Seduced by the Laird (Conquered Brides Series Book 2)
Read Seduced by the Laird (Conquered Brides Series Book 2) Online
Authors: Eliza Knight
SEDUCED BY THE LAIRD
By
Eliza Knight
She vowed never to love again...
Lady Kirstin MacNeacail is determined to lead a life of piety in hopes of erasing a past filled with pain and transgressions. She takes vows at the abbey on the Isle of Skye that has sheltered her since she was a girl. But when Scotland erupts in turmoil, and she is sent as an envoy to Melrose, she runs straight into one of her past transgressions. Old feelings arise, never truly forgotten. Forced to face her past, she must choose between penance, and allowing herself to fall passionately in love all over again.
He's determined to change her mind...
Laird Gregor Buchanan receives devastating news for Scotland and must travel to Melrose where Robert the Bruce is laying low. With his country divided between those who are for Scottish Independence and those who have sided with the English, he must ferret out those who threaten their very freedom. On his way to meet his future king, Gregor intercepts a small party, coming face to face with the woman he’s always loved and never forgotten. For the past ten years he’d searched for her, never coming close. Gregor does not want to let her go this time—and he’s praying she’ll give him a second chance.
Table of Contents
Nèamh Abbey, Isle of Skye
August 15, 1305
“Sister Kirstin, ye must go to Melrose Abbey. Ye must leave Skye for a time.”
Lady Kirstin MacNeacail carefully studied Mother Superior, her own flesh and blood. Her skin was still smooth, despite a few wrinkles at her eyes and the corners of her mouth. Her brows were still dark, and beneath her wimple, her hair was a beautiful, silky dark mass threaded with silver. The angles and lines of her face were so much like Kirstin’s mother—they’d been twins like Kirstin and her own sister—that she sometimes had a hard time looking at her. She could only hope that she aged just as well.
They sat inside the chapel where Kirstin had been dusting pews. The sun streamed through the high stained-glass window creating rainbows of color on the altar table. Every place the sun touched was golden and brightly lit, but the shadows crept up onto the light giving the illusion and sense that many spirits resided within the chapel walls.
Without showing how much she truly did not want to leave the abbey, Kirstin brushed a rag over the top of the pew in front of her, disbanding of the dust and casually asking, “But Mother Superior, Aunt Aileen, why?”
A sigh that sounded a little too forced, stirred the air beside her. “A messenger arrived. We’ve been summoned, and I am too old and feeble to make the journey.”
That was a jest if Kirstin had ever heard one. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from snorting. Aunt Aileen would live to see them all in their graves. The woman was stocked full of energy and strength, while nearing sixty to boot. Kirstin hoped to have half her energy by the time she reached forty, let alone sixty.
“How long do ye think the journey will take?” Kirstin asked. She had not left the abbey in nearly a decade, nor her aunt’s side for that matter.
The thought of doing so now sent a tremor of trepidation coursing through her.
She’d arrived at Nèamh fifteen years ago at the tender age of twelve. Until recently, she’d thought she was the only one to survive the siege on her family’s castle, Scorrybreac, but just the year before, her twin sister, Brenna, was freed from her prison of a marriage and came to find her. The monster she’d been married too had literally kept her locked up like a brood mare for so long it was a wonder her sister came out of it sane.
Brenna was once more happily married to a handsome, protective warrior, Gabriel MacKinnon. Happiness Kirstin was never to have… again.
When Kirstin was eighteen she’d had a moment of weakness, escaping the abbey, only to return broken-hearted, her soul utterly defeated. And the pain had not stopped there. But, that was long ago, and she dared not think on it now.
“Two weeks,” Aunt Aileen was saying.
“Two weeks to get there? I’ll be gone for well over a month at that rate.”
Aunt Aileen smiled winningly. “Aye.”
That smile wasn’t going to win Kirstin over so easily. She knew when her aunt was trying to persuade her, could feel it in her bones.
“But I’ve so much to do.” Kirstin glanced around at all the dust coating the chapel. To her, spring and summer were always more dusty than usual. Everyone within the abbey had their part to play. One of the tasks she’d happily taken on at Nèamh was making certain the place sparkled. Since they took in sick people to help pray for their bodies and souls, the cleaner it was, the less illness they would spread.
Because of her penchant for cleaning and the other nuns having seen the benefits of it, they were quick to keep it that way, too.
Aunt Aileen shook her head. “That may be true, but ye are needed elsewhere. This can wait. Ye will not be gone long. I need ye to do this for me. I dinna want to beg ye, but I will.”
Shifting nervously, Kirstin stood and went to re-light a few of the wicks on the candelabra. Beg? That was very unlike Aunt Aileen. She must want Kirstin to do this very badly to have stooped to begging.
“But—”
Her aunt followed her, taking the flint and forcing Kirstin to look at her. She subtly shook her head again, speaking softly. “There is a path ye must follow. This is your path.”
Lower lip trembling, Kirstin wrung her fingers in front of her gray wool habit. How many times had she thought there was a path she was meant to follow and how many times had she ended up heartbroken? “What is it that I am meant to do?” She left off:
this time
.
“The abbot from Newbattle Abbey will meet ye at Melrose and relay to ye the reason.”
“Please tell me what the summons is about?”
Aunt Aileen met Kirstin’s gaze, graveness in their blue depths. “I do not know, but his missive was rushed. Ye must leave at dawn.” Aunt Aileen scribbled something on a piece of parchment and then rolled it, sealing it with wax and her ring. “Give this to Mother Frances when ye meet with her.”
Kirstin reached for the parchment, the wax seal still warm to the touch. There were so many more questions burbling up from her throat, but she kept her lips firmly sealed.
“I have arranged for an escort of six guards to attend ye, and one of our sisters, Donna, to accompany ye as your companion.” She smiled warmly, sloughing the Mother Superior mask for something more maternal. “’Tis high time ye faced the world, child. Ye cannot remain hidden forever.”
And why not? She wanted to ask. She’d spent the last nine years repenting for sins that still haunted her dreams. Besides that, she’d only just come back into contact with her twin sister, Brenna. And she’d yet to tell Brenna the truth of her past, even though Kirstin knew all of her sister’s. Kirstin rather liked remaining hidden from the world. There was something safe in that.
“What about Brenna?” she asked, knowing the argument would do little good, but having to ask anyway.
“I will arrange a visit with her upon your return.”
“There is no changing your mind?” Kirstin said, resolute.
Aileen pursed her lips and put her hands on Kirstin’s shoulders gently. “What are ye afraid of, child?”
“I am afraid of nothing,” Kirstin lied. Perhaps she feared herself most of all. Her proclivity for adventure and a life forbidden to her. One that had gotten her into trouble more than once. Mayhap that was where the safety of the abbey walls came into play. They kept her from herself.
“A strong conviction can help ye win battles, wage wars, but it cannot help ye if ye’re lying to yourself.”
Kirstin bit her lip and looked toward the worn wooden floor. “I am fearful of the world outside these walls.”
Of what I will do with my freedom.
Aileen nodded. “I can understand that. But will ye let your fear rule ye? Or will ye face it? Prove it wrong?”
“And what if it’s proven right?” What if she fell again?
Aileen patted Kirstin’s arm. “Many years have passed. ’Tis time to face it.”
Face it.
It
.
It was more like
them
. The nightmares. The sorrows. The many sins.
The reason she refused to ever take over her aunt’s position as Mother Superior.
She’d been so strong when she’d seen her sister again. Been able to stand up for Brenna and fight for her. But… When it came down to it, perhaps that was all an act. She’d been shaking in her slippers and had spent many hours behind the door of her tiny chamber, heart pounding, and nausea making it impossible to eat.
There was no reliving one past without reliving it all.
Brenna’s children… They were so beautiful. So full of life. All four of them. Pain tugged at her heart, contracted in her womb every time she looked on them.
Kirstin nodded, not wanting to say more, because saying more meant talking and talking meant thinking and reliving and she didn’t want to do either.
“If there is no changing your mind, I shall go and pack a small bag.”
“Good. Donna is overseeing the packing of the provisions already.”
“And the men who will escort us?”
“Warriors of God. They are chaste and they are well-trained. The abbot sent them with the summons. Ye’ll be in the safest of hands. They’ve already arrived. Ye shall dine with them tonight, so on the morrow they be not strangers to ye.”
Kirstin swallowed hard, nodding.
When she returned to her chamber, lighting a candle against the waning light of the day, a little puff of smoke in the shape of a heart pulsed in the darkened room. A tiny pulse. A tiny remembrance.
She pulled her valise out from under her bed, one of the precious gifts she’d brought back nine years before. The bag had been sitting beneath her bed ever since. When Aunt Aileen tried to pull it out, tried to get her to go somewhere, Kirstin had prayed for an illness and her prayers were mostly answered, landing her in bed for over a week and nearly on death’s door the last time. Conviction, indeed. Kirstin seemed to have a knack for making herself sick with worry.
Aunt Aileen had not asked her to leave again, and Kirstin had been praying for her own soul ever since.
As she swiped her hand across the bag, a cloud of dust rose in the air making her cough.
She needn’t take much. The life of a nun was quite simple, really. She packed a chemise and a second habit. Her brush. A linen to wash her face. A stick of cinnamon for her teeth. An extra set of hose. Her prayer book.
Heaviness settled over her and she sat down on the bed, tucking her knees up.
“I’ll be safe,” she whispered to the empty room. “I am strong. I am pious.”
A soft tapping sounded at the door and Donna inched it open, poking her face through the crack. She was pretty in a plain sort of way. Features that were pleasant to look at but not remarkable. Her sandy-colored hair was tucked under her hood and she smiled congenially. Innocent, but perhaps not naïve.
“Do ye need any help?” Donna asked.
Kirstin shook her head, assuming Mother Superior had sent the lass to her chamber to be sure she was packing and not under the covers feigning a fever.
“Thank ye, but I’ve not much to pack.”
Donna stepped into the chamber, her excitement bursting out of her. “Aye, me either. Today was the first time in years I wished for something other than a nun’s habit to wear. But I am very excited for the trip! I’ve not been off the Isle of Skye before.”
“Neither have I.” But that was a lie. She’d been off the Isle. She’d been far from the Isle. And it would seem, since she’d last been on the main land nine years before, that Aunt Aileen was truly determined to see her face her fears, for in order to get to Melrose, she would have to pass by the very places in which her life had been irrevocably changed.
“Then ’twill be a new adventure for us both.”
Kirstin listened as Donna babbled on until it was time for them to head to the refectory for supper with the warriors who would escort them. The only thing in her mind was a constant begging to the heavens not to allow her to run into
him
.
Castle Buchanan
Stirlingshire
August 27
Laird Gregor Buchanan stared down at the missive in his hands with a mixture of trepidation and foreboding. Not filled overly with words, it read simply: