A Beauty at the Highland Court: A Star-Crossed Lovers Highlander Romance (The Highland Ladies Book 7) Read online

  A Beauty at the Highland Court

  The Highland Ladies Book 7

  Celeste Barclay

  A Beauty at the Highland Court Copyright © 2020 by Celeste Barclay. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by Lisa Messegee, The Write Designer

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Celeste Barclay

  Visit my website at www.celestebarclay.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: August 2020

  Celeste Barclay

  Kindle Digital Edition

  Paperback ISBN 979-8-6771826-6-2

  When you hit the bottom, you can only go up from there.

  Happy reading, y'all,

  Celeste

  Contents

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  The Highland Ladies

  Preface

  Character Name Pronunciation

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

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  The Highland Ladies

  The Clan Sinclair

  Pirates of the Isles

  Viking Glory

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  The Highland Ladies

  A Spinster at the Highland Court

  A Spy at the Highland Court (De Wolfe Connected World/Series Companion)

  A Wallflower at the Highland Court

  A Rogue at the Highland Court

  A Rake at the Highland Court

  An Enemy at the Highland Court

  A Saint at the Highland Court

  A Beauty at the Highland Court

  Preface

  The Highland Ladies series is a spin-off to my first series, The Clan Sinclair, and follows the lives of ladies-in-waiting at King Robert the Bruce’s court. If you are a fan of Highlander romances, then you have surely encountered the time period that spans the Wars of Scottish Independence, along with the rise and reign of Robert the Bruce.

  While I was intentionally vague about the time period and royal couple in The Clan Sinclair, there is little way to avoid the history of Robert the Bruce when this series takes place predominantly at Stirling Castle after he was crowned king. I have taken creative license in a number of areas, especially the creation of characters, but the events and clan dynamics are true to history.

  A Beauty at the Highland Court tackles more than one social issue. Never one to shy away from a challenge, I’ve jumped in with both feet to create a story that depicts social pressures and expectations based upon beauty, anxiety, and alcoholism. Arabella Johnstone is once again a product of my imagination, but she mirrors the struggle many women face when reality can never live up to expectation.

  All locations in this story are real, just as in all my other books. The exception are the taverns mentioned. Those are also a product of my imagination. I’ve had readers ask how I estimate the time it takes for characters to travel from place to place. I work on the premise that a horse can travel on average 20 miles per day given the terrain our medieval characters would have faced.

  Inchcailleoch Priory is a setting mentioned in more than one book in The Highland Ladies series. It was supposedly referred to as the “island of old women,” but there is no historical record to specify what monastic order of nuns may have resided there. The name is what leads historians to speculate there was a monastic house on the island of Inchailleoch, located in Loch Lomand.

  It often seems like clan rivalries and alliances changed with the wind. Given Scotland’s notorious weather, this meant often. Depending upon the political climate and relationships with other clans, friends became enemies just like enemies became friends. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Clan Gunn is featured prominently in this book, and their discord with Clan Keith and Clan Mackay was true to fact, but it happened in the 15th century rather than the 14th. Their adversarial relationship with the Mackays, who were rivals with the Sinclairs, begins in The Clan Sinclair series. I “solved” the real animosity between the Mackays and Sinclairs with Mairghread and Tristan’s story in His Highland Lass, making the Mackays and Sinclairs allies. Fictitious members of Clan Gunn become enemies to the Sinclairs in His Bonnie Highland Temptation and His Highland Prize.

  Clan Gunn and Clan Sutherland allied during the 16th century, but there is not significant record of their relationship during the 14th century, so for the purposes of my storytelling, they did not get along. Clan Sinclair and Clan Sutherland had a shifting relationship depending upon the century. To weave my stories, I chose to focus on the time when there was no feuding. The marriage between Kyla Sutherland and Liam Sinclair in Their Highland Beginning lays the foundation for their alliance, which meant Clan Gunn became the Sutherlands’ enemy too. Complicated? Just a little, but alliances and feuds were a way of life for the rugged Highlanders who fought for their land and their clan’s survival.

  Clan Johnstone was a border clan and were well known reivers. They battled the English, often crossing the border to steal or reclaim (depending upon whose side you take) livestock. For more than six centuries, they held considerable power and influence in the West Marches, protecting the land from the English. This is briefly mentioned in this story as well as the clan’s one-time allegiance to King Edward I in the late 1200s. A member of their clan was appointed Warden of the Western March nearly one hundred years later in the late 1300s, which is well past the setting for this series, but this is another instance where I took creative license on dates.

  I hope you enjoy this tale that’s been foreshadowed since A Wallflower at the Highland Court. Please consider leaving a review to share with othe
r readers to let them know enjoyed this installment in The Highland Ladies.

  Happy reading,

  Celeste

  Character Name Pronunciation

  There are names used in this story that because of their Gaelic etymology are not phonetic for English speakers. To make it easier for the reader, I thought to include this note on pronunciation.

  Beathan—BEH-un

  Brighde—BREE ju

  Cathal—KAH-hul

  Gormal—GAU rum-ul

  Hamish—HA-mish

  Lachlan—LACH-lunn

  Lellan—LEL-lan

  Taran—TA-ran

  One

  Arabella Johnstone gripped the back of the chair and tried not to groan as her maid cinched her kirtle tighter. She’d already suffered through more than an hour of Eliza curling and pinning her hair. While her maid created some of the most exquisite coiffeurs Arabella had even worn—in fact, ever seen—she didn’t have a gentle touch. More than once Arabella was grateful that her hair was auburn, because surely her scalp bled from being a pincushion. Arabella took one more shallow breath as she felt her maid tie the ends of her gown’s laces.

  “There you go, my lady. You’re a right bobby-dazzler, if I may say so,” Eliza beamed.

  “Thank you, Eliza.” Arabella smiled. She looked across her chamber as Blair Sutherland’s maid brushed out her mistress’s velvet kirtle for the last time. Arabella breathed a wistful sigh. She and Blair had grown closer since Blair’s older sister Maude married and moved to the Isle of Lewis. Arabella had befriended the reserved Maude when the sisters arrived at court. Taunted mercilessly for being unfashionably curvaceous, Maude became the victim of her future sister-by-marriage’s venom. With Kieran MacLeod’s support, Maude emerged from her wallflower ways and found a love match.

  “I just need a few moments more,” Blair looked over her shoulder at Arabella.

  “You needn’t rush. We still have time,” Arabella reassured as she dabbed rose water behind her ears and into her cleavage. She knew the Great Hall would be sweltering, and the fresh scent was as much for her as it was for anyone else. It would offer her a reprieve from the stench of too many unwashed and overheated bodies.

  As Arabella watched Blair, she wondered when her friend would find her match. She suspected that it would happen soon, since Blair and Hardwin Cameron were inseparable. It wouldn’t surprise Arabella if Blair and Hardi (as she called him) handfasted before a priest could read the banns. Thoughts of Maude and Blair inevitably turned her mind toward their older brother, Lachlan. Arabella stifled her sigh as she thought about the handsome, dark-haired man who appeared at court every few months. She didn’t envy him his lengthy rides south from Dunrobin. The keep was along the northeastern coast of Scotland, almost as far north as that of the Sinclairs, and marriage linked the two clans. Arabella had long admired Lachlan’s easygoing nature and protectiveness of his sisters. The three siblings were extremely close, and both Maude and Blair had looked forward to his visits. Arabella knew Lachlan looked for excuses to see them. She couldn’t help the sadness she felt when she realized Lachlan would rarely make the long trip to court once Blair left.

  “I’m almost done,” Blair said as she bent to pull up her stockings and slip on her shoes. She disliked wearing stockings, so she put them on last.

  Arabella thought about her other friends who had left over the past three years. Nearly all her original friends were gone, one after another marrying and leaving court. First to go had been Elizabeth Fraser, a woman everyone assumed would remain a spinster. Despite her beauty, her father made and broke four betrothals, all for the sake of politics. But when Robert the Bruce’s adopted brother Edward came to court, she snared his attention. Edward’s single-minded focus on wooing her eventually won Elizabeth over.

  Isabella Dunbar stunned many people when she married the dashing English knight sent to spy on King Robert. Her husband was half Scottish; after his English father married a MacLellan, his father switched his allegiance to Scotland. But both of his parents died while the knight was still a child, and English soldiers captured him in the name of King Edward “Longshanks.” Raised in England, he longed for his Scottish home and found it when he married Isabella.

  Maude had been the next to marry, and Arabella rejoiced as she thought about her former roommate and close companion. Then she tried not to grin when she recalled how Allyson Elliot bolted from court when she learned she was to marry the roguish Ewan Gordon. What a merry chase she had led him on! But Arabella sobered when she recalled how Allyson was kidnapped and nearly tortured and what Arabella later learned of Allyson’s family secrets.

  Cairstine Grant convinced Ewan’s rakish twin Eoin to pretend to be her betrothed so her younger sister could marry, only for them to marry in truth. Arabella regretted the unkind thoughts she’d had about Cairstine once she discovered Cairstine’s painful past, which explained why she’d kept everyone at arms’ length. Cairstine and Eoin were as much a love match as Allyson and Ewan turned out to be. Arabella wished she could say the same for the start of her friend Cairren Kennedy’s marriage.

  Cairren was soft-spoken and kind, but she’d always stuck out at court. Her Arab heritage was apparent in her olive skin, a stark contrast to the creamy Scottish complexions that the other ladies-in-waiting shared. Her appearance had immediately put her at odds with her new clan, the Munros, when King Robert and her father agreed on her marriage to Padraig Munro. Fortunately, he realized what a gem he’d been given and fell in love with his wife. Arabella was glad to know they were no longer enemies, but deeply in love.

  Arabella’s thought’s returned to Lachlan. He had returned to Stirling when he accompanied Cairren and Padraig, who needed an audience with the king. Taxes had brought him back most recently. Arabella hadn’t seen him in more than a moon, and she tried to distract herself with the various events at court and the budding romance between Blair and Hardi. While she danced with one suitor after another, she resigned herself to the knowledge that her father was arranging her marriage to a stranger. She didn’t know who her father had in mind, but she was certain it was a Lowland laird who would make a powerful ally to her clan. While life at court wasn’t what Arabella wanted for her future, she didn’t look forward to moving home to the dangerous border territory. The supposed truce between the Scottish and English kings was yet to be seen. The English continued to cross the border and harass the Scots, then cried foul when the Scots retaliated.

  “Are you ready?” Blair interrupted Arabella’s thoughts. “We shouldn’t keep the others waiting. Laurel will wonder where we are.” Blair grinned, knowing she was the one who delayed them.

  Laurel Ross was the only other lady-in-waiting who had been at court as long as Arabella. She’d once been friends with Madeline MacLeod, Maude’s former nemesis and now sister-by-marriage. She had a razor-sharp tongue, but nowadays she used it to be a fiercely protective friend. Arabella hadn’t pried into why Laurel became friends with Madeline, but she suspected the latter held some influence over Laurel, and she had either bribed or threatened Laurel into following Madeline’s lead. Now that Madeline had been away from court for years, Laurel was much easier to get along with.

  “I’m ready. Are we to meet her at her chamber or in the Great Hall?” Arabella asked.

  “The Great Hall. She shall save us seats at our usual table. After my run-in with Henry and Daniel MacMillan, Laurel wants to be certain we sit closer to the king and queen,” Blair explained. It was a little-known secret that Blair, Maude, and Lachlan, along with their Sinclair cousins, were the godchildren of King Robert and Queen Elizabeth de Burgh. The royal couple never played favorites, and the Sutherland and Sinclair siblings never asked for favors. Laurel’s suggestion had been coincidental, but Arabella was privy to the secret and agreed with the wisdom of proximity.

  The women thanked their maids and left their chamber, winding through the passageways until they entered the Great Hall. Arabella watched as Hardi and Blair exchang
ed private smiles, and Arabella was certain it was only a matter of a brief time before the couple saw what everyone else did: they were already in love. They took their seats beside Laurel just as the meal began.

  “You’re fortunate that Laird Cameron arrived just as your brother left,” Laurel mused halfway through the meal. “You aren’t as glum as usual when your brother departs. I’m glad for you.”

  Arabella caught Blair’s darting glance, and she knew her friend was aware that something existed between her and Lachlan, but it was nothing that either would ever act upon. It was by silent agreement that neither dared to make their relationship more than friendship. Arabella didn’t want to jeopardize her friendships with Blair and Maude, and she intuited Lachlan felt the same. It made it painful to watch him leave Stirling without acknowledging their connection, but Arabella resigned herself to it.