The Highlander and The Lady of Misrule (The Queen’s Highlanders Book 2) Read online

  The Highlander & The Lady of Misrule

  The Queen’s Highlanders

  Book 2

  Heather McCollum

  © Copyright 2022 by Heather McCollum

  Text by Heather McCollum

  Cover by Dar Albert

  Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.

  P.O. Box 23

  Moreno Valley, CA 92556

 

  Produced in the United States of America

  First Edition August 2022

  Kindle Edition

  Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.

  All Rights Reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.

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  Dearest Reader;

  Thank you for your support of a small press. At Dragonblade Publishing, we strive to bring you the highest quality Historical Romance from some of the best authors in the business. Without your support, there is no ‘us’, so we sincerely hope you adore these stories and find some new favorite authors along the way.

  Happy Reading!

  CEO, Dragonblade Publishing

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Heather McCollum

  The Queen’s Highlanders Series

  The Highlander & The Queen’s Sacrifice (Book 1)

  The Highlander & The Lady of Misrule (Book 2)

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Publisher’s Note

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Heather McCollum

  Dedication

  Scots-Gaelic Words Used in Book

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Dedication

  For Keri, my dragonfly sister.

  We met after having our first babies and had two more each in the following years. Growing old with you is going to be a hoot! This book is also for all the pups we’ve loved. Miss you, Cody, the best reading dog ever (who could turn the book pages with his nose).

  Scots-Gaelic Words Used in Book

  bòidheach – beautiful

  daingead – damnit

  Darach – Oak (Name of Greer’s horse)

  mattucashlass – dagger sharpened on both sides of the blade

  mo chreach – my rage

  sgian dubh – black handled dagger with only one side of the blade sharpened

  Chapter One

  “Bear-baiting [sic] was a very pleasant sport to see. To see the bear, with his pink eyes, tearing after his enemies’ approach…with biting, with clawing, with roaring, with tossing and tumbling, he would work and wind himself from them. And when he was loose, to shake his ears twice or thrice with the blood and the slather hanging about his physiognomy.”

  Robert Laneham, court official, 1575

  24 December 1573 AD

  Bankside Street across the Thames, London

  Bear Garden Kennels

  Lucy Cranfield flattened against the brick wall of the kennel and motioned for the three children who had followed her to do the same.

  “We will be caught for sure,” twelve-year-old Alyce whispered, keeping her cowl up to cover the scar on one side of her pretty face. “Then they’ll make us fight instead of the cocks and dogs.”

  “Then we’d be gladiators like from Lady Lucy’s stories,” ten-year-old Nick whispered. His voice held a certain hopefulness that made Lucy question the history lessons she’d been teaching the three orphans. And she certainly wasn’t presenting an example of propriety with this clandestine plot.

  “Can we keep one of the dogs?” Catherine, the youngest, at six years of age, asked.

  “They’ll likely be too large,” Lucy said.

  “How about a bear?” Catherine asked.

  “Don’t be dull, Cat,” Nick said, rolling his eyes. “A bear would eat you up.”

  From the size of some of the mastiffs Lucy had seen battling the bears, a dog might also eat them up. “The three of you should return to Cranfield House,” she whispered. “I’ll be right along after I save the dogs.” And attempt to not be eaten.

  Whereas the giant bears were prized and so expensive that their masters withdrew them from battle before they could be seriously injured, the poor dogs were considered inexpensive victims for the bears. And if they showed any kind of fighting talent, they were then set upon each other in other arenas. Bear baiting, bull baiting, and dog fights were brutal and horrid. It made Lucy question the state of humanity with so many Londoners enjoying the blood sports.

  “Don’t forget the cocks,” Nick said. “They don’t deserve to have to wrestle and peck each other’s eyes out to survive.”

  “They’d be cooked otherwise,” Alyce said.

  “Rather cooked than hurt week after week, and then cooked,” Nick said.

  Lucy agreed. No animal should be made to fight one another to survive. Lucy exhaled long, her heart pounding with worry. The scheme to free the dogs was becoming more dangerous by the moment. Whereas she might be sent from court for her crimes, the children could be thrown into the Tower or the stocks as thieves.

  “Let’s only free the dogs this time, Nick,” Lucy said, holding the boy’s gaze until he nodded, although mutiny sat in his fierce frown.

  “I have a snowball to defend us,” Catherine said, holding the white ball in her gloved hands. “It has a rock in it to make it sharp.”

  “Dirt works best,” Nick said. “You freeze it in water and break a shard of it to put in the center. Once it melts, there’s only dirt.” He shrugged. “No evidence of a weapon at all.”

  “Clever,” Catherine said, obviously impressed with the boy who’d taken on the role of big brother to her.

  The sound of a horse clopping on the road beyond made them jump back to flatten against the kennel’s cold wall. Alyce held a finger to her lips as the sound faded.

  “Stay here,” Lucy whispered, and she peeked around the side of the dogs’ prison. The door was unguarded. Granted, the animals were fed and given shelter against the cold, but was that sufficient reason for making them fight bears or each other until they died? Of course not.

  If they wish to return to their kennels, they can. But she would give them the choice. Clutching a bag with food scraps in it, she crept along to the door, pushing inside. She released her breath when she saw the kennel was empty of humans. Several of the mastiffs and bulldogs stood up, barking. They were large with tawny coats and scars that showed their battle prowess. They looked ferocious.

  Lucy swallowed against the narrowing in her throat. First make friends. She hurried over, snatching off her glove and pushed pieces of meat and rolls through the icy bars of the cells where at least twenty dogs were now straining to reach her. “Here, my loves,” she said.

  There were three to four dogs in each run. She should have asked Nick to hold the door open so they could run out. God’s teeth. There was nothing with which to prop the door.

  Saint Francis be with me. Without another thought, she started lifting latches on the cells, letting the doors swing open. She flattened herself up against the bars as large and medium-sized dogs tore out of their prisons, tails swatting one another as growls and barks rose in a battle of canine greeting and excitement. Some of the animals’ backs came as high as her waist. Holy Mother Mary, she could ride one like a horse.

  “Good pups,” she called several times but could barely hear her own voice over the snapping and barks. The last kennel held the smaller dogs. She released the latch
, and half a dozen tore out to jump between the legs of the larger dogs. Two puppies hid in the corner with a blanket. They looked old enough to be weaned, but not by much.

  Lucy turned, waving her arms as she waded through the mass, hoping her heavy skirts would keep any of them from biting her legs. Step after step, she dodged massive heads and thick tails. Would they turn on her, devouring her as she tried to liberate them? Her sister, Cordelia, would say she deserved it for risking herself so outrageously to free the hounds.

  Lucy fell against the stone wall after tripping over a bulldog, but she reached the door, swinging it open. The surge of yelping, barking beasts rushed around her like water from a shattered damn. They hit her skirts and legs, pushing her forward with the flow. Her arms flailed as she hurtled toward the ground. Eyes squeezed shut, it took her a moment to realize someone had caught her.

  *

  Greer Buchanan pulled the woman toward him, turning them both so that they moved out of the violent rush of hounds. The dogs raced off behind a circular building that looked like an arena.

  The woman wore laborers’ clothing and smelled of strawberries. The hair that had escaped her linen cap was golden, and her skin lay smooth against high cheekbones.

  The dogs could have torn her apart. “What in bloody hell are ye doing, lass?”

  She turned blue eyes up to him. “Put me down,” she ordered. When he didn’t immediately, she began to kick and twist in his arms.

  “Let her go!” a boy yelled.

  A heartbeat later, a cutting pain broke across Greer’s forehead, followed by an explosion of icy snow over his face. He dropped the woman, and she landed with a thud.

  “Holy hell,” she said.

  “Mo chreach!” he yelled, wiping the ice and snow from his face.

  “Run!” the woman yelled, and three children ran off across the field, the boy in the lead. The woman pushed back onto her heels and straightened, her gaze going back and forth between him and the kennel she’d liberated. “You’re bleeding,” she said.

  He wiped at the sting. “Bloody snowball had a rock in it,” he said, but the lass had already run back into the kennel.

  Greer yanked a rag from the belt that held his woolen plaid in place and wiped at the blood on his forehead. Aye, she was mad, and her lad had a most accurate aim.

  Going to the door, he pulled it open. The woman nearly ran into him.

  “Here,” she said, thrusting a smallish dog into his arms while she held onto a second tan-coated pup.

  “Ho there! What’s going on?” a man dressed in guard’s livery called from around the corner of the now empty kennel.

  “Holy Mother Mary,” the woman whispered.

  “Bloody hell,” he murmured as he and the lass stood there looking guilty enough to march directly to the gallows. Three other guards followed the one in charge, and all Greer could do was hold the pup against him as it tried to lick his face.

  Greer Buchanan had already deduced that the portly man on London Bridge had sent him the wrong way to Whitehall Palace. As a Highlander in dress and speech, many of the English thought nothing of lying to him, even when he used his mother’s advice on being polite.

  “Thank goodness you’ve come,” the woman said as the guards halted before them, short swords drawn. Tears filled her eyes, and her gloved hand shook as she pointed after the hounds. “I was but walking this way and all your dogs barreled out.”

  Fok. Her statement made him the obvious culprit.

  “Who are you?” a frowning guard asked him as two of the men ran into the kennel.

  “Greer Buchanan,” he answered, “with a message from Lord Moray on behalf of King James to your queen.” The dog squirmed in his arms.

  “’Tis empty!” the second guard yelled, running back out. “Look!” He pointed toward the pack breaking off into three groups around the fishponds.

  “Did Lord Moray send you to steal the queen’s dogs?” the leader said, nodding to the pups in their arms.

  “I’m not stealing dogs,” Greer said. “I was trying to find my way to Whitehall Palace when the noise drew me here, and I came to the aid of the lady.”

  Tears slid down the woman’s cheeks. “These two poor pups were being trampled. I persuaded this man to help me save them.”

  “Whitehall ’tis on the other side of the Thames, Scot,” the guard said, turning outward at the sound of squawking.

  “Holy hell,” the woman whispered next to Greer. They all watched as the lad who’d hit him with the rock-laden snowball ran out of another animal kennel behind a flock of roosters that he’d apparently freed. They were squawking and flapping their wings as they scrambled in a haphazard race to escape the lad’s flailing arms.

  “Did you see the lad release the dogs too?” the guard asked, looking between them with suspicion.

  “Oh yes,” the woman said. “I saw the boy clearly.” She gave a dramatic shiver. “About fifteen years old with red hair.”

  The guard looked back to where the roosters were running, a few stopping to peck at the ground. The boy had run off, and Greer didn’t see the two young lasses.

  “I think he had dark hair,” the guard said.

  Greer shifted the puppy who continued to try to lick his face as if he was coated in honey.

  “Oh no,” the woman said loudly. “I saw him up close. Red hair when seen in the light. And his eyes…” She shook her head. “Unnatural. One was blue and one was brown.” She touched her face to the right of her lip. “And an unusual, dark mark right here on his face.”

  Greer hadn’t seen any of that on the boy and yet she met the guard’s gaze without blinking. The woman was a masterful liar.

  “Would you like to write my description down?” she asked. “Or I could draw something and return it to you if that would help you find the villain.”

  Before the guard could answer, the woman’s gaze diverted, and she let loose a scream that made both puppies yelp and the guard jump.

  “Damnation, woman!” the leader of the guards yelled. “What is it?”

  She pointed toward the circular arena. “I saw Blind Bess! The fiend opened the bear cages! They’ll eat us alive!” She placed her hand on Greer’s arm as if she might swoon.

  “Edgar, Gabe, get the poles!” the lead guard yelled, running off. “We can’t let the bears get away!” Chickens and dogs were replaceable, but not the champion bears that had been imported from the continent.

  A horse whinnied, and Greer looked toward the road that ran along the Thames where he’d left his large black horse, Darach. Two of the large dogs were circling him. They were used to chained bears, not a horse that could deliver a blow to their heads that would knock them dead.

  “Be gone,” he yelled as he ran toward Darach, while clutching the pup to his chest.

  The lass ran after him but stopped short while he chased off the dogs. She began to walk quickly away from the arena. “Lass, the pup,” he called to her.

  “I’ll show you to Whitehall,” she called back. “You’ll need to go back over London Bridge.”

  “Lord help me,” he mumbled. It had taken him nearly an hour to traverse the crowded, shop-lined bridge the first time. Dog tucked under one arm, Greer took Darach’s reins, turning him in a wide circle. His horse’s shiny black coat was covered with dried mud from the week’s long trip down from Edinburgh. Actually, they were both coated in dirt.

  “Come along,” she called over her shoulder and continued at a pace that fell somewhere between a walk and a run, both her arms holding the pup against her bosom.

  Barking in the distance wove with the sound of Darach’s clopping and their footfalls on the cobblestone. The lass glanced behind them at the empty street and exhaled fully, her smooth cheeks puffing out with it. “Thank the holy Mother Mary,” she whispered.

  “Ye’re Catholic?” Greer asked.

  Her eyes snapped up to his face. “No.”

  “Ye pray to the Virgin Mother.”

  She kissed the dog in her arms on the top of its tawny head. “’Tis merely something I learned as a child. My mother… She was Catholic.” The dog looked up at her, its tongue hanging out as it panted. “Ho there, little one. You’re safe now.”