Chapter 1

Scottish Highlands, Thirty Years Later

Mairead MacTavish wasaware that life was slipping past her at an alarmingly quick pace, but she had no idea how to make time slow down. Nor did she know how to make life more interesting. It was just the same old drudgery, day in, day out. And no end to the boredom in sight.

After a final attempt to bear her husband a son and heir, Mairead's mother had passed away in childbirth five years previously, leaving only five daughters behind. As the eldest girl, Mairead found herself forced into acting as housekeeper and nanny for the rest of the family.

It left her no time for spring dancing in the village green or wassailing with the other maidens during the harvest festivals. Instead of holding hands to skip around the Maypole with flowers in her hair, Mairead was stuck at home, looking after her younger sisters and making sure her father's dinner was served on time.

"Faither! I'll be three and twenty years auld next fall," Mairead told the merchant in a firm voice, "I want to attend the village dances and find a swain." Eamon MacTavish was a merry-looking gentleman, with bright blue eyes, thick red hair, and a great bushy beard. When he looked at Mairead closely, he could see that she was serious about wanting to make her own home.

Eamon MacTavish had started in trade at a very young age and bought the local ale house with the profits. After building a tavern alongside the taproom, not only were all the MacTavishes admired for their good natures and kindness, but they were beloved for their hospitality too.

They brewed excellent beer, they attended Kirk every Sunday, and all five of the girls were as pretty as they were clever and hardworking.

Eamon put down his spoon and looked at his eldest daughter. He did not want to lose her. Mairead was able to read and write well enough to keep his ledger books for him. She ran the home and cared for her sisters too, but he knew that stubborn look on his daughter's face.

"As it turns oot, Mai, I received an offer for your hand last month. Ye ken the grocer who set up shop after getting the village council and guildhall's permission? His nephew is a great knight, employed by the Laird as his seneschal. The man came to the tavern one evening and told me that ye have sparked his fancy."

Mairead wrinkled her nose. "A what? If he's a knight, does that mean he rides around the country jousting strangers?"

The four MacTavish girls were very well-behaved and dared not interrupt their father's conversation, but Mairead could tell they were all dying to know what a seneschal was too.

Pushing his chair back from the table and taking a long pull from his tankard, Eamon MacTavish went into more detail. "A seneschal is someone who runs the laird's castle for him when the laird is away fighting battles."

His eldest daughter was not impressed. "Faither! Dinnae try to play me. Is the man a knight or a servant? I've never heard o' a noble knightley champion who prefers to stay behind at the castle making sure the household runs smoothly while all o' his comrades ride off to battle!"

All the girls broke into peals of laughter as they imagined Mairead's suitor hiding behind the castle walls. They grew quiet when their father continued. The MacTavish daughters were interested to know more.

"Truth to tell, Daughter, I received dozens o' offers for yer hand in marriage even before yer mither passed away, bless her soul, but I could nae stand to lose ye."

Mairead patted her father's hand. "Would ye want me to be an auld maid, Faither? I have to leave home sometime, especially if ye want to hear the sound o' wee grandchildren's feet pattering around." The family found the thought of Mairead having bairns of her own so funny, everyone burst out laughing again.

"Och, Mai," Agatha, the second eldest sister, giggled, "ye always say ye dinnae want bairns o' yer own because ye spent so many years raising us!"

Mairead gave Agatha a kiss on her cheek and hugged her. "Ye would say the same thing too, Aggie, if ye had four wee rascals running around the house."

Eamon cleared his throat for silence. "I ken the castle is over four leagues away from oor wee village, Daughter, but I've already given the man permission to woo ye. To be honest, it will break me heart to see ye go and live so far away, but Banneret Castle will be an exciting place for ye to begin married life."

Aggie sighed. "Ye are so lucky, Mai. A handsome knight. Living together at the castle. Ye will be able to wear yer best gowns every day."

Mairead held up her hand. "Not so fast. I want to meet him first." As the eldest child of a wealthy merchant and ale house owner, there was no need for Mairead to marry the first man who came along. And nor would her father force her to marry a man she did not like. It was a step in the right direction just to know that dear old father was at peace with her marrying away from her home.

"When will I get to meet him? What does he look like? Please, Faither, tell us more."

He shook his head. "Mai, ye ken I'm not the sort o' man who likes talking aboot another man's appearance or setting up romantic meetings. When I next see him at the market, I'll drop a word in his ear that ye are willing to have him visit."

Standing up from the large table in the dining area, Eamon told his daughters to help the kitchen maid tidy up and then for the girls to go upstairs to bed immediately after. As Mairead began to stack the plates and scrape food into the basket for the pigs, Aggie sidled closer. "Are ye hot for yer new beau?"

Ever practical, Mairead replied calmly. "Until I ken what yon seneschal looks like, I won't get me hopes up. Faither is a dear, but he spoke the truth when he said he's no good judge o' a man's appearance."

Aggie could only agree. "Aye, if he's scrawny and bow-legged, ye must avoid him at all costs! Bairns sometimes come oot looking like their faithers and the last thing ye want is an ugly child."

Mairead scolded her sister. "Aggie! All bairns are sweet and innocent!" Then she relented and gave Agatha a wink. "Actually, many children grow up to look like their faithers. Take me for example."

Besides the glorious riot of bright red ringlets tied back by a scarf wrapped around her head, Mairead did not resemble her father at all. Eamon MacTavish's eyes were clear blue and it was clear to everyone that he liked his food.

Mairead took after her late mother. Her body was curved in all the right places, and yet this did not get in the way of folks describing her as a pretty, petite sylph. Although it was her graceful gestures and dainty steps that caught the eye, the eldest MacTavish girl was adored because of the kind way she treated visitors and her motherly nature toward her sisters.

Her luminous green eyes, fair arched eyebrows, and generous wide mouth disturbed many men's dreams. When Mairead smiled, folks felt their hearts lift with happiness and when she frowned, it made men especially want to throw themselves at her feet and beg her for forgiveness.

To her face, single men called Mairead the bonniest flower in the glen. Behind her back, they whispered about her tempting maidenhead and who would be the first fortunate fellow to take her to bed.

Eamon's eldest daughter went to sleep that night with a clear conscience. She had never felt the bite of passion or a yearning love before and she was in no hurry to experience it. Mairead waited to see what the morning would bring.

Mairead sharedher bed with Agatha and Maeve, the sisters closest in age to herself. Agatha was eighteen years old and champing at the bit to take over running the house. At twelve, Maeve still enjoyed playing with her younger sisters and was in no rush to grow up.

A few years ago, Eamon had handed the running of the ale house over to Mairead. Every morning, the eldest MacTavish girl would wake up and go check on the beer brewing in the longhouse next to the tavern. After approving its strength and taste, she would throw open the doors of the tavern taproom to signal to thirsty travelers and busy villagers that they could come and sup to their hearts' content.

But this morning would be different. "Aggie, be a dear and take me place at the ale house this morning. I wish to visit the market."

The village of Kilmagarry had a bustling marketplace. Farmers would drive their cattle for slaughter and then sell the butchered meat. Farmers' wives and daughters would trundle handcarts full of vegetables and fruits and display them for sale. Besides foodstuffs, shoppers were able to find gloves and belts for sale at the Master leather makers or buy a coin purse or pair of slippers at the Whittawer shop. They could purchase wool and linen at the drapers or visit the Ferrier for a new saddle for a horse.

All taxes were paid to the priest. Once a month, the laird would send a knight and his squire to sit with the priest and make sure all the accounts were in order. Kilmagarry was a safe haven, a pleasant little hamlet where nothing very exciting happened unless someone misbehaved or got drunk.

Aggie was no fool. She watched her sister dress and put two and two together. Mairead was the apple of her father's eye and had the prettiest gowns to prove it. As a maiden, she was allowed to let her hair flow down her back with only a veil held in place by a circlet of blue wool to cover it. The rest of the dress was just as pretty. A fine lawn smock tied at the throat followed by a blue kirtle fastened under the bust with an embroidered girdle belt.

With her stockings tied over her knees with silk ribbons, Mairead pushed her little feet into sturdy leather outer shoes called pattens. This was all the proof that Aggie needed to know her sister was going beyond the market.

"Ye are off to visit the village square! It's the only place that is muddy enough for you to want to wear pattens, Sister. Tell me who ye are going to visit."

Mairead frowned. Her sister's nosiness was sometimes enough to drive her mad! It was bad enough that she could not sigh in her dreams without Agatha waking her up the next morning to ask her what man she had been dreaming about. "I'm going to see Liadan and Robert. Does that satisfy yer curiosity?"

Aggie knew when her usually patient sister had reached her limit. Waving Mairead farewell, she went to check on the brewery.

Heaving a large sigh of relief, Mairead stepped outside and began walking to the baker's shop in the village square. Her best friend, Liadan, had married the widowed baker at the tender age of fifteen. Not only did Liadan have four children now, but she had an insatiable desire for gossip too, just like every other housewife in Kilmagarry.

A few apprentices and farmers' sons raised their bonnets when they saw Mairead passing them by. Besides giving them a sweet smile and bidding them all a very good morning, she did not stop. Her goal was to pump Liadan for information about the knight who wanted to woo her. If anyone knew about the Laird's seneschal, it would be her old friend.

Having thought about her father's decision to let her marry if the right man came along, for some strange reason Mairead was not so sure if that was what she wanted anymore. She had Liadan as an example. While her friend was blissfully happy to raise her family and bed her elderly husband every night, it was not the future Mairead saw for herself.

I dinnae ken if I could settle down with an elderly gentleman and nearly half a dozen bairns hanging on me skirt hem.

Sure, her dreams were full of nameless, faceless men who were somehow able to arouse her despite their anonymity, but Mairead could not shake the vision of her mother giving birth every year. And those years Mistress MacTavish did not give birth, she was lying in bed, recovering from some pregnancy-related illness.

Maybe I should join an abbey and give up men completely. Then I would nae have to worry aboot the complications that come with being a wife.

But Mairead knew deep down inside that even though her belly did not crave to have a bairn inside it, that warm crevice between her thighs most definitely did.

And it was that craving sensation that drove her to the bakery to find out more about the knight who wanted to woo her.

The baking oven was in the back of the shop. From the delicious smell of roasting meats and bubbling stews that were coming out of there, Mairead could tell Liadan's husband had finished baking the dozens of fresh bread loaves for the day and had opened up his oven for the villagers to use.

"Mai!" Liadan was pleased to see her. The baker's wife began reeling off a string of questions to her friend. "What brings ye to the bakery? Ye look so bonny. Is there nay work for ye to do at the tavern?" As one of the more well-off families in Kilmagarry, the MacTavishes had their own oven for baking and roasting and never needed to use the one at the bakery.

Mairead got straight down to business. "Faither says I can marry if I want. Apparently, there's a s-seneschal, I think that is how Faither said it, who saw me at the ale house one evening and asked his permission to woo me. And I am here," Mairead tapped the counter with her finger, "to find oot if ye ken who he is. And more importantly, d'ye ken what he looks like?"

Liadan was over the moon with joy. She hoped her friend would settle down one day and become a staid housewife like she was herself. "Oh, Mai! I thought ye were doomed to become an auld maid! One of those hunched auld spinsters who teach children how to read and write, and then beat them over the knuckles when they cannae remember their lessons."

Laughing, Mairead shook her head. "For shame, Liadan. Living to see a ripe auld age and being unmarried is not as bad as ye think. And teaching small children to read would be a kind-hearted occupation. Tell me aboot the Laird's seneschal, please, and dinnae spare any details."

Leaning over the counter, Liadan began to describe the Laird's knight. "Och, he is staying across the way, at that inn next to the hostelry. He came here to buy a loaf for his squire. He's a staunch-looking man. Very well dressed in elegant finery with a bright eye and jolly laugh. I can see the two o' ye together."

Mairead reserved her judgment for the moment. Staunch, well-dressed, and jolly were strangely enough not attractive words to her when she imagined how her future husband would look.

"If ye dally here for a while," Liadan told Mairead, "the seneschal comes in to get a loaf for his servant. Ye can watch him from afar and come to yer own conclusion about the man."

"I dinnae think I'm ready to speak to him just yet, Liadan," Mairead smiled, "but thank ye."

"Too late!" her friend laughed. "I see him watching ye from ootside. Hoots, but he's likely to be hanging around like a bee round the honeypot if ye dinnae say good morrow to the poor fellow! Gather up yer courage and go and make yerself known to him. He's the one wearing the sword."