Page 1 of Highlander’s Lust

Prologue

“Och, me laird, ye’re such a braw, handsome gentleman! What lass could find the strength within herself to say nay to ye?”

As fine a statement as this seemed to Laird Ramsay Brisbane’s ears, if anyone else had been overhearing it, they would have laughed or even raised their eyebrows in question.

Laird Ramsay was neither braw nor handsome. And not even the most generous person would have described him as a gentleman.

Since he had been old enough to shave, Ramsay Brisbane had acted the knave. But what could be considered naughty behavior in a beardless youth no longer applied to Laird Brisbane. Well past the prime of his life and on the shadowed side of sixty summers, he had become a bred-in-the-bone old libertine and had been considered a veritable pest by women of all ages for as long as anyone cared to remember. The local villagers called him “Laird” to his face and “auld satyr” behind his back. There had been no maidens or married women under the age of fifty employed at Brisbane castle for over five and forty years.

That was until Bess Morley came to the castle asking for work.

Laird Ramsay’s eyes had widened when he first laid eyes on the comely young lass. Her red-cheeked, rounded face was as fresh as a daisy, and as for her smile, he found it immensely flirtatious and enticing. She had a way of looking at him from under her sandy eyelashes that made his fat stomach tighten with anticipation.

As for the rest of the staff at Brisbane Castle, they whispered behind their hands about the true reason for the new maid’s sudden interest in working for his lairdship: he was a widower, rich, and powerful, and Miss Bess Morley most likely had an eye on marrying herself to a small portion of that. And who knew? Laird Ramsay only had one child, now grown to manhood, but in these uncertain times, many things could happen between the chapel and the grave. If some evil event transpired for Charlie Brisbane—his lairdship’s sole heir—after Bess Morley managed to get a ring on her finger and a bairn in her belly, the maid could end up as their mistress.

These were uncertain times indeed, and so the castle servants agreed it was safest to sit back and let the intrigue play out. After all, if Master Charlie Brisbane could not bestir himself to leave the bawdy house for long enough to keep an eye on his father’s fornication, then why should they?

Sure enough, it was not long before Laird Ramsay was able to inveigle himself into a seductive situation with Bess. Not quite one week after the maid began working at the castle, Laird Ramsay drank enough whisky to fortify his resolve. He buttonholed Bess in the steward’s bedchamber as she was dusting the wainscoting. The girl looked up when she heard the door open and saw Laird Ramsay pushing his cumbersome bulk through the portal. If she had been a maiden true, Bess would have found the way his lairdship closed the door and bolted it behind him a most threatening gesture. But she did not. Instead, she curled up the corners of her lips and blinked like a cat that had been given a saucer of cream.

Encouraged by this, the laird barreled over to the maid with unseemly haste.

“Ye think me braw, do ye?” Laird Ramsay flushed with pride at Bess’s simpering comment. “Give me the time o’ day, lass, and I’ll show ye just how braw I can be.”

Bess obviously knew enough about seductions to at least put up a slight show of resistance, or else when Laird Ramsay approached her, she lost her nerve. The closer he got, the easier it was to see the broken purple veins on his cheeks, his rheumy, bloodshot eyes, and smell the reek of spirits wafting off his foul breath.

“Och, nay, nay! No’ so fast, I beg o’ ye!” she pleaded with him, a shudder of revulsion coursing over her. “Allow a maid to ready herself a wee bit first!”

Laird Ramsay looked over his shoulder toward the bolted door and rolled his hand around in an impatient circle, saying, “Aye, very well. But hasten, wench. Ready is as ready does, ye ken? Turn around an’ lift yer petticoat. That will make ye sufficiently primed in me own estimation.”

Bess shot him a darkling look but changed it into a sultry smile when she saw his lairdship hesitate. His vigor was not what it once had been, and Laird Ramsay had to be careful his enthusiasm did not wane.

“Why no’ make ourselves comfortable on the bed?” Bess suggested.

They mounted the dais, and Bess lay down on the bed, her face buried in the mattress, her back toward his lairdship. Laird Ramsay found nothing strange with the position Bess seemed to prefer. Not many wenches wanted to make eye contact with his lairdship so much anymore, especially after he had been at the whisky barrel; his breath was so fetid it could melt ceruse paint.

He flipped her skirt over her head and licked his lips at the sight she presented him. This was how he preferred his conquests: nameless, faceless, and compliant. There had been so many women in his lairdship’s wastrel life, he could not recall the names and faces of any of them, not even his poor late wife’s.

Making merry was a simple matter for Laird Ramsay. He unbelted his sporran so the leather pouch would not get in his way and tucked the hem of his kilt under his chin: a movement he had done so many times before, it was now instinctual. He licked his lips and leaned forward. When he felt his body connect with the maid’s, he gave a loud cry that faded away into a shuddering moan.

Bess felt the full weight of Laird Ramsay fall on her back. She had braced herself for the pressure, but this burden was immense. She found it hard to breathe.

“M-Me laird…p-please! I cannae breathe. Raise yerself afore I expire!”

But his lairdship’s mass pressed down on her, unmoving. For one moment, Bess struggled and gasped, and then the reality of what had happened dawned on her. The horror sent the maid spiraling into hysteria.

“Help! Help! Will somebody please help me—and his lairdship! He...he’s swooned!”

Her screams were swallowed up by the deep feather mattress. Bess redoubled her efforts as Laird Ramsay’s bulk refused to move, and he lay motionless on top of her. She tried to heave him off her back, but his body was too tall and heavy. She felt her chest tighten as the air left her lungs, and no more could be inhaled to take its place.

Bess gave a sob. This was how she would be found—dead underneath a dead man who was not her husband.

“Help me…” she gasped, but the only sound she could hear as she was slowly smothered was the scratching of mice in the wainscoting.