The Highlander's Welsh Bride: Book 5 in the Hardy Heroines series Read online

  THE HIGHLANDER’S WELSH BRIDE

  Book 5 in the Hardy Heroines series

  By Cathy & DD MacRae

  PUBLISHED BY

  Short Dog Press

  www.cathymacraeauthor.com

  The Highlander’s Welsh Bride © 2019 Short Dog Press

  All rights reserved

  Amazon KDP Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. 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 it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. The ebook contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or stored in or introduced into an information storage and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Words of interest:

  Prologue

  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

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  Authors’ notes

  Acknowledgements

  AUTHOR BIOS AND LINKS

  Other Books by Cathy & DD MacRae

  The Highlander’s Welsh Bride

  It was over. Prince Llywelyn was dead, his soldiers fleeing before King Edward’s army. Carys, a distant cousin to the prince, herself a princess of Wales, had picked up arms alongside her husband more than a year ago. Now homeless, her husband buried beneath the good Welsh soil, she seeks shelter in the north, far from the reach of Longshanks’s men. Carys and Wales would never be the same again.

  It was time. Birk MacLean has been ordered to take a bride and produce an heir. He grows weary of the lasses paraded before him, women of delicate nature and selfish motives. He desires a wife strong enough to help lead one of the most powerful clans in Western Scotland.

  One like the Welsh woman sitting in his dungeon, arrested for poaching MacLean deer.

  Can Birk convince Carys marriage to him is preferable to a hangman’s noose? And will the heard-headed Scot be worthy of a Princess of Wales?

  From the towering Welsh mountains to the storm-swept Scottish coast comes a tale of betrayal and loss, deceit and passion. An epic tale of honor and the redeeming power of love.

  Words of interest:

  Welsh:

  Mi gerddaf gyda thi dros lwybrau maith. – I’ll walk beside you over many paths.

  Cer i grafu - go to hell

  Dim gwerth rhech dafad - not worth a sheep’s fart

  Rydych chi'n ferch ddewr – you are a brave girl

  Fy merch(ed) – my daughter(s)

  Bychan – little one

  Nain - grandmother

  Cymru = Wales

  Cymry = Welsh people

  Cymraeg = Welsh language

  Gaelic:

  mo chridhe – my heart (a term of affection)

  mo luran – my baby

  a leannan – sweetheart (baby, daughter, other young person)

  a nighean- my daughter

  mo charaid – my friend

  Norse:

  eldhúsfífl (EHLD-hoos-feef-uhl) — “hearthfire idiot”, an idiot who sits by the fire all day; a good-for-nothing

  elskan mín – my love (gender non-specific)

  sonr mín – my son

  móðir – mother

  faðir - father

  kerling – old hag

  amma – grandmother

  bikkju-sonr – son of a b*tch

  THE HIGHLANDER’S WELSH BRIDE

  Prologue

  MacLean Castle

  Morvern, Lochaline, Scotland

  1279

  Birk MacLean stood at the window overlooking the Sound of Mull, rain misting the air, whorling in glistening patterns across the thick, leaded glass pane. He stared at the missive in his hands as emotions too powerful to identify seeped into his soul.

  All hands aboard the Mara Cu’ lost in a storm crossing the North Minch.

  “My laird, be there anything else?” the messenger asked, a wobble in his voice.

  Birk glared at the source of interruption and crushed the parchment. The slight man paled.

  “What?” Birk growled and stepped toward the man.

  “I asked if there be anything else, my laird.” His clansman backed toward the door of the laird’s solar.

  “Nothing,” Birk bit off.

  The sound of his hasty retreat tempted Birk to feel guilty for frightening him, but his anger swept aside the notion as easily as a feather on the wind. He finally had proof the wench was unfaithful. Now she and her lover lay at the bottom of the sea, robbing him of the right to revenge. No one would wish to speak ill of the dead, leaving pity to be her legacy rather than the scorn and banishment she deserved.

  “What is it, son?” his father called from the next room, his voice soft and infirm.

  Birk strode to the open doorway leading to his father’s chambers, halting at the cloying stench of sickness hanging in the air. The lung fever which had claimed many older clansmen this past winter left the laird in a diminished condition. Birk had taken on his father’s responsibilities since and was the MacLean in all but name.

  “’Tis news of Rose,” Birk answered with a calm he did not feel.

  “What of the MacDonald bitch?” Alex MacLean asked bitterly.

  “She and Lyal MacLeod died during their passage to Stornoway. A storm sank their ship crossing the Minch. No survivors.”

  “Thank God for His good judgement,” his da pronounced, his eyes glittering above the blanket clutched to his chin. He sputtered then heaved a wet, wracking cough.

  Birk grabbed the cup of mulled wine on the table next to the bed and helped his da sit up to drink. He tried not to think about how his once robust sire—even at his advanced age—had been reduced to the skeletal form before him in a matter of weeks. Unable to rise on his own, Laird MacLean had become bedridden less than a month ago.

  “I should have never asked ye to ma
rry that jezebel. Had I known her true colors, I’d have told MacDonald to go to hell. His offering of peace brought more bad blood, no doubt his intention. The only good to come of your debacle of a marriage are my wee granddaughters. At least the Almighty wrought two miracles from my misjudgment.”

  “’Tis over, now, Da. Ye need yer rest,” Birk replied.

  “Bah. I have lived long and buried three children and my first wife, though yer ma will always have my heart and will outlive me by years, God willing. I’ll be resting in my grave soon enough. The mantle falls to ye now.”

  Birk was tempted to offer reassurances, but knew they would ring as insults, hollow words more befitting the weak-spirited, not a man who had lived a braw life leading one of the strongest clans in the Highlands. They both understood his time drew nigh and naught could be done to change their circumstances.

  “I’ll ask the elder council to schedule the ceremony. No need to wait until this frail auld man becomes a corpse to do what needs doing.”

  “As ye wish, Da.” Birk wanted to say more, but could think of nothing that didn’t sound like the sentimental talk of a woman.

  “Ye know what this means?” Alex asked.

  Birk tilted his head in invitation.

  “With no male heir, ye’ll have to take another bride.”

  Birk’s lips thinned and his jaw clenched. As much as he hated the idea, sooner or later, he’d be forced to wed again. Heaven help the woman who agreed to be his wife.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Battle of Orewin Bridge, Wales

  December 1282

  Three years later

  Three English soldiers emerged from the woods, footsteps crackling on frozen branches and snow. Carys caught her brother’s arm in warning, but the alarm arrived too late. They’d been spotted.

  “Stop!” one of the soldiers shouted, drawing his sword. He burst across the small glen, the other two men at his heels.

  Hywel snatched his bow from his shoulder. “Take the one on the left.” In a swift move born of too much practice killing the English, he nocked and released an arrow, dropping the lead soldier in his tracks.

  Carys flung her javelin. The leaf-shaped blade struck her target in the chest, piercing his leather armor and knocking him to the ground. The instant her hands were free, she drew her bow, aiming for the third Englishman whom Hywel had already staggered with an arrow. She added a feathered shaft of her own to ensure he fell and stayed down. Drawing her short sword, she stalked the bodies.

  “Carys, we must fly!” Hywel called softly. “The prince has fallen. More of Longshanks’s men will be upon us anon.”

  The scream of steel on steel and of men dying rose on the air behind them, adding urgency to his plea. Carys nodded, pausing to stuff the few coins the dead English soldiers had in their possession, along with their daggers, into the small pack she carried. She spotted a silver necklace and yanked it from the neck of its owner. A fine silver ring with beautiful filigree work set with an amber stone hung from the chain. She hastily stashed it into a pocket.

  Unbuckling the belt from the man with two arrows in his chest, she sheathed his short sword in its scabbard and tossed it to Hywel. The man in leather had been an archer, so she blended his quiver with hers, slung her bow over a shoulder, and reclaimed her javelin. Carys then trotted after her brother into the forest. The fresh, clean scent of snow and evergreens replaced the stench of death as they loped silently through the wood, away from the battle. They moved like ghosts in the long shadows of the afternoon. Their footsteps crunched softly on the frozen ground, leaving little evidence of their passage. Sunlight filtered weakly through the heavy canopy, leaving the dense underbrush deeply shadowed.

  The sounds of battle faded, and the eerie quiet unnerved Carys. It seemed the forest along with all of Cymru grieved the loss of her prince.

  “Where are we headed, Hywel?” she asked, her voice pitched on a whisper. Though most English soldiers wore chain armor and lumbered about like oxen—easily heard in the silent forest—she didn’t wish to draw attention in case scouts roamed this direction. Sound carried easily on the crisp winter air. Wearing dark green woolen leggings, leather jerkins, boots, and leather cowls covering their heads and shoulders, Carys and her brother blended in with the evergreen foliage and shadows.

  “Our cousin, the prince, is dead,” Hywel reminded her. “That means Cymru has fallen to the English. We’ve naught left of family and nowhere to turn. I say we travel to the coast and find our way beyond Edward’s reach.”

  The reminder of her husband Terwyn’s death in battle only a few weeks past tore a fresh wound in Carys’s aching heart. They’d been married only a few months, and her dreams of hearth, home, and children died along with him.

  She considered her brother’s words. She didn’t know much of the world but knew Longshanks’s reach stretched far. Was there such a place where his presence wasn’t a blight upon the land?

  Somehow, the English had crossed the Irfon River downstream today and attacked the Cymru army from behind. Carys and her brother had been part of a small band of archers charged with holding the Orewin Bridge, keeping the English on the south side of the river. Once the Marcher Lords attacked the Cymru flank, the English cavalry crossed the bridge unopposed. Equipped with better armor and weapons, the English had soon turned the battle into a slaughter. Carys and her brother were among the few who had survived. Their next steps would lead to their safety—or death.

  The coast lay a good two or three days’ march south on foot. They had traveled farther before, though typically not in the dead of winter, or with an English army at their backs.

  More at home in the forest than in any dwelling, Carys settled into her stride, keeping her eyes and ears open for the enemy. By nightfall, she and Hywel had put many miles between them and the battle. Hywel placed a finger to his lips as they approached a cluster of cottages in a small valley ringed by hills. The rock walls and thatched roofs appeared in good repair.

  “Ho, the house,” Hywel called, keeping a respectable distance between himself and the cottages. Carys hid behind a tree, an arrow nocked and ready. With as much treachery as they’d witnessed today, she’d guard her brother’s life with her own.

  A large man opened the door to the nearest cottage. “Aye? What the devil do ye want this late of an eve?”

  “My companion and I seek a hot meal and mayhap a place in yer barn for the night. We have news of the battle and of Prince Llywelyn.” Hywel held up a brace of hares they’d shot along the way.

  The big man motioned for them to enter. “Come in, come in. ’Tis cold and I’m lettin’ out the heat.”

  Carys stowed her arrow and caught Hywel at the doorway. They stepped into the warm cottage. Her nose twitched and her mouth watered as the aroma of freshly baked bread and simmering pottage struck her. It had been days since they’d had a home-cooked meal, and she prayed for the goodwife’s hospitality.

  “All Cymry are welcome in me home if they come in peace. Seat yerselves. Alis makes the best cawl lafwr in all of Cymru, and we were about to sit to supper.”

  Hywel and Carys leaned their bows, javelins and packs against the door frame and eased onto the bench their host indicated.

  “I’m Mal, and this is me wife, Alis. Our oldest son, Derwyn, daughter, Begwn and youngest boy, Derfel.”

  “I’m Hywel ap Pedr, and this is my sister, Carys. Many thanks for your hospitality.”

  Alis set two mugs full of cider and bowls of lamb stew in front of them. “Here, this will take the chill off. Ye needn’t have to pay for yer meal with game.”

  “Mewn pob daioni y mae gwobr,” Hywel replied.

  Alis planted both hands on her hips. “A reward in every goodness, aye? I can see yer mam taught ye well.”

  Carys glanced downward while Hywel offered a sad smile.

  “How’d they go?” Mal gently asked.

  “When Longshanks’ men took Ynys Mon, they were counted among the dead that day.”
/>   “We’ll pray for their souls this eve,” Alis said.

  Hywel nodded as Carys heaved a sigh.

  “Ye said ye had news.” Mal motioned for them to fill their bowls, and Hywel obliged with his tale.

  “We fought the English at the battle of Moel y Don and drove them into the sea nigh on a month ago. We then followed the prince to Orewin Bridge. Our numbers were in the thousands, and we would have won the day, but someone showed the English where to cross the Irfon beyond the bridge. They attacked from both sides. We did what we could but ran once we saw Prince Llywelyn fall.”

  Mal shook his head, a heavy frown on his face. “Our dear prince has died? Aye, ’tis dire news, and no mistake. There’s no shame in living to fight another day. Our strength is in our knowledge of these forests, mountains and hills, and in the ambush. We’re no match for the English on an open field.”

  Carys drank the cider and soaked in the heat from the fire. Seeing this herder with his family enlarged the hole Terwyn’s death left in her heart. In another year, she would have been picking up their first child. Instead she picked up arms against the cursed invaders. Her ancestors had done the same against the Vikings, Saxons and Romans before them. She longed for the violence to end.

  Mal sent his two youngest to bed shortly after supper. Hywel regaled their hosts and eldest with tales of their recent battles. He had the soul of a bard and entertained everyone with his stories. He and Mal speculated how long until Longshanks would send his Marcher Lords and their men deeper into Cymru to crush any further rebellion.

  Carys watched her brother. Hywel’s black wavy hair mirrored her own. They both were tall and slender and shared the same brown eyes, an inheritance from their parents. Carys spotted their da’s humor when her brother smiled, though he did so less these days.