Chieftain By Command Read online

  Chieftain by Command

  Frances Housden

  www.escapepublishing.com.au

  Chieftain by Command

  Frances Housden

  From the bestselling, RITA-nominated author Frances Housden comes the gripping, sensual, suspenseful follow-up to The Chieftain’s Curse…

  Gavyn Farquhar’s marriage is forged with a double-edged blade. Along with the Comlyn clan’s lands, a reward from the King, he is blessed with an unwilling bride, Kathryn Comlyn, and an ancient fort with few defences that desperately needs to be fortified before it can act as a sufficient buffer between Scotland and the Norsemen on its northern borders.

  Gavyn needs wealth to meet his king’s demands, and he knows of only one way to get it—with his sword. Leaving his prickly bride behind in the hands of trusted advisors, he makes his way to the battlegrounds of France and the money that can be made there.

  Two years married and Kathryn is still a virgin. A resentful virgin, certain that, like her father before her, she is perfectly capable of leading the Comlyn clan. In her usurper husband’s absence, she meets the clan’s needs, advising and ruling as well as any man.

  But she is an intelligent woman, and she knows the only respect and power she will ever hold will be through her husband. And to wield it, she needs to make him love her. An easy task to set, but impossible to complete, when said husband has been gone for two years, and there is no word of his return. But Kathryn is undeterred. After all, a faint heart never won a Chieftain.

  About the Author

  Frances Housden has only recently discovered the delights of writing Mediaeval Scottish stories—part fantasy and part memories of her early life in Scotland. Now living in New Zealand, she happily writes at home and lives vicarious adventures with her heroes and heroines.

  Frances is married to the man she travelled to the ends of the earth for, and together they have two sons and four grandchildren who make sure life is never dull.

  https://www.facebook.com/frances.housden.9

  www.franceshousden.com

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to acknowledge my writer friend Carol Marinelli for always being willing to listen to the trials and tribulations of my characters. I also want to thank my editor Kate Cuthbert. Her help with Chieftain by Command has been invaluable. And I mustn’t forget to thank the ladies at the Harlequin Australia offices—Lilia, Sue, Julia and Cristina—for all their help.

  This one is dedicated to my husband Keith, the man who always has my back.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…

  Glossary

  Aye – yes

  Burn – a stream

  Breacan-an-fiele – a kilted plaid held by a belt

  Caw canny – take it easy

  Capercailie – a very large European grouse

  Cateran – outlaws

  Ceilidh – a celebration with song and dance

  Linty – Linnet, a small finch

  Skean dhu – a dagger or dirk

  Syne – since

  Slàinte mathas – good helath

  Sept – branch of a clan

  Skelp – smack

  Sleekit – crafty, deceitful

  Throng – bad-tempered

  Uisge beatha – whisky, water of life

  Prologue

  Bienn á Bhuird, Scotland

  Year of Our Lord 1082

  Fate, in the guise of King Malcolm Canmore, had sent Gavyn to this dark place—a high hall, a longhouse built of ancient logs weathered by wind and rain to the colour of aged pewter, a building more suited to the worship of Norse gods than a home for mere mortals.

  With its back nestled into the shelter of the rocky mountainside, the hall surveyed the whole valley from a broad shelf reached by worn steps carved aeons ago from the cliff face. Clan Comlyn had ruled from this hall for longer than living memory, but war and ambition had rid the world of the last males in a long line bearing the Comlyn name.

  Inside the hall, pitch-tipped rushes fixed around the walls scented the dark hollows near the roof—corners where smoke from the firepit drifted. An unlikely setting, one might say, for the marriage of the daughter of one mighty chieftain and the son of another.

  Kathryn Comlyn, the only glimmer of brightness in the hall, stood before her groom like a tall, slender, white wand, her hair flowing down her back in a wash of pale sunlight from the huge open doors behind them.

  Gavyn’s lip curled as he thought of himself, thought of how others saw him—this mercenary whom cruel life experiences had cloaked in an aura of darkness, had sliced away any claim to being handsome. To the guests it might appear that his bride felt nervous, she kept her lashes downcast, hiding her large aquamarine eyes from her battle-scarred groom.

  Kathryn, nervous? Never. Her bridegroom knew better.

  And so, as Gavyn Farquhar, one-time Baron of Wolfsdale, took his young bride’s hand, he stared down at the ring he held betwixt finger and thumb—the ruby, gleaming blood-red, set in finely twisted coils—and saw it for what it was: a symbol, a contract wrought in gold and blood, for hadn’t his family been responsible for the deaths of hers?

  He twisted the circlet, bringing it toward his young bride’s fingertip. Even as he watched, Kathryn’s fingers curved, curled into the warmth of her palm, trembling. Not out of any virginal fear, though she was untouched; Gavyn had been assured of that. No, his bride shook through an excess of bad humours and a wide streak of obstinacy, both of which made her determined to go her own road—a direction that didn’t coincide in any particular with her new husband’s.

  Kathryn Comlyn was an unwilling bride.

  And Gavyn was no more delighted by the prospect than she. Aye, but life’s hard lessons had taught him to be a particle more pragmatic; arranged marriages were hardly unusual for folk of their station. Theirs, however, was entered upon at the behest of King Malcolm Canmore—a fine sort of truth which precluded the notion that either of them had had any choice in the matter.

  He heard Kathryn’s sharply indrawn breath. It preceded any firming of his grasp on her hand—a fine show of pretence that his grip hurt her. Gavyn had learned to ignore her tricks. Uncurling her fingers, he thrust the ring past her knuckle into its rightful place. “There now,” he said, voicing his satisfaction through half-clenched teeth.

  From this moment, they were indeed man and wife, in name at least.

  Kathryn’s immediate reaction was to tilt her chin at him, a fault in her that he had soon come to expect and ignore, as if it no longer bothered him.

  Though honesty prevented his denying the same self-deception, it did annoy him when she seldom hid the shudders wrought by the sight of his battle-scarred face. Folk had warned him she was spoiled, wilful. Of a surety, she hadn’t a skerrick of diplomacy in her lush female body.

  Few men
in his place could simply turn a cold shoulder on the appealing curve of a hip that made one’s fingers beg to dawdle, or away from breasts that would surely fill a man’s hands to overflowing.

  Aye to Gavyn’s self-disgust, he couldn’t rightly count himself one of yon rare few.

  The feasting done, both bride and groom retired to the chieftain’s apartments, led to the bedchamber by their guests with all the laughter and ceremony due such an important occasion, for a dynasty depended on its success.

  Soon, there was just the two of them, Kathryn and Gavyn, in the big master bedchamber. She spoke first. “I know fine it’s our wedding night, but I will not lie abed with you. I refuse,” she spat out her rejection of him accompanied by the stamp of one dainty foot.

  Gavyn, listening to Kathryn’s outburst, displayed little concern. He barely managed an ironic tilt to one of the dark brows shading his eyes, carefully hiding the surge of satisfaction he felt.

  How could she know her refusal suited him fine?

  And to make certain she wouldn’t change her mind, he offered Kathryn just enough insult to keep her temper simmering, saying, “It makes little odds to me. Truth to tell, you’re naught but a wee lass, an inexperienced bairn, and hardly my notion of a guid ride.”

  Aye, she would be fair pleased to see the back of him.

  For a minute her pretty yet often sulky mouth dropped open. Of a certainty, she’d expected him to argue against her rebuff.

  “Do you prefer men then?” She flung her own insult at him with a hint of bravado, not cowed by his size or the fact that they were alone in a room dominated by a huge bed.

  Gavyn had wondered when she would fire his late brother’s sins in his face. He merely curled his lip, fending off her spite as he might a poorly shot arrow. “Acquit me of such vile proclivities, wife,” he ground the words out. It was time for some plain speech. “Understand this, woman, with all the preparations that I must see to on the morrow; sleep is preferable to teaching you such duties as a man might expect from his wife.”

  He caught a spark of protest in her pale Nordic-blue eyes, along with a twist of bewilderment, and decided to rid her of any hint of misery her curiosity might cause.

  “In two days,” he told her, “I and my mercenaries leave for France. The French king has need of extra men to help teach the damned Normans a lesson—the same lesson Malcolm Canmore has forbidden me to teach that blackguard, the one that selfsame William of Normandy has installed in my own hall of Wolfsdale.”

  His new wife appeared too flabbergasted to lay voice to another protest, an occasion to be much applauded, so he continued, “Know this, when I return, I shall expect you to be as I left you—intact. I’ll tolerate no man’s bastard in my hall,” he warned her, his voice the rough growl he normally saved for his hounds. Gavyn wanted no misunderstanding between them.

  Now or ever.

  The blood drained from her naturally pale skin as she stepped back, her hand searching behind her for the solid wood of the bedpost. Aye, she was shocked, but not speechless. “This is my father’s hall, Clan Comlyn’s!” she protested, lips atremble.

  “No longer. By the King’s command this hall is now mine.”

  He let his gaze travel over the feminine curves that were his to use by right, yet steeled himself to resist temptation. “On my oath, Kathryn,” Gavyn vowed. “Any sons you bear under this roof and in that bed will be mine.”

  “Inexperienced, I might be,” she taunted with a lift of her sweetly rounded chin. “Yet, I’m thinking that even for the mighty Gavyn Farquhar, it would take a miracle to get me with child from such a distance.”

  As ever, there was little honey in her pronouncement of the truth as she saw it. Gavyn for his part had to cut off the bark of laughter sitting at the back of his throat. He had a presentment that life with Kathryn would always be interesting but was too wise to arm her with such information. He settled for saying, “I won’t be gone forever. Two years at most. Enough time to earn the money needed to tear down this auld longhouse and build a new stone Keep.”

  Kathryn sniffed at the news, but he saw the shock in her eyes. She was a Comlyn through and through and, as was the custom, would retain her family name. She recovered herself enough to demand, “And what will I do while you’re away in foreign parts?”

  “Wait,” he told her. “Learn to sew a fine seam. The seneschal and constable will see to everything pertaining to the hall and clan, and the McArthur will be nearby if needed. On my return, we’ll turn our hands…”—he broke off, a smile at last lighting his once handsome features, then continued—“as well as a few other parts, to the making of a new Highland clan from all the sons we’ll make together.” At the lift of her pale gold brows he assured her, “Aye, I’m wanting lads. Gavyn Farquhar’s sons.”

  Chapter 1

  The entrance to the great hall of Dun Bhuird was flanked by two housecarls—proud, strong men, tall and thick in the girth, stalwart. Encased in coats of leather plates, they stood beneath the wide, overhanging eaves that sheltered the hall’s entrance. The wide platform, held aloft by four carved pillars, threw deep shadows over the men, cloaking them in a dangerous stillness. A threat, a warning, serving the same purpose as the carved dragons whose bodies twisted around the tall pillars—ancient wooden columns that spoke of the High Hall’s origins, its auld Norse ancestry. Kathryn had long considered the housecarls an appropriate reflection of the wooden creatures—both silent and still except for a flicker of the housecarls’ pale eyes as they watched her then returned to the horizon for signs of raiders.

  Strange to know she had warriors ready to protect her at an instant. Wise enough to know it would take more than strength to defend her from the moments of darkness that could suddenly haunt her thoughts.

  Kathryn had gone to bed annoyed and awoke in the same frame of mind. She was a Scot, a Highland Scot. Pragmatism should be part of her nature, yet her cousin Brodwyn’s remarks of the evening before had tirelessly dashed hither and thither through her mind, constantly disturbing her rest by refusing to be ignored.

  God’s teeth, she was an adult now, old enough not to be bothered by her cousin’s words. Having been on this earth all of eighteen years meant she was well past the age of paying any regard to Brodwyn’s mean comments. “The Bear might as well have sent you to that nunnery after all,” she had sniped when Kathryn reproached her for her behaviour around the men.

  Kathryn had turned on her heel and walked away, telling herself that Brodwyn always managed to avoid having to answer for her behaviour, forever acting as if Kathryn were the one in the wrong. Brodwyn preferred to retaliate with words that pinched and prodded. Words that hurt like Brodwyn’s poking fingers had back when they had been children, Kathryn the younger by five years.

  She hadn’t realised that Gavyn’s absence would diminish her in a way his presence had not been able to accomplish. She felt as if she were actually locked in that purgatory that priests spoke of, a vile waiting room removed from this earth where the soul had no notion of its destination, be it heaven or be it hell.

  Taking a deep breath, Kathryn strode into the fresh air leaving her maid, Lhilidh to collect a few concoctions from the stillroom that she had prepared the day before. Letting out the breath in a long whispering sigh, she spoke her thought aloud—“A-a-ah, but this feels better”—just loud enough that no one would know it was her cousin’s absence she referred to.

  The ground fell away here, and she could see everything. Her whole world was bounded by the horizon. During the past two years she had never so much as crossed its borders, yet it had seldom felt like a prison. She loved this land—Comlyn land that her family had tamed over many generations.

  The chill of early morning, when the sun’s fingers had just begun their long climb over the eastern horizon, was her favourite part of the day. Its only flaw was the ravens taking wing from the cliff by the waterfall. She didn’t need reminding of her husband or the raven that flew on his banner.

 
Taking another long breath to still her mind, she returned to her purpose of settling her thoughts for the start of a long day. Forget Brodwyn, she told herself.

  Standing on the edge of a drop high enough to break every bone in a body were it to fall from there, she reflected on the beauty of the quiet dawn colouring the dew-coated boulders edging the lip. At this height, sometimes the dawn’s light struck the eye like silver, clear as crystal. On other mornings sunrise tinted the valley with the same mellow hue as the chieftain’s gold and silver embossed shield hanging above the carved chair at the high board.

  Her father had ruled from that chair. Aye and some said he had ruled from the saddle of his horse as well, merely by the fierce look of him—a terrifying sight, his shoulders swathed in a bearskin. He hadn’t always been wise or just, she admitted now. The Bear had been a man whose flaws were as one with his strengths. Still, she had loved him. Not that Erik, the last Comlyn Chieftain, had seemed to notice.

  Astrid, her elder sister, had always been his favourite.

  Now they were both no more, and Alexander, her brother, with them. Their essences left where they’d succumbed, haunting the granite walls of the McArthur’s Cragenlaw Castle like unwelcome guests.

  Yet, her father’s image remained writ large on her memory, as if they had spoken yesterday. More than two years since, Erik the Bear had been placed in the ground, his grave marked by the huge cairn atop Bienn á Bhuird. His loyal clansmen had built the monument to mark his passing.

  She gulped hard, swallowed as if the action would fill the hollow spaces loneliness had carved in her heart. Day by day, the weight of her emotions crowded together yet couldn’t fill her up. From the day they had brought the bodies of her father and brother home from Cragenlaw, she had felt alone—surrounded yet alone.

  Even her husband had departed within days of making his vows before the priest.

  A lesser woman might have crumpled, but not her, not Kathryn Comlyn.