The Curse
Macnachtan Keep
Scotland, 1632
The heart cannot lie, or so she had believed.
Day after day, Rose of the Macnachtan stood at the tower wall staring in the direction of England, believing with all her heart Charles Chattan would return to her. At any moment she expected to see him ride galloping at full speed to Loch Awe’s shoreline to cross to the island on which Macnachtan Keep had been built and anxiously apologize.
He could not marry that Englishwoman.He wouldn’t. She knew it to the marrow of her bones. Charlie loved her. They’d handfasted in a private ceremony of their own making. He would come for her.
Her brothers and sisters all warned her he was faithless. They had never liked him. His mother was Sassenach, and Charlie was too English for their tastes. Her brother Michael had sworn to her that the Chattans worshipped gold more than any other value on this earth, but Rose had argued Charles was different from his parents.
And so she waited, days turning into weeks ... until, finally, it was the very hour of his marriage to the Englishwoman.
Rose stood at her lonely post, watching the road from the south, waiting—until the bell in the kirk’s tower rang noon.
Only then did she realize her family had been right. Charleshadchosen another over her.
The last clang of the bell reverberated in the air around her. The wind had picked up. It lifted her hair, swirled around her skirts, tickled her skin, mocked her.
For a long moment she stood mesmerized by the line of silent, brooding pines ringing the clearing. She knew every trail of that forest. There was no movement, no rider coming for her.
Her heart broke.
The world lost all meaning.
No one could live with the burden of such sharp, forlorn pain.
His name choked her throat. Shame of her own trusting loyalty filled her. They had all been right and she had been a fool.
Rose slowly turned. Below her was the stone courtyard. Her brother Michael was shoeing a horse. The blacksmith had died and his son was a poor substitute. Michael was determined to not give up on the boy, even if he had to shoe the horses a hundred times himself in teaching the lad what he wanted.
Across the way, in the house’s solar, she knew her mother, sisters, and kinswomen would be plying their needles and enjoying a bit of gossip. How long had it been since she’d joined them? Not since that night she and Charles had secretly met and he’d told her he was leaving Scotland. His parents insisted he marry the Sassenach heiress. He had no choice in the matter.
“But what of us? What of the vows we made to each other?” she had asked.
Charles had not answered. Instead, he’d made love to her, and, trusting soul that she was, she had believed thatwashis answer. She was his mate, his chosen.
Her hand rose to her belly. His seed might already be growing within her. A son, a son whose father would deny his parentage.
Rose shared her mother’s gift of the sight. The book of spells and recipes that had been handed down from mother to daughter, always going to those who shared the gift, would one day be hers—but she’d already used that book. In desperation, she’d attempted a spell to bring Charles to her and she had believed it would work...
Sometimes in life, there comes a point when the future holds no gain. When the darkness of reality triumphs over hopes and dreams. Love had betrayed her. It had humiliated her.
The pride of the Macnachtan of Loch Awe flowed through her veins. Rose could not face a life of shame, or let it be whispered her child was a bastard.
She climbed onto the tower wall. For one precious moment, she stood tall. March’s fresh, chilled wind chafed her cheek. Below her, life went on as usual.
Rose glanced one more time toward the road that lay between herself and her love.
Her hearthadlied—Charlesdid notlove her. “Life come hither; Life is mine,” she whispered feverishly. Her throat tightened.He hadn’t cared.Tears filled her eyes. She took a step off the wall into thin air.
She fell.
There was no doubt Rose of Loch Awe had taken her life because of Charles Chattan’s perfidy. There would be no saving her memory from the disgrace of suicide.
Her mother, Fenella, wished she had the magic to reverse time and bring her daughter back to life.
