Enraptured by the Highlander

She padded through the upper corridors and then down the stairs to the lower levels. Iron chandeliers hung above the long dining table and over the ballroom where the floors were covered by braided rush mats.

Halfway to the dining room, she heard her father’s booming, baritone voice. He was laughing and she smiled in relief. “He might be the King but we have the power here!”

“Here, here!” A few voices laughed with him and Magdalene’s steps faltered.

From the outside, she could picture the scene inside. Five men as bulky, demanding, and intimidating as her father would be seated around the table, eating a victor’s feast. It always perturbed her to be the one lady in their presence, as her mother rarely entered these celebrations. In deference to her father, they did not dare look at her salaciously but she still felt that they were covertly peeling her clothes off layer by layer.

Taking in a deep steadying breath, she walked in and heard the conversation stutter to a stop before it picked up again. Deliberately avoiding the eyes trained on her, she smiled at her father. Uncle John was not there. Stopping a good ten feet away from the table, she curtsied and greeted the Lords.

“Daughter!” Her father said merrily, while holding up his hand to her. “Welcome. Harold, get my daughter a seat.”

She nearly refused as, again, the eyes on her felt as if they were sinking under her skin. She wanted to scratch her face and arms at the uncomfortable feeling but stayed still. Harold, a man with dark brown hair and a thick beard, placed the chair next to her father. She swallowed over a dry throat but thanked him.

Normally, she would have broken her fast with her mother and Mrs. Croft in a small room upstairs but she was already there. It would be rude to just leave. She bravely looked around the men and recognized the faces. With Harold, there were four more men, all in her father’s age range or over, five-and-fifty, with broad chests, and sharp eyes.

Stopping her fingers from fidgeting under the men’s gaze, she smiled tentatively, “I take it His Highness was not pleased with your demand, My Lords?”

“Pleased,” a man named Gunther snorted over his goblet. “The man nearly lost his senses when we threatened a third Baron’s war if he did not hold up the Great Charter his own damned father signed into law.”

“Measure your words, Gunther,” her father warned tightly. “My daughter is not a fishwife.”

The knock on the door drew the attention of the men towards the entry. Standing there was a man, dressed in the household livery, looking decidedly uncomfortable—if the sweat shimmering over his face was any indication—and holding a basket heaped with fruit.

“Good day, My Lords,” he swallowed. “This was received for you, Lord Keswick. It’s another gift for your victory, My Lord.”

Her father waved the man over, who after settling the basket on the table, bowed and left

. Magdalene looked over the selection and her eyebrows lifted. The fruits in the basket were rare for this time of year and sitting like a queen on a throne, sat a large singular pear.

The Lord of the Manor grasped the fruit and bit into it. His eyebrows danced up as his mouth stretched into a smile. “This is lovely. Remind me to find out who sent this to me and thank them.”

Moving her eyes away, Magdalene went to examine the basket again, noting the red-skinned apples and fuzzy peaches, the latter with their rounded pink-gold spheres as interjections between the apples. She reached for the nearest apple when a harsh choke from her father made her spin to him.

Her face instantly went bloodless. Her father was red in the face and his eyes were wide and bulging. His hands began scrambling, clawing at his throat and it was only when one her father’s men grabbed at him that her body lost its motionlessness. She screamed and lurched to him, only to get knocked away. Four men were a wall around her father now, blocking her from him and she screamed again, this time in frustration.

“Let me through!”

She had to see her father. But the wall of men around him did not let her through until…until one stepped away and the uneaten half of the pear tumbled from her father’s lax hand and stopped at her feet. Her body was quaking as the men moved away, pale-faced, and she knew what had happened without anyone saying a word. She reacted by slapping the basket away, flinging the fruits every which way.

Her breath was short and harsh in her chest as she looked down at her father, laying on the floor…dead. His face was blotchy and his eyes were vacant.

She collapsed on the floor and one word groaned from her lips. “Why?”

Chapter 2

Ratagan, Clan Williamson, Scotland

“The witch struck again, Me Laird,” Logan grimaced. Two mercenaries that Angus, Laird of Clan Williamson, had sent to kill said witch, were almost unrecognizable with red-black burns covering the majority of their bodies.

The Laird watched in grieved silence as the men were lifted from the wagon and carried into the Williamson castle, heading towards the infirmary. With their disappearance, he cursed under his breath, and when the anger blasted to his head, his fist struck out and punched against the wall in front of him.

“That damn fire witch. We need a bolt of lightning to send her to hell once and for all.”

“Amen to that,” Logan, Angus’ second-in-command, said tightly. “No matter what we’ve done, it doesnae matter…she always seems to outsmart us.”

“A woman steeped in the Dark Arts will do that,” Angus scowled, raking a hand through his wild red hair in frustration.

The witch they spoke of was a recluse inside a fortress in the Seabhag Crag Mountains, a spate of black rocks looming over a loch of dark water. Both the witch and the crags were too near his home for his comfort. Five years ago, tales of this fire-throwing witch had been rumors at first, nonsense, the Williamson Clan was sure, until they had been proven wrong.