The Scoundrel Scot (Highland Hearths #1)

Chapter One

I’m not a lunatic! Get me out of here!

The memory of that chilling plea froze Lady Helene Beckett’s blood.

Try as she might, she could not unsee the fear and terror of abandonment in her younger sister’s wide, long-lashed eyes.

Nor could she forget the harrowing words, ‘Don’t leave me,’ screamed at her back when she exited down the long corridor of the asylum.

Helene suffered pain as if someone had carved her heart from her chest. In truth, she didn’t deserve to draw breath, but she’d pledged a promise through the barred window of a locked door, and a promise made must be honoured.

One she’d fulfil before she drew her last breath.

The next time she entered that hell-hole of an institution it would be to see her sister freed, to take her by the hand and start their lives somewhere, anywhere, anew.

Well-laid plans required careful forethought.

Deception remained her trump card. She would bear the shame because of it.

No other course of action had presented itself, which had led to this very moment, with Helene seated inside a carriage heading into the wilds of the barbarous Scottish Highlands.

Despite the presence and protection of a retinue of the king’s men on horseback outside the carriage, fear of the unknown—and of what she must do—sent a shiver through her.

She pulled the woollen blanket on her knees closer to her middle and gazed through the window to the dismal weather beyond.

Mist shrouded the peaks of rugged mountains.

Woodlands and moors grew lush from rain.

Fine, persistent rain. Clean and uncontaminated.

If only she could stand beneath the heavens and be soaked in its purity like a kind of lustration.

Wishful thinking, for even if it were holy water, it would never wash her conscience clean, and if she were to receive forgiveness from the highest order, still it would not alleviate her long-endured nauseating guilt.

‘Is something the matter, my dear? Ye look as pale as the day is grey.’

The question jolted Helene from her dark despair.

She looked at Viscountess Sutton and her daughter, Agnes, seated opposite her, and summoned a well-practised smile.

‘Not at all, Lady Sutton. If I appear out of sorts, it’s only because I’ve never travelled for so many days and on such uneven ground. ’

The viscountess presented as a classic auburn-haired beauty. Long-distance travel in the confined carriage did not lend itself to the wearing of London’s glamorous wide skirts, and yet she still appeared the picture of tailored perfection dressed in a simple, practical fine woollen gown and cloak.

She leaned forward to pat Helene’s hand. ‘Ye needn’t worry, lass. We’ve not much further to go. I ken ye’re a long way from yer kin and home, but ye’ll be welcomed and looked after as one of our own at Drumocher Castle.’

Helene smiled. ‘Thank you. Agnes has told me much about your sister and her family. I look forward to meeting each member of your clan.’

Agnes, a mirror image of her mother, giggled. ‘Remember what I’ve told you about my cousin Lachlan being quite the ladies’ man? Well, you’re sure to catch his eye.’

‘Agnes!’ chided Lady Sutton. To Helene, she reassured, ‘My nephew is a man of principle, but if he puts a foot wrong, ye only need tell me or his mother and he’ll soon ken his place.’

Agnes’s sweet laughter filled the plush interior of the carriage. ‘And this coming from a Scotswoman who captured the eye of a notorious English rake and who ultimately married him? Sound advice, Mother, if not hypocritical.’

‘Yer father was, and still is, an honourable man!’

‘Indeed he is, but that didn’t stop him putting a foot wrong, did it?’ Agnes winked at her mother. ‘One stolen kiss when you were a lass—so you told me—and, well . . . here we are.’

Lady Sutton’s cheeks flushed red. ‘That one kiss redeemed his ways, and as I said, yer father is an honourable man.’

Agnes grinned and tucked her hand into the crook of her mother’s arm. ‘Then there’s still hope for Lachlan. He and Cuthbert are one and the same. Are they not?’

‘That ye should talk about yer brother and cousin like that! Really, Agnes.’

‘I say it because it’s true, and because I do enjoy teasing you.’

Her mother’s lost-for-words expression set Agnes off again. Only when Lady Sutton’s chagrin relaxed into a broad smile did Helene enjoy a genuine laugh. She’d almost forgotten how to do that until the day she’d met and befriended Agnes, who radiated verve and an infectious zest for life.

Cheerful gaiety subsided into amiable conversation, as it had during their journey.

They’d all but exhausted what there was to know about Helene—or rather, what she’d been willing to divulge.

Some matters—family matters—were best kept private.

Agnes and her mother, being of polite society, knew better than to overstep the mark or appear too inquisitive.

Lady Sutton’s high-spirited mood increased with every mile they came closer to their destination. She spoke of happy childhood memories growing up in the Highlands and the mischievous adventures she and her twin sister, Caitrin, had pursued.

Understanding the Scottish accent proved to be a challenge for Helene, and the more animated the viscountess became, the faster she spoke.

She trilled the r’s in words and delivered a sing-song intonation driven with as much lively energy as her facial expressions.

At one point she paused to take what Helene believed to be a breath, but instead she looked at Helene expectantly, as if awaiting a response.

‘Ye’re not following me, are ye, lass? Ye look a wee bit perplexed.’

‘I confess I don’t know at what point I stopped comprehending what you’ve said, in favour of enjoying how you’ve said it.’

‘Ne’er ye mind. Yer ear will soon grow accustomed to the way we speak here in the Highlands.’

‘Only if the words are spoken slowly, as you did just now.’

‘Understanding my mother’s thick Scottish brogue is like running a race and struggling to keep up with the leader,’ Agnes explained.

‘As you know, Cuthbert and I were born and raised in England; however, people do find it a curious thing to hear a mother speak in one accent and her children in another.’

Again, Lady Sutton’s chatter took off at a gallop.

Had Agnes not interjected here and there with words clearly enunciated in the king’s English, then the conversation would have been entirely lost on Helene.

She envied their close bond, their jovial banter, and the love in Lady Sutton’s eyes whenever she looked at her daughter.

Helene closed her mind to crippling memories. God rest her own mother’s soul.

As they crested the top of a rise, Agnes blurted, ‘There it is! In the distance! Drumocher Castle.’

‘Och!’ exclaimed Lady Sutton. ‘My heart beats so.’ She took a lace handkerchief from her embroidered reticule and dabbed her eyes. ‘’Tis too long since I last saw my sister. And to think we nearly lost her to a fever.’

Agnes took her mother’s free hand in hers and murmured heartfelt words.

The consoling gesture took Helene back to the asylum when she’d sought to reassure her sister in the same fashion.

Her resolve turned as hard as the stone fortress.

To the impending task at hand. Catch the MacLanoch laird’s philandering eye.

If all went according to plan, Helene would hurt no more than his pride.

*

Lachlan MacLanoch closed the last of the ledger books. With all accounts now reconciled, he slumped back in his chair, figures and forecasts still spinning in his head.

The business of rearing and selling black cattle was by no means without its challenges.

He massaged first the ache behind his temples and then the knotted tension in the back of his neck.

On one side of the desk lay a parchment scroll from which he read the fresh list of grievances between disgruntled kinsmen.

Far easier as laird to soon settle their disputes than to draw his broadsword against anyone who dared steal from his livelihood or threaten his clan.

The estate’s coffers retained ample reserves to ensure those who served him would not go without food, shelter, or his protection, be they residing within the castle walls or eking out a living on his lands.

While the cattle grew fat on rich summer pastures, crops flourished down in the straths.

For the time being, he was without major worry or concern and looked forward to the imminent arrival of his auntie and two cousins travelling from London.

He pondered the woman in their company, a stranger to Lachlan, yet a guest and contemporary of his twenty-year-old cousin Agnes.

Cuthbert, older brother to Agnes, had written in advance of their visit with news of Lady Helene Beckett accompanying them. Of marriageable age, she’d caused a stir by refusing the hands of some of London’s wealthiest and most influential suitors.

Privileged, conceited arrogance. Cuthbert’s words when describing her in his missive.

In need of stretching his long legs, Lachlan pushed up from the chair and went to the library’s rain-streaked window.

The unusual cold snap saw a breeze kick up, strong enough to pleat the loch’s inky surface like the folds of his kilt.

Beyond the castle, fog blanketed the moor, shifting here and there as if it were a wraith on the move.

Not the finest of Scottish summer days to be welcoming visitors.

Before he turned to stow the ledgers under lock and key, something in the distance caught his eye. A fleeting dark flash of movement amidst light rain and swirling fog. He stood watchful, waiting, until out of the thinning mist, travelling along the castle’s approach, came a rider.