The Chieftain's Curse

By Frances Housden

2014 RWA RITA Award finalist for Best Historical Romance and 2014 Romance Writers of New Zealand (RWNZ) KORU Readers' Choice Award winner!

Euan McArthur is a chieftain in need of an heir.

While still a young a warrior, Euan incites the fury of a witch. She retaliates with a curse that no wife will ever bear him an heir. As he buries his third wife and yet another bonnie stillborn son, Euan can no longer cast her words aside.

Morag Farquhar is a woman in need of sanctuary. With a young relative in tow, Morag flees the only home she has ever known to escape her brother, Baron of Wolfsdale, and find sanctuary in the MacArthur stronghold. Pronounced barren by a midwife, Morag is of little value to her family, but a Godsend to Euan, a lover he can't kill by getting with child.

Years ago, chance drew them together, and tangled their lives in ways they could never have imagined. This time their destiny lies in their own hands, but it will take courage and strong hearts to see it through to the end.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Feb 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780857990242

Frances Housden

Frances Housden lives in New Zealand-a beautiful country not so very different from Scotland, where she was born. She began her career as a published writer after winning Romance Writers of New Zealand's prestigious Clendon Award. She went on to pen six very successful novels for Silhouette Books, where she merged her penchant for characterisation with her love of suspense. She is now delving into the world of historical romance, using her love of history to take her readers on an exciting trip into the lives of memorable characters.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Twelve years later

Months … weeks … all the angst-filled days she had spent trudging toward Castle Cragenlaw were over. She waited for joy to fill her soul, waited in vain. Aye, she had reached the castle but had yet to gain entry.

Breaking all around her, the noise of the storm was fearful. Morag felt it sap her energy as her fists slammed one more echoing blow against the enormous wooden door. She sobbed aloud, convinced no one would hear, even if she gave sway to the cries that rang through her mind—cries she dare not give voice to. Help, the words rang in her head.

Help us.

Fears unspoken, prayers she held close to her breast loth to reveal them to Rob. The lad had come through enough without piling more worries onto the apprehension she had seen on his face.

Keeping him safe had been her life’s work.

Her forehead rested on the door, heavy rain pounding, seeping through the loose weave of her old plaid, soaking her hair, wetting her skin. She felt too weary to care that it ran in a stream between her shoulder blades, trickled over every ridge of her spine like the cold sweat of fear—something she should be used to. Aye, Morag was aware the trembles that shook her weren’t wrought from the chill in the air or the sudden eruption of thunderheads surging skywards to swallow the noonday sun.

Nay, it was trepidation. Terror that, after all she had put both her and Rob through, she had failed utterly.

Thoughts tumbled through her head, doubts she dare not share with Rob, dread of being denied entry no matter how hard her fists pounded the huge iron-banded doors barring the gated entrance to Castle Cragenlaw.

Shuddering with exhaustion and breathing hard, she raised her forehead from the narrow split in the wood that marked the edge of a lesser gate set into the main portal. She needed a moment, just one—nay two, if she were honest—time to garner enough energy to wring a quivering plea from her throat, Let … us … in…

She banged, she begged in vain, her words snaffled by the fierce swell of wind almost as soon as they were uttered.

Close by, filling his usual space beside her shoulder, she felt Rob arrive, heard the rasp of his breath from the climb and his burden. Their remaining possessions were in the sacks he carried then dropped near their feet. Together they made the best of what little protection the stone arch provided.

The silence between them stretched, felt worse than if he’d let out a curse. They had always been close. Always. She would hate to think he sensed her despair and resisted offering comfort as he flattened his weight on the gate next to hers. Rob wouldn’t thank her for treating him like a child. Young, Rob might be, he had still been her strength, her good right arm on a journey where danger dogged their heels and their destination held no certain promise safety.

Behind them lay the long, steep sweep of the causeway. They had barely set foot upon it when the storm broke over them, turning noon into midnight. Thunderbolts split the clouds, crashes that smelled like sulphur or, worse, brimstone—the devil’s work. Or God’s, punishing her for daring to escape her sinner’s fate.

Her strength was puny compared to that of the storm. How could anyone hear her fists on the door. The thumps would never measure up.

Never, she thought, as a terrifying bolt of lightning split heaven and its report shook both the castle and the cobbles under their feet. I think the causeway has gone, Rob croaked as they both twisted round to look back down at the path they had taken but minutes before. At the foot of the raised jut of land that attached Cragenlaw to the Scottish mainland, a soughing and groaning flailed air. They stared, dumbfounded, as a huge tree growing on the low cliff above the sea was wrenched from the soil. Branches screeched in agony against the rocks as the giant toppled, blocking the causeway, trapping them.

Morag grabbed Rob’s arm as another flash exposed the tree’s earth-clogged roots. Black fingers reached skyward in a defiant gesture, much like the one that had brought her here.

There was now no turning back.

She had come seeking safety for herself and Rob. Now chances were they’d die where they stood. The thought had scarcely formed when the gate behind her abruptly swung open. Morag tumbled through the gap, heart racing, and a stifled scream stuttered in her throat as muscular arms opened to break her fall. The man put her away from him, held her arms by two age-worn fists. Lord save us, woman, where have you been?

For all the ferocity of the booming voice, Morag caught a glimpse of relief in the bright blue eyes as another flash lit his beard-grizzled face. The castle has been in an uproar. It’s over three days since the messenger was sent. More than enough time, one would imagine, for you to have arrived days ago.

Bewildered, Morag’s heartbeat faltered. The messenger, she whispered. Fear blocked her windpipe, but she took heart that the gate was still open—a circumstance she clung to with what little remained of the optimism they had started out with. They had survived their horrendous journey. She felt Rob tug on her plaid. It took all her strength to resist clutching his fist in hers, but resist she did. No matter the cost, Morag intended that she and Rob would pass through the opening. Would, step inside the solid granite walls encircling Cragenlaw at last.

Aye, the McArthur sent his man off himself. I’m Callum of Stonehaven, and I mind the gate. I see them all. ‘Fetch me the midwife’ he shouted as soon as Lady Astrid’s birth pains began, and he roared those very words as the messenger rode through this gate like a man with the devil on his heels. But never mind that, where is he now?

Morag ignored the question, instead she said, Three days and she still hasn’t given birth? She prayed the horror twisting her innards didn’t show overmuch. There would be no midwife arriving that day, or any day soon. The castle was impregnable. With waves licking halfway up the castle’s sides there was no way in but the causeway; but first, one must climb over the tree.

She took a deep breath. You had better take me to her, she said, trying to ignore Rob’s gasp of surprise, but all he did was nudge her leg with one of the sacks. Rob was as aware as her that if the birth went wrong at this late stage, the blame might fall on her head.

She’d take that chance willingly if it meant Rob would be safe. Safely hidden behind the thick granite walls of Castle Cragenlaw.

Callum was mumbling into his beard, but she was interested only in asking, Was there no one else to help the poor lady? I’d have thought in a castle this size there would be plenty of women with experience of birthing.

She couldn’t very well admit to having more experience with mares than mothers. Her personal experience of child-bearing had gone dreadfully wrong and shaped her life from that day to this.

Ach, they all claim ignorance when it comes to a happening that should be natural, he said not bothering to hide his scepticism as he herded them before him. Still, one can hardly blame them.

Shocked, Morag formed a sharp edge around her next question. And why would that be? I should think womanly compassion would wring their hearts to see another in need. She knew how deep that need could run.

Oh, they can’t see her, but there is no escaping her screams no matter where you hide in the castle.

Hear their Lady screaming… Had nobody thought to give her some wood to bite on? Morag knew to her cost that although the practice didn’t stop the screams it did dull the roar. She would admit she had tasted wood at the back of her throat for weeks afterward. Even now, memory coated her tongue with the tang of resin. It shocks me that people can be so cruel, she spat out her disgust.

Lady Astrid is far from alone. There’s old Mhairi and the McArthur himself. He hasn’t left his wife’s side since she began to labour.

There … it was confirmed. Euan had a wife. What else had she expected?

She watched Callum’s shoulders lift and fall, heard him sigh, and knew he was building up to justify the women of Cragenlaw’s reasons for failing their mistress. Even before he spoke, memories of suffering hardened her heart against any excuse he could make. She felt it sit like a stone locked in her chest.

"It’s the curse you see. Aye, few women living at Cragenlaw have had babies, and the childless lasses have gotten it into their heads that the curse is catching. It’s a sorrowful state of affairs, and all because the McArthur needs an heir. Though, it has to be said in his favour that he hasn’t been backward in the attempt. Three wives he’s taken to his bed, and this one’s likely to go the way of the others. Hadn’t you heard, lass? His first two wives died in childbirth."

Stunned, Morag shook her head, but Callum wasn’t done. What could she say that wouldn’t give lie to his assumption that she was the midwife? Three wives and two dead in childbirth, she sputtered.

Aye, and the McArthur’s sons along with them, he continued. That’s why the castle lasses won’t go near Lady Astrid. Once they knew she was carrying, they gave her a wide berth. Very few women dinnae want babies at some stage or another, as no doubt because of your calling you’d be aware. A trident of light splashed the sky with cold fire, as if his words had dragged it down on them—a fine reason for Morag to let her shocked expression show.

Around them, the dark grey walls sparkled like gemstones as light splashed across them. She latched onto the sight, used it as an aid to bring her down to earth and dampen her tumbling thoughts while she followed Callum through the bailey. On another day, the stone walls might have intrigued her. She’d spent most of her life behind wooden palisades. Tonight, she was blind to it, numb to all thoughts but one. Euan might be about to lose another wife. A third.

However much she had once loved him, her pity was all for his wife. It seems I got here just in time. Show me the way, then make sure my brother Rob gets some food, it has been a long journey, and fourteen-year-olds are always starving. Every time she spoke the lie, her insides curled, as if she had somehow disowned him, though Rob didn’t seem at all bothered.

The storm chased her indoors on the heels of a turbulence that invaded her heart and her head while she followed Callum’s directions to the keep and the cries of pain. Swirling draughts on the stairs of the tower set her shadow swaying back and forth as she passed beneath the pitch-coated torches clutched in iron brackets round the curved stone walls.

She hadn’t climbed even halfway up the winding stone stairs that led to the Chieftain’s apartments, when the screaming stopped and she was struck a sense of inevitability. With knees turned to liquid, she braced her weight against the rough stone wall, steadying her balance, her emotions.

The lengthening silence shortened the cords at the back of her neck as she felt success—nay safety—slip from her grasp. Taking a deep breath, she kneaded the small of her back as she straightened her spine before continuing the climb.

With soft quiet footsteps Morag crossed the empty solar. On the edge of her vision, she noticed a heap of rags piled in the corner. Hmm, her lips twisted. What had happened to the cozening young man she had known if he couldn’t charm a maid to venture this far? Surely a castle this size had more than one old woman brave enough to help his wife—another black mark against the ones in charge.

A tapestry blocked her view of the bedchamber beyond. Its folds muffled the voices, but couldn’t prevent them sliding around the edges. Her heart beat rapidly. Taking that frantic organ in her hands she fought past the weight of the tapestry, to peep through the opening into the McArthur’s chamber. Her eyes widened and she let out a sigh of relief. A woman lay atop the bed in a pool of candlelight. Her expression was tired, but obviously the worst was over. She thanked God that they had managed without her assistance.

Euan’s wife was a beauty, so different. Her red-gold hair fascinated Morag. Inevitably, a pang of envy washed over her. She did not need a looking glass to know that her own dull hair suffered badly by comparison. A high chieftain was raised to expect the best, and Euan, it seemed, had succeeded.

His wife’s bright gold tresses flowed across the translucent white shift covering her shoulders and spilled over the side of the bed. Newly born, the baby sprawled across its mother’s belly below her breasts. Though the storm had dimmed the light in the corners of the room, by the candle glow, Morag caught a gleam of red in the damp hair covering the baby’s scalp.

The relief in her breast spiked for less than a heartbeat then her jaw dropped. Open-mouthed with astonishment, she realised neither baby nor mother had moved, not a hint of indrawn breath.

Caught in a fraught silence, as unwieldy as the tapestry she held back, Morag felt she had lost her hearing as he moved out of the gloom. Euan look down at his wife and baby. His expression softened his features. She saw his emotions, his failures, stripped bare like a man who has given up his control to drink, except not a whiff of whisky assailed the air.

Her presence was an imposition on an occasion that should be private. The McArthur lifted his head and trapped her within a narrow gaze silvered with tears or, worse, the icy sheen of anger.

She wanted to bolt, needed to escape a room where the atmosphere had grown thick enough to slice with a knife. Then it was too late. A roar of pain, a keening agony, unexpected and shocking, slapped at her, backhanded her. Shocking, because Morag recognised the agony of feeling that left one oblivious and unashamed of reactions normally kept hidden.

Euan turned away as though unaware he was observed, while his face twisted with pain. She had faced danger many times before. Life was filled with risk. Few people in these times could claim never to have experienced an icy shiver like the one sliding down Morag’s already cold spine. Not for the first time, her life teetered on a dagger’s edge. She had entered Castle Cragenlaw under false pretences as the midwife whose delay had killed both Euan’s wife and baby.

A deep-throated groan drew her nervous gaze.

Before they had reached Cragenlaw, she’d been fearful of discovering the damage time and war had done to the handsome Scottish youth. The knowledge that Euan was unarmed should have conquered her fears. Not so. Muscles encased his tall, long-legged frame as a Norman might wear golden armour. Euan was completely naked and, to her mind, presented a bigger danger. Head flung back, his long hair flayed about his shoulders as he shook his blood-stained fists at the heavens and roared, Will this bloody curse never end?

Tears welled in Morag’s eyes as his pain enveloped her in a rush of unwanted memories. She didn’t want to feel this way, didn’t want to empathise with a man who had betrayed three women, four if she included herself. The knowledge was enough to remind her she hadn’t come to Cragenlaw for the McArthur’s sake. He was nothing to her now. Rob was the only one she cared for and, if necessary, she was certain Euan could be persuaded to help him, to keep him safe. A hard heart was vital to their survival.

Her only recourse was retreat inside the safety of the solar, then Morag heard, Aye, that’s it, back away afore he catches sight of you. As you can see we’re well past needing a midwife.

Despite warning her off, the crone grabbed her wrist and pushed her face close to Morag’s, hissing like a cat. Only the truth, or at least a measure of honesty, could save her now.

I’m not the midwife, and sorry I am for it, but when I heard of the poor lady’s plight I … I wanted to offer m-my help, she stammered, caught off guard, without thinking to mention the fallen tree blocking the causeway.

Euan turned his back to them as if they were invisible, but he wasn’t. From where she stood, Morag could see the scar on his shoulder left by the crossbow bolt. He never turned his head to look. Not even a stranger’s voice could interrupt his grief. For him, no one else in the room existed.

Morag was glad of it.

In a voice drawn thin with age and cracked with emotion the crone told her, Take your self off. We have no need of your help.

The crone released her wrist, pushed her away until Morag was on the other side of the tapestry before she had time to protest, trying to catch her breath.

From the far corner, the rags unfolded and spoke. Don’t let her abruptness trouble you, lass.

She clenched her hands over her breasts, holding tight as if her heart might leap from her chest. Good heavens, you startled me.

The little man rose to his feet. The face, creased from where it had rested on his folded arms, was streaked with tears and crumpled by a melancholy that was offset by the tinkle of bells on sleeves and cap. A Fool was the last thing Morag had expected to discover in the McArthur’s Keep.

Knuckling the tears away from his eyes, he said, I’m Nhaimeth, Lady Astrid’s Fool, though old Mhairi likes to pretend I don’t exist. I’m fair used to being ignored but inexperienced at making her excuses. To be truthful, she’s been worried from the day she knew Lady Astrid was carrying.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when another rage-filled roar rent the air. The little man cringed and turned away, revealing the misshapen curve in his spine. Morag schooled her face not to show pity, saying only, I’m a stranger to the castle, but I thought to help and offered my assistance as soon as Callum told me the sorry tale. I wish I could have done more. Curious, she asked, Was Mhairi Lady Astrid’s maid?

His full lips curled in a sneer. Och. Mhairi’s anxiety is not for Astrid. Euan was her baby. She feared for his heir.

The crone is Euan’s—the McArthur’s—mother? Morag clapped a hand over her mouth for fear they might hear in the next room.

Hah! I’m the one who’s supposed to make jest. The crone was his nurse. Her fears are all for Euan. Euan the Cursed.

Callum told me as much, but … cursed? How? When… she let her demand dwindle. Too much interest might give her away. She must not dare show too much interest or arouse the slightest skerrick of curiosity about her secret. That didn’t prevent her saying, Callum said Lady Astrid was the McArthur’s third wife, and prodding for more information.

Keeping his eyes downcast, Nhaimeth studied the floor as if he saw something of more interest than her worn boots. The drooping corners of his mouth told another tale. The others both died in childbirth. He wants an heir. Everyone knows the truth of the curse, but not even this fool can find a particle of optimism that it will ever come to pass. My lady should never have wed him.

The little man’s finger curled in a childlike fist that pounded the granite wall in anger ignoring the blood the pounding drew. It was all her father’s doing. The hunger for power drives him as naught else can.

Who is the Lady Astrid’s father?

He lifted an eyebrow that remarked on her ignorance. Have you ever heard of Erik the Bear?

Aye, many a tale, and been scared out of my wits by threats that he might get me if I didn’t behave. Is it true he can break a man in two with his bare arms?

Once maybe, aye. Erik Comlyn’s well named, but think on, the whole clan have a reputation for being throng. That said, Nhaimeth rubbed his palms over his old-young face and turned away, arm braced against the wall, making a rest for a head that looked too big for his body.

Morag had learned more than she wanted to know. Whilst her body was merely tired from her travels, her spirits had sunk as low as on the day her father was brought home, slung across his mount’s neck. She could envisage no quick, easy end to the day for Euan, nor for herself.

The gods were probably laughing up their sleeves that she had thought to ignore the dire portents thrown at her. A warning no man could forefend. She couldn’t shake off the memory of a sky wiped clean of light, wrapping Cragenlaw in a heavy blanket designed to depress hope. Or the screams of a woman, blood curdling and so loud it was a wonder the castle walls didn’t topple. Fall. Destroyed in the way they said Joshua’s trumpets had brought down those of Jericho.

Chapter 2

Arms dripping, Euan stepped away from the stained water in the basin. Turning, he pulled back his anguish and in silence bid farewell to his wife and son. With the door slammed on his emotions, he at last grasped the linen Mhairi’s gnarled hands kept pushing under his nose. Oh, for pity’s sake, stop snivelling, woman, he growled, exasperated.

It was all well and fine for Mhairi to put on a fine display of the kind of weakness he dared not show the world. He gritted his teeth. In these troubled times, a clan chieftain in his precarious position, a man with no heir, needed an iron fist and a heart of stone.

He rode to every battle fought in defence of his lands, knowing that should his life falter, rabid wolves, human as well as animal, would be circling his castle within hours. Beasts all of them, waiting to pounce, to lay waste to every inch of McArthur land. Land won by the ancestors who brought their kin north to the east coast, and Cragenlaw.

Vikings had put paid to the previous tenants of the crags—Picts who, until Norse long-ships appeared on the horizon had, from behind wooden palisades, survived the worst thrown at them. After the McArthur clan sent the Norsemen scurrying for their dragon boats, they had rebuilt in local stone, not only plentiful but hard as iron.

The nor-east coast had suited his Celtic ancestors well. They had flourished here until the moment Euan had made one simple mistake. His father had been clan chieftain in those days but the blame lay at Euan’s feet.

Rubbing his arms and hands dry on the linen, Euan finished by roughly wiping the cloth across the splashes of ruddy water that dripped from his chest and abdomen. Send the seneschal for my wife’s cowardly priest. The sooner he’s gone from this place the better. Not, of course, before he says prayers over the lass and the baby and gives them absolution.

Whichever gods existed among these hills owed Astrid clemency, for hadn’t she and the baby been the only innocents in this marriage?

Aye, the biggest share of guilt was his own, but the priest and Brodwyn, Astrid’s cousin, who had ridden off on the pretext of carrying the news to Comlyn, had their own consciences to search. Add to them, all those in the castle who had turned their backs on his wife, their chieftain’s wife, needed to do the same.

A pulse beat a lament in his temple, tightening the cords in his throat until he could hardly speak the words. Clenching down hard on his jaw to conceal any outward sign of his distress, he continued, However, Mhairi, before you let that purveyor of hellfire and brimstone near her, have some of the maids tend to my wife and son. And, mind you, bide by Astrid’s side all the time the priest is with her.

Perhaps he had never loved Astrid, but she had been his.

The wife of a Scottish Chieftain.

Astrid had deserved better than the life he and her father had designed for her. Her father, through an excess of ambition, and Euan, in his never-ending quest to extend his line in posterity, were both responsible for what happened in this room tonight.

The irony drew an imperceptible shrug of his powerful shoulders, for he knew it was a crime he would repeat.

He saw no other way to fulfil the promise he had made to his father. Through clenched teeth, he glanced at Mhairi and ground out another order, I want them both buried as soon as this accursed storm is over.

Turning his back on his old nurse, he grabbed his breacan-an-feile off the ironbound chest—the sandalwood-lined one where Astrid had stored the baby’s cloths, dresses and wee bonnets. He remembered the expression on her face as she folded them away.

Pure love.

Though the baby had yet to be born, she had poured her heart into the wee things she had made for him. Astrid had been like her mother. Her Norse ancestry had made her confident she would succeed where the others had failed. She had been determined to be the one who successfully bore him an heir. Look at the size of him, she’d, say rubbing her round belly. Come, feel how hard he kicks. This son of yours will be as strong as his father.

He’d felt his son kick, felt the strength behind it and, for the first time since he’d married Astrid, became certain she was the one he had waited for. The mother of the McArthur heir.

The fine worsted plaid in his hands felt afire against his skin. He wrapped it tight around his knuckles, feeling the pain, needing the pain to assuage the guilt.

Astrid had woven the plaid. She had been proud of her skills, and rightly so. She’d spun the wool from sheep that grazed the fields beyond the castle. The dyes Astrid used, she had made from bark and plants found in the Cragenlaw valley. The patterns she wove were always complicated, but she’d put her heart into the weaving, had put her whole heart into loving him, which had been amazing, for he no longer expected love. He had reached a place in his life where he did not want to love anyone in return.

Yet he couldn’t escape the guilt. And because he knew there was no escape he would have to live with the truth of his life: he was cursed.

That did not mean he had given up looking for a way to nullify the blight on his life. He had consulted wise women, priests, and old men who thought they were wizards.

Mhairi always kept her ears open to the tales of travellers, tinkers, of minstrels, rumours floating on the wind. She listened to them all and reported the tales to Euan, who had searched for the truth in them only to find they had as little substance as the scent of pines on the breeze.

Being cursed didn’t mean giving up at the first hurdle.

Pushing his thoughts aside, he glanced over his shoulder and saw, to his annoyance that Mhairi hadn’t moved from her place by the bed. She watched him through narrowed eyes, red-rimmed and raw.

The reminder of his grief roughened the edges of his voice. What? Are you still here, woman? Surely ye wiped my arse often enough as a baby for it to hold little mystery for you, so what’s bothering you?

He made his demand while pleating the edge of his plaid in one fist then fitting the cloth around his middle with a practiced swirl of his narrow hips. Clamping the worsted length round his waist with a wide leather belt buckled in silver, he finished off by tossing the remaining fringed length over his shoulder and tucking it into the belt.

Mhairi wasn’t in a mood for taking any of his nonsense. Aye, I did, and gave it a fine skelp as well, for weren’t you a right wee devil? I only wanted to say I’m heart sore for ye, Euan, and it pains me to mention that I doubt any of the maids will relish the task of…

He felt the burn of anger rise in the gorge of his throat. It pained him to swallow, so he let it build on the premise that the solution was in their hands. And, should they dare give this final insult to his poor, dead wife and innocent