Highlander’s False Betrothal by Alisa Adams
The Legend of the Campbell Clan
Book #1
The Niece of His Highland Enemy
Book #2
The Return of the Lost Highlander
Book #3
Awaiting the Wolf Killer Highlander
Book #4 (this book)
Highlander’s False Betrothal
Chapter 1
The Scottish Highlands in the late 1700’s
Godet Ross sat wearily upon her giant of a horse, her hips swaying with the big draft horses’ walk as her clan’s tartan blew over her shoulder in the wind. Her long, black, and unruly curls streamed out behind her as well. It had come loose from a hastily put up braid this morning. She knew it would have been wiser to put the horse in harness to pull the cumbersome and heavy traveling coach that was lumbering along behind her at some distance, but she had left quickly. If the slow-moving coach was overtaken and they lost their trunks full of their belongings, so be it. She was not going to chance leaving her horse behind nor her sisters, her aunt, or the other large draft horses her clan was known for.
Mungan Ross had everything now. But not her. Not her sisters. Not the horses.
Godet looked ahead along the winding dirt road that weaved endlessly through the grassy Highlands, it’s path disappearing behind hills and climbing up craggy barren peaks only to be seen again in an open view of more grass. Endless, endless grass dotted with sheep. How she had come to hate sheep.
“I dinnae see nothing but mauchit sheep!”
Godet looked down from her big horse and smiled wearily at the tiny, older lady on the small Highland pony beside her. Her Aunt Hextilda spat at the ground as she glared at all the sheep.
“Aye, Aunt Hexy, Mungan thinks he is being canny clearing out our clansmen and using the land for sheep. He dinnae agree with me that he is naught but a blootered skiver!” She sighed tiredly, remembering her fierce argument with her drunken uncle when he had cleared her clan out of their homes, all to make a larger profit off of sheep. She winced as she pushed the wild, dark curls away from the side of her face, “I’m gaunnie work on it, aunt. There isnae much I can dae until I get the MacDonell’s help.”
“I know, dearie. But ‘tis fair puggled and puckled I am,” her aunt said with a harrumphing noise.
“Aye, aunt, me too,” Godet replied quietly as she looked back at her three sisters on the other big draft horses straggling behind her. “I am sure we are all weary. Why dinnae ye and the girls go ride in the coach. ‘Tis a bit more comfortable fer ye perhaps?”
“Nonsense that is, I can still ride. I dinnae need to be closed up in yon carriage where I cannae be smelling my braw highlands and heather and gorse.” Aunt Hextilda looked up at the eldest of her nieces. Noting the weariness on her young face. She had the weight of her clan on her shoulders. Ever since her parents had died and that skiver Mungan had come to Castle Fionnaghall, declaring himself Laird and joining in the Clearances to sweep out crofters and clans-men in lieu of the profit from sheep.
Aunt Hextilda studied Godet with wise old eyes that peered up at her niece from her hooded cloak. Godet was such a bonny young lass and her three sisters were as bonny as she, each so very different. Godet had dark hair that blew wild and free as the winds in the Highlands, her eyes were the silvery, blue-gray color of a stormy Highland sky. The muted red plaid of the Ross clan was proudly worn on her gown and the tartan she had wrapped around her shoulders. She should have married by now and had the protection of a man. Then none of this would have been necessary.
“We will be arriving in MacDonell lands soon, aunt. Then we can rest.” Godet looked down at her aunt. “Ye sure that ye sent the message? I just dinnae understand why I wasnae told aboot this betrothal between myself and Gordon…”
“Och and sure I am that yer dear parents died before they could tell ye. But Gordon and his parents will remember the pact to be sure. Ye’ll see. Dinnae ye fash noo,” Aunt Hextilda added quickly, looking away from her niece.
“I think Aunt Hexy is up to something as usual Godet,” her sister Flori said as she came riding up on her own big draft horse.
“I agree,” Ceena added as she too caught up with Godet on her draft. “Where has he been? Why hasnae he come to claim ye before this?”
“In the tales, he would have come riding up just as Uncle Mungan was yelling and putting up sich a fright!” Ina, the youngest sister exclaimed in her dramatic voice as she rode up on her draft mare. “With Mungan tossing out the poor, weeping crofters into the cold as ye stood between him and their poor burning crofts. He would have swept ye up onto his magnificent horse and carried ye away before Uncle Mungan could strike ye again…”
Godet rolled her eyes. “Dae ye ken that is the stuff of fairy tales, Ina?”
Ina looked down at her hands where she held the reins of her horse. “Mither told me tales like that, it could happen,” she said adamantly.
Aunt Hextilda smiled indulgently up at Ina from her pony. Neither she nor her pony seemed bothered at being surrounded by the huge draft horses. They were used to it. Though her pony puffed up and pranced a bit in their presence, letting them know that he was big too.
Godet stared at her sisters. She loved them more than anything. She would dae what she had to in order to keep them safe. If that meant showing up at Castle Conall and demanding Gordon MacDonell marry her according to some old betrothal from when they were children, then she would put aside her pride and dae that. Then she would find a way to get her clansman’s homes back and hopefully, Castle Fionnaghall as well.
Her sister Flori reached over and put her hand on Godet’s, looking mournfully at her face. “It’s a crumbling pile of stone,” Flori told her in a sad, serious tone. “Let Mungan have it, Godet. There’s naught there for us anymore.”
“But the clan…” Godet began, her voice thick with frustration and sadness as she stared back at her sister.
“Clan means family, isnae that right? Family is the people, not the place,” Flori said sorrowfully.
Godet turned her hand up and squeezed her sister’s hand.
“We have each other and Aunt Hexy,” Ina said bravely, her blonde curls blowing around her face.
“Plus, we saved the Clydesdale stallion and mares!” Ceena laughed happily as she patted her horse.
Godet smiled and patted her big stallion as she looked at her sisters.
Flori was ever the pragmatist. She was dark-haired like Godet, but somehow, her face was a bolder more dramatic version of her own. She kept Godet from overthinking things. But now, she was always sad, always serious. Mungan was responsible for that. He had killed Flori’s beloved on the eve before their wedding. Flori had witnessed it herself and Godet had come upon Flori in hysterics with Mungan’s soldiers surrounding her. Mungan was raising his hand over her where she kneeled on the ground over her beloved’s body. Flori had never said what had happened and didn’t say if Mungan had struck her for disobeying him. But Godet had stopped him from hurting Flori in that moment. He had happily beaten Godet instead since she was the eldest.
Ceena was always playful. She loved the horses and it was her idea to ride the breeding horses away from the castle. This line of Clydesdales had been in their family clan going back generations and were highly prized for field work, carriage pulling, and in old times, riding into battle. They were theirs, not Mungan’s, just as Ceena had stated. Ceena had striking green eyes and their father’s tawny, brown hair alongside his merry disposition. She could train and ride any type of horse. She lived and breathed horses.
Little Ina being the youngest still lived on dreams and fairy tales. She looked like a tiny angel with her dark blonde hair and clear blue eyes.
Godet knew that if her parents were still alive, she and her sisters would all most probably be married by now, except perhaps for Ina. Within a year, she too would have been married. Mungan being the greedy skiver that he was had been working on the best and most advantageous betrothals he could find. Flori’s betrothed was not his choice, and the marriage did not bring him any advantages, so he got rid of him. It was another reason that Godet had agreed to her aunt’s scheme to leave for the MacDonell’s castle immediately after her last skirmish with Uncle Mungan. He had hit her again, badly that time, for trying to intervene between his soldiers and her crofters whose huts they were burning. Mungan was proving that he was dangerous as well as violent.
She was praying that the MacDonells were as she remembered them: wealthy, civilized, and strong in their family bonds. Their own mother had been a MacDonell. As for Gordon MacDonell, she only had brief memories of him from clan games in the summers: a thin boy who teased her and pulled her hair.
If Gordon would not marry her, she would appeal to the clan Laird for help and protection until she knew what to dae.
