Read Online Ravished by a Highlander by Paula Quinn - Free Book Online Page B

awareness of his virility at the same time. She really needed
     to pray.
    “Who named ye?”
    She blinked, clearing her unchaste thoughts. “My father,” she told him and sat forward, away from his body.
    “Was yer faither a Scotsmen, then?”
    Though her days were often preoccupied with thoughts of her true family, and if they would even know her if they saw her,
     Davina had never spoken of them with anyone, and she did not want to do so now. “He was.”
    “And yer mother?” His fingers brushed softly across her belly.
    “She…” Davina wiped her brow that suddenly went hot at his touch. She tried to squirm further away from him but there was
     no place else to go. “She died when I was ten, from what I am told.” She tried to relax her breathing, afraid of what questions
     he would put to her next and how easily she might answer them, begging his protection. But if he was not her enemy, then he
     was her enemy’s foe. If he didn’t know who she was then it was best he never discover it. She would not let more people die
     because of her.
    “What were they called?”
    His queries were not casual, nor was his touch. She doubted he did anything without purpose—and she was tired of having to
     be so guarded around him. “They were Lord and Lady Whithorn,” she said, hoping that would satisfy him. “I do not wish to think
     on them.”
    When she offered nothing more, his muscles tensed behind her and his spine went taut, mayhap with anger or frustration, she
     did not know, nor did she care. She was only thankful that he did not speak again.
    Normally, Davina relished silence. It wasn’t because she was used to it. While abbeys tended to be quiet places on the whole,
     for as long as she could remember, St. Christopher’s halls often thundered with the clang of swords and the banging of hammers,
     rather than whispered prayers. There were always repairs to be done and the sisters used the men they were given to fix just
     about everything. The soldiers didn’t mind. There was naught else for them to do but practice, and bicker, and share stories
     about their loved ones. Perhaps in another place Davina would have cherished the clamor around her, but most of the time such
     sounds of normalcy had only served as a reminder of what could never be hers.
    How she missed those sounds now. A tear slipped over her lashes at the memory of peering over the tower wall and seeing the
     men whose faces… voices… had become as familiar to her as her own, lifeless and silent. And the sisters… their screams from
     the burning chapel would haunt her for ten lifetimes.
    Swiping her cheek, Davina fought to push away her grief, but now her beloved silence only intensified her loneliness.
    She noticed that Finn had caught up and was keeping his mount at an even pace beside them. She looked at him through misty
     eyes. He smiled softly and once again she imagined him to have flown down from Heaven, mayhap on wings he had hidden beneath
     his plaid.
    “Where is your home?” she asked him quietly, desperate for a distraction from her sorrow.
    “’Tis on Skye.”
    She had to smile at that. She’d been right about him all along.
    “Is it very far?”
    “Far enough,” Rob answered from behind.
    For what? Davina wondered. Far enough to hide and never be found? What did it matter? If he spoke the truth about everything
     so far, then he was really bringing her to Ayrshire and he would leave her. She should feel relieved, thankful that God had
     sent him to help her. But first she had to be certain that it was God who brought this man to her, and not her enemies.
    “Tell me how you came to meet Edward.”
    He shifted behind her, a ripple of honed muscle that sent her troubled thoughts scattering to the four winds, only to be replaced
     by even darker ones when his hand settled on the curve of her hip. None of the English soldiers in her company had ever touched
     her with any intimacy. It was forbidden, though Edward had