The wickedness of a high.., p.1
The Wickedness of a Highlander, page 1
part #4 of Midnight in Scotland Series
Copyright © 2024 by Elisa Braden
Cover design by Dar Albert at Wicked Smart Designs
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form by any means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without express written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For more information about the author, visit www.elisabraden.com.
BOOKS BY ELISA BRADEN
Midnight in Scotland Series
The Making of a Highlander (Book One)
The Taming of a Highlander (Book Two)
The Temptation of a Highlander (Book Three)
The Wickedness of a Highlander (Book Four)
The Love of a Highlander (Book Five) – Coming soon!
Right Place, Wrong Duke (A Midnight in Scotland Novella)
Rescued from Ruin Series
Ever Yours, Annabelle (Prequel)
The Madness of Viscount Atherbourne (Book One)
The Truth About Cads and Dukes (Book Two)
Desperately Seeking a Scoundrel (Book Three)
The Devil Is a Marquess (Book Four)
When a Girl Loves an Earl (Book Five)
Twelve Nights as His Mistress (Novella – Book Six)
Confessions of a Dangerous Lord (Book Seven)
Anything but a Gentleman (Book Eight)
A Marriage Made in Scandal (Book Nine)
A Kiss from a Rogue (Book Ten)
Once Upon a Midnight Kiss (A Rescued from Ruin Novella)
The Oddflower Series
The Secrets of a Moonlit Night (An Oddflower Novella)
The Rake’s Rules for Deception (Book One) – Coming soon!
The Earl’s Rules for Seduction (Book Two) – Coming soon!
The Scoundrel’s Rules for Marriage (Book Three) – Coming soon!
The Duke’s Rules for Scandal (Book Four) – Coming soon!
Standalone Titles
Once Upon a Haunted Knight (Novella) – Originally published in Dragonblade Publishing’s 2023 anthology Once Upon a Haunted Romance
Want to know what’s next? Visit www.elisabraden.com and sign up for Elisa’s free email newsletter, so you never miss a single new release! And for more frequent updates and other fun stuff, be sure to follow Elisa on social media:
Facebook: @authorelisabraden
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Twitter (X): @trueelisabraden
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Books by Elisa Braden
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
Epilogue
More from Elisa Braden
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
July 3, 1827
Inverness, Scotland
Beneath her oversized umbrella, Sabella Lockhart squeezed the rose she held until a thorn punctured her glove. She scarcely felt the wound.
“I didnae ken him well,” said the earnest young constable standing on the opposite side of the grave. “But he had the lads’ respect.”
Mr. Gillespie was only a lad himself. He’d removed his hat in an attempt at fine manners. Rainwater rolled off his pomaded hair like oiled glass.
“Thank you, Mr. Gillespie,” she said softly. “The sergeant would have been pleased to hear it.” She wasn’t certain the sergeant had ever spoken to the man, but if he could be here now, he’d be far from pleased. Oh, the upbraiding he’d deliver to one of his constables for attending a burial rather than attending his duties. She could almost hear that barrel-chested bark. It almost made her smile.
Still, the lad was the only one who’d come to pay his respects. Sabella, at least, was grateful. The sergeant’s gruff manner hadn’t won him many friends.
The constable departed. The downpour heaved, pounding her umbrella so loudly that she couldn’t hear her own thoughts. So much the better. Her head wasn’t a pleasant place to be.
Rivulets turned the mounded soil into mud, spattering the stone marker she’d purchased. Eventually, the mound would flatten, she told herself. The stone would weather and stain. Given enough rain, enough time, his marker would match the other two bearing his name.
Munro.
She glanced over her shoulder at the couple she’d hired to help her transport Sergeant Munro from Edinburgh to Inverness. The McCabes were rosy-cheeked and ruddy, small but sturdy. Kindness poured from them like the sweetest honey. Indeed, the instant they caught her looking in their direction, they tilted their heads sympathetically and rushed forward in unison.
“Let me hold that umbrella for ye, Miss Lockhart,” said Mr. McCabe.
“Aye, dearie,” Mrs. McCabe seconded. “Mustn’t dirty yer hems whilst payin’ yer respects.”
Sabella handed him the umbrella and smiled her thanks. She’d managed to keep the lavender gros de Naples spotless all morning thanks to the McCabes. Such goodhearted people.
Carefully gathering her skirts, she laid her rose atop the mound. “You’re home, Sergeant,” she murmured, resting her hand upon the gravestone which, along with their passage from Edinburgh, had swallowed a quarter of her remaining funds. Her eyes flickered across the three names now lying side by side: Sergeant Neil Munro, Eudora Munro, Isobel Munro. Tears burned her throat. “You’re with yer lasses again. Rest easy, now.”
The McCabes hummed their sympathy. “Poor, wee dearie. Here.” Mrs. McCabe handed her a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “Nae rain on yer silk, nor rain on those fair cheeks.”
Sabella dabbed discreetly and accepted Mr. McCabe’s offered arm as they exited the cemetery and made their way toward the inn. Halfway to their destination, Mr. McCabe withdrew a watch from his pocket. “We’d best hurry, miss. Cannae have ye missin’ yer coach. Next one for Glenscannadoo isnae for a sennight.”
The McCabes were even more generous than she’d thought. For the few shillings she’d been able to pay, they’d accompanied her and Sergeant Munro on a lengthy journey, repeatedly helped load and unload her trunks, and recruited four strapping lads to carry Munro’s coffin. Mrs. McCabe had even acted as Sabella’s lady’s maid during their travels.
All the while, Mr. McCabe carried a fine gold timepiece in his pocket. Clearly, they had no need of her shillings and had taken the job purely out of compassion.
He urged her on faster. Faster. They were nearly at a run by the time they entered the courtyard. There, the muddy mail coach waited, piled high with a teetering mass of trunks, packages, and passengers.
She slowed to catch her breath, trying to determine where she was meant to sit. “Oh, dear. It’s quite full, isn’t it?”
A lady and two gentlemen sat behind the driver’s bench, snug, damp, and miserable. Behind them were canvas bags stuffed full to bursting and five valises of varying sizes.
Mr. McCabe glanced skyward then closed the umbrella. “Would ye look at that? Rain’s stopped.” He opened the coach door and urged her forward. “In ye go, Miss Lockhart. Dinnae mind the smell. Ye grow accustomed to it.”
Good heavens, the inside was more crowded than the outside. She apologized to the gentleman on her left before stepping up and wedging herself between the coach’s wall and a woman with three visible teeth. Mr. McCabe started to close the door.
“Wait!” Sabella craned her neck to scan the top of the coach for her trunks, but the load was covered in canvas. “Are you certain the gentleman you hired loaded my belongings?”
“Oh, aye,” he said, closing the door with a firm shove. “They were the first trunks strapped in place. That’s why ye dinnae see ’em. They’re in the center ’neath all the others.”
Despite the wheezing pressure on her lungs, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Mr. McCabe.” She stretched a hand through the carriage window. He tried to return her umbrella, but she shook her head. “There isn’t room. Keep it. I’ve another in my trunks.”
The driver called out a warning: “Aw fer Glenscannadoo, Drumnadrochit, and Invermoriston! Departin’ now.”
Smiling at the couple who’d been so wondrously kind, she pressed the lace handkerchief into Mrs. McCabe’s extended palm. “I wish I could repay the kindness ye both have shown me.”
“Trust me, dearie,” the woman said with a pat and a gleam. “Ye have.”
The coach rocked into motion. Sabella waved goodbye to the McCabes then squeezed her arm back inside. Drawing a shallow breath, she nodded to the woman whose elbow wedged uncomfortably against her side. “Good day.”
The woman sucked noisily at her three teeth. “Nah. ‘Tis a
Sabella might have tried to translate whatever language she spoke—Gaelic, perhaps?—if it weren’t for the sudden and overwhelming nausea. She turned her head away. Outside, the air smelled like the back end of six overworked horses. Infinitely preferable.
Three hours later, she suspected her stays had punctured an organ. Her stomach waged a revolution against her sense of smell. Her bones had jarred loose to rattle about freely like spoons in a soup tureen.
And her foul-breathed companion would not. Stop. Talking.
She couldn’t even understand her. At some point, the woman had told Sabella her name, but it sounded like throat-clearing after a lung complaint. Privately, she’d dubbed her Mrs. Foulbreath instead.
When Sabella realized Mrs. Foulbreath was speaking English—of a sort—she made an honest effort at comprehension. Some terms remained foreign and garbled. Others, she realized, were vulgarities she encountered too rarely to be familiar. Eventually, she gave up, pasting on a polite smile instead.
Sabella was a Lowlander. She’d spent her life in Edinburgh, apart from a few years attending schools in England and France. She didn’t know what “skelpt ma doup” meant, and, God willing, she wouldn’t be in the Highlands long enough to find out.
She’d begun with three tasks: Settle her brother’s debts, bury Sergeant Munro, and speak to the MacPhersons before leaving Scotland for good. The first two had been hard. The third would be harder.
It wouldn’t change what her brother had done, of course. Nothing could mend that. But the least she could do was face them.
The MacPhersons lived near a remote Highland village nestled at the juncture of two mirrored glens: Glenscannadoo and Glendasheen. Having visited on two previous occasions, she’d once found the wooded mountains, shimmering lochs, and wee, humble village enchanting.
But that was before she knew Kenneth had gone mad. Before the nightmare from which she couldn’t awaken.
The mail coach descended along a bone-rattling road toward the village of Glennscannadoo. As leafy birches ceded to grass and brambles, she caught a breathtaking vista of the place she remembered. The steep, misty mountains. The long, steely loch. The thick pines blanketing the foothills. The near-magical slant of light across the water.
She drew deeply of pine-tinged air. Memories flashed like vivid paintings, quickening her heart. She shook them away.
A cluster of rough stone structures stretched three lanes deep along the northern end of Loch Carrich. The village square consisted of a few small shops, several taverns, and one ridiculously large statue.
As they passed the silly thing, a gull splatted something foul on the statue’s head. She remembered Annie complaining about the man who had erected the thing, Laird Glenscannadoo. “Laird?” the fiery redhead had scoffed. “Wee tartan peacock, ye mean. That statue is naught but an eyesore and a repository for bird shite.”
Annie did not suffer fools gladly.
The coach rocked to a halt outside one of the taverns. The gentleman across from her snorted awake and threw open the carriage door while mumbling about “a pint and a piss.”
Sabella followed him out, sucking in her first real breath since departing Inverness. Mrs. Foulbreath elbowed her aside. The other passengers poured toward the tavern door while the driver and guard began unloading packages. Without the McCabes, she’d need help with her trunks.
A pair of freckled lads exited the haberdashery arguing over whose turn it was to muck out the stables. “Laddies!” she called. Digging into her carriage dress pocket, she offered her last two coins. “There’s one for each of you if ye’ll help me transport my belongings.”
The pair eyed her silk skirts and white kid gloves. After a glance at each other, the taller one asked, “How far ye goin’?”
The shorter one nudged him. “Nae matter. We’ll assist ye, m’lady.”
“Oh, I haven’t a title. You may call me Miss Lockhart.”
The shorter lad lifted his cap, dusted it against his leg, and grinned. “And ye may call me Mr. MacDonnell. This is my brother. He’s Mr. MacDonnell, too.”
She smiled at the boy’s cheek. He couldn’t be older than ten. “Well, Misters MacDonnell, I’d be grateful for your help. Do ye ken where Glendasheen Castle is?”
“Oh, aye. Our da works there.”
Relief flooded in. She’d wondered if she’d have difficulty finding the place. Perhaps her luck was changing for the better at long last. Annie wasn’t expecting her, and Sabella hadn’t been certain about this visit until last night. Her courage was more of a sapling than a well-rooted oak, bending with every twisted gust.
The boys took the coins from her fingers. “Which bag is yers, m’lady?” asked the taller lad.
She turned to watch the guard tossing two valises down to the driver, who placed them on the ground. “I have three trunks, actually.” She frowned as two bulky canvas bags dropped into the driver’s waiting arms. “They should be here.”
Wandering closer, she cleared her throat. “Sir?”
Another valise sailed past her head. She sidled toward the rear of the coach, searching for the distinctive green leather with brass trim. They had to be here.
A tiny flutter of panic rose in her chest. She rounded to the other side of the coach. The pile that had been strapped there was down to one brown trunk and a few canvas bags filled with letters. “Sir?”
“Aye,” the guard grunted, wiping his forehead with his wrist.
“Where are the green traveling trunks?”
He gestured to the brown trunk. “That look green to ye?”
She frowned. “No.”
With a shrug, he pulled out a flask and took a swig. “There ye have it.”
“I don’t think you understand. My companion hired men in Inverness to load them onto this coach. They would have been in the center. Three trunks. Green with brass trim.”
“Only men loadin’ this coach are me an’ the driver. Too many swindlers and knaves lookin’ for free fare these days.”
“But my companion assured me—”
The guard hefted another bag down to the driver. “Left ‘im behind, did ye?”
Frantically, she followed him to the front of the coach. “Would you be so kind as to check again?”
He swept a glance over the roof, which was empty of all but the brown trunk, a blue valise, and two canvas bags. “That’s all there is, lass.”
“No, no. You must be mistaken.” She rounded the coach again to speak to the driver. “Three green trunks, sir. Please, you must have forgotten where you placed them.” They must be here. Everything she had in the world—her clothing, her mother’s jewelry, her umbrella, and, most importantly, the last of her money—lay in those three green trunks. They couldn’t be lost. “Perhaps they were left in Inverness by mistake.”
The driver and guard shared a skeptical glance. The driver began hauling the canvas bags inside the shop where locals retrieved their post. Meanwhile, the guard secured the remaining cargo and climbed down to tend the horses.
She dashed around to the front of the coach. “Please, I must return to Inverness.”
He shot her a pitying glance. “Have ye the return fare?”
Blinking, she spun toward where she’d left the two lads. They were gone. She searched the square, her stomach twisting into a hard knot. Nothing but a splat-stained statue and a few kilted locals. Panic made her heart pound. “No,” she breathed.
“I’m sorry, lass. Cannae take ye without pay.”
“But you were meant to load my trunks in Inverness! Surely ye’ll make an exception when the error was yours.”
Another pitying frown. “Yer companion told ye he hired men to load yer belongings, aye?”
Her eyes fluttered as she scrambled to comprehend his implication. “Aye.”
“Now they’re missin’. And where is he?”
She shook her head. “But he wouldn’t … Mr. McCabe is a very kind …”
The guard patted one of the horses. “Swindlers and knaves, miss. They’re everywhere these days.”
This couldn’t be happening. It simply couldn’t.
The driver returned, shouting toward the tavern, “Aw fer Drumnadrochit and Invermoriston! Departin’ now.”
Mrs. Foulbreath and two other passengers shuffled past Sabella to take their seats. The guard climbed onto the box seat. A moment later, the coach lurched into motion. She watched it roll away, her head swimming.
