Forbidden Highlander (Highlander Trilogy 2)

Dawn stared at her mother. She hadn’t wanted her when she was born, she had hired men to see her dead and now with no one left to help her, she planned to kill her daughter herself.

“If only you had been born a lad,” Lady Ann all but spit out the words like a snake spewing venom.

Dawn took another step away from her, her mind quickly calculating different ways to protect herself against the crazy woman, and hopefully biding time. Cree would check on her to make sure she was all right or at least he would have someone check on her. Either way she needed time.

She raised her hands, palms up, and shrugged wanting to know why.

“I suppose I should at least give you an explanation. That fool husband of mine could not sire a child so I had no choice but to find someone to do it for him. I could not believe my bad luck in choosing a man who had an affliction that ran through his family. I prayed that you would be a boy, but luck was not with me that day. I would have seen you dead, but that fool Mary is a loving soul and protected you as soon as you were out of me. So like an unselfish mother I sent you away, never expecting to hear from you again. Imagine my surprise when Colum informed me of a dumb lass residing in Dowell, on Gerwan land.

“Don’t think because I waste my time explaining it all to you that you will be rescued. Cree and his cohorts hide in wait for someone to poison Kirk. The fool doesn’t realize that it is you I want dead; I could care less about Kirk, though I will see to his demise in time.”

Dawn had to keep her talking while she tried to see if there was anything in the room that she could use as a weapon to defend herself. But she needn’t worry about keeping her talking. It seemed that Lady Ann had much to say.”

“I did not wed a fool, work, and sacrifice all these years to have my wealth and lands striped away. Roland could not forgive the King for turning his lands over to Cree. His constant talk of gathering clans and reclaiming his land from Cree would have left us with nothing. The fool couldn’t see that Lucerne’s marriage to Cree would be a great benefit to us. The King favors Cree and the clans respect his strength. And Cree would have easily squashed any attempt to take his newly acquired lands. Roland had to go. Unfortunately, Kirk entered the stables at the wrong time and like an idiot tried to help Roland. When I came upon the scene I was quite pleased with Philip, Lucerne’s father. He had not only carried out our plan of killing my husband, but he also saved me the trouble of having to deal with Kirk.”

She shook her head. “How stupid of us it had been to assume him dead. One more good whack to the head and then there would have been only you to deal with. I had already laid plans to do away with Philip. I wisely learned about plants. Poison being an easy way to rid oneself of difficult people. Once we fashioned the plan to abduct you from the keep, it was easy to make certain that his flask was filled with a lethal poison. I knew when Philip first made himself known to me, demanding things in return for his silence, that I could not let him live, though I could use him to my advantage. I explained that all wealth would be lost if you were left to live. And so I sent him to hire men to see to the task, which proved a complete failure.”

Dawn could not believe that this woman who could kill and deceive so easily had given her birth. She thanked the heavens that Lady Ann had sent her away and that a loving and caring woman had raised her. And if she thought it was going to be easy to kill her than she was even crazier than Dawn had thought.

“I can see in your eyes that you think to best me,” Lady Ann said with a smug grin. “Others have thought the same, Bree for one and that fool man of hers. All the lass had to do was keep giving Lucerne the potion that kept her confused until I arrived, and of course try to poison you, and what does she do? Almost kill Cree with the poison meant for you. Philip taught her a good lesson for that mistake and the beating was easy to blame on Lucerne. But then I discovered that that stupid man of hers had showed up to help her and had broken in through the secret passageway so that Bree could give him shelter from the storm. I had Philip make it perfectly clear what would happen to the two of them if they did not do as they were told.”