Read Online Morganna (The Brocade Collection, Book 4) by Jackie Ivie - Free Book Online

them for as long as she had been Zander, without a break of some kind.
    “ Well?” he prompted.
    “H air like this tunic-weave you’ve thrust on me, so she can pull a curtain of it about us. Sweet lips, fair of face. I think I’d like lean hips, long lengthy legs, a slender waist. It will na’ matter if she’s buxom, or no, I’ve no hankerin’ for that sort of thing.”
    He shook his head. “Trust the young.”
    “You ask my idea of a woman, and then you mock it? Dinna’ ask again.”
    “ I’m not mocking you, lad. I’m simply wondering at why you save yourself for a nymph that does na’ exist.”
    “This is the woman I’ll have. When I meet her, I’ll know.”
    “ Have? Jesu’, lad! Women are for taking, not having. I can see your learning will have to include women. There’s women a-plenty out there for the taking. Taking, lad.”
    “I’ll na’ take a woman by force,” she answered, grimly watching the muscles of his back through the one shoulder his plaid wasn’t covering.
    “I dinna’ mean that. A woman needing forcing is a chore, not a feast. Remember that. Woman can be made ripe for the tasting, or they can be bitter to the core and stiff. If a woman is that, let her be. That’s my advice.”
    “Where is this fair we’re attending?” Morgan was starting to feel the stitch in her side from the huge breakfast she’d consumed, and her steady jogging was making it bothersome.
    He laughed again. “Alongside that vale. Keep your eyes on it, lad, you’ll see a burn, and then the entire field will be awash with tents.”
    “I dinna’ see...”
    Her voice faded as what she’d assumed to be boulders became the rounded tops of tents constructed from sack-cloth.
    “ What is it, lad?” He stopped and she joined him.
    “Tents. Scores of them.” She pointed.
    He was squinting and then turned to her. “You can see them?”
    “Aye,” she answered.
    His brows raised. “That could be part of your secret with knives and taking game. Your sight.”
    She turned and stared at him. “You canna’ see it?” Then, it was her turn to chuckle. “You? The great Zander FitzHugh...a poor sighted man? No wonder you think the vast wench, Lacy, worth tumbling.”
    “ I’ve na’ said I was great, nor did I say I found her worth more than my breakfast.”
    “But, you were...I mean, you had....” Her face was flaming again, and the look on his face made it worse.
    “If I had na’ had that response, it would ha’ been an insult. I thanked you for a reason, lad. Rescue.”
    “I d oona’ understand.” She was mystified and sounded it.
    “Grow a mite, and I’ll find a wench to show you. Come. Pull that sling from your arm, and warm it. A cold leather does na’ have the right feel to it, and I want you showing off.”
    Morgan was surprised again. “You know that?”
    “A Scotsman was na’ allowed weapons a-fore Robert the Bruce championed us and crowned himself king. We can still be imprisoned if caught using them. You know the Sassenach laws.”
    “You can sling a stone?”
    “I’m capable,” he answered, starting his pace again.
    “And, what...do you mean? Showing off?” She was jogging again, so the question came in the span of three breaths.
    “There’s bound to be contest, lad. I’ve a wish to put my squire up against their best stoner.”
    “ I’ll na’ sling stones for you.”
    “You any good with that, or do you wear it to entice the ladies to look at your scrawny arms?”
    Scrawny arms? Morgan wondered, trying to curb the insult from showing on her. She had well-developed and tanned arms. She could do a hundred push-ups, and take down any of her lads in an arm wrestle. And Zander FitzHugh called them scrawny? “I’m as good with it as I am with my dirks. Maybe better.”
    “Just as I suspicioned. On your toes, lad. We’ve been sighted.”
    Morgan looked up at the thirty-some-odd men cresting the hill and coming head-on at them. Unconsciously she stopped her pace and