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Where the mountains clash with the sea, here in the Highlands of Scotland, I loved the enemy. For twenty years of a two-century-old war, I was a foe to the Gawsies, the bride of the Gailleanns—I was Guthrie Gailleann. Whether I shall be Guthrie Gawsie for the next twenty years, I do not know. The only thing I know is that my eyes are filled with tears, and my bridal veil is stained with blood. Today, we defeated the enemy who stole our lives from us, but the victors never truly know the bitter taste of triumph. For that, you must ask the defeated—and the defeated will tell you that war has no winners. But how did we ever come to this? To answer this question, we have to start when the sea started to overflow and the blood feud between our two ancient clans spilled over:
Grey Manor, Oxfordshire, Kingdom of England
6th of January 1750
It was the morning of my father’s funeral, and the world was painted in a miserable, suffocating grey.
I stood at the edge of the family cemetery, dressed in somber, heavy black—a color Father had always detested. Before me, his casket was lowered into the frozen earth, placed directly beside my mother, the proud Lady Elizabeth Grey— the late daughter of the mighty Earl of Oxford. She was a woman I never had the privilege to meet. She had died in childbed, surrendering her life to give me mine. A beauty of merely two-and-twenty when she passed twenty years ago, Father used to say when I pressed him for stories. Now, husband and wife laid together in the dark ground, leaving me entirely alone.
I had no siblings to lean on, no cousins to share the burden. There was only an uncle who now claimed Father’s barony, currently on a months-long journey back to England from the Americas, and a spinster aunt living isolated in Yorkshire. Both relatives I had never met.
This was my reality now. Solitude.
Father, ever the fiercely caring and clever man, had secured my independence, setting up a handsome dowry and an annual income, including a small estate near Kent that would belong to me alone. It was a rare mercy. Many a young lady of my standing within the Polite World was already safely betrothed or married by my age. Yet, Father had stubbornly wished for me to marry for love—a notion considered scandalous, if not downright foolish, among the titled families of the upper echelons.
"A Baron’s daughter cannot afford the luxury of marrying for love," one visiting dowager Countess had sniffed when Father flatly refused a wealthy Lord’s proposal on my behalf.
"And what if she falls in love with a commoner?" another lady had whispered over tea, her voice dripping with disdain. "Shall she marry a baker, or worse—a tradesman?"
They cared only for names, lineages, and titles. Not love. Standing there in the biting cold, a bitter thought crossed my mind: perhaps they had been right. If Father had simply bartered me away to one of those men, I wouldn’t be standing here utterly abandoned. Perhaps I would be weeping as the Countess of Harrington or the Lady Pembroke, rather than the orphaned Miss Jane Grey.
When the last of the guests finally departed, leaving the grand manor feeling cavernous and freezing, I retreated to the drawing room. The mirrors and furniture were draped in black crepe, making the room feel like a tomb.
A soft knock sounded, and my father’s steward stepped inside. "Miss Jane, might I have a word?"
"Of course, Mr. Green," I answered, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.
"I am deeply sorry for your loss, child," he said softly. They were the same well-meaning words I had heard a hundred times today. But they offered no comfort. Father had hated sadness; he would have wished for laughter, shared memories, and overflowing cups of wine, not tears and muted whispers.
"Thank you, sir," I replied, staring at the floor.
"I shall be brief, as I know your spirit is weary," Mr. Green continued, reaching into his coat pocket. "On the eve of his lordship's passing, when the fever took hold, he charged me to give this letter to you, and you alone."
He handed me a thick, heavy envelope. It was sealed with my Father, the Baron’s personal crest in red wax. The parchment looked old, yellowed at the edges by time, yet it bore my name in my father’s distinct, elegant script.
"He told me the contents concern the fifteenth of April, 1730," Mr. Green added quietly.
My breath hitched. "My birthday?"
"Precisely."
"Well—did he say what it contains? Why he kept it hidden?"
"That, my dear, I do not know. His lordship refused to say another word on the matter." Mr. Green gave a sympathetic bow. "I shall leave you to your privacy."
I called for a maid to show him out, staring down at the heavy wax seal. My chest tightened.
"Are you quite alright, Ma‘am?" my personal maid, Edith, asked gently from the doorway.
"Papa wrote me a letter," I whispered, a single, hot tear spilling over my lashes and splashing onto the parchment. "He wrote it... or kept it... from the very day I was born."
Recognizing the fragility of the moment, Edith offered a soft, understanding nod. "Then I shall leave you to yourself, ma'am."
When the door clicked shut, the silence of the room rushed back in, heavy and suffocating. I collapsed into an armchair, my hands trembling. Was I truly ready to read this? These were the last words my father would ever address to me, wrapped around a secret twenty years old. Part of me wanted to throw it into the roaring hearth, to preserve the safety of the life I knew. But he had kept it all these years for a reason. He wanted me to know something regarding the day I was born.
Gathering every ounce of my remaining strength, I broke the red wax seal and unfolded the stiff paper:
“My dearest daughter Jane,
When your eyes read these words, I shall be gone from this earth, reunited at long last with my dear Eliza in the afterlife. Yet, before I face our Maker, I must confess to the one profound deceit of my life.
My darling child, Eliza and I—we are not your true parents. And you, my beauty, are not English. You are a Scotswoman, born to a young mother of the Gailleann clan in the northern Highlands. That is all the truth I was ever permitted to know.
I want you to know, with absolute certainty, that we loved you from the precise second you were placed into our arms. I loved and raised you as my own blood, and I would do it all again. But as I face the end, I know it is a sin to keep your true heritage from you any longer. Do not fear, my clever girl. Be strong, as I know you always have been. Find you family and do not be alone any longer.
Eternally yours,
Jonathan Grey“
The letter slipped from my fingers, fluttering uselessly to the carpet.
The room seemed to tilt. The air left my lungs in a sharp, painful gasp. I was not a Grey. I was not the daughter of the gentle Baron who had raised me, nor the beautiful lady in the portrait upstairs. I was a Scotswoman. A stranger to my own skin. My entire existence, every memory, every birthday celebration, every tear shed for a mother who never actually gave birth to me—all of it was a lie. I had lived my life as an unwitting impostor.
A wave of dizzying questions crashed over me. Why? Why had my true family given me away? Had they hated me? Had I been a shameful secret tossed to a wealthy English Baron to be hidden away across the border? Was my birth mother even alive, or was I searching for ghosts? Was my birth father murdered in the rebellion years prior— or was he still walking the earth?
Suddenly, the reason for Father’s behavior became painfully, beautifully clear. He hadn't pushed me into a society marriage because he knew I didn't belong to this world. He had given me a dowry, independence, and an estate because he knew a day would come when the truth would break me loose from England. He hadn't left me alone: he had given me a map.
The weeping started then—not the quiet, polite tears of a lady, but a violent, racking sob that tore from the deepest part of my chest. I fell from the chair, knees hitting the rug, mourning the father I had lost, and the family I had never known.
But as the tears finally began to dry, a new, fierce heat took root beneath my ribs. I was a daughter of the Highlands. My blood belonged to a clan I had never seen, and if there was a mother out there who had abandoned me—or been forced to give me up—I was going to look her in the eyes.
I stood up, wiping the dampness from my cheeks, and pulled the bell rope.
Edith entered a moment later, her eyes wide with worry at the sight of my disheveled state. "Ma‘am? What is it? What has happened?"
I turned away from the black-draped room, looking one last time at the grand, empty English manor that was no longer my home.
"Edith, please pack our belongings," I ordered, my voice steadying with a cold, newfound purpose. "Only what we absolutely need for travel."
Edith blinked in utter confusion. "Travel, ma'am? Where in heaven's name are we going?"
I reached down, picked up my father's letter, and held it tightly against my heart.
"We are going to Scotland."
River Ness by Gawsie, Inverness, Kingdom of Scotland
POV: Arthur Gawsie, 12th Earl of Gawsie
“What on earth has happened here?” I asked my little sister Flora, seeing her working alongside the clansmen with the cattle.
“The sheep’s foot is stuck, brother!” Flora shouted back toward me, her newest silken gown and tartan utterly ruined by the mud. Flora never was a proper, dainty Lady—no, she preferred the rugged terrain of our country, helping our people and working beside them, expecting no special graces as the daughter and sister of an Earl.
“Do not shout into my ear!” I laughed, approaching her.
“Will you help me, brother?”
“I do not have much choice, do I?” I joked, kneeling down to free the sheep from between the two heavy stones, having to slice away a piece of its tangled wool. “There you are, my beauty. Now go and run back to your flock.”
Flora put a delicate hand on my shoulder, staining my own tartan with mud. “Now, brother, it is time to become the Earl of Gawsie again. The clansmen are waiting for you at the castle.”
“The hearing is today?” I asked, looking toward the rushing waters of the River Ness.
“Yes—and we don’t wish to be late, now do we?” We both mounted our horses, and Flora instantly kicked hers into a gallop, starting a race. This was our life. I had raised her since she was a lass of seven—ever since the enemy Gailleann took both of our parents from us. I was Flora’s brother, her parents, her protector.
Within moments, we arrived before our ancestral keep—Gawsie Castle. It was a proud and ancient fortress built in the twelfth century for our ancestor, the very first Thane of Gawsie. So old was our noble heritage. The clansmen already stood in the courtyard, waiting for their Earl.
“We have much work today, it seems,” I said, placing a hand on the shoulder of my maternal cousin, Ian Munro. “Let the first ones come forward, cousin.”
My maternal uncle, Laird Brian Munro, stepped up. “This lad has lost three of his sheep and four of his cows to an illness, Arthur. The lad cannot pay his rent, nor can he feed his hungry bairns.”
“Then give him the equivalent animals from our own stables, uncle. We do not want bairns dying of hunger on Gawsie land.” The crofter, Angus, was overcome with gratitude, thanking me profusely before Ian led him toward the stables.
“And this lad is here to speak for his father,” Uncle Brian said, bringing the next person forward.
“Speak, Rupert—what has happened to your father?”
“He was captured by the Redcoats, mi’lord. They say he cannae return home because of his involvement in the late rebellion.” It was an arrest that was becoming far too common these days.
“Then our lawyers and friends in Edinburgh shall be of better help,” I said, turning to one of the clerks. “Help this lad write a letter to our solicitors in Edinburgh. Tell them that the Earl of Gawsie shall pay whatever fee they demand to see the man freed.”
“And these two—” Ian smirked, holding two young men by their collars, their hands bound in ropes, “they tried to kidnap our dear Caitriona.”
“Both of them?” I asked, laughing as I saw that both men bore fresh black eyes and scratches. “Aye, cousin. They fought each other in the dirt over who should marry Bonnie Cait.”
Cait was Flora’s chambermaid, a girl who had served in my household since her own childhood. I called her forward. “And which one of these fools shall you marry, my bonnie lass?”
Cait looked at neither of the prisoners. Instead, she stole a glance toward Kenneth, my loyal warchief and dearest friend, a soft smile playing on her lips—one that Kenneth instantly returned. Understanding the silent exchange immediately, I jested, “It seems neither of you shall have the bonnie lass. Kenneth, you go and ask her father for her hand—and I shall host the wedding feast myself.”
“Thank you, my Lord,” Cait said, blushing as she walked directly over to Flora, who was already giggling beside me.
“And this is the last for today, Arthur.” A young lad was dragged before me. Ian leaned in and whispered into my ear, “He walked across the border into Gailleann land, shooting his musket toward the enemy.”
Immediately, a cold anger took hold of me. “You did what, lad?”
“I shot at the enemy, mi’lord,” the boy said proudly.
In a flash, I had my hand gripped tight at his throat, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “And who told you to break the peace? Put him in a cell—do not let him out until he repents for his foolishness.”
“But brother, aren't you being a bit too harsh?” Flora whispered urgently as the boy was dragged away.
“I am not. The Redcoats wait eagerly for us to make such a mistake, little sister. We will not indulge in a blood feud—not while the English army occupies our hills. We cannot afford to lose everything.” I ordered. Lord knows since the uprising, the English tried everything to tear the last standing clans down, the Gailleanns included.
A dozen school children were then brought into the courtyard by one of the guards. “Here they are as requested, mi’lord.”
“Why do you need the lads, brother?” Flora asked, tilting her head.
“Prepare three carriages and give the lads enough water,” I ordered the stablehands, then turned back to my sister with a smirk. “How about we have some fun, sister?”
“You will not go to Gailleann territory to cause trouble, will you, Arthur?” Uncle Brian asked suspiciously.
Flora caught my drift instantly, answering for me, “Not at all, uncle. Our Earl here is just looking for a new plot of land—directly at the Moray Firth.”
“Arthur, we have far more important things to do than—”
“Uncle. Then go and do those things,” I answered, laughing. Before I mounted my horse, I shouted back to the guard, “No one is to follow us. Understood?”
Moray Forth by Gailleann, Inverness, Kingdom of Scotland
POV: Guthrie Gailleann
“Thank you, my lady. Husband look— our lady has found Fiona,” the old lassie, Agnes, said after I brought her wandering cow back to them.
“I am growing tired of collecting your cattle, Auntie Agnes,” I sighed, wiping my brow. “Sometimes I don’t even know if I am the lady of the clan or yer shepherd.”
The old woman laughed, thanking me again for bringing the beast safely home. “But where is Maggie?” her husband asked, looking around the barren landscape.
“Maggie?”
“Aye, my lady. Our other cow—God, where has she gone?”
I looked around, seeing nothing but jagged stone and the water's edge. But then, a distinct noise echoed from the King’s road—the rumbling of carriages coming directly our way. And behind them, mounted on a horse...
“God above, is that Gawsie? So we cannae cross the border, but the enemy can ride straight through our clan lands?”
“Where in God’s earth is he going?” I whispered. I reached for my musket as I saw the carriages stopping directly at the old manor my father had left me before he died—right at the water's edge. Gathering my heavy skirts, I mounted my horse. Yet, just as I was about to spur the beast toward the manor—*BOOM*.
A grand carriage surged out from the middle of the road, thoroughly frightening my horse. The beast reared, throwing me violently onto the hard ground. I looked up, gasping for air, and saw a crest painted on the carriage door that I had never seen in these parts before. It was an English carriage.
The door swung open, and a young lady stepped down, followed closely by her maid.
“What in God’s green earth are you doing on my road?” I demanded angrily, pushing myself up and retrieving my musket from the dirt.
“Are you hurt, madam?” the young girl asked. Her accent was refined, polished and powdered English. “Is there something we can do for you?”
I glanced down the road, seeing that my frightened horse had already vanished into the mist. “You could offer me a ride in your carriage—and do not look so alarmed, I am no highwayman.”
“I beg your pardon?” the girl blinked.
“I am Guthrie Gailleann. I am the Lady and chieftainess of this clan.”
The girl looked back at her maid and footmen, who began whispering frantically into her ear: “She must be the consort of this region's Earl, ma’am... an imprisoned Lord, from what we've heard.”
Hearing this, the English girl immediately smoothed her skirts and offered me a polite, flawless curtsy. “Mistress Jane Grey,” she introduced herself, “I am very pleased to meet you, my lady.”
“Rise up from the ground, child. We are not at court, are we? Now—will you offer me a ride or not?”
The footman quickly opened the carriage door, and Jane led me inside. It was a strange, hollow feeling. I had been the Countess of Gailleann for twenty years, yet this English girl and her entourage were the first people to ever treat me with such deference. At Gailleann Castle, I was nothing but the disregarded younger daughter-in-law to old Sorcha Gailleann. Within the clan boundaries, I was merely a chieftainess by proxy, awaiting my husband's return from a cold cell. It had been nineteen years since Samuel, the man I had been forced to marry, was imprisoned for murder on the Gawsie Earl in 1730. Vast amounts of coin had been paid by Sorcha and Mary, my elder sister-in-law and the widow of Samuel’s older brother Stewart, just to keep him alive in the hopes he might one day return home.
We arrived swiftly at the old manor house. There stood Gawsie, surrounded by a dozen village laddies—letting them mark my father’s good land. His young sister, Flora, stood right beside him, she had grown into a Bonnie lass since the last time I saw her.
I stepped from the carriage and fired my musket straight into the air. The loud crack made Gawsie whip around to face me.
“What on earth are you doing on my ground, Gawsie?” I hollered. The frightened children immediately scattered, running back toward their carriages, while Jane and her maid sought refuge behind a nearby tree.
“Flora, take the laddies and return home,” Arthur ordered sharply.
“But brother—”
“Flora! I ordered you to return home!”
Startled by his tone, Flora did as she was told, ushering the boys away and leaving for Gawsie land. I walked toward him, the barrel of my musket pointed directly at his back. He turned slowly to look at me. It had been a lifetime since I last looked straight into those dark eyes.
“You let children desecrate my land?”
“Aye. The wolf marks its territory,” he answered, a rogue, dangerous smile spreading across his face. He stared straight back into my eyes, never looking away. “Why do ye ask? Did I bother you?”
“Some say that he who wishes to die is the one who summons the devil,” I threatened.
He stepped closer to me, unbothered. “The devil? Good Lord, I did nothing unlawful. This land is mine.”
“Yours?” I scoffed, pressing the musket directly against his heart. “This land belonged to my father, and his father before him.”
“Guthrie Gailleann,” he murmured, reaching out to touch the cold metal of the barrel, gently lowering it a fraction. “Do not get angry already. We shall talk.”
“Talk?” I laughed bitterly. “And about what, exactly?”
He gestured toward the stone manor behind him. “You know that I am interested in this property. We shall speak about the terms of purchase.”
“You could have started with that,” I replied, narrowing my eyes. “Alright then, let us talk. You want this land? Then let me tell you my conditions.”
“Name them,” he teased, his voice dropping.
Christian names, lineages, titles—none of it mattered in this moment. “Every bone in your body shall be broken, and your carcass shall be buried right here in this dirt,” I said, looking down at the soil. “That is my sole condition.”
He looked toward the old building, appearing to consider it. A moment later, he turned back to face me, that insufferable smile returning. “I accept,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” I gasped, completely thrown off that he had accepted such a ridiculous threat.
His deep laugh echoed across the grass—a sound I hadn’t heard in twenty long years, a sound that stirred things in me that should have stayed dead. “A jest, naturally. Now let us talk about the true conditions.” The smile vanished from his face completely. “I will take possession of this land, and in return, I won’t destroy the Gailleann Clanlands. How is that for an offer?”
I slammed the musket back onto his chest, but Arthur Gawsie only stepped fiercely into it, forcing the barrel hard against his sternum.
“Go back home, Gawsie, this land will never be a lover to you.”
“Who wants it as a lover?” he answered, smiling again—that damn smile that had always melted my stubborn heart when we were young.
“You speak true words, Gawsie. You only want pain.”
“I already have pain in my heart because of my love,” he answered, holding the musket steadfast against his own chest. The world seemed to stop spinning, as if only the two of us existed in this frozen moment, utterly alone. “I want blood,” he said at last, his voice thick with an old grievance. “As is my right. Or am I wrong? Yet I stand here as a gentleman, speaking to you. I will have this land, Guthrie. Do we have an understanding?”
“May God Himself strike me down if I ever agree to a single thing you demand, Gawsie! If I sign this land over to you, may this river overflow and drown me where I stand!”
“A Ghaoth, na bi gaothach,” he murmured, his voice a soft, mocking warning. (Guthrie, don’t get windy.)
I glared into his dark eyes, my heart hammering against my ribs. “A Gawsie, bàsaich!” (Gawsie, go and die!)