The Highlander's Forbidden Bride Read online

  The Highlander’s Forbidden Bride

  Kilts & Kisses, Book 5

  Madison Faye

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Also by Madison Faye

  Mailing List

  About the Author

  Copyright Notice

  Copyright © 2019 Madison Faye

  Cover: Coverlüv

  Photography: Wander Aguiar

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  Chapter 1

  Iona

  “I’m going to marry you.”

  The words hang like smoke in the darkness of his study, simmering down to linger on my skin like sweat. There’s a quickening in my chest, my heart skipping a beat as my pulse throbs through me.

  I’m going to marry you.

  The man sitting across the room from me is half in shadow, as am I, with the only light coming from the snapping, crackling fire spitting in the hearth. But even in pure darkness, I’d know his face. I’d know it because the man who’s just told me he’s marrying me—told me, not asked—isn’t just any man. No, this man is the one who’s been at the center of my thoughts for, well, longer than is appropriate. Though to be fair, none of the thoughts I’ve had about Lachlan McDougall have really ever been appropriate, regardless of how old I was.

  And it hasn’t just been “thoughts.” “Thoughts” makes it sound so innocent, so frivolous. But the “thoughts” I’ve had about Lachlan have been anything but innocent.

  …They’ve been downright sinful. Lewd, wicked, filthy thoughts. And dreams. And fantasies. For years.

  In the flickering light of the fire, my blue eyes dart across his rough, hardened, chiseled, handsome face. It’s the face of a warrior. The face of a lord. The face of a man who’s seen the world and made it home with the demons on his back. My eyes flit to his, holding there for a second and getting lost in those dark browns before I lose my nerve and look away, my gaze dropping to his lips.

  God, those lips.

  They’re no better than looking into his eyes. Those lips do little to quell the fire blazing inside of me, the fire that’s been started by those five simple words.

  I’m going to marry you.

  His large hand reaches out, his tunic rolled to the elbows and his forearms rippling as he grips his flagon of wine and brings it to those very lips I’m staring at. He takes a sip and puts the cup back down, his tongue briefly flicking over those lips and sending a heated throb through my core.

  …I think I’m in trouble.

  Lachlan’s hand comes back up, his fingers raking across the silvered hair at his temple, cut short. He clears his throat, and I know his eyes are on mine, but I don’t trust myself to look back into them. Not with his words bringing to life every single wicked, sinful little fantasy I’ve ever had of him. Which, if I’m being honest, is a very large number.

  In my fantasies, the fact that he’s more than twice my age doesn’t matter. That he’s my best friend’s father doesn’t matter. That he was once married—though it was annulled—to my horrible mother. At night, in the darkness, and when I’m alone with my wicked thoughts, none of it matters.

  …Or perhaps all of it is why I’m drawn to him like a moth to flame. Maybe everything that’s wrong about desiring Lachlan McDougall is the very reason I crave him. Except fantasy is just that. It’s fantasy. It’s pretend. Fantasy is the line I couldn’t cross to actually be burned by that flame. Fantasy lets me live out every wicked desire without the scandal. Or without the repercussions. Or without the scorn of my best friend’s eye.

  Except, suddenly, this isn’t fantasy anymore.

  “W—what?”

  The word croaks out of dry, parched lips, and I swallow, blushing at my awkward stumble over the simple word. Lachlan smiles thinly, pushing his flagon across the table towards me and nodding for me to take a drink. I do, quickly, drinking a heavy gulp that catches when I realize I’m drinking from his cup—the very cup those lips have tasted.

  I sputter slightly, but I catch myself, putting the cup back down and swallowing.

  “Would you like to try again?” he purrs, with a slight hint of mirth in his deep, thundering baritone.

  I nod.

  “What?”

  Lachlan smiles, those white teeth flashing and that handsome jaw pulling back as I absolutely melt under it.

  “I apologize for springing this on you,” he says gruffly. “But it couldn’t wait any longer. It’s Darcy, your mother.”

  I make a face.

  I’m sure it’s a sin to dislike the woman who brought you into the world as much as I dislike Darcy. But then, it’s probably up there with disliking the child you brought into the world as much as she clearly dislikes me. Honestly, when I was younger, I used to fantasize that she wasn’t my mother. That somewhere, in some far-off land, there was a kind, sweet, queen or princess of some kind who Darcy had kidnapped me from. Because there was no way a hateful, lying, conniving demon of a creature like Darcy could actually be my mother.

  Except, sadly, the world isn’t always a fairytale. In fact, it rarely is. And the sad truth of it is that you can’t pick your parents. My father I never knew, and Darcy rarely if ever spoke of the late Lord Campbell. When she married Lachlan though, it was here that became home, with Lachlan’s daughter Catriona becoming the sister I never had. And Lachlan becoming the… well, he was the warmth I never knew.

  Four months ago, after trying to destroy Catriona’s wedding to Lord Callum Bruce, Darcy and her lies and backstabbing finally crossed an unforgivable line. And finally, Lachlan saw the light. He banished her from his castle, his lands, and his life, and the marriage was annulled. When it happened, I wasn’t sure what was to happen to me. After all, for the last few years, I’d actually been living abroad—sent to Paris by Darcy to live with her cousin. And with her now banished, and Catriona living with Callum, her husband, where exactly would I be going?

  As it turned out, nowhere. Lachlan made it quite clear that this was my home, and that I could call it that for as long as I like. And so, for the last four months, I’ve been living at Castle McDougall, practically alone with the one man who’s invaded my every fantasy and fever dream since I can remember.

  And now, we’re here, in his study, with those words still hanging in the air as if my fantasies have broken free into the real world.

  “Her people—well, your people,” Lachlan growls. “Have made a claim that her—” he scowls. “Her banishment was without proper notice or…” his look darkens even more. “Or without proper compensation.”

  My brow shoots up.

  “She wants to be paid?”

  I cringe a little. Darcy’s crassness and rudeness has frequently embarrassed me, but this one cuts deeper. Maybe because extorting the very people who gave us a home for all those years is just wrong, especially when Lachlan had every right, for years, to get rid of her.

  “She does,” he growls. “As does your grandfather, Lord Campbell, and they’ve managed to rally a
few of the other Campbell households, in Scotland, in England, and those living in France, to their cause. They want war, Iona.”

  I pale, turning to shake my head as I look into the fire.

  “Which brings me to why I’ve asked you here.”

  His voice rumbles over me, and suddenly, I shiver as those first five words tease through my head.

  I’m going to marry you.

  Not “I want to marry you,” not “do you want to.” Just “I’m going to.”

  I shiver.

  Any other man, and it might be crude, or offensive even. But not Lachlan. Not with the way those eyes blaze into me. Not with the way just thinking of him brings a sinful heat to my body.

  “Why me?” I say quietly, chancing a look back into his eyes.

  Big mistake.

  I falter, blushing red and biting my lip the second his eyes latch onto mine, holding my gaze unflinchingly and with this power that makes my very knees shake.

  “You’re a Campbell,” he says quietly, his eyes burning right into mine. “It won’t appease them all, but I know it’ll appease enough of them do stop a damned war.”

  I nod, only half aware of what he’s even saying, since the blushing girl in me is still fixated on those five little words.

  “It’s just politics, Iona,” he says gruffly, his eyes holding mine without flinching—the firelight dancing in them. “And again, I apologize for springing this on you, but we’re out of time, and this is the only option.”

  I reach for his wine again, this time without being prompted, or without asking, and I can see the hint of a smirk on his face as I take a big gulp.

  “When?” I manage to choke out before I take another sip.

  “Two days.”

  Wine sprays from my lips, and the embarrassment blooms over my face as I quickly apologize and look for something to blot the table with.

  “Leave it,” Lachlan says gently, just the power of his voice stopping me and sending a shiver through my spine. He plucks a cloth from the breast of his tunic. He ignores the table as he reaches across it, and before I know it, he’s deftly dabbing the wine from my mouth. His knuckle brushes my lip, and another heated thrill flashes through me before he pulls away back into his chair. His eyes meet mine, holding my gaze once more as he steeples his hands in front of him.

  “Two days, Iona,” he growls quietly. “In two days, we’ll be married, and you’ll be—”

  Mine, I think in my head, blushing fiercely as I do.

  “—my bride,” Lachlan finishes, his baritone voice lingering in the darkness.

  “Two days,” I whisper, swallowing thickly.

  In two days, I’ll be married to man who I’ve married a hundred times in my head. The man who’s taken me to bed ten times that number in my dreams.

  Twice my age. My best friend’s father. My husband.

  …I’m in so much trouble.

  Chapter 2

  Lachlan

  This is wrong.

  My eye dance over her as she rises, bowing and taking her leave of my study. And still, my gaze follows her right to the door, staring at it long after she’s closed it behind her.

  On the surface, this is a simple, and if I do say so myself, an elegant solution to a problem. That it also has a bit of a snub towards the Campbells is the icing on the cake. But again, that’s all surface. It’d be easy to say this is all a political move, but then, that isn’t entirely true. Yes, my lands need stability, and history has shown many times than an unmarried lord governing over lands has a way of breeding instability. It suggests a lack of commitment, or resolve. It implies that he’s unable to govern his own home, which in turn, opens his land up to naysayers and rabble-rousers who would use his unmarried status as a weapon to bring down his banner.

  And of course, what I told Iona is true. The Campbells are clamoring for war, chiefly amongst them Darcy and her poisonous father, Lord Miller Campbell. Darcy is a harpy, to be sure, but her father just might be worse—a scorned, half-broke lord who once tried to poison an entire dinner banquet thrown for a dozen other lords visiting his castle, all in some terribly thought-out attempt to take their lands. He failed, had land, coin, and titles stripped of him, and has been ostracized ever since.

  My marrying Darcy all those years ago was a charity he didn’t deserve, and a curse I sure as the devil didn’t.

  That move, unlike this one, was purely political. My people had been hit with a devastating plague of the land which destroyed all of the crops grown for the coming winter that year. I’d paid for food from other lords out of my own purse, and I was happy to do so. But then, in another act of divine smiting, or bad luck, or whatever you want to call it, the winter of the same year had been brutal, with ice and hail laying waste to almost every township and village under my banner. Again, my vaults were opened, and I paid, gladly so, for the rebuilding.

  When spring brought news of another lord rumbling to come take my lands in our weakened state, suddenly, Lord Campbell was there with an offer I quite literally could not refuse: marry his Darcy, and he’d provide both funds and men at arms towards my needs.

  And so, I married her—her, the most wretched, spiteful, ill-tempered woman I’ve ever even heard of. Miraculously, mere days after the wedding, the warring lord from afar ceased his rumblings and called off his troops. And in a move I should have seen coming a mile away, Lord Campbell suddenly was “unable” to supply either gold or men. The men I didn’t need anymore, of course, though I suspected and still do that the rumblings of war were created by him anyways. The gold at that point I didn’t even want from a man like that. We made do, and slowly but surely, my vaults were filled again.

  But Darcy remained, for years as my “wife.”

  Needless to say, we never consummated our marriage. Not once, in the almost ten years she lurked in my halls. We kept separate quarters. We dined at different tables. We were rarely in the same room, for God’s sake. Living with that woman was like living in dark dream. Except, there was one small mercy of goodness that came with her.

  Iona.

  Her daughter from a previous marriage to a man she never spoke of, and who I’d never even heard of. Iona became the sister my own Catriona never had, and a joy the halls of my castle hadn’t seen in a very, very long time. Bright, charming, mischievous, and full of laughter.

  And then, she grew up.

  Gods did she grow up.

  It was like it happened overnight. She was a girl one day—a girl who made me laugh and smile and nothing more. And then the next day, she was a woman—a woman who held my gaze like the sun. And suddenly, I was blinded.

  And that is why all of this, however necessary, is wrong. It’s why I know damn well it’s not just a political move. And it isn’t just wrong because of what people may say about my marring a girl her age at my age, or the history there with Campbell name and with Darcy. No, this is wrong because of what Iona does to me.

  What she makes me feel.

  It’s wrong because since that day when she was suddenly a woman, my eyes have lingered longer than they ought to. I’ve watched her—watched her—for longer than I should have been. My pulse has quickened faster than it has any business doing with her. And my dreams have been filled with her—consumed by her, for years.

  It’s wrong because Iona Campbell makes me hard.

  She’s my ex’s daughter. She’s my daughter’s best friend. And now, she’ll be my bride.

  A forbidden bride, and all mine.

  Chapter 3

  Iona

  When I wake, for a moment, I wonder if it’s all been a dream—one more in a long and storied history of dreams involving Lachlan McDougall. Certainly, a change from the usual purely carnal sins ones, but still, a dream none-the-less, right?

  Wrong.

  It only takes a moment of being awake to know how real last night was, and the full weight of it all settles over me as I tug the blankets up to my chin. Lachlan McDougall asked me to be his wife. No, not aske
d. Told me. He told me I was to be his wife. Decreed it. And somehow, even if that’s more wrong, it sizzles across my skin, making me squeeze my thighs tight together beneath the covers. I squirm in my bed, heat creeping over me in places that I know are sinful.

  I shake those thoughts away though, rising and dressing for the day. I tremble, shaking as I look at myself in the large mirror against one of the walls of my quarters.

  I’m nervous.

  I’m nervous to leave these four walls and face the man who’s castle this is, who’ll be my husband. And soon. I don’t exactly know why I’m so nervous. After all, I’ve known Lachlan for ten years. I lived here even when I was in the throes of my nocturnal fantasies of him, siting and smiling at him across the breakfast table the next day without much more than a tingle in my cheeks.

  But somehow, things have changed. Somehow, my ability to compartmentalize the fantasies of Lachlan and the real him has broken apart. Maybe it’s the time spent away from here living in Paris. Or of course it could be that he’s asked, no, told me he’s marrying me. Or maybe it’s that the way he’s looked at me has changed. It’s slight, and he hid it away last night when we spoke, but there was… something there in his eyes. Something I’ve never seen in them before. And it’s something that intrigues me, scandalizes me, and electrifies me all at the same time.

  With a stomach gurgling for food and hot tea, I finally take a breath, compose myself, and step out of my quarters. I almost tip-toe down to the great hall, to where Lachlan always takes his breakfast and tea this time of the morning beside the large windows overlooking the western vistas of the castle. But when I enter, I find his attending men waiting alone, nodding courteously at me as I enter.

  “Tea and breakfast, m’lady?”

  I nod, frowning slightly as my eyes fix on the place where Lachlan usually sits.