Page 2 of Highlander’s Lust

1

Worlds Apart

Bess Morley’s good angels must have been listening. The door connecting to the dressing room opened, and Sorley Crosbie—his lairdship’s cousin, counselor, and steward—entered his bedchamber.

“Hoots!” Sorley exclaimed. “What the—”

Using the last of the air inside her chest, Bess wheezed, “For the love of everything holy, get him off me…”

Sorley must not have seen the maid under his lairdship’s bulk or heard her plea because the first thing he did was stride to the bedchamber entrance, unbolt it, and fling the door open, shouting in a loud voice down the passage, “Hasten, hasten! Something ails his lairdship!”

Only then did Sorley approach the bed and climb the dais.

“Help me…”

“Losh, wench, I swear I never saw ye there—ye’re as flat as a cowpat!” Sorley peered closer and saw a thin sliver of the maid’s face underneath Laird Ramsay’s corpse. For that is what the body most definitely was now. Sorley knew this immediately when he saw poor Ramsay’s gaping mouth and deathly pallor.

Sorley grabbed hold of the belt wrapping Laird Ramsay’s plaid around his rotund waist, and with a loud grunt, heaved the body off Bess. She rolled over, her hands clutched to her throat, gasping and choking.

Sorley never got to tell the maid what he thought about her using his bedchamber as an assignation spot. His shouts had sent the footmen running to fetch Laird Ramsay’s son and heir, Charlie Brisbane.

“What’s afoot?” the new Laird Brisbane wanted to know. Not bothering to knock, he simply walked into the chamber with his careless stride and craned his head around Sorley, who was trying to block his view.

Charlie saw at a glance what had happened. He straightened up and sighed. “The auld goat’s gone to meet his maker, has he? When did this happen?” He addressed his question to the sobbing Bess.

“Hold yer noise!” Sorley said, giving the maid a shake. “Answer his lairdship.”

Charlie raised his eyebrow. “Let the girl recover herself first before shaking the truth out of her. I suppose I am the laird now, Sorley, but ‘tis a wee bit soon for callin’ me such. Let’s put the auld man in his grave first before we start handing out titles.”

Sorley bowed low. “Aye, of course, yer laird...I mean, Charlie.”

Charlie went to the casement and flung the window open, trying to rid the atmosphere of the stink of whisky and shock. The expression on his face was unfathomable. Charlie’s thoughts had always been far harder to read or predict than his father’s had been; he might have a similar liking for the ladies, but Charlie had somehow managed to retain a certain enigmatic appeal for all this. It must have had something to do with the way he looked.

While the great plaid wrapped around Laird Ramsay’s corpulent midriff had made the old laird resemble a woolen parcel of fat sausages, no man in his right mind would call Charlie anything but perfectly proportioned. His wide shoulders connected to arms made muscular from years of sword training and other manly pursuits; his broad chest rose proud and sculpted under the light fabric of his shirt, causing the eyes to sweep ever downward to his trim stomach and slim hips. His powerful leg muscles told their own story of horse riding and athletic prowess at the Highland games. But these were not the only attributes that made Charlie Brisbane such a hit with the ladies.

Besides his masculine physique and rugged charm, Charlie had been blessed with astonishing good looks too. He had inherited his wild mane of unkempt dark brown hair and lean height from his mother’s side—the Brisbane clan being sandy-haired and prone to plumpness. The late Lady Brisbane had been a notorious beauty. The portrait of her mounted in the great entrance hall of the castle spoke truth to this. It showed a statuesque woman in the prime of her life, blue eyes gazing soulfully out of the canvas under bored drooping eyelids, her lips set into a mysterious curling pout.

Charlie’s eye color was slightly darker, as they were set around with slate grey rings, and the angle of his jaw was more pronounced, giving his face a slightly aggressive menace, but whenever he stood in the entrance hall beneath his mother’s portrait, people would remark on the son’s uncanny resemblance to his mother.

Personally, Sorley thought the new Laird Brisbane looked like a proper clan leader far more than his father had; it was too bad the son seemed to emulate his father’s propensity toward lasciviousness and carnal pleasures.

Charlie went to the small table pushed against one side of the room on which an elegant decanter full of amber liquid was perched. He poured out half a glass of whisky and moved over to where Bess was still shaking and crying.

He held the glass out to her, saying, “Drink this back, wench, and then give us the story. Mind now, I’ll ken if ye play the fool, an’ it will go sore with ye if ye do.”

Slowly, piece by piece, and with plenty of sobs, the maid told her tale. When she had finished both the whisky and her recounting of events, Charlie cocked an eye at Sorley. “Methinks what the wench says is true. What think ye?”

Sorley stared hard at the maid for a few moments and then conceded. “Aye…he—yer faither, rest his soul—has shown a fondness for this slattern’s company of late, there’s no doubt about that. But it will go hard on the clan when the method of yer faither’s demise becomes more broadly known.”

Charlie laughed. “Hoots, lad! That’s the least of our troubles...or my troubles, at least. Now the only person standing between the Brisbane line and complete obscurity is me! And that means I have to think about finding meself a wife and setting up a nursery, and right soon at that.”

Sorley looked at the tall, handsome man standing across the room from him. It was such a pity the young man had inherited his father’s fondness for women and his mother’s good looks. If only he had inherited his father’s looks and his mother’s cool aloofness and proud demeanor, maybe then the Brisbane family name would have a chance at regaining its former dignity.

“Shall I send out word to the neighboring lairds to consider allying their clans to ours?” Sorley asked.

Charlie held up his hand. “Nay, no’ yet. Let’s hold the auld man’s wake first. That should be enough to bring all the chiefs and chieftains for miles around to pay their respects. In the messages, be sure to mention the whole family is welcome. Let’s sweeten the deal by sayin’ we are throwing the castle’s and village inn’s doors wide open; bed and board provided for all and sundry. And that we will provide a wake feast so vast the food will be enough to feed all the Highlands for a week. Mention that the new laird—the honorable Charles Brisbane—might take umbrage if any person old enough to mount a horse was to stay away. That should be enough to bring every eligible maiden for miles round to Brisbane Castle.”

Sorley imagined Charlie surrounded by clan chieftains’ daughters as far as the eye could see and barely repressed a shudder.