Shadowy Highland Romance: Blood of Duncliffe Series (A Medieval Scottish Romance Story) Read online

  Shadowy Highland Romance

  Blood of Duncliffe Series (A Medieval Scottish Romance Story)

  Emilia Ferguson

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  A Personal Note From Emilia Ferguson

  Dedication

  About The Author

  SHADOWY HIGHLAND ROMANCE

  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

  EPILOGUE

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  Also By Emilia Ferguson

  Acknowledgement

  If You Have Enjoyed This Book…

  Publisher’s Notes

  Copyright © 2017,2018 by EMILIA FERGUSON

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real or dead people, places, or events are not intentional and are the result of coincidence. The characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author/publisher. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Cover designed by Ms Melody Simmons. Author has the copyrights to this cover.

  A PERSONAL NOTE

  FROM EMILIA FERGUSON

  * * *

  To My Dearest Lovely Readers,

  There is something picturesque and dramatic about the Scottish Highlands. Not only the landscape, which is mysterious, with its own special wildness and drama. It is the people themselves.

  Scottish people are the original untamed spirits: proud, wild, forthright, in touch with their inner selves. The Medieval period in Scotland is a fascinating one for contrasts: half the country was steeped in Medieval culture - knights, ladies, housecarls and maids - and the other half was a maelstrom of wild clans people; fighting, living and loving straight from the heart.

  If the two halves - the wild and the courtly - meet up, what will happen? And how will these proud women and untamed men react when brought together by social expectations, requirements and ambitions?

  Read on to find out the answers!

  Thank you very much for your strong support to my writing journey!

  With Hugs, Kisses and Love…

  ~ Emilia

  DEDICATION

  Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be man's last romance.

  Oscar Wilde

  * * *

  This Story Is Specially Dedicated To You, My Dearest Reader!

  It is with gratefulness and gratitude that I am writing to you this personal dedication.

  Thank you once again for giving me this opportunity to share with you my creative side.

  I hope you will enjoy reading this story as much I have enjoyed writing it!

  It is with such great support from you that we authors continue to write, presenting you with great stories.

  Have you checked out my other western historical romance books series?

  Click the link below to get started

  *** AMAZON USA ***

  * * *

  Do you like what you have read?

  I want to hear from you!

  Please do get in touch with me:

  facebook.com/EmiliaFergusonBooks

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Emilia Ferguson is the pen name of an author who writes historical romance with her husband.

  When she is not writing her Medieval Historical Scottish Romance pieces, she enjoys taking long walks with her husband and kids at the nearby beaches.

  It was these long walks where she got inspirations and ideas for her stories. She credits her wonderfully supportive husband John, her great cover designer Ms Melody Simmons and her advance review reviewers for helping her to fine-tune her writing skills and allowing her creativity to explode.

  ~ Emilia

  SHADOWY HIGHLAND ROMANCE

  A MEDIEVAL SCOTTISH ROMANCE STORY

  * * *

  by

  EMILIA FERGUSON

  PROLOGUE

  Near Paris, France

  1743

  “The silence of this place will drive me mad.”

  “Madame?” Margot – Genevieve's companion – inquired mildly, looking up from where she sewed a petticoat.

  “Nothing, Margot,” Genevieve demurred. “It's just the weather. It's affecting my mood.” She looked up at the long window, feeling restless.

  “It hasn't stopped raining for three days,” Margot agreed, not looking up.

  “Indeed,” Genevieve agreed sadly. She set her own sewing – a hoop of delicate embroidery – aside and stood, heading to the window.

  It isn't just the weather. It's the tension in this house.

  Usually tranquil and comfortable, Chateau Malpons, her home, was now taut and stifling. Genevieve didn't know what the discomfort was – all she knew was that her father, usually calm, was not himself. He had been restless and quiet for a week now.

  It's something to do with his visit to the capital, she decided. She leaned against the windowsill, taking care not to crease the pink brocade of her skirt as she did so, and looked down to the grounds below.

  At two and twenty years old, Genevieve knew she was expected to wed soon. The life at the chateau was quiet, and she had few opportunities for meeting matches of which her father, the count of Malpons, would approve. She felt a little bad for having failed him in this way, and hoped his worry wasn't all for her.

  Papa spends too much time concerned for my future. I wish he would talk to me.

  The friendship between Genevieve and her father was strong, and the silence which had kept him aloof the last three months distressed her. Anything – even a reprimand – would seem better than keeping secrets from her.

  “I must know what it is,” she murmured.

  “Madame?”

  Genevieve turned to face her companion – she'd all but forgotten she was there already. She shook her head, making rich dark curls bounce on her shoulders in disarray.

  “Sorry, Margot. I was distracted. I will walk, I think. I am in a dark mood today.”

  “Don't stay out long, milady,” Margot replied. “It's still getting dark before six of the clock.”

  “I know,” Genevieve whispered, not wanting to feel impatient. She walked across the parquet and headed out into the hallway, taking her coat with her. She had to go outside, escape this tension, before it drove her mad.

  In the hallway, she was surprised to find Mathieu,
their steward. He bowed.

  “Milady. Your father has just concluded his business. He wished to see you.”

  “Oh?” Genevieve's heart thumped and she felt her stomach tighten with sudden apprehension. What was it her father wished to tell her?

  It is about my marriage. It's something bad about our household's accounts. It's news from Uncle Thibault in Paris – he's ill.

  She felt her heart thump hard even as she nodded to the man, maintaining a calm face. “Is he in the parlor?”

  “He is, miss,” Mathieu replied.

  “I'll see him now, then.” Genevieve felt her feet rush past, carrying her off before she'd so much as heard his “Very good, miss,” behind her.

  She neared the parlor, slowing her step. Her father didn't like fuss. Not that he was domineering – not in any way – rather, he was simply so easygoing that any sort of drama perplexed him. It was a trait they usually shared.

  Except I have a passion Papa seems to lack.

  Genevieve's mother, Lady Claudine, had shared her passionate side: everyone told her so, and the image of Claudine, rosebud lips curved in a playful grin, a cloud of red hair loose round her shoulders, suggested everyone was right. Genevieve wished now that she could have known her more. She had passed away eighteen years ago. There was no wishing that would change the fact that she and Papa must now forge their way alone. She paused at the door of the parlor, just as her father called out to her.

  “My daughter? You seem in a hurry.”

  “No, Papa,” Genevieve demurred softly. “I was looking for you – Mathieu said you sent for me?”

  “I wished to discuss something with you, yes,” her father nodded. A tall man with fine-boned features, Genevieve could see something of him in her oval face. However, she could also see her mother's generous, full-lipped smile, so different to his austere features.

  “Yes, Papa?” she asked, walking into the silence. Crystal vases and precious porcelain stood on the mantel, neither as fragile as the mansion's quiet. Genevieve had the sense that her father was so taut with nerves that if she so much sneezed he might shatter. She felt her heart thump. What was this about? She knew he'd been receiving visitors from Paris, and that he'd gone there once or twice of late, but she'd told herself it was some matter of her uncle's and deliberately put it from her mind. Now she wasn't sure. Her father was still silent, as if readying himself. Then, he coughed and began.

  “Daughter, I...I have a request to make,” he began softly. “Of you. It pains me to have to do this.”

  “No, Papa!” she protested gently, softly touching his shoulder. “You know you can ask anything of me.”

  “I don't want to,” her father said concernedly. “But this is of importance to our country, not just to me. So – can I ask you – will you go to Scotland?”

  Genevieve stared at him. Scotland. The home of her mother's ancestors. A wild country by all accounts, bristling with fierce, barbaric sorts and tense with unrest, especially now.

  “Papa?” she whispered, disbelieving.

  He was turning away from her, leaning on the windowsill. His fingers were white-knuckled where they rested on the marble. “I do not wish to ask this of you, my daughter. Please believe that I have no other choice,” he whispered.

  “Papa, I believe you,” Genevieve said. Her heart had started to thump with a feeling that was not remotely apprehension: It was wonder. “But...Scotland?” she repeated, still awestruck by the fact.

  “I know. I'd as soon send you to the end of the Earth as into such growing unrest,” her father whispered. When he turned to face her, his big gray eyes were stark with sorrow. “But I am needed here, and there is no one else I trust. Would you?”

  Genevieve swallowed down the rising excitement. Scotland! Wild land of her distant ancestors! Mysterious and unquiet, it called to her soul, reaching out to the restlessness inside her.

  “Yes, Papa,” she agreed. “I will.”

  A WILD LAND

  “Now, daughter,” the count said gently. “You won't stray away from Du Prise, will you?”

  “I won't, Papa,” Genevieve protested mildly. “I assure you. I won't leave the carriage or so much as go down to dinner on my own. Promise.”

  “Good,” her father said, a small smile moving across the tense planes of his face. His gray eyes sadly looked over her features, as if not wanting to lose a single glimpse. Genevieve swallowed hard.

  “I'll come back safely, Papa.”

  He didn't reply, just clutched her fiercely to his chest in an embrace that used every ounce of his fragile strength. Never of the best health, the count surprised her with the strength of his grip.

  “Be careful of those people,” he said raggedly. “Not your cousins – I trust them well enough. But the rest of them – they are a tumultuous nation. Treacherous, some say.”

  “I will be careful,” Genevieve promised humbly. In her heart she felt a little impatient – just a little – with his fussing. Always protective of her, Genevieve knew her father could take his intense need to keep her safe a little far. Entrusting her to observe in Scotland – to take notes of the state of Hanoverian forces there – had cost him most severely.

  “Good,” he said again, and rested a hand on her shoulder, gripping it. “I trust you.”

  Genevieve felt the tears that she'd held at bay finally spill over with that whispered reassurance. She held him tight against her and felt his lips press dryly to her brow.

  “Now, off you go,” he whispered, hollow. He turned away and went to the fireplace, seeking, she knew, to control himself.

  When he turned back, the tears she knew had glimmered there had disappeared, and his jaw was tight.

  “Goodbye, Papa,” she whispered, hearing her own voice wobble and doing nothing to hide it. Her tears flowed down her cheeks, leaving wet, cold paths along her neck and into the demure collar of her gown.

  “Goodbye,” he whispered.

  Then she was turning away and following Du Prise, the footman and her escort, down to the stables.

  “I'll take that, milady?” he asked, indicating the small traveling bag she held. It contained only her sewing and threads: all else was settled into the big wooden trunk that was already loaded up.

  “Thank you,” she said, letting him place it carefully in the coach, before standing back and reaching for her hand.

  “Allow me.”

  She nodded and stepped up into the coach, sitting down opposite Madame Ferriers, her old governess. She would on one hand have preferred Margot to travel with, but she was deemed too young and Genevieve wouldn't be entirely sorry to not have her bright conversation. Her nerves were too frayed for noise at this moment. Madame's tight-lipped silence was much easier to bear.

  She watched the chateau disappear until it was engulfed in the surrounding tree-line, and then reached for her sewing. A welcome distraction.

  Madame muttered about the barbarism of Scotland and how she hoped Genevieve would have enough warm clothes to last her for a while, but after that subsided into a stolid silence that preceded sleep.

  Genevieve, left to her own thoughts, stared out of the window, watching the forest slide past in trunks of trees and blurs of yellow and green.

  I wonder what to expect.

  Scotland was a name on a page to her, an exotic place where, she knew, two major groups of people lived – Highlanders and Lowlanders. The culture of the Lowlanders was in some way – like their language – akin to that of England. The Highlands were mysterious and alien, unlike anything she knew. That, more or less, was where she was going.

  I don't know what to expect.

  Her father had told her little, having only been there once himself, on a diplomacy mission. Now he was sending her in his stead, to spy for him, because he was needed in the capital. Sewing her embroidery gave Genevieve freedom to let her mind roam. In it, she built images of a harsh land. She knew there was an uprising planned there, to restore the Stuart king to the throne. After all, i
t was for that her father worked and planned, organizing the French allies to Scotland, and helping to plan the trip of Prince Charles, the heir, to that land.

  It was clear that the countryside must teem with unrest: she knew most of those in power were allied to the English King, and imagined people chafed under that rule. She expected to see conflict and rebellion in many places: but what did it look like there?

  Trees tall and impenetrable, she imagined – Madame had taught her that, though Scotland traded for wood and grain – and sold whiskey and linen – there were lush forests in the northern part. Her cousins – distant relatives, not first cousins – were living in the North.

  Once from a place called Duncliffe, which had housed her mother's distant ancestress, her cousins had since married and settled and could now be found far from their own hometown.

  I wonder what they're like?

  Genevieve had never written to her cousins – ships that might take letters didn't sail often – and only knew their names, and those of their husbands. Arabella and Francine were her cousins, Richard and Henry their partners.