Her Highlander's Lion Heart (Scottish Highlander Romance) Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2019 by Barbara Bard

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Her Highlander’s Lion Heart

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  The Extended Epilogue

  My Next Novel – A Preview

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Highlander’s Revenge -A Preview

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Be A Part of Barbara Bard’s Family

  Also by Barbara Bard

  Her Highlander’s Lion Heart

  Prologue

  The Scottish Highlands

  Some time ago…

  The mist that saturated the sprawling emerald green of the Highlands was like the breath of God; a thick veneer of grey enveloping the valleys, creeks, and rivers with a breathtaking, yet foreboding, quality in the wee hours of the morning. A pine martin, small and compact with a body of fur matching the tone of the fog, timidly approached the crystal-clear waters of a creek bed. The waters softly churned and trickled with a peaceful and serene rhythm, as the pine martin dipped its paws into the water and rubbed the condensation on its petite, furred ears. The serenity of the early morning dew and the calm of the surrounding wildlife, in all shapes and forms, felt free of tension, violence, or fear.

  It was a perfect morning—And then the sounds of thunder began to accumulate in a thick cacophony, an approaching thunder that started to make the Earth tremble and quake.

  Four Scotsmen, brothers, strong and sinewy and clad in fur and kilts, rode their massive, virile steeds with a hectic and furious charge through the valley. The ground now shaking underneath the paws of the pine martin and forcing him to retreat to his family, hidden somewhere amongst the brush. The four brothers on horseback, all of them sporting long auburn hair and thick facial manes to match, shouted and turned east toward a dip in the terrain.

  They were covered with thick beads of sweat, with two of them sporting wounds on their hands, and cheeks flowing with ribbons of ruby-red blood from the scuffle they had engaged in with the seven English noblemen pursuing them from fifty yards away. “Stop!” one of the chainmail-clad noblemen shouted after them. “All of you!”

  The brothers grit their teeth and kick at the sides of their steeds as they charged toward an outcropping that ascended upwards toward a derelict castle that was burned down by a pair of their fellow countrymen, not more than a year ago.

  The largest brother, a man by the name of Lachlan, grabbed the youngest brother, Finlay, by his collar and pulled him in close. “We cannae outrun them,” he said with a huff. The noblemen now closing in on them from thirty yards out, one of them drawing a bow and arrow and preparing to take aim. “Gae!” he said to Finlay. “Take our brothers. I will buy ye some time.”

  Finlay’s eyes were wide, his dashing and rugged features contorted with fear as he shouted out “Lachlan!” to his brother in protest. “There is another way!”

  “Gae noo, Finlay! Take our brothers! Heed for the spot we chose! Gae far and away as ye can!” Lachlan pushed his brother away, withdrew his sword, and turned his steed around in a one-hundred-eighty-degree spin, as the nobleman archer unleashed his bow and landed it squarely into Lachlan's left pectoral muscle.

  Lachlan wobbled on his horse, but he was a powerful man that required more than just one pithy arrow to knock him off his mount. He corrected himself, bucked his steed, and took off toward the West; drawing away three of the seven pursuing noblemen as Finlay lead his older brothers Alec and Glenn into the East.

  “Damn fool!” Alex shouted after Lachlan. “He cannae fight them on his own!”

  “Ride!” Finlay commanded, the youngest of the Boyd clan, but by far the most brilliant of the four, crooking his finger past the direction of the derelict castle toward a peak far off in the distance. “Lachlan is on his own now…” The words were like a steel spike being driven into his heart—but Finlay knew that they held nothing but the truth.

  The four noblemen behind them continued to holler and curse, all of them looking to seek vengeance against the Boyd's after they had slaughtered six of their own back, at the Boyd’s encampment. Their breath, and that of their horses, huffed and panted and cut through the fog with hot and thick billowing like hounds from hell. The noblemen’s faces were pensive. The teeth were yellow and gritting. Their eyes were filled with nothing but murderous intent.

  Lachlan, far from his brothers now, exchanged several scything blows from his sword with the three noblemen that now flanked him on either side. He parried. Blocked. Struck. He fended off the noblemen well for several moments before his horse whinnied, and bucked, and kicked as the noblemen, clad with white tunics sporting red trim, laughed and converged on Lachlan before striking him several times in his arms and torso.

  The cold steel of the noblemen’s blades ripped at his clothes and lacerated his body as Lachlan used every last breath in his body to make his final stand. He swiped, spit, screamed, with all his might as the archer, backing up several feet and lining up his bow, buried a final arrow into Lachlan’s back.

  Lachlan outstretched his arms in a messianic pose, before falling to the earth and mud. The noblemen trampled over his body and put down his horse for good measure.

  Not seeing that their brother had fallen, Finlay, Alex, and Glenn threw looks over their shoulders at the four men pursuing them from nearly thirty yards away. Alex, his mouth agape and ready to suggest they head for a ravine just off to the West, lurched forward as a small stream of blood began trickling out of the corner of his mouth.

  Finlay, his arm reaching out to the right to steady his brother, saw the arrow protruding from Alex’s back, when the archer that had caught up with other four noblemen, smiled with joyful elation.

  “Glenn!” Finlay shouted, the words rasping his throat like the kick of harsh liquor.

  Glenn, his blood boiling and causing the veins in his head to protrude, withdrew his sword with his left hand, a hatchet stuffed in his belt with his right, and looked at Finlay with a grave and lethal glint in his eye, one that Finlay knew all too well.

  “Dinnae, Alex!” Finlay shouted. “Stop!”

  But Alex was committed. “Flee,
Finlay,” he said. “Go far away from here.” He then turned his horse and rode toward the North, two of the five noblemen breaking off ,with three left behind to now pursue Finlay.

  “Bastards,” Finlay gritted through his teeth. “Ye all shall pay…All of ye.”

  Alex, raising the hatchet high over his head, squared his focus on the archer as the archer prepared to shoot an arrow in Finlay’s neck. As the archer drew back the bow and prepared to tenderly release his grip on the arrow, Alex threw the hatchet square into the man’s skull, knocking him off of his horse.

  Two of the noblemen on either side of him broke off and drew their swords as Alex raised his own to strike—but he was cut down from a strike to his sternum that ended his life in the quickest of moments.

  Finlay witnessed his last surviving brother fall as the final nobleman, bearing down on Finlay, began swinging a flail around in a circle above his head. Finlay knew that the spike balls tethered to a wooden handle would surely split his in two if he didn't do something quick.

  As the nobleman crept up alongside him, Finlay leaped off of his horse, knocked the nobleman from his own, and corrected his posture before taking control of the horse's reins. Finlay had impressed even himself as the nobleman with the flail tumbled along the ground and broke several of his bones in the process.

  "Gae! Gae!" Finlay ordered the beast as its hooves trampled and tore up the grass and dirt of the Highlands in thick chunks.

  He cast a look over his shoulder and saw that none of the other noblemen were pursuing, assuming now that he was far from their sights as he headed toward the coastline his brothers had picked out on the map. He was mourning them already, although the primal pounding of his heartbeat was coating his senses with a slight feeling of numbness. Finlay was too overwhelmed to properly digest what was happening.

  The noise of the chase was now dying down, nothing but the sound of Finlay's stolen steed grunting and puffing as Finlay clutched tightly onto the reins and headed for another decline in the terrain. Even though the fog was still thick throughout the entirety of the surroundings, Finlay was more than sure he was headed toward a creek bed.

  He felt his senses calming now, confident that he was out of harm's way—and then an arrow pierced him from behind, jutting out through the right side of his abdomen with a quick and wet thunk.

  Finlay’s horse pivoted and whined, standing on its hind legs and then bucking as Finlay was thrown from the saddle and straight over the edge a cliff. The world spun, and a sickly sensation overcame his stomach, as Finlay felt his back making contact with the earth, quickly evacuating the wind from his lungs. He then rolled over himself, everything around him like a blur as Finlay fell head over feet and back over belly down a forty-foot drop that ended in a churning river that cut through the valley.

  With a splash and a cold sensation now chilling his skin, Finlay came to rest in the water and felt himself being pulled in the current downstream.

  The chill of the water quickly shook Finlay out of his haze. He spit the water that was choking him out of his mouth and brushed his hair back with his fingers as the sounds of the noblemen became audible off to the right. Desperate, Finlay searched for something in the river to hide behind as the speed of his flow through it began to hasten.

  On his left, Finlay spotted a cluster of blackhorns grouped together. He shot out his hand, waited for the current to pull him closer, and then clutched onto with a tight handful of the shrubbery.

  “This way!” a nobleman shouted off in the distance as Finlay pulled himself from the river, threw the clothing covering the upper parts of his body into the river, and half-ran, half-stumbled his way toward an opening of a cave. As Finlay quickly ducked inside, the noblemen appeared on their horses at the edge of the cliff. They scanned around the area for any signs of Finlay.

  One of them pointed, “Look! Over there!”

  Finlay saw the men pointing at the cluster of clothing he had thrown into the river, far enough from the noblemen from the current’s pull that it would be easy for any man to mistake it for an actual living person.

  “This way!” The archer yelled, guiding the men as he charged away from the river and informed them that they could “cut the bastard off!” at the other side of the valley. Finlay waited for several moments until the sounds of the hoofs pounding the earth had dissipated, stuck his head out, and wearily made his way further into the tunnel.

  Finlay walked four feet before collapsing to the ground, his gaze quickly falling to the arrow that had pierced his right side—both ends of the arrow had broken off, and now only the mid-section was lodged into his abdomen as the wound then started to profusely bleed.

  Crawling hand-over-hand, Finlay descending further into the dank and murky tunnel, the smell of mildew all around him as the light and even sound began to slowly evacuate from the enclosed space. Naw…Naw, he protested inside his head. Ye shall live, lad…Ye shall live…Keep going…Keep going…

  Finlay continued chanting inside his head, his mind and body so wrought with fatigue that even he was unaware of where he was headed. His hands slapped the smooth rocks of the cave, echoing slightly as his vision blurred, his energy became depleted, and his body collapsed onto the floor of the cave.

  Finlay's last thoughts were that he was now dying, no longer a member of the living. He then hoped to meet his wife on the other side and prayed that God would welcome him and his now dead brothers into the warmth of paradise with an abundance of love and relief.

  Chapter 1

  “Ye’re just as beautiful as yer mother,” William said, his weak pasted, and weathered hand gently caressing the cheek of his daughter Isla as he felt the last breaths of his life being pulled into his lungs. “Ye also have her strength. By God, I am so proud of ye, my dear Isla. Only ye can lead our people tae salvation.”

  Isla’s full and vibrant lips formed into the wriest of smiles. She was proud that her father was pleased, a sense of elation filling her traced with sadness that came as a result of the knowledge that he was not long for this world. Her father was dying. These were the last few moments of his life, one well-lived and serving as an inspiration for their clan, all gathered on the outside of his tent and offering up silent prayers for God to ease his transition into the next life.

  Isla gently placed a kiss on her father’s hand, caressing it as she reached forward and stroked her fingers through his wiry and thinning grey hair. “Rest now, father,” she said. “Ye have done mair than ye know fer our clan.”

  “The fight is nae over yet. The English will not stop until they have driven all of our people oot of Scotland.”

  Isla shook her head defiantly, thoughts of the English nobles who killed her mother and burned her people’s village to the ground still burned vibrantly in her mind. “I will not fail our people, father. I will lead them. I will guide them.”

  William smiled, his eyelids fluttering as he planted two fingers to his lips, kissed them, and stroked the side of his eldest daughter’s cheek with a fond and gentle demonstration of his love. It was a simple moment, a subtle passing of the torch to his eldest daughter. Though tradition stated that it would be a male heir to William the Laird’s leadership, those in the clan knew, without a shred of doubt, that Isla was the proper heir to the throne. Her beauty was her mother’s—but her drive and headstrong sense of leadership was a direct inheritance from her father.

  A tear slid slowly down the side of Isla’s smooth, silky cheek, hints of red on her cheeks from the pride and sorrow as she said to William: “Rest now, father. Be at peace…”

  William then drew a final breath, his chest expanding as he rested comfortably back into the mound of fur that cushioned him. With the slightest of smiles, William exhaled his last breath slowly, closed his eyes, and passed away into the unknown. Isla held onto her father’s hand for a full minute, clutching desperately onto their final moments as a family before resting his arms across his chest and turning solemnly out of the tent.

 
Standing at the head of the gaggle of clansmen and women outside the tent was Isla’s brother, Denholm, his typically jovial demeanor now slack and dismayed as Isla embraced him and said: “He is gone. Father is wi’ the angels now.”

  With a full heart and a pair of watering eyes, Denholm embraced his sister with his burly frame, as their younger sister Gavina, just shy of eleven years of age, wedged herself in-between her siblings and wept quietly into Denholm’ broad barrel-chest. The entire clan, just shy of fifty members, gathered in a huddle around Isla and her siblings, ready to pledge their allegiance to the new leader of their clan: Lady Isla.

  Laird William was burned on a pile of wood, not more than an hour after he had passed. Silence had overtaken the clan as they watched the smoking timbers of the fire burn and consume the man that had led them away from slaughter, the smoke billowing and rising as it escorted his soul to the heavens.

  Isla felt numb, still processing her father’s death while simultaneously debating internally on how and where she was going to lead her clan.

  Denholm, hands clasped in front of him as Gavina held onto the tail of his tunic, nodded toward the fire. “Father mentioned an area deep in the highlands,” he said just shy of a whisper. “Are we tae proceed on the same course?”