Meghan: A Sweet Scottish Medieval Romance
Meghan
Book 2, Sweet Scottish Brides
Tanya Anne Crosby &
Alaina Christine Crosby
Contents
Copyright
More In This Series
Prologue
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
Preview “Seana”
Chapter 1
Also by Tanya Anne Crosby
About the Authors
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any manner whatsoever, electronically, in print, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of both Oliver-Heber Books and Tanya Anne Crosby, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
"Meghan" is the SWEET/CLEAN rewrite of "Lyon's Gift" by Tanya Anne Crosby for readers who prefer romance without strong language or sex. This is a clean read book.
COPYRIGHT © Tanya Anne Crosby
Published by Oliver-Heber Books
ISBN: 978-1-942820-30-7
Created with Vellum
More In This Series
Sweet Scottish Brides
Page
Meghan
Seana
Elizabet
Catrìona
Prologue
The forest was their sanctuary.
Meghan and her grandmother spent many a morning in the dimness of the woodlands, gathering herbs for her grandmother’s potions. Just now they were searching for sweetbriar on MacLean land, and Meghan was on her hands and knees, crawling at the forest’s edge, painstakingly inspecting foliage.
They were not supposed to be here, Meghan knew, as old man MacLean was apt to be angry if he discovered them again upon his land. Last time he’d accused her grammie of poaching, even though there had not been a whit of evidence in their sack. All they had borne away with them that day were weeds and little else. He did not know her grammie if he thought she would do such a thing; her grandmother would never eat an animal if she ever looked the creature in the eyes.
“Ye dinna have to look so carefully, Meghan,” her grandmother said. “’Tis not so wee a plant—more a shrub.”
“I remember, grammie, and you said look for pink flowers. So I’m looking, but I dinna see any.”
“Och, lass, ’tis because you’re crawling on your belly, like a viper. Get yourself up before you grind more dirt into your sweet knees.”
Meghan peered back at her grandmother over her shoulder, watching her an instant. The old woman was hunched over, scanning the plants, murmuring to herself as she scrutinized each one. Every so oft she would bend to pluck a sample and then crush it between her fingers.
“Oh! And be careful with the thorns,” her grandmother said, as she inspected a small branch of some plant.
“I will.” Only Meghan wished her grammie wouldn’t treat her like a wee bairn. She was all of eight summers now, and not so little anymore.
Oblivious to her complaint, her grandmother began to sing and dance.
“Wretched mon, why art thou proud,
That art of earth made?
Hide not behind your shroud.
But fore thou came naked.”
Meghan giggled at the sight of her sweet grammie, dancing so lively, and felt warmed by the old woman’s joy.
“Ta ta dum, da dum, da dum,” her grandmother hummed.
Meghan made to rise, but in that instant she spotted a face peering out at her from behind a wide oak and she gave a startled blink. The face was just about the size of her own, and the eyes were wide and full of fright. They were visible only an instant and then vanished behind the tree.
Her grandmother carried on.
“When thy soul have journeyed out,
Thy body with the earth covered over
That body that was so haughty and loud
Of all men is hated
Ta dum dee dum, dee dum
“Och, Meghan,” she called out suddenly.
“Aye?” Meghan replied. She turned to peer over her shoulder to see if her grandminnie had noticed the face as well.
“Never let a handsome smile turn your head and woo your heart, d’ ye hear me, lass?”
“Aye, grammie.” Ach, why was her grandminnie always so concerned with boys, when Meghan certainly wasn’t?
“Ye know Adam took that apple all on his own, d’ ye not? And then that knave blamed it on Eve because he dinna have the mettle to take the burden on his own.”
Having heard this tale more times than she could count, Meghan rolled her eyes.
“It serves him right,” she carried on. “Eve shoved that apple down his cowardly throat and he bears it still.”
“Aye,” Meghan said. She crawled closer to the tree, her heart pounding within her breast. But the face did not peek out again, even when Meghan neared the trunk, and she was sorely afraid they’d scared the girl off. Holding her breath, she craned her head about the tree trunk, and gasped at the sight of a wide pair of eyes as green as her own staring back at her.
“Oh!” Meghan exclaimed. “There you are. I feared you’d run away.”
The little girl said nothing, merely stared at Meghan and cast nervous glances over Meghan’s shoulder at Meghan’s grandmother, who was still carrying on behind her like a mad woman. Meghan turned to watch her grammie, seeing her through another’s eyes, and frowned. The old woman suddenly fell to the ground on her knees, cackling in delight at some new discovery she’d made. Meghan winced at the sight she presented.
Meghan turned back to the little girl. “She’ll not hurt you, I promise. She’s not mad, she’s just my grammie.”
The little girl’s face was frozen in an expression of doubt and her eyes shifted warily to Meghan’s grandmother.
“Och, Meghan,” her grandmother said, “I believe we’ve discovered something here.”
The little girl’s eyes widened in sudden fear.
Meghan shook her head. “Dinna worry, I willlna tell you are here.” Meghan smiled and then called out, “What is it, grammie?”
“Touch-me-nots!”
Meghan loved the delight with which her grandmother embraced all things great and small.
“What are they good for?” she asked, trying to keep her grandmother’s attention from turning to their unexpected guest.
Her grandmother cackled. “Not a thing. Have you ever seen such a thing, Meghan?”
“Nay, grammie,” Meghan said. She glanced again at the old woman who was now lying upon her belly on the bracken of the woodland floor. And she would have had Meghan get up off her knees? Meghan rolled her eyes again.
“Looky here. Ye touch the wee things and th
e pods burst with seeds.” Meghan watched her grandmother poke her finger at a few, and then listened to her laugh.
She turned back to the little girl. “I am Meghan. What’s your name?”
“Alison,” the little girl replied, still staring at the cackling old woman.
“We’re looking for sweetbriar,” Meghan said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe for my grammie’s potions.” She realized belatedly how her disclosure must sound and winced.
“To turn people into toads?”
“Och! Nay,” Meghan said. “My grammie would never do such a thing. I have never once in my life seen her turn anyone into a toad—though I did hear her call my brother Leith a frog.”
The little girl tilted her head, looking as though she wanted to believe Meghan. “She wouldn’t turn me into a frog?”
“Of course not.”
The two girls sat peering at each other a long instant, and Meghan wondered if she dared ask. “Do you wanna be my friend? I have never had a friend so little as you.”
The little girl seemed to forget Meghan’s grandmother and her fear. “I’m not so much littler than you!”
Meghan grinned. “Perhaps. I’ve never had a friend ’cept for my grammie.”
Her grandmother shouted. “Meghan, listen. Do you hear them, child?”
“Hear who?”
Alison retreated behind the tree.
“Woodland sprites. I think they’re speakin’ to me, lass, although I canna be certain. Do you hear them too?”
“I hear nothing, grammie.” Meghan peered around the tree again. “She’ll not hurt you, Alison. I swear it on our friendship.”
“I did not say we could be friends,” Alison argued. “My da will not let me play near the auld witch—I mean your grammie.”
Meghan’s face fell, her hopes dashed.
Alison shrugged. “But maybe I can sneak away … if only you will too?”
Meghan thought about it less than an instant, desperate as she was for a friend. “Oh, yes! I will,” she promised. “So then are we friends?”
“Aye,” Alison said with a smile.
“Meghan, are you certain you did not hear them?” Her grandmother cocked her head to listen closer. “I know I do. Listen child.”
“I’m listening,” Meghan said, and turned again to her newfound friend. “I must go and help her now. Shall we play in the meadow this noon?”
“Aye,” Alison said, and nodded eagerly. “I shall meet you by the cairn.”
“Verra well, then.”
“Come alone,” Alison demanded.
“I will. Go now … before she comes to look for me.”
Alison nodded, and didn’t tarry any longer. She cast a glance at Meghan’s grandmother and then leapt up and hurried away.
Meghan watched her go, and felt as great a burst of joy at her own discovery as her grandmother had with hers. And then she turned toward the old woman to see what she had found. Crawling to where her grandmother lay, she sprawled there beside her on the ground and the two of them completely forgot about searching for herbs as they played with the little yellow flowers and green pods, poking at them and watching them explode. For long minutes, they giggled together on the forest floor. It was nice to have such a sweet grandmother, Meghan thought. But today was a verra special day for she’d also made herself a friend.
Chapter 1
“Twenty-seven,” Baldwin announced, marching into the room where Piers sat poring over his new survey.
It was a lesson Piers had taken from old King William: One could hardly rule a land unless one knew precisely what one held to rule. Following William the Conqueror’s example, the first thing he’d done upon receiving this fief was to survey his holdings, meager though they might be. And it was a good thing, as it seemed his stock was dwindling quickly. He might never have known until they’d been seriously depleted.
Thieving, conniving Scots.
“Twenty-seven!” he exclaimed. He didn’t know whether to be angry or amused. At last count—only yesterday evening—the sheep had numbered thirty-four. “When did those savages have the occasion to rob me yet again? I thought I told you to set a man to guard those mangy beasts?”
“The Scots?”
“Them, too, but I meant the sheep, Baldwin. The rotten mangy sheep. I thought I told you to set a guard for them?”
Baldwin’s ears reddened. “Well...” His face twisted into an abashed grimace. “I did set a man to guard them, you see… though it seems I set a wolf to guard the sheep’s pen.”
“A wolf?” Piers lifted both brows. He couldn’t wait to hear this one.
Baldwin winced. “I appointed Cameron,” he said, looking abashed. “He was already keeping watch over his own sheep, you see, and I—”
“Cameron!” Piers exploded. “The half-wit who refused to leave his parcel and hut?” He tossed down his quill in disgust. “Baldwin! Whatever were you thinking to put a thieving Scot to guard against his thieving kinsmen?”
“Well, I thought—”
“That he would give his loyalty to an Englishman over his own countrymen?”
Baldwin frowned. “Well, he did stay when the rest abandoned us,” he pointed out.
“Only because he’s a stubborn old man who refused to leave his land to a Sassenach. His own words, do you not recall? His behavior was certainly not born out of any sense of loyalty.”
“Aye, but it’s not what you think,” Baldwin said. “He merely fell asleep, is all.”
Piers sighed and slumped within his chair, smacking his head in exasperation against the high back of his seat. He rolled his eyes, then stared up at the ceiling, noting its rotten condition for the first time.
He frowned.
How had he missed that before now? His chamber was directly above. He was going to have to fix that crumbling ceiling soon, lest he plummet through the floor onto the table in front of him and find himself fare for the band of misfit Scots who had remained with this ruined demesne.
“My lord?”
Piers turned his attention from the rotting floorboards and eyed his longtime friend with a mixture of bemusement and displeasure. It seemed to him that Baldwin had taken to behaving less like a friend and more like an underling, and though this new manner of his wasn’t entirely without its merits, he was nevertheless uncomfortable with Baldwin’s unexpected attention to the proprieties. He much preferred the drunken companionability he and his men had shared in the years before his enfeoffment.
Truth to tell, he’d never expected to find himself lord—or laird, for that matter—and he’d certainly never aspired to it. It seemed wholly unnatural to him now to be fussed over as though he were some grease-lipped lord casting dinner bones to his dogs. He was a commander first and foremost. It had been his skill at arms that had won him this little piece of the Highlands, and he didn’t see the need to change what had served him so well for so long. His men worked well beside him because they were foremost his fellows. He didn’t want, or need, a bunch of knock-kneed lackeys running about according him undue honors.
“Sire?” Baldwin’s tone clearly revealed uncertainty over Piers’ mood. “What is it you’d have me do?”
“You might first cease to call me my lord,” Piers suggested, his tone unmistakably provoked. “And sire, as well, as I am not your accursed father either.”
Baldwin lifted his head in surprise. “What is it you’d have me call you... if not ‘my lord’?”
Piers thought the answer rather obvious. “What is it you called me before?”
Baldwin cocked his head a little uncertainly. “Lyon?”
Piers responded with a droll grin. He’d been given the name by his men after a particularly bloody battle; they’d said he’d appeared to them coming off the battlefield, with his long, gilt mane of hair and bloodied face, like a lion fresh after its kill. It wasn’t an honor he was particularly proud of, but he’d gotten used to the name after all.
Baldwi
n’s brows lifted. “But you don’t like that name?”
“I prefer it to my lord.”
Baldwin’s lips curved into a companionable smile. “If ’tis your wish...”
“It is,” Piers assured him. “I’m no different now merely because I have a parcel of land. Why should we resort to ceremony after all these years? I didn’t like the name before and you hounded me with it anyway. Why not still?”
Baldwin nodded, his grin spreading from ear to ear. “I am relieved to hear you say so.”
“Are you now?” Piers was relieved as well at having settled the matter once and for all. But now wasn’t the time for maudlin expressions, as he still had these annoying Scots to deal with.
And yet... strangely enough, though the Brodies had all but robbed him blind, it was a simple enough task to temper his anger against the thieving curs.
Why was that? he wondered.
As accustomed as he had become to the intrigues of court and the stealth of warfare, this matter of feuding seemed more like sport.
In fact, Piers could scarcely help but admire these Scots. They fought their battles fiercely, and by some strange code of honor that somehow appealed to him. They spat upon your boot; you drew your sword; they stole your goat; you stole their sheep; and so on and so on—though bloodshed seemed proscribed—and all of it done openly, as though thieving your good neighbor were the most natural and honorable thing to do. Thus far, not so much as a single beast had been harmed, although Piers had not enjoyed a moment’s peace since first he’d stepped foot upon these Highlands.
It was more than apparent that a bond of blood was as binding as a Scotsman’s honor would allow—that they defended kith and kin unto their dying breath.
It was also apparent that an outlander would always be just that... an outlander.
Well, Piers was perfectly accustomed to that. He didn’t need their approval. David of Scotia might, but he surely didn’t. He had grown up an outsider, didn’t they know; his father was a king and his mother a harlot.