Read Online Plaid to the Bone by Mia Marlowe - Free Book Online

also drop a grown man in a few seconds, but she wasn’t about to let Farquhar know she was aware of that use for the herb.
    He nodded. “It may indeed help your maid. It may also help ye into the next world if ye’re no’ careful how ye prepare aconitum.”
    “Aconitum?”
    “Ah, that’s the educated name for wolf ’s bane. Comes from the Greek and it means, rather appropriately, ‘without struggle.’ Certain tribes in the Romanian mountains tip their arrows with it and drop their prey between one step and the next. Powerful stuff, that.” He reached into his sporran and pulled out a pair of serviceable work gloves. Then he advanced toward her, holding out his hand for the knife. “If ye please, milady.”
    She handed it to him. If the fellow wanted to be chivalrous, there was no harm in allowing it. As he knelt to harvest the herb, Cait cast about for something to say that would keep him from pondering further about why she might want something that was so virulent.
    “I see ye’ve replaced the twine in your ear with a horse nail. Most folk who’ve been pilloried try to let the hole close if it will.”
    “I hope I am no’ most folk, milady.” He carefully placed the plants in her small basket, then cleaned the blade on his handkerchief before returning it to her. Only then did he remove his gloves. “I believe in learning from my mistakes, and by keeping the hole in my ear open, I’ll be forever after reminded of my brief but terrifying time in Bonniebroch’s pillory.”
    “So ye intend to give up thimblerig?”
    “Och, no.” He offered her his arm and she took it as they strolled back to the castle kitchen. “Why would I be doing that? As long as there are fools in the world, they deserve a wee skinning from time to time.”
    She laughed. “It doesna sound as if ye’ve learned much from your mistake.”
    They zigzagged through the kitchen, trying to stay out of the way of Cook and her assistants. Breakfast might be nearly finished, but the laird of Bonniebroch was taking a wife this day and Cook was in fine fettle ordering the feast that would celebrate the union of Adam Cameron and Cait Grant.
    “I understand your confusion,” Farquhar said as he ducked under an approaching tray laden with a haunch of venison. “My mistake wasna in running a game of thimblerig. My mistake was in no’ choosing my mark with more care. I ought to have let the steward win.”
    “Ye didna ken he was the steward, I dare say.”
    “He was someone who was puffed up with his own importance. It ought to have warned me, but the takings had been so lush that day, I wasna as cautious as I should have been. I usually read people better than that.”
    “Read people? Ye speak as if they were a book.”
    “Oh, aye. In many ways, they are just so,” he said as they continued to walk through the Great Hall toward the staircase that led to her chamber on an upper floor. “Unless a body’s a complete knave, and can lie with impunity, everything a person thinks generally shows on the face.”
    Cait gave him a searching look. “I have no idea what you’re thinking, Mr. Farquhar.”
    He laughed and patted her hand. “That’s because I’m a complete knave, o’ course. But I must confess ye have me a bit puzzled, milady.”
    She nearly missed a step. Could he tell she’d had him gather that wolf ’s bane with murder on her mind instead of her maid’s stiff joints?
    “What puzzles you, Mr. Farquhar?”
    “Ye’re a bride—a condition much to be desired by every maiden, if my past experience is anything to go by. Ye’ve a fine strapping bridegroom who seems to dote upon ye. There’s a whole castle full of people who are ready to take ye to their hearts as their good lady.” He stopped walking and looked her squarely in the eye. “Ye ought to be brimming with joy, but ye’re not.”
    “How do ye know I’m not?” She forced a brittle smile. “I might just be the sort who keeps her feelings to herself. Nothing