Read Online Angel of Skye by May McGoldrick - Free Book Online

meant is that, unlike your falcon, my hood is permanent.”
    “Nothing is permanent,” he said, but suddenly he grew serious, his thoughts recalling the events in his own recent past. On things he had once truly believed to be permanent.
    “The vows of the convent are not just permanent, m’lord. They are eternal.”
    Shaken from his own thoughts by her statement, Alec whirled to look at her. He was not even sure he’d heard her correctly. A nun! Instantly he retraced in his mind the events and the conversation of the morning. Turning his attention to the path ahead, he could not help dwelling for a moment on his own attraction to this nun, and it made him feel strangely uncomfortable. And what exactly had he said to her? A nun!
    Fiona peered up at the man walking beside her and smiled. This warlord, sent to control the wilds of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, suddenly looked like a schoolboy. First shock, then a flush of embarrassment registered on his face, then his features tightened into a scowl of displeasure. When he directed this glare back to her, Fiona looked away. What a wonderfully unexpected response, she thought. She should have tried this sooner.
    When Alec did speak, though, his voice was anything but angry.
    “So you live at the Priory?” he asked in as cordial a tone as he could muster.
    “Aye, m’lord.”
    “Then why do you dress this way?”
    “To tend the sick.”
    “Have you been at the Priory long?”
    “Aye, m’lord. As long as I can remember.”
    “And you are not sick in any way?”
    “No, m’lord,” Fiona responded sweetly, turning her bright eyes on him. She gave him a brilliant smile. “But thank you for asking.”
    Alec’s heart pounded in response. Her eyes and her smile could bewitch a man
    “Tell me,” Alec asked after a moment, “do they still teach religion at the Priory?”
    “Naturally.”
    “And they teach the value of virtue?”
    “Aye, indeed they do, m’lord.”
    “Are meekness, truthfulness, and obedience still considered virtues?”
    “Absolutely, m’lord.”
    “Then are you not...are not all the nuns of your Priory expected to practice them?”
    Smiling to herself, Fiona thought back over the morning’s events. Of her forwardness, of the tales she’d told, of her bland refusal to obey his simplest commands.
    “Nay, m’lord. That is a different order.”
     
    Coming over a rise, the two saw the walls of the Priory rise up in the distance. A huddle of huts formed a neat village at its gates, and the smoke of the morning fires hung comfortably in the air above. A brown and white dog ran out from a pen beside the closest cottage, and his friendly barks blended with the rhythmic hammering of the smith already hard at work in the forge. The smell of roasting mutton reached Alec, and the stirring in his belly reminded him that he hadn’t anything to eat today.
    The folk of the village directed surprised looks at the two as they walked along the lane that led to the gates of the Priory, and Alec did not wonder at their interest or their surprise. He had been encountering the same looks in other villages for the past four months.
    The gates that led through the high wall surrounding the buildings and the church comprising the Priory were open, and when the two entered, an ancient blue-robed porter carrying a long and stout staff hobbled over, nodding his yellowed mane at the warlord and directing a warm and toothless smile at Fiona. She touched his hand affectionately as they passed.
    “As I told ye, lassie, no rain,” he chuckled. “Nary a drop.”
    “Aye, James.” She smiled. “A fine morning.”
    Alec looked around at the orderly plan of the Priory grounds, at the church directly ahead, and at the stables and guest quarters to the left, with a small orchard rising behind. To the right, the chapter house, with its business offices and school, and what he assumed to be the nuns’ quarters beyond. Alec could see the smoke rising from what must be a