Awakening His Highland Soul (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance) Read online

  Awakening his Highland Soul

  A Historical Scottish Romance Novel

  Maddie MacKenna

  Contents

  A Gift from the Highlands

  Scottish Brogue Glossary

  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

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  Preview: Consumed by the Lost Highlander

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Also by Maddie MacKenna

  About the Author

  A Gift from the Highlands

  Thank you very much for purchasing my book. It really means a lot to me, because this is the best way to show me your love and support!

  As a way to show you my gratitude, I have written a full length novel for you, called Highlander’s Untamed Bride. It’s only available to people who have downloaded one of my books and you can get your free copy by tapping the image below or this link here.

  Once again, I can’t thank you enough for your support!

  Maddie MacKenna

  Scottish Brogue Glossary

  Here is a very useful glossary my good friend and fellow author Lydia Kendall sent to me, that will help you better understand the Scottish Brogue used:

  aboot - about

  ach - oh

  afore - before

  an' - and

  anythin - anything

  a'side - beside

  askin' - asking

  a'tween - between

  auld - old

  aye - yes

  bampot - a jerk

  bare bannock- a type of biscuit

  bearin' - bearing

  beddin' - bedding or sleeping with

  bellend - a vulgar slang word

  blethering - blabbing

  blootered - drunk

  bonnie - beautiful or pretty

  bonniest - prettiest

  cannae - cannot

  chargin' - charging

  cheesin' - happy

  clocked - noticed

  c'mon- come on

  couldn'ae - couldn't

  coupla - couple of

  crivens - hell

  cuddie - idiot

  dae - do

  dinin' - dining

  dinnae - didn't or don't

  disnae - doesn't

  dobber - idiot

  doesn'ae - doesn't

  dolton - idiot

  doon - down

  dram - a measure of whiskey

  efter - after

  eh' - right

  'ere - here

  fer - for

  frein - friend

  fey - from

  gae - get or give

  git - a contemptible person

  gonnae - going to

  greetin' - dying

  hae - have

  hald - hold

  haven'ae - haven't

  heed - head

  heedstart - head start

  hid - had

  hoovered - gobbled

  intoxicated - drunk

  kip - rest

  lass - young girl

  leavin - leaving

  legless - drunk

  me - my

  nae - not

  no' - not

  noo - now

  nothin' - nothing,

  oan - on

  o' - of

  Och - an Olympian spirit who rules the sun

  oot- out

  packin- packing

  pished - drunk

  scooby - clue

  scran - food

  shite - shit

  sittin' - sitting

  so's - so as

  somethin' - something

  soonds ' sounds

  stonking - stinking

  tae - to

  teasin' - teasing

  thrawn - perverse, ill-tempered

  tryin' - trying

  wallops - idiot

  wee -small

  wheest - talking

  whit's - what's

  wi'- with

  wid - would

  wisnae - was not

  withoot - without

  wouldnae - wouldn't

  ya - you

  ye - you

  yea - yes

  ye'll - you'll

  yer - your

  yerself - yourself

  ye're - you're

  ye've - you've

  About the Book

  A sea of whisky couldn’t intoxicate him as much as her smell did.

  Beatrice Turner owes a lot of things to the Ballantine Circus, her own life amongst them. Until an unfortunate accident during a performance leaves her body and her heart at the mercy of a handsome Highlander.

  Jeames Abernathy, son of the Laird of the MacKenzie clan, is set to be betrothed to a Lady he could never love. When he sets eyes on the beautiful equestrienne, he is bewitched. After a fall lands her in his arms, he is certain he has been blessed by fate.

  Torn between two worlds, Jeames must choose his heart or his duty. Until suddenly, Beatrice makes the choice for him. Ballantine Circus has a dark secret, and she knows it’s time to pay her debt. A price that could be her undoing once and for all: her life or his.

  1

  Beatrice Turner stepped down from the covered cart that she had been riding in and onto the main thoroughfare of Aberdale. It had been a long ride from the last town. She stretched her long, supple limbs, groaning slightly in relief at having arrived at the Ballantine Circus’s latest destination.

  The rest of the circus procession had reined their brightly colored carts and mounts in at the edge of the town. Her fellow performers – jugglers, sword-swallowers, jesters, trapeze artists, bear trainers and all the rest – disembarked in the paddock that their Ringmaster and owner, William Ballantine, had selected as the place in which they would pitch their great striped tent.

  Beatrice and a few of the other prettier circus performers had been tasked to ride ahead into town to start generating talk amongst the locals. Chatter was key when it came to a successful opening night for the Ballantine Circus. More talk meant more money. A circus coming to a Highland town was news in its own right, but it could never hurt to get people more excited if you could.

  “Well,” said one of the contortionists, Fritha, coming to stand next to Beatrice. “It’s certainly pretty enough, as towns go, don’t you think?”

  “You’re quite right there, Frith,” Beatrice replied.

  The town was undoubtedly gorgeous, despite its remoteness in this far-flung part of the western Scottish Highlands. The main street was lined by tall houses, gabled roofs steeply pitched so as to allow the winter snows to slide off of them. There was a myriad of cozy-looking shops, their wares displayed proudly in trays outside or in windows with the wooden shutters thrown wide.

  “Shall we split up?” Fritha asked.

  The o
ther girls in the circus always looked for guidance from Beatrice, despite the fact that she was only twenty-one years of age.

  She had been in the circus practically her whole life, ever since her parents had died and left her an orphan at the age of six. Unlike many orphans, she had been lucky enough to have been saved from poverty by William Ballantine, whose newly-established circus happened to be passing through Beatrice’s hometown.

  The then thirty-year-old Ballantine had caught Beatrice thieving food from one of the baggage carts one evening. He caught her red-handed, as she attempted to get away with a small wheel of cheese and a loaf of bread. Beatrice, her wrist caught in Ballantine’s iron grip, had thought that the man would beat her. Instead, he had knelt down beside her.

  “You’re stealing from my cart, girl,” he had said. “Why?”

  Beatrice had told the stern-faced Ringmaster that she had nowhere to go, no one to look after her, no way to buy food.

  “I see,” Ballantine had said. “You’re desperate. Desperate people find themselves doing things that they never thought they’d be capable of. Desperation is dangerous. Do you know what happens to thieves in this part of England?”

  Beatrice had shaken her head.

  “No, I don’t suppose you do. If you did, you might have thought twice before trying to steal my bread and cheese.”

  Beatrice had stood trembling in Ballantine’s vice-like grip. She had been more terrified than she could ever remember being, as the man had regarded her through his serious green eyes. Even as a child, she had been able to recognize the eyes of a man whom it would be very foolish to try and cross.

  The jade-colored eyes had weighed the young Beatrice for what had felt like an eternity. Then Ballantine had asked her a question that had irrevocably changed her life.

  “Do you want to work in my circus, girl?”

  Beatrice had been stunned. She had not known what to say.

  The circus! Me!

  She had been so surprised that she hadn’t realized that Ballantine had released his grasp on her wrist.

  “You’ll have to work hard. Do everything that I ask of you,” Ballantine had said, spotting the light of interest that his question had kindled in the child’s eye.

  Beatrice had nodded.

  “Mucking out horses, fetching and carrying, helping the performers with their face-paint and costumes before a show. Packing and unpacking and packing again. Do you think you could do that, girl?”

  Another nod.

  “In return,” Ballantine had said, bestowing a cautious smile on her. “I can offer you a home. Food. Companionship. You’ll travel all over England and Wales, maybe even so far as Scotland!”

  He leaned forward then, his green eyes sparkling. “If you like, one day you might even become a performer yourself!”

  And Beatrice had followed William Ballantine towards the great tent, which was in the process of being taken down, and she had never looked back.

  * * *

  “Beatrice? Beatrice?”

  Beatrice blinked and came back to herself.

  “I’m sorry, what?” she sighed, smiling a dazed smile and shaking her head.

  “I said, should we split up?” Fritha asked again.

  “Oh. Yes. Yes, split up. Wander about, ladies. Make sure that you are seen. Spread the word. You all know how best to entice the customers. Remember, though, stay out of trouble!”

  “How long will we be here for, if anyone asks?” one of the other girls, an acrobat named Erica, asked.

  “The same as usual,” Beatrice said. “A few weeks. That gives everyone a chance to get word to their kith and kin in outlying farming regions that we are here, and that there is a show to see.”

  She winked at the other performers and said, “Now be off with you, and spread the wonder of Ballantine’s Circus!”

  The girls giggled and went their separate ways, their garish outfits contrasting against the peaceful palette of browns and whites and blacks that was usual for a Highland town.

  Beatrice began to stroll through the center of Aberdale. She had to admit that she was quite enamored of the little town.

  It’s busy enough to have a sort of cheerful bustle to it, but small enough not to have the problems of a city.

  Townsfolk hurried to and fro on their numerous errands, glancing curiously at Beatrice as they passed her, dressed as she was in her tight-fitting equestrienne’s outfit of leather and suede.

  Beatrice stopped to pat a horse that stood tied to a post outside of a silversmith’s shop.

  I’ve always had a soft spot for a fine-looking piebald beast, especially one so strong and tall.

  She ran a hand over its velvet nose, stroked its cheek. The animal nickered gently and nuzzled her open palm.

  “Just like my very first show horse, you are,” she whispered to the animal.

  She had a natural affinity with horses. Something that had become clear within a few months of starting her new life in Ballantine’s Circus fifteen years before. It was this instinctive trust and bond that she seemed to form with horses that had led Ballantine to put her under the tutelage of Rose, his best equestrienne.

  Within a year, Beatrice was standing on the back of horses, riding them around the circus ring as if she had been doing it all her life. It was not long after that that Ballantine decided to use her in real performances, showcasing her as a wonder-child that had been born on horseback. The crowds had flocked to see her.

  Beatrice patted the horse and continued on her way. She meandered through the town’s streets, stopping every now and again to exchange pleasantries with the locals and inform them that the circus had arrived in Aberdale.

  “Circus, ye say?” said one old woman carrying a fresh loaf in a wicker basket, who had grabbed Beatrice boldly by the arm as she hobbled past on her way back from the baker’s. “What in the world’s a circus doin’ out these ways?”

  “Come and spend a few pennies for the show and you will see, madam,” Beatrice said with an ingratiating smile.

  “Will I just?” the old woman replied. “And what is that ye do fer the circus, lass?”

  “I’m an equestrienne,” Beatrice said.

  “I’ve nay idea what ye mean, dear,” the old woman said, though Beatrice could see the glimmer of interest in the rheumy blue eyes.

  “I ride horses,” Beatrice explained. “Ride standing on their backs, whilst standing on my hands, that sort of thing.”

  The old woman looked taken aback. “Well, I’ll be!” she said, bestowing a gap-toothed smile on Beatrice. “Now, there might be a sight worth seein’. I may just see ye there, lass.”

  “I will keep a sharp eye out for you, madam,” Beatrice said, and gave the old woman a little bow before she hobbled away.

  When she told someone about Ballantine’s Circus, she couldn’t help picturing a fire starting in their minds.

  Like a spark of gossip that ignites a rumor, the flame of chatter spreads from one person to the next, until the whole town is ablaze with it.

  Beatrice’s eyes wandered over the neat, well-kempt, whitewashed houses and out into the breath-taking expanse of tors and mountains that surrounded the town.

  Encircled by a ring of stunning low peaks and rolling pastureland that stretches away to the horizon and the sky, Aberdale, you are pretty!

  Without quite thinking of where she was going, she allowed her feet to pick their own path. and she found herself wandering out of the town and into the hill country.

  She walked along a rough road, worn by the wheels of carts and horses’ hooves, which led into the mouth of a vale. The sides of this valley were carpeted in rich, purple flowering heather. It swayed in the constant breeze that blew down from the higher Highland peaks, moving and undulating like a sea of mauve.

  Beatrice stood for a while, simply watching the movement of the heather. Scents that seemed to encapsulate the new country in which she stood filled her nose.

  Rich dark earth, moss and coming rain. />
  Up on the side of one particularly rugged tor, a rivulet tumbled down from the heights. It looked, from where Beatrice stood, like a strand of silver yarn threading its way down the side of the crags to be lost in a lush, green nest of fern below.

  She continued walking, her feet following the path of least resistance, along the road, up into the hills. There was no one around, nobody she could tell about Ballantine’s Circus. There was only the wind dancing across the rocks, and the breathy sigh it gave as it blew through the wild pastures of meadowsweet, marsh marigold, and vibrant yellow gorse.

  A lonely, heart-wrenching cry echoed across the desolate beauty of the Highlands as Beatrice’s footsteps brought her to the crest of a hill. She looked up and saw a red kite floating in the heavens. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight.