Connie Mason & Mia Marlowe Sins of the Highlander (epub) i

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.He and his men, concealed on the edge of the forest, had watched the bridal procession and the arrival of the groom’s party.Now he heard nothing from the kirk.The only sound was the harsh cry of a jay from the branches above him.The ceremony must have been beginning in earnest.Rob snorted, his breath like a curl of dragon smoke in the chilly air.“’Tis time, Hamish.”“I wish ye’d reconsider.” His friend shook his head, his scruff of red beard making him look like an alarmed hedgehog.Hamish never let his beard grow beyond the stubble stage.A metal worker couldn’t chance much facial hair.Even his eyebrows were habitually singed off.“If ye go through with this, folk will say ye’re…that ye’re—”“Mad? They say that already.” Rob mounted his black stallion.The beast sensed his agitation and pawed the dirt, restive and spoiling for action.“I see no other path before me.Now will ye help me or no?”“Aye, Rob, ye’ve no need to ask, but—”“Then get the men ready to ride.I hope to be in a wee bit of a hurry when next ye see me.” He shot his friend a mirthless grin and spurred his mount into a gallop across the glen.It was possible the next time Hamish saw him, Rob might be in no hurry at all.He could very well be dead.***The smell of incense was so cloying, Elspeth Stewart feared she might faint dead away.But a bride must stand before the altar.She drew a shallow breath and swallowed hard.That was better.As the priest droned on, she sneaked a glance from under her lashes at the man who would be her husband.Lachlan Drummond.Tall and commanding in his dress plaid, he wasn’t altogether unpleasing.His face was tanned, and the lines at the corners of his eyes suggested he’d squinted into countless northern suns.Those lines didn’t trouble her.They proved the laird was a man of action, not like the dainty fops who visited from the English court from time to time.No, it was the deep grooves between his brows and the hard set of his mouth that gave her pause.“Dinna fret yerself,” her mother had assured her when she complained that she didn’t know her betrothed well enough to even speak to him if she met him in Queen Mary’s court.“An arranged match is a safe match.Yer father has chosen the Drummond for ye, and ye’ll do well to bide by his wishes.”The queen had approved too.She’d angered so many of the nobles with her other policies, she didn’t dare gainsay two of them on something as inconsequential as the marriage of one of her ladies-in-waiting.Inconsequential to everyone but me, Elspeth fumed.An exchange of breeding cattle, a grant of grazing rights, a promise of fealty between their clans; that was really all that was being solemnized now.It was certainly no marriage as she’d ever imagined it.Or Seen it.Elspeth was gifted with a bit of the Sight, and never in all her prescient dreams had she seen this match on her horizon.This loveless ceremony was as far removed from the tales of courtly devotion in her precious little book of sonnets as the distant moon.Yet when the priest asked Lachlan Drummond to pledge his faith to her, his voice was strong, the tone pleasing.He even sent her a quick private smile.Elspeth jerked her gaze back to her folded hands.Her cheeks burned as if she had a fever.She wondered if her mother was right.“Passion,” Morag Stewart had said, “is a dish that flares hot, but then goes cold as a tomb often as not.An arranged match is like a cauldron set to simmer over a low fire.A nourishing broth heated evenly warms a body from the inside out.”Elspeth wasn’t sure how she could do the things her mother said her husband would expect of her.Bizarrely intimate things.Of course, she’d seen horses mate, and dogs too, but she never suspected people did something as…primitive as the mere beasts.And now she’d have to do it with a man she barely knew.Silence jerked her back from her musings.The priest had asked her a question and was waiting for a reply.She blinked stupidly at him.What had he said?Suddenly the double doors of the nave shattered.A man on a large black horse was silhouetted in the opening for a heartbeat.Then he urged the stallion into the kirk and charged up the center aisle.“Mad Rob!” she heard someone call out.Half the horseman’s face was painted with woad, and his cobalt eyes burned as brightly blue.With his dark hair flying and the fierce expression of a berserker on his features, he certainly looked mad.“The MacLaren,” shouted another.Her bridegroom was silent, but a muscle worked furiously in his cheek.Her father reached for the horse’s bridle, but the MacLaren shouted a command, and the stallion reared, pawing the air.Then it lashed out with its hind hooves, and everyone scrambled out of reach of the slashing kicks [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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