright © 2015 by Collette Cameron

  eBook ISBN 9781942368250

  Cover Design: Sheri McGrath

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, place, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any ressemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Please respect the hard work of this author and legally purchase a copy of this book. Unless the author has authorized a promotion through a reputable distributor, sites offering this work for free or for a reduced cost are pirating sites. Such sites are guilty of theft and copyright infringement.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Blue Rose Romance

  8420 N Ivanhoe # 83054

  Portland, Oregon 97203

  www.collettecameron.com

  Other books by Collette Cameron

  Castle Brides Series

  The Viscount’s Vow (Book 1)

  Highlander’s Hope (Book 2)

  The Earl’s Enticement (Book 3)

  Highland Heather Romancing a Scot Series

  Triumph and Treasure (Book 1)

  Virtue and Valor (Book 2) June 2015

  Conundrums of the Misses Culpeppers

  Wagers Gone Awry (Book 1)

  A Regency Short Story

  A Kiss for Miss Kingsley

  A Regency Novella

  Bride of Falcon May 2015

  A Scottish Novelette

  Heart of a Highlander May 2015

  Dedication

  For sweethearts everywhere.

  Acknowledgements

  Heart of a Highlander is my shortest work so far, and in many ways was the hardest for me to write. Trying to pack an entire story into so few words and still satisfy readers is challenging!

  I would be remiss if I didn’t extend a mammoth thank you to Jessa Slade for her fabulous editing, Sheri McGrath for reading my mind and creating the cover I envisioned, and my all-star street team, Collette’s Chéris, for their willingness to support me, no matter what quirky thing I might come up with.

  Originally published as part of the Gifts from the Heart: An Anthology (Windtree Press) I decided to publish Heart of a Highlander by itself as a tribute to sweethearts everywhere.

  HEART OF A HIGHLANDER

  Craiglocky Keep, Highlands Scotland

  February 1794

  “There, the last scraggly one.”

  Sitting on her heels, Giselle McTavish dropped a weed atop the small pile beside her. A blast of icy wind whipped off her hood. Shivering, she tugged the covering over her head once more.

  After wrapping the woolen cloak tighter around her, she inspected the grave she’d just tidied. There hadn’t been much to remove in the dead of winter and the ground marble hard. Still, she couldn’t ignore the routine she’d established three years ago.

  The newest in the graveyard, this frigid resting place belonged to Liam, her late husband. Somehow, keeping his grave immaculate helped preserve her memories of their time together; memories, that despite her best efforts, faded more each passing day like fragile fog caressed by the sun’s relentless rays.

  Her soul rebelled at the unfairness. Time ticked onward, robbing her of those precious and irreplaceable recollections, one by one.

  Honesty compelled Giselle to admit she’d adored Liam and would always treasure their love, but someone else had burrowed his way into her heart. . . . Though Hugh Ferguson remained ignorant of her feelings.

  Another powerful gust sent the nearby towering pines’ branches waving. The biting air stung her face and lungs.

  Would she ever get used to these harsh Highland winters?

  She blew a little puff of air upward to warm her face and flexed her stiff fingers. She’d lost one glove on the walk here, and the hand encased in leather fared little better. Her thick plaid cloak offered meager protection from the raw day. No doubt, her nose glowed as crimson as the tartan shrouding her.

  Despite the intrepid late-morning sun peeking between the grayish-pink clouds, a thick layer of frost lingered amongst the shadows and beneath the trees and shrubs. In the distance, white blanketed the craggy mountaintops.

  Giselle shivered again, clenching her teeth to stop their chattering. A cup of steaming tea and a bowl of cock-a-leekie soup would be most welcome upon returning to the keep. Eyeing the pewter clouds overhead, she sighed.

  Snow tonight, again, she’d wager, or she wasn’t French.

  Would Craiglocky’s Valentine celebration be cancelled? She almost hoped so, even if the wish seemed selfish. The only man to ever love her or call her sweetheart lay deep beneath the soil she kneeled upon.

  Collecting the sunny bouquet of winter-blooming jasmine she’d gathered earlier from within the keep’s walled garden, she pressed her nose into their velvetiness and inhaled. The yellow blossoms reminded her of her homeland.

  Tears misted her eyes, but she blinked them away. One escaped, its warmth trailing over her cold cheek. She swiftly wiped her face with the edge of her cloak lest her four-year-old son see her weep.

  With deliberate intent, she shook off her nostalgia. Craiglocky was home now, and would be until the day she died. As the next laird of Craiglocky, Ewan must be raised in Scotland, surrounded by his clan and kin.

  Five years ago, as a bride of seventeen, she’d left France bringing a jasmine start as a memento. The flowers’ mild essence and fragile beauty contrasted dramatically with the rugged, and often hostile, terrain of Scotland. Yet, the delicate plant proved hearty and resilient and had flourished in its new home.

  Rather like her.

  Her eyes closed and lips touching the soft petals, she whispered a short prayer. She sniffed the blossoms again before laying them atop the frozen ground covering Liam.

  A small sigh escaped her as she rose. She brushed her fingertips across his name carved in the cold, stone slab.

  Liam Jamie Kendrick McTavish, Ninth Laird of Craiglocky.

  Giselle pressed her fingers to her lips, and after kissing the freezing tips, caressed the stone’s face as she did each time she visited.

  A lover’s kiss across eternity.

  I miss you, Liam.

  A crossbill called from a pine shadowing the graveyard. Another answered and swooped to perch on an adjacent branch. The bird cocked its scarlet head, watching her, its tiny ebony eyes alert.

  Foolish birds.

  They should seek their warm, snug homes on such a hostile, wintry day. As should she and Ewan.

  She raised her gaze to the indigo loch edging one side of the meadow behind Craiglocky. Thousands of sun-made diamonds sparkled across its surface. Almost three years since they’d fished Liam’s frozen body from Loch Arkaig’s p
ristine waters.

  Wanting to die, too, she had somehow survived those first months. Her fierce love for her toddler son and the gentle support and encouragement of Liam’s family made it possible to endure life without him.

  She allowed a nascent smile to tilt her lips.

  At the time, she’d been too angry and wounded to admit the truth, but Hugh’s kindheartedness and devotion to Ewan had done much to ease her heartbreak. Without much effort, she could construe his attentiveness to something more, perhaps even affection.

  Nonetheless, months passed before she stopped hating Hugh and blaming him for Liam’s death.

  Yearning constricted her stomach.

  Non, hatred wasn’t what she felt toward Hugh anymore.

  Raven haired with coffee-brown eyes, regal features, and a charmer’s smile, he possessed a warrior’s sculpted build and caused many a Scotswomen to sigh in appreciation.

  And a French one, as well.

  A flush swept her, and the accompanying heat couldn’t be blamed on guilt for admiring a man other than her husband or the sun’s feeble rays.

  Zut! You’re a respectable widow, the mother of the next laird of Craiglocky. Stop behaving like an inexperienced schoolgirl.

  With a final glance at the glistening loch, Giselle faced the cemetery and tucked her hands within the cloak’s heavy folds.

  “Ewan?” Shoving her hood back, she searched amongst the weather-worn grave markings for her son. Many of the ancient, ornate stones stood taller than him.

  “Where are you, petit?”

  He couldn’t have wandered far. Except where a rusty, scrolled, iron gate stood closed to wildlife and livestock, a chest high dry stone wall hemmed the family’s knoll-top cemetery.

  “Ewan?”

  “Over here, Maman.”

  Wrapped in a plaid, a matching Tam O’Shanter atop his head, he stood before an elaborate cross-topped, stone pedestal engraved with a badger. His eyes, a vibrant turquoise inherited from her, gazed at her solemnly.

  Such a serious lad. So unlike his jovial, light-hearted father. . . . Or Hugh.

  Cessez à l'instant, Giselle McTavish. Stop mooning about Hugh Ferguson.

  What kind of woman entertained thoughts of another man while visiting her husband’s grave?

  A wicked, wanton one.

  Besides, Hugh had never indicated an awareness of her beyond innocent friendship.

  Giselle pointedly turned her ruminations to Ewan and gave him a smile.

  “Whose grave is that, mon chéri?”

  The wind tugged rudely at her cloak and skirts as she joined him before the marking. Encircling his thin frame from behind, she buffered him from the brutal weather.

  “Eh bien, that’s Hamish McTavish, The Badger, your three times great-grandfather. It’s his portrait hanging above the armor in the keep’s entry. Rather a somber Scotsman, non?”

  Ewan tilted his head upward, his nose and cheeks rosy from the cold. “Aye. I dinna think he ever smiled. Do ye suppose he feared his face might crack if he did?”

  He clapped a gloved hand over his mouth and giggled.

  There was Liam’s humor.

  Giselle chuckled and hugged him. “Well, chéri, a laird’s life is often difficult.”

  As he would learn soon enough. Oh, to be able to protect him from that responsibility for many more years.

  Ewan scratched his nose, the course woolen mittens leaving the tip even redder. “Are ye done weeding Father’s grave? Sir Hugh promised to take me trout fishing.”

  “Today?” Giselle scrutinized the loch once more.

  A frisson of fear seized her.

  Hugh had taught Ewan to swim. Nonetheless, in winter, the water’s frigid temperature proved just as dangerous as drowning.

  The loch had already claimed one of her loved ones, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t completely dispel her dread.

  She squared her shoulders and squelched her disquiet. Her son needed a man’s guidance, and she could ask for none better than Hugh, except perhaps, Duncan McTavish, Liam’s brother. Both men treated Ewan like their own son.

  Ewan grinned, excitement lighting his slender features. “And he taught me how to skip stones on the water’s surface the other day. Ye ought to come, Maman. Sorcha could pack us food. Maybe some shortbread?”

  A picnic in February? Mon Dieu, what a little adventurer. They’d die from exposure. Even as she spoke, snowflakes, wet and large, sifted from the sky. Fishing and an outdoor picnic would have to wait for another day.

  She forced a smile, hating to disappoint him. “I’d like a picnic, except it’s snowing. Perhaps we can eat on a blanket before the library’s fire instead?”

  He stuck his tongue out and caught a fluffy flake. “Ye’ll ask Sorcha for shortbread and maybe Scotch pies?”

  Ewan peered at her, innocent eagerness in his sea-colored eyes.

  “Oui, chéri.” She kissed his cold nose and clasped his small hand. “All the shortbread and Scotch pies you can eat. Perhaps hot cocoa topped with Devonshire cream, too.”

  “Aye, please, Maman!” Grinning, Ewan clutched her thighs and jumped up and down. His cap flopped forward, covering his eyes.

  “Careful, petit. You’ll tumble us both.” She pushed his tam into place. “Let’s go see Cook, shall we?”

  She cast a worried glance skyward. The clouds had deepened to slate, and snow fell heavily. They needed to make haste. Even in good weather, the castle lay a good fifteen-minute walk along a tapered track.

  “Be ye sharing yer pasties, young laddie?”

  Giselle started and spun around, her cloak swirling about her ankles. Her pulse raced on tense little feet.

  A roguish grin on his handsome face, Hugh rested a broad shoulder against one of the rock pillars supporting the gate.

  Her missing glove dangled from his fingertips.

  “You startled me, Hugh.”

  Hand at her throat, Giselle drank him in. Her irregular heartbeat couldn’t be blamed solely on surprise. Mon Dieu, no man should be so disturbingly attractive. Mortal females simply didn’t have the ability to resist such chiseled, male perfection.

  * * *

  Hugh straightened and swung the gate open for Giselle and Ewan. The metal scraped and creaked, loudly protesting the cold. He smiled as she encouraged her son to hurry in his direction.

  Laughing, Ewan wove his way amongst the headstones, his small legs churning as he dashed to the gate.

  Hugh had seen the quiet prayer she whispered over Liam’s grave. Saw her tears as well, devil it. What would it be like to have a woman love him with such devotion?

  Nae, what would it be like to have Giselle adore him?

  He’d worshiped her almost from the moment Liam returned from a visit to France surprising everyone at Craiglocky with his exquisite, young bride.

  It mattered naught.

  Hugh’s feelings would stay concealed and locked within his heart. He’d loved Liam like the brother Hugh had never had, and his friend’s death had devastated him.

  What torture it had been these past years, loving her with his every breath, seeing her daily, watching her care for her son and embracing the Highland way of life despite her loneliness and the loss of her beloved husband. And yet, Hugh never dared to breathe a whisper of what he kept hidden behind a facade of brotherly affection.

  Besides, months had passed before Giselle spoke more than a word or two to him after Liam’s death. She’d blamed him for killing her husband and had avoided him like a sore-laden leper.

  He squeezed his eyes shut.

  God help him, he’d suggested the curling tournament. The loch had frozen over for the first time in twelve years. They’d been checking the ice’s thickness in the loch’s center when it gave way, plunging Liam and him into the glacial water.

  He managed to climb out.

  Liam didn’t follow.

  Hugh jumped back in and found Liam wedged beneath the ice, six feet from the opening.

 
He’d hit his head when the ice collapsed. Knocked unconscious, Liam had quickly drowned.

  Nearly drowning himself, Hugh battled lung fever for weeks afterward. Guilt and regret did much to cool his amorous feelings, which he determined, he’d never reveal, not even if the Prince Regent danced naked along the streets of Edinburgh.

  “Hugh!” Ewan sprinted through the gate’s opening, his small arms reaching upward.

  Hugh tucked the glove into his belt, then hoisted the laughing child onto his shoulder.

  “There ye be, lad. Keep yer eyes sharp and tell me if ye spy anything amiss. It’s a knight’s duty to see to the protection of the chieftainess.”

  “Aye.” Ewan gripped Hugh’s head and shoulder and peered from side to side. “I want to be a knight, just like ye, when I grow up.”

  Hugh allowed himself a leisurely examination of Giselle as she approached. Such perfection of form and features belonged in heaven amid the rest of the angelic beings.

  Gazing up at her son, she smiled and patted his knee. “Non, mon amour, you will be—are—Craiglocky’s laird. However, you are wise to think a knight is the most noble of professions.”

  Chest puffed out, Hugh gave an exaggerated theatrical wave. “Aye, we knights be fierce and brave and chivalrous and—”

  “Loyal.” Ewan squirmed on Hugh’s shoulder. “Knights always be loyal.”

  “Aye, they be, laddie.”

  Giselle straightened Ewan’s coat, a wry smile quirking her pretty mouth. “Don’t forget humble and modest . . .”

  She sent Hugh a swift, unreadable glance before returning her attention to her son.

  Her hood slipped backward and exposed her features.

  Extraordinary turquoise eyes, framed by lashes so thick, he wondered how she raised her eyelids, twinkled with affection. Her high cheeks and full lips, glowing from the cold, contrasted with her creamy skin. The wind ruffled the silky, chestnut curls framing her oval face.