Read Online Seduced by Her Highland Warrior by Michelle Willingham - Free Book Online Page B

they could get the foundation and outer wall completed.
    Callum drew closer and rested his hand upon Alex’s shoulder. Though his younger brother didn’t speak, he exerted a slight pressure, as a gesture of support.
    â€˜We’ll manage,’ Alex told him. ‘Somehow.’
    As his brothers departed, Alex surveyed the damage. Only five huts had survived the fires, and they’d lost fourteen men and boys in the fight—nearly a third of their clan. The grief and frustration threatened to close over him, but he shut out the emotions.
    Though he wasn’t meant to be chief, he’d sworn a vow to himself that he would prove his father wrong. He’d promised to give everything he could to Glen Arrin, placing the people’s needs before his own.
    And yet it had all fallen apart.
    They couldn’t live this way, not with their pride splintered, their homes in ashes. Somehow, he had to gather the people back together. If they could help each other,they’d overcome their losses. But, most of all, they needed to rebuild their pride.
    A hardness clenched his throat and his gaze shifted toward the loch and the site upon the hill, marked with a white stone. He couldn’t forget his son’s death. Not even after nearly three years had passed. He blinked, forcing his gaze away. He knew what his grieving kinsmen were feeling right now, with their family members gone. Work was what they needed, to take their minds off the suffering and to go on.
    It was what he had done. Because the moment he allowed himself to stop and think, the numbing grief would close in.
    Work was the answer. The only answer he’d found for himself, when Laren had shut him out.
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    â€˜We’ll leave for Inveriston in another day,’ Nairna said. ‘I’ll speak to Bram and he’ll arrange it.’
    â€˜I can’t finish the glasswork by then!’ The very idea was appalling. It took a full day and a half simply to make one colour, much less create a flat pane of glass.
    Nairna’s mouth curved in a sly smile. ‘Oh, I don’t expect you to finish. We’re going to get you a commission. Bring one of your smaller pieces and a sketch of the design you want to do. We’ll get the window measurements and they’ll pay one-third of the cost up front, plus all of your supplies.’
    Laren stopped arguing. She’d never thought about a commission. But the idea of having enough supplies and the chance to craft a window for one of the kirks… Her mind flooded with ideas.
    â€˜What if they try to cheat us again?’ she asked, thinking of the time before when they’d sent Dougal to sell a piece of glass.
    â€˜Dougal sold the glass to a merchant, not an abbot. And what does a lad of four and ten know about silver coins?’ Nairna moved to the back of the cavern, sorting through pieces. ‘We’ll use this one.’
    She held up a frame that portrayed the rising sun over the loch. Laren had spent days trying to perfect the orange and yellow shades of glass and she’d experimented with the lead lines to create the effect of ripples in the water.
    It was one of the first pieces that she’d been pleased with, a puzzle of glasswork that reminded her of the simple beauty around them.
    â€˜You’ll tell them that it represents holy baptism,’ Nairna went on.
    Laren gaped at her. ‘But it’s just the loch at sunrise.’
    Nairna gently set down the glass. ‘Not to monks, it isn’t. The sun represents the resurrection of Christ, while the holy water washes us clean of our sins.’
    â€˜It’s the loch,’ Laren repeated. She saw no reason to lie, not when the glass was pretty enough as it was.
    Nairna put an arm around her and let out a sigh. ‘You see, that’s why you need me, Laren. We tell them what they want to hear and they will pay us a great deal for the honour.’
    â€˜Even if it’s not the