The Campbell Trilogy Read online

  The MacGregors did take refuge on an islet in Loch Katrine, albeit in 1611, not following Glenfruin.6 The island is referred to as “Mharnoch,” but I think it must be Molach. Today, Molach is better known as the “Ellen’s Isle” made famous by Sir Walter Scott in his Lady of the Lake.

  Alasdair MacGregor, known as “the Arrow of Glen Lyon” for his skill with a bow, was executed with ten of his men on January 20, 1604. But over the course of two months, twenty-five high-ranking MacGregors were killed in Edinburgh. You can find a link to the list of the executed MacGregors on my website. Alasdair’s head, along with that of his cousin Iain, was hung on the gates of Dumbarton.

  After Alasdair’s execution, the clan leadership was thrown in disarray. From what I could determine Alasdair’s heirs, his nephews Gregor and Patrick Roy (sons of Black John of the Mailcoat), were just three and a few months old, respectively. Duncan MacEwin MacGregor, Alasdair’s fierce cousin and the inspiration for Patrick, was named “tutor” (a kind of guardianship) of the young chief, acting as laird until his young nephews reached their majority.

  Interestingly enough, following Alasdair’s death there was reputed to be a challenge to the leadership by yet another “Gregor,” an alleged illegitimate son of Alasdair.

  “Black” Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy died at eighty-one and was succeeded by his nearly fifty-five-year-old son, Colin, and nine years later by Duncan’s sixty-year-old second son, Robert. The exact date of the building of Edinample Castle is unclear, but it was built by Black Duncan sometime at the end of the sixteenth century, supposedly on the site of a former MacGregor stronghold. Thus, it didn’t seem too far-fetched to tie the retribution against the MacGregors to the murder of John Drummond (the king’s forester) in 1589, which was said to have been particularly severe in “the braes of Balquhidder especially, and around Lochearn.”7 The connection of Edinample with my hero and his family, however, is fiction. The castle abounds with plenty of old ghost stories and curses, including the two I mentioned in the story.

  If anything, I probably understated the desperate situation of the MacGregors during the time immediately preceding Alasdair’s capture. In part, “the relentless persecution took a terrible toll on the women and children, the old and the helpless. With winter approaching, Alasdair’s people were destitute. This year there would be no harvest; no Gregarach cattle driven to the fair at Crieff; no salted meat for winter provisions; no cows to keep for lifting into the pastures in the spring. Their settlements were burned out; what little they had was pillaged or destroyed. Their position became steadily more desperate.”8

  Those of you who watch the television show Man vs. Wild will no doubt recognize many of the survival techniques Patrick employs on their foray into the hills north of Lochs Katrine and Achray. Bear’s show on the Cairngorms definitely inspired this section of the book. When he mentioned how incredibly tough Highlanders were supposed to be, I knew he could have been talking about the MacGregors. The storm that hits Patrick and Lizzie so unexpectedly might seem heavy by today’s standards, but this period of history was part of the Little Ice Age, and winters in the early 1600s were particularly severe.

  As in my first book, Highlander Untamed, I’ve decided to go with the more romantic version of handfast marriages being sort of a “trial” marriage, although many scholars now believe that handfasts were more accurately a type of betrothal and became a marriage upon consummation. The issue of what constituted a marriage in Scotland after the Reformation is extremely complicated. For centuries, the idea of a present statement of intent to be married (that is, by declaration) was enough—with or without witnesses. Of course, there were problems of proof with this method that led to many cases of “he said, she said.” Clandestine or irregular marriages were common but frowned upon by the Kirk, which increasingly tried to ensure that marriage was institutionalized (banns and performed by minister) by payment of fines and/or forcing the couples to get married again—even though recognizing the original irregular or clandestine marriage as valid.

  1. Ronald Williams, Sons of the Wolf (Isle of Colonsay: House of Lochar, 1998), pp. 54-55.

  2. Donald Gregory, Inquiry into the Earlier History of the Clan Gregor, with a View to Ascertain the Causes Which Led to Their Proscription in 1603 (Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Archaelogia Scotia, 1857), vol. 4, pp. 130-159.

  3. Ibid., p. 133.

  4. John L. Roberts, Feuds, Forays and Rebellions (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), p. 177.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Ibid., p. 182.

  7. Gregory, p. 145.

  8. Williams, p. 70.

  To Reid, my strapping lad in training.

  May you grow up just as strong, handsome, and loving

  as the heroes in my books

  (okay, and your dad, too, but don’t tell him!).

  Acknowledgments

  I’m fortunate to have two doctors in the family “on call” for personal medical clinics on battle wounds. It was my brother-in-law Sean who answered the phone this time for digging out musket balls in the thigh. (Nora, you need to get to the phone quicker—I think Sean is pulling ahead in the “getting ink” department.)

  A special thanks to my editor, Kate, for her always quick and insightful feedback and support. It’s been so fun working with you. (Go, Sox!)

  Thanks to my agents, Andrea and Kelly, whose patience with my questions and occasional neuroses-filled phone calls about “the business” is much appreciated.

  Jami and Nyree, my two CPs extraordinaire and my personal cheering section. I feel so fortunate to have found you guys—I shudder to think what I would do without you. Neither of you is ever permitted to move.

  My Scotland travel buddy, Veronica—Mommy Abandonment Tour 2008!

  Dave, Reid, and Maxine, the good news is that I love you and appreciate all your support; the bad news is we’re having Mommy’s pasta again for dinner.

  Highland Scoundrel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Ballantine Books Mass Market Original

  Copyright © 2009 by Monica McCarty

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-51286-4

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  v3.0_r1

  Contents

  Master - Table of Contents

  Highland Scoundrel

  Title Page

  Copyright

  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

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  “A Black beginning maks aye a black end.”

  Scottish Proverb

  Near Aboyne Castle, Aberdeenshire, Autumn 1608

  Jeannie went to the loch on a whim, which was notable in itself. Rarely did she give in to an impulse or flight of fancy. If the apple had been Eve’s downfall then “that little voice” in the back of her head barraging her with “good ideas” had been Jeannie’s. Over the years she’d learned to ignore it, leaving little of the