Captive Love [Highland Menage 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)
Highland Menage 2
Captive Love
Her father called her bastard all her life but Fiona discovers her mother was his wife. This means she is niece to the powerful Laird Fraser and needs his permission to marry. Her new husbands, Angus and Gillis MacDougal, are not pleased to discover Fraser could easily have their marriage annulled and have Fiona wed to someone of more use to him.
They bring Fiona to Laird Fraser, who assigns them the task of rebuilding Andrath Tower, starting with the high stone walls that have been battered by their enemies. They accept, but are not happy to be kept apart from their new bride. Fiona is equally eager for more of her wifely benefits, but her uncle keeps her close.
Matters come to a head when they discover Fraser sent a request for annulment, along with an encouraging bag of gold, to the Bishop. Honor dictates they stay as promised. But if it means losing Fiona…
Genre: Historical, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 41,112 words
CAPTIVE LOVE
Highland Menage 2
Reece Butler
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
CAPTIVE LOVE
Copyright © 2015 by Reece Butler
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-280-4
First E-book Publication: May 2015
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
This book is for my mother with her Highland Scot ancestors, the MacDonald of Clan Ranald. Her grandmother was six foot tall with flaming red hair all the way to her broad hips. She was "a fine figure of a woman!"
I hope those reading this series enjoy it as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
About the Author
CAPTIVE LOVE
Highland Menage 2
REECE BUTLER
Copyright © 2015
Chapter One
A soft step warned Angus a second before the sheet was yanked off his naked body. He clenched his hand, expecting to find his dirk. A shrill squeal erupted in his ear. He’d squeezed warm flesh, not the hilt of his blade. A full breast, in fact. One of two belonging to his now wide-awake, brand-new wife, Fiona. He was at Inverlochy Castle still in bed after their wedding night.
“Angus MacDougal!”
His bare arse stung with a slap. He glared at Auld Maggie, the woman who’d mothered all the children fostered by Lochiel, laird of Clan Cameron. She’d dispensed potions, yanked ears, and provided advice whether they wanted it or not. His brother must not have barred the door after joining him and Fiona when the revelers had finally passed out.
“Jesu! What are ye doin’ woman?”
“Gettin’ ye up, a’course.” Auld Maggie looked down, grin wide. “Out of yer bed, I mean.”
Angus held back a curse. He shouldn’t be concerned about waking hard and eager. He was a newly married man with a wife he wanted to sink into at least once more before breaking his fast.
“‘Tis the crack of dawn, ye auld besom!”
The complaint came from the far side of the bed. Gillis sat up, yawning wide as he stretched out hairy red arms. He scratched his chest as he smirked at the wee woman glaring between them. He patted Fiona’s sheet-covered haunch, none too gently. She muttered a curse no wellborn lady would have known, much less spoken. Fiona had been raised as a lad and had the language to match. He would train that out of her. Thankfully she’d not been taught to fear or be disgusted by sex. He would encourage that passion.
“Fair tired ye out on yer wedding night, did we, wife?” said Gillis smugly.
“Ye kept me awake, aye,” she replied as if bored. The nipples that poked against the sheet proved otherwise.
“We’ve got years for ye to wear me down to a nubbin.” Gillis caught a nipple between his knuckles. “And these, as well.”
“There’ll be none of that,” said Auld Maggie much too cheerfully. “Ye had the night. I need ye out of this chamber.”
“Now?” demanded Angus. “Darach’s still sleeping off the drink. He’ll not need it.”
“Aye, he’ll have a sore head when he wakes. But ‘tis Cameron who awaits ye.”
That was something else. No one made the laird of Clan Cameron wait. “Turn yer back,” he ordered grumpily.
/> “Ye have nothin’ I’ve not seen afore, laddie.”
Auld Maggie had seen them as boys, not men fully rampant. Though Cameron had set them up by insisting he marry Fiona, Angus would not hide how much he desired his wife. He stood, unashamedly erect, and strode across the room. Thank God the chamber pot was behind a screen. If he was lucky he’d be able to soften up enough to piss. Thinking of why Cameron would call for them this early worked wonders. He was soon dressed, Gillis as well.
“Carry yer boots and put them on while ye have yer wee chat,” ordered the old woman. “And dinna be thinkin’ ye can grab another kiss from yer wife. Ye’ve got the rest of yer life to do that.” She cackled. “If the laird doesna toss ye in his pit fer makin’ him wait.”
Angus knew what happened to those who kept Laird Cameron waiting. They wouldn’t be dumped in the dungeon, especially after Fiona and Gillis had barely escaped one with their lives only a few days earlier. They would, however, be separated from their hot-blooded wife as they completed some dirty, physically demanding, insulting task. They knocked on the open door of Cameron’s office and were told to enter. They stomped into their boots before sitting on the bench in front of the table. The laird looked up, far too cheerful at ripping them from their marriage bed.
“As all heard your wife scream your name you have proven the consummation,” he said to Angus. He followed his dry tone by wincing theatrically. “The woman has a set of lungs.”
Angus was glad for his darker complexion as otherwise his cheeks would show red. Gillis’s pale skin did not hide a thing. They’d have to find Fiona something to bite on to muffle her screams. Sounds carried far in the night air. It was not safe to let it be known a woman travelled with them and they had a long trip back to Duncladach Castle and what was left of the lands Clan MacDougal had once claimed. Fiona had not brought them a dowry, but that didn’t matter. She brought herself, and her eager mind, and that was enough.
“There’s a reason why you are here at this hour,” said Cameron. “I would be in bed with my lady wife if Darach’s bride was not within a day’s ride, with an escort from Clan Ranald. You need to be on your way.”
“Isobel of Grant is to marry Darach to heal the rift between yer clans, aye?” asked Angus. Cameron nodded.
Gillis waded into the argument, as usual. “MacDougals have naught against the Grants, yet ye are tossin’ us out?”
“It would not be good to have your wife here when the Grants arrive. Fiona’s kin are having a wee tussle with the Grants over cattle that have taken a few too many walks under the moon.”
Cattle did not move at night unless they were pushed, as in the time-honored custom of reiving. A few men would visit the neighboring clan and drive cattle or sheep home. Chances were you’d be stealing back some of your own animals that had been taken in the last raid. As long as no one was killed or badly injured it was a way for young men to prove their skills. If accidents happened or hotheads blew off steam feuds could start, leading to more than lost animals.
“I thought Menzies was enough of a snake to have neither enemies nor strong allies?” asked Angus.
“‘Tis not of her father I speak,” replied Cameron. He leaned back, setting his fingertips on each other before sharpening his gaze. “What do you ken of her mother?”
“Fiona said she was a servant, a Fraser who came with Menzies’s first wife,” said Gillis.
“The first four living children, all girls, born to Lady Menzies had brown hair, like their father,” said Cameron. “The fifth was red, like her mother. It was not a color the laird favored.”
Angus waited. Cameron would build his case, doling out the facts and expecting them to figure it out. Gillis had less patience for the procedure. He’d also had more to drink the night before.
“He married a woman with it,” scoffed Gillis.
“Aye, and had her cover it up from then on.” Cameron’s gaze sharpened. “Clan Fraser are feuding with the Grants and are not on good terms with the Clan Ranald MacDonalds, either.”
Gillis exhaled heavily. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, fingers loose. “‘Tis too early in the day for me mind to work well, Laird Cameron. Tell us what ye wish us to do, and we’ll be gone.”
“Fiona’s mother was no servant. She was Menzies’s first wife and a good friend of my lady wife.” Cameron shifted his eyes to Angus. “You married the legitimate fifth daughter of Laird Menzies, a niece of Alexander Fraser, Fourth Lord Lovat.”
“Jesu!”
Angus rocked back, nearly falling off the bench. His world shifted, blasting apart like an old wall under cannon fire. It couldn’t be true! He exhaled. It had to be true. Laird Cameron was not one to leave his wife’s bed to play a trick on someone such as them. His mind whirled with possibilities.
“So yer sayin’ Fiona’s nay a bastard,” said Gillis, working it out. “She’s a lady.”
“Aye,” said Cameron. “She was born Lady Fiona Menzies, daughter of Lady Morag Fraser, brother to Alexander, the fourth Lord Lovat.”
The words were faint over the roaring in his ears. His wife was the legitimate daughter of one laird, and the niece of another. The Fraser clan controlled the land and waterways from Inverness to Loch Lochy, where Clan Cameron took over. Anyone wishing to cut across Scotland had to pass through land claimed by the two clans.
Fiona was a lady, a highborn woman with power at her fingertips.
Memories erupted like acid, burning his stomach and throat. A cold dread followed. He’d once thought a well-born lass wanted him. The lady had fluttered her eyelashes, telling him how much she admired him. It was all a lie. She’d used him to catch the eye of a man who, when he saw her with Angus McDougal, took the bait. When Angus got up the nerve to ask her what happened she’d curled her lip at him. She’d said he was a nobody who disgusted her with his coarse ways. She only put up with him as he was a means to an end.
It was bad enough to know he’d been taken for a fool. But she’d spoken to many of her friends, saying he was a big, ugly beast, so crude and dirty she’d scrubbed her hand for hours after he’d touched it. He’d had little to do with women since.
Fiona was nothing like that witch. Yet if he had known she was a lady he would not have approached her. He certainly wouldn’t have married and bedded her!
Questions swirled through his head. He understood better why her father would want her dead. If his lies about her death got back to Lord Lovat, Menzies would lose favor. Would her Fraser uncle shower her with gifts, showing her what the MacDougals could never provide?
Fiona had been scorned all her life because she was a bastard servant, a nobody who could be cuffed, sworn at, and worse. She was now a lady, due all the honors she’d seen others receive. Would she look at he and Gillis differently now? Would she regret being tied to a small clan with too many brothers and not enough food, land, or coin? Would she wish to be free of them to gain everything she deserved by way of her birth?
“Shite.” Gillis summed up the whole issue with one word.
Even if Fiona wanted to stay with them there were other forces at work. It was one thing to marry a bastard daughter without permission. They’d wed a true daughter of a laird, the niece of another even more powerful one, without approval from either. Menzies had refused to acknowledge Fiona. That strengthened Fraser of Lovat’s blood claim.
Fiona might be one and twenty and married by the church, but an extremely powerful uncle changed everything. They had no way of knowing how Lovat would react to discovering his niece existed, or that she’d married without his leave. There was a lot Lovat could do, and little of it was good.
“You have married into Clan Fraser,” said Cameron. “You have new allies, and foes.”
Angus put all his attention on the laird. Cameron would not be speaking to them unless he’d already made a plan to benefit his clan.
“To add to yer joy,” Cameron continued sarcastically, “Lovat married Janet, the third daughter of Campbell of Cawd
or. Your clan would not be fond of you getting close to that.”
Angus’s brain tumbled as Gillis cursed even louder beside him. He’d felt at ease with Fiona, knowing she was a nobody like them. He could accept her schooling, excessive for a female, as it was provided by a bored tutor to a servant waiting while her half-brother, the heir, was training elsewhere.
Now Fiona was suddenly a lady and far above his station. Her aunt was a Campbell, ancient enemies of the MacDougals. As Fiona was raised by Menzies she did not hate the Campbells as did he and his brothers. Perhaps that might change due to her capture and imprisonment in Glenorchy’s dungeon.
The bonds of blood and marriage often caused friction, especially when a woman was married to secure a truce between clans. Angus would not hold a woman’s birth against her if she supported her husband over her blood kin. If he had to bring his wife to meet her aunt he hoped she did not have Campbell men-at-arms serving her.
“I promised Fiona while in Campbell’s pit that I would take her wherever she wished to go,” blurted Gillis. “A MacDougal doesna go back on his word. I’ve not seen Inverness. We will bring our wife to her uncle wherever he be, even to the gates of Lovat Castle. That is what ye wish, aye?”
Cameron nodded.
“Fiona did not have permission from her father or her uncle to marry,” said Angus to Gillis. “Lovat may have something to say about our nuptials.”
Gillis gave another strangled curse, this one involving Menzies and a pig.
“Lovat would not have allowed Gillis’s handfasting to stand,” said Cameron.