Highland Jewel (Highland Brides) Read online

  Highland Jewel

  by

  Lois Greiman

  Copyright © 1994 by Lois Greiman

  To the Dream Team—

  Cary, Jane, Nellie, Nora, Sharon, and Susan,

  who help me celebrate the joys,

  mourn the disappointments,

  and believe in the dream.

  Chapter 1

  The Year of Our Lord 1491 St. Mary’s Abbey, England

  The grave marker was hewn from quarried stone. Arched at the center, it was slightly tilted and infested with gray-green lichen that shadowed its surface like the untended beard on a warrior’s craggy face.

  The tombstone beside it showed little variance from the first and although Leith Forbes had no need to read the inscription, he did so nevertheless, feeling a dull ache of pain at the knowledge of the child’s passing.

  Touching the etched words for a moment, he tightened his jaw before expelling his breath and settling back onto his heels. He’d traveled a long and winding course to come to this spot, had left his kinsmen and home for a quest that granted no more than a view of this weathered tombstone and a sympathetic word from a holy woman.

  Leith clenched his hands about the small bundle of tartan the abbess had given him.

  “For you,” she’d said simply. “Perhaps it will lighten your old lord’s sorrow some small whit.”

  But it would not, of course. Only the girl could ease their troubles—only the girl, live and whole.

  Leith dug his fingers into the soft baby’s blanket. It was red and blue plaid, barely large enough to cover Beirut’s saddle, and inside the woolen was the brooch with its amethyst jewel set into the unmistakable double-knotted scroll of the MacAulay clan.

  It was the brooch the MacAulay had given his lovely English bride. The brooch she had taken with her when she’d fled Scotland with her infant child.

  A single obscenity slipped from Leith’s lips. He rose abruptly. Perhaps it was unseemly to curse on hallowed soil. But sweet Jesu, he had endured much—only to find that both mother and child had died seventeen years earlier, before the lass’ first birthday.

  Damn it to hell! He clenched his fists again. Damn Elizabeth MacAulay, he cursed silently, then rubbed a hand across eyes smarting with the dry pain of disillusionment.

  Turning stiffly, he strode a short distance away.

  Blue-petaled harebells grew in scattered clusters, and he paced to the nearest, plucking a few to grip them in calloused hands and stare at their incongruous cheerfulness.

  Damn Ian MacAulay, the wily old bastard who had sent him on this quest, promising his own daughter as Leith’s wife, promising peace between the clans. Damn the hot Scottish blood that flowed in his people’s veins.

  And damn himself for failing them!

  Turning back, Leith walked slowly to the child’s grave and bent, gently laying the blossoms before the mossy stone.

  “I canna blame ye for yer own death, wee one,” he murmured grittily, “but I would that ye had lived.” For a moment his shoulders slumped with the weight of heavy responsibility. “Betwixt us two,” he added, touching the grave marker reverently, “we could have vexed yer sire greatly.”

  He remained a moment longer, but straightened finally. It would do no good to mourn a babe who had died long ago, a babe he had never met. And yet the thought of a true-born Scot dying far from her homeland wrenched his soul. None should endure such a fate.

  And neither should he tarry here. Hardly did England welcome its Scottish neighbors with open arms. Even with King James IV’s efforts for peace between the countries, it was unsafe. James was a new king, a better king, striving to improve the lives of his countrymen—even the lives of the Highlanders. Indeed, he spoke the Gaelic, a fact that set him apart from the former monarchs, a fact that made Leith believe now was the time to press for peace, to join efforts with the king himself to create a difference in his Highland clan.

  Turning his face from the gravesite, Leith noticed the pink-stained sky on the western horizon. There would be little enough daylight left to travel by. They should leave immediately, yet he felt some indefinable urge to remain for a time, perhaps indeed to mourn the passing of the babe who might have spared much bloodshed.

  Walking down the verdant slope, Leith allowed himself a moment without conscious thought, letting his weary muscles relax. It was warm and still beneath the shelter of the trees and he drew a heavy breath, noticing for the first time the fresh green of spring.

  Birds sounded their familiar cries—the flute-like whistle of a golden oriole, the penetrating call of a nuthatch issuing from dense upper branches. The slope became steeper and a lochan appeared finally, the water of the small lake dark and waveless in the diminishing light.

  He rested here, settling wearily upon the weather-softened leaves to stare at the lochan below. It was a bonny spot, where he could well imagine he was yet in the Highlands, listening to his sister’s fair voice as she sang. Before her death, before the feud between the clan Forbes and the MacAulays.

  There had been a time when the two tribes had been united in spirit, when a Forbes need not fear for his life should he cross to MacAulay soil, but that peace was no more. It had been shattered by Eleanor’s death.

  Dear Jesu! Leith tightened his fists, letting his eyes fall closed as he remembered.

  He had harbored such hopes for this quest—had longed to right the wrongs, erase the pain. But there was no hope now.

  Long ago he had met the mother of the lost child. She had been English and new to the way of the Scots and the MacAulays. Even as a lad Leith had been left speechless by her beauty, awed by her regal demeanor. But there had been a sadness upon her, a melancholy he could sense and still recall.

  She had hated Scotland, hated the loneliness, hated the marriage that brought her there. And so she had escaped, finding her final resting place here.

  Would the daughter have felt the same? Would she have preferred death to Scotland? Or would she have been the bond needed to heal the hatred?

  It was dark when Leith awoke, and the air was still, like the muffled memory of a dream. Awareness shifted into his senses and he opened his eyes. The lochan below lapped quietly at its sandy shore, moving restlessly and glittering in silvered points of moonlight.

  It seemed a magical place, soothing somehow, but he had already spent too much time here.

  A movement arrested Leith’s attention and he turned his gaze.

  It was a woman. Or was it? She was dressed in purest white and beside her was the sleek, dark shape of a…

  He shook his head tentatively, trying to clear his mind, but the scene did not change. Still the woman remained upon the sand, and at her side was a wildcat.

  Sweet Jesu, it could not be. Wildcats were not pets, but independent fighting beasts, revered for their strength and ferocity. Indeed, they were the very symbol of the Forbes.

  A noise issued from below, rumbling up from the sleek cat as the woman placed her hand gently to its head. Purring! Sweet Jesu, it was purring and rubbing close against its mistress’ robed leg.

  Leith felt the magic like the sizzling shock of nearby lightning.

  Never had he seen a bean-sith, but this must surely be one. In his youth he had heard many tales of the fairy people. Long had it been since he had hoped to view one in the flesh.

  She spoke.

  He could not hear her words, for they were meant for the cat. Her tone was soft and melodious, like a dove’s dulcet cry through the fog of morn. Leith straightened slightly, letting the magic sear his senses as he endeavored to see more clearly through the foliage before him.

  The moon had slipped above the uppermost branches of the trees, cast
ing its gilding light upon the unearthly creatures by the lochan. He saw the fairy lift her robes. Her feet and legs were pale and bare, shapely and mesmerizing as she touched her toes to the water.

  Cold! It would be cold as winter on a windswept mountain, Leith surmised. Yet the figure did not draw immediately away but walked for a while through the water, lifting her robes high enough to expose her knees and a scant few inches of lovely thighs, and beside her, through the glassy liquid moved the cat.

  A fairy woman and her familiar. Eerie and frightening. Yet Leith was not frightened, for the magic seemed to surround him too. He clenched his fists, feeling an instinctive desire as old as time. Indeed she was of the fairy folk for she drew at his senses, seeming to wrestle his will from him. Need reared its insistent head. Too long had he thought of naught but his people, too long had he neglected that which made him man.

  Not drawing his eyes from the gilded fairy, he sat silently upright. Little more than ten strides separated them, but the distance was crowded with leaves and bracken and she failed to notice for she spoke to her familiar and raised her hand.

  The cat lifted its head, listening, and then it was off, bounding through the water to disappear into the darkness.

  Stepping from the silvered lochan, the fairy looked quickly about. With one smooth motion she pulled the wimple from her head. Masses of burnt-crimson hair cascaded down her back in wild abandon, catching light like moonbeams on rubies.

  Leith felt his breath catch in a hard knot. She was a celestial image, a picture of purest beauty, and he half-expected her to be joined there by a unicorn of ivory hue and deep-chested power.

  The rope about her waist fell away. Her hands lifted.

  Sweet Jesu! Leith’s heart seemed to still in his chest. Naked, she stood upon the silken sand—like a goddess revealed to him alone.

  Hard need gripped him with sudden urgency. Primitive yearning twisted like a well-placed dirk in his gut.

  She was as straight as a reed, as supple as a sapling, caressed by hip-length hair and illumined by enchanted moonbeams. Shadow and light limned her delicate form, hiding and enhancing. Her back lay like a smooth glen that sloped down to the curve of twin hillocks, and when she turned he saw the sister peaks of her taut breasts.

  She was a supernatural being, but did legend not say that the Highlander had sprung from matings with such creatures in the dawn before time? ‘Twas an honored tradition, said his unconscious mind.

  She stretched, lifting her slender arms toward the moon, reveling in its magical light. Inviting him to come to her?

  Yes. Of course. In all his six and score years he had never been granted a view of a fairy. But now, at his darkest hour, she was revealed to him. It was destiny. On some primal level he felt her call to him, entreating him. Begging him to take her. As one in a trance he rose. She held his future in her magical hands and he had been led here to join with mis mystical being—to let her cure the ills of his clan, to heal the wounds that he could not.

  Aye! She was the answer.

  He stepped forward, drawn by invisible bonds.

  A branch scraped against Leith’s doublet, causing the fairy to lift her face. It was pale as moonlight in the darkness; her gasp was sharp and startled.

  Do not fear, Leith wished to tell her, for he would not harm her. Destiny moved him, drawing him onward, but a snarl from behind him jerked at his attention.

  He tried to push the sound from his mind, to concentrate on the fairy, but the snarl sounded again, closer now and more deadly.

  In one swift movement he turned, dropping a hand to the bone handle of the dirk at his side.

  A dark shadow crouched not far away. It snarled again, its fangs just visible in the darkness. Leith steadied his stance, gripping his weapon, every sense focused on the battle he would wage for the fairy goddess.

  But from below a rustling noise brushed up from the sand of the lochan and running feet pattered speedily away. The dark shadow of the cat rose, twitched, and was gone, like nothing more substantial than the furtive whisper of a frightful dream.

  Drawing a deep breath, Leith forced his muscles to relax and turned slowly. The fairy was no longer there.

  On the pale, crescent stretch of beach, footprints were frosted onto the sand. Near the water’s edge the glitter of metal caught Leith’s eye. Pacing to it, he squatted. Finding a coarse chain, he scowled, lifting it slowly to let it drift through his fingers until he felt the rough wood of a small cross bound in brass wire.

  “Sweet Jesu!” He whispered the words aloud, his gaze caught fast on that humble symbol of Christianity. It was the distinctive cross he had seen on the ladies of Saint Mary’s Abbey, the cross each of them had worn about their necks.

  Leith’s gaze lifted to follow the gilded footprints.

  So the enchantress was not a fairy.

  She was a nun!

  Chapter 2

  God’s toenails! Bloody hell! Damnation! Rose Gunther sank silently to her knees. After she’d spent half a night in open-eyed terror, the day had been no better. Pure fatigue had made her late for morning prayer. Pure terror had stretched her nerves to the breaking point.

  Beside her, eleven pious women prayed in silent devotion. Rose prayed in abject desperation!

  How had she lost the cross of St. Mary’s Abbey? And why in heaven’s name hadn’t she noticed it right off? Not that she could have returned to the lake anyway. For what if her instincts had been true? What if a stranger had indeed been lurking in the dark woods—watching her shameful disrobing?

  And what of her dreams? What of the dark, masculine figure that had haunted her sleep? He had seemed so real. So close. So disturbing and yet alluring, like a forbidden fruit.

  She shivered, wondering at the eerie feelings that had invaded her peace. Had those frightening moments on the beach been no more than a product of her too-vivid imagination? But no—Silken had snarled as he always did if a stranger approached. The wildcat had been waiting by the lake, almost seeming to know she would come. But of course he could not know. She had not even known herself. Probably Silken spent many nights by the lake and it had been mere coincidence that brought them there together. Whatever the reason, it had been so very good to see the cat again and ever so lucky for her that he had warned her of another’s presence.

  But what now? Even if, by some miracle, the abbess didn’t notice her loss, someone was bound to find the cross. What would happen when the goose girl wandered along the lakeshore, as she was wont to do, and found a fat gander pecking irreverently at the wooden cross bound with brass wire? What then?

  It would be a simple matter of elimination. What lady of St. Mary’s was missing her cross? And why had it been found taking a dip in the cold water of the nearby lake?

  Why indeed?

  She should have stayed safely within the confines of the stone walls, should have spent her time in fasting and prayer. Rose opened her eyes to narrow slits, studying Mary Catherine, who had a strange habit of swaying back and forth as she prayed. Her rosary hung securely by her hip and upon her sturdy chest rested the unique cross of their order.

  Rose bit her lip, remembering her Uncle Peter’s amazing sleight of hand. He could have whisked that chain from Mary Katherine’s neck without…

  God help her! Rose crossed herself with speedy desperation. She was devil’s bait. That’s what she was. Considering pinching a sister’s cross! It was scandalous. Still… She slitted her eyes again, watching the little cross sway seductively with Mary Katherine’s movement.

  But surely the theft of a cross would be frowned upon, both in heaven and here in their humble abbey, for in truth the Lady Abbess had yet to forgive Rose for her sojourn onto the roof. It had been a harmless little jaunt really, though perhaps she should not have tried to scale the side of the abbey, even though the squirrel had ventured down that way. The animal had been the most peculiar color—almost white with just a patch of red in the center of its chest. It had sorely piqued her curiosity a
nd she had seen no harm in investigating such a unique creature.

  She’d been within arm’s length of the pale squirrel when she’d lost her grip on the crumbling stone and fallen—smack into the shaded kitchen garden. Sister Ruth had shrieked in the most high-pitched tone imaginable. Sister Frances had fainted dead away.

  In truth it had been the most excitement they’d seen in years. They should have thanked her for the diversion. Instead, she’d been sent to her cell with no supper.

  Rose’s stomach rumbled at the memory. She bit her lip again. If her cross was found by the lake, she’d be lucky to be allowed so much as a whiff of food between now and the Lord’s next coming.

  She’d have to find the cross and pay penance for her shameful behavior. After all, she’d promised her mother on her deathbed that she’d become a nun. And God damn it—Father forgive her—that’s what she’d do.

  She’d be a model of decorum, stay discreetly out of the way, and hope the good Lord would have mercy on her, a pitifully poor sinner. But why hadn’t the Lady Abbess chastised her for her tardiness to morning prayer? And how had she failed to notice the absence of her cross?

  There were visitors in the village, Rose knew— two large men on fine, powerful steeds. They’d spoken to the abbess. Perhaps they’d kept the lady’s mind too occupied for her to consider Rose’s less-than-exemplary conduct. Perhaps it was the divine providence of God.

  That was it. The good Lord had taken note of her earnest attempts at pious devotion and was about to give her the opportunity to retrieve her cross without the abbess’ knowledge of any wrongdoing.

  Rose said a sincere prayer of thanksgiving.

  It would be simple enough. She’d slip out her window after they’d been sent to the isolation of their cells. It would take her only a moment to scale the wall and not much longer to vault the outer enclosure. She wouldn’t tarry by the lake as she so wished to do, but would come back straightaway.

  She scowled again, pulling her lower lip between her teeth. It was true that she’d promised the Lord never to sneak from the abbey again. But was it not also true that the Almighty knew her weaknesses? Therefore He must realize she would be unable to keep such a vow—for He knew all things.