Highland Heart (The Campbell Brothers #2)

1. DUGALD

Chapter one

DUGALD

“You’re just a boy,” Rosina said, looking at him with her nose in the air.

It was a beautiful nose. He wanted to kiss the tip of it.

In fact Dugald wanted to kiss every inch of her despite her disparaging comments.

She might think he was a boy, and at sixteen Dugald might be considered so, in an ordinary world.

But he was the youngest son of a landless Campbell, and his family were now men for hire at Castle Tighe. Dugald more than pulled his weight.

Last month he had gone out on a raid to a neighbouring landholder, regardless of his father not agreeing with it. Hamish Campbell was an honest and upright man, and he wasn’t afraid to voice his opinion—that the Laird of Castle Tighe was a brutal and dishonest thief.

During the raid, Dugald had fought several men, men older than himself, and each time he had won. He was big and strong, and wily. Perhaps not as big as his eldest brother Ewen, but he was well on his way. So, aye, he might be sixteen in years but in every other respect he was already a man.

“Am I just a boy?” he murmured to Rosina now, curving his hand about her slim waist. At twenty years she thought herself too old for him, despite the fact he towered over her and already had more muscles than she would ever have.

Rosina Gordon was a lady in waiting to the Laird’s daughter, Elspit.

Once wealthy and important, the Gordons had lost everything to the Laird when Rosina’s father was killed in a dispute between them, and as a consequence Rosina and her mother had been forced to take up residence at Castle Tighe.

Their pride was dealt another blow when they were ordered to serve their conqueror’s family.

It helped though that Elspit was a sweet girl, who was in love with Dugald’s brother Ewen.

Rosina had been brought up in a strict household, her behaviour scrutinised, and she was punished if her mother did not think it came up to scratch. He was aware that she was always wary of putting a foot wrong, and she thought Dugald, a penniless young suitor, was about as wrong as she could get.

He leaned in closer, his breath warm on her face.

Rosina had delicate features and grey eyes like a Scottish storm.

Her hair was a dark brown, but thick and wavy, and as if to make her life more difficult, it was always escaping her pins no matter how hard she tried to contain it.

Dugald liked to think that beneath her tightly wound exterior Rosina was like her hair.

Rebellious. She just didn’t show it very often.

He longed for nothing more than to bring out that inner rebel.

Dugald wanted Rosina, and that want had only grown over the passing months.

Her grey eyes flickered to his uneasily. “Dugald?” she murmured.

His body was pressed to hers now and he could feel every warm soft curve. His lips drifted over her cheek bone, lingering on the corner of her mouth. He could see the pulse fluttering in her throat, and rested his thumb upon it.

“Where I come from, if marriage before a priest is not possible, we hand fast.”

The pulse in her throat quickened and he felt her swallow. “I know what hand fasting is,” she whispered. “It is when a man takes a woman’s hand in his and they declare themselves wed. My mother says the practice is not safe. That the woman is too easily put aside.”

“I would never put you aside,” he said huskily.

Her eyes widened. “Dugald, are you asking me to hand fast with you?”

“Aye,” he said. Then, when he saw all the objections swirling in her eyes, “You love me, Rosina. I know it. When I came home from the raid the other night you held me so tightly I feared my ribs would crack.”

“I was concerned, that was all,” she murmured, turning her face away, but he saw the blush on her cheek. “It was no more than I would show to any man who had been in danger.”

“I didn’t see you cuddling my brothers Finlay and Callum, or old McIntyre.”

She sighed. “Very well. I do have a ... fondness for you, Dugald, but that does not mean we should act upon it.”

“Why not?”

She turned to stare at him. “Why not?” she repeated as if his wits were wanting. “Because you are sixteen and I am twenty!”

“So that is your only argument?” he said. “That there are four years between us? Not that I am the son of a landless father and you are the daughter of a man who once had wealth and power? I know your mother does not think I am good enough for you, but it is what you think that matters.”

“My mother lives in the past,” she said with quiet bitterness. “What I am now is a lady in waiting to my oppressor. I am his hostage, to marry to whom he wishes, and he will not wish me to marry you, Dugald.”

Dugald shrugged. “I am not about to let the Laird of Tighe tell me what to do, and nor should you. We can hand fast and then, when the time is right, we will explain the situation to our families and marry before God.”

She sighed. “And there, Dugald, you show me your youth and inexperience. The time will never be right.”

He leaned down and rested his forehead against hers. “I love you. I have given my heart to you. Do not laugh at me and say I am too young. Say ‘Yes, dearest Dougal’.”

Her hands lifted and after a brief hesitation she slid them around his neck.

Her body was so close to his now that he could feel her trembling.

Rosina was a serious young woman, and she did not make decisions lightly.

He watched her curiously, wondering what she was about to say.

He suspected it would be no, and then more excuses, but to his amazement she said:

“Yes, dearest Dugald.”

With a shaken laugh, he picked her up and swung her around. “You will not regret it,” he declared. “Now ... give me your hand!”

***

ROSINA

Rosina tried not to think at all, only feel.

Her head was always so busy, so full of doubts, the voice in it—which sounded very much like her mother’s—constantly reminding her of what she could and could not do.

And reproving her for her faults. When she was with Dugald Campbell that voice was drowned out by his confidence and certainty, and the warm wash of emotion he inspired in her.

A single brush of his fingertip across her lips, or the featherlike touch of his mouth on her cheek, and she melted into a puddle at his feet.

She didn’t have to think at all, and that was such a relief.

She had never felt like this with any man, and she wondered if she ever would again. It was reckless of her, completely out of character, but she found herself unable to say no to him.

The hand fasting only took a moment. The deed was done.

They had taken turns speaking their words, both vowing to love each other and be as husband and wife.

While Rosina said she would always be honest and true, Dugald declared that he would remain with her until his dying breath. He could at times be quite dramatic.

The evening was mild, late summer, and the heather was blooming. He found a dip in the hill and lay her down, his mouth on hers, his big body heavy as he pressed over her.

“Wife,” he breathed against her hair.

“Husband,” she whispered, cupping his face in her hands and kissing his mouth gently. The spark between them lit up the sky in sunset colours, and next moment he was devouring her with his lips and tongue, his muscular thigh pushing her legs apart. She could feel how aroused he was.

She had never been taken by a man. The wishy washy kisses she’d shared with her betrothed when she was eleven meant nothing, and the boy had died of a fever before they could be married.

Afterwards the Laird of Tighe had stolen everything, and any thought her father may have had of finding her another husband was gone, although her mother still dreamed of a grand match.

Now here was Dugald, and he wanted her desperately, and Rosina wanted him. She was a virgin, but he had told her that she wasn’t his first. There had been others. Women saw only his size and his self-confidence and did not ask how old he was when they took him to their beds.

He hauled up her skirts with more enthusiasm than finesse, and the touch of his calloused fingers on her most intimate of places had her arching into him. Somewhere in the background the voice in her head was telling her to stop, that she was making a terrible mistake, but she wasn’t listening.

Rosina was lost in the hot, pleasurable thrall of her newly hand fasted husband. And when he pushed gently inside her she could only revel in this new and wonderful experience.

For ten days they spent every moment they could together, making love, making promises.

She experienced joy such as she had never known, and she felt whole for the first time in her life.

Dugald seemed to know exactly what she wanted and how to give it to her, and whenever that critical inner voice tried to assert itself, his bossy presence quashed it.

And then her mother found out, and Dugald and Rosina were hauled before Tighe to explain themselves.

Instead of standing up to them, standing by Dugald, she renounced him.

And after that more than their vows were broken.