Read Online Seducing a Scottish Bride by Sue-Ellen Welfonder - Free Book Online

of pink-and-white quartz in the scattered, mist-dampened boulders. The swift, clear-watered burn flowing beside the
     deer track they followed.
    Heartened by the beauty around her, the
peace
, she lifted her chin.
    “Wild places have always called to me.” She locked stares with her father, knowing he couldn’t deny it. “You and Uncle Marmaduke
     don’t understand power of place. Were Glen Dare as blighted as you claim, the burn would be fouled and sluggish, those deep,
     rocky pools dark and stagnant.”
    Beaming confidence, she waved a hand in the burn’s direction. As if smiling back at her, its bright waters tinkled and splashed,
     the sound delighting her ears. Just as the large raven spiraling above quickened her pulse and made her heart skitter.
    Several times now, she’d seen him, catching glimpses each time the clouds and mist parted. Once, he was off to their right,
     gliding silently past the higher rock-faces. Now, he merely circled, watching her.
    Waiting.
    Eager to welcome her to his strange and wonderful home and letting her know he wanted her here.
    It was him Sir Marmaduke was sensing.
    Sure of it, Gelis flashed her most dazzling smile, hoping the raven would see. “I do not believe there is danger here. Though
     there is an ancient aura about the place. A magical air I’ve never felt anywhere else.”
    Her father snorted. “An ancient aura styled by Maldred the Dire.” He grabbed her pony’s reins, drawing her close. “The magic
     he practiced was dark, lass. Blacker than the bottom of the coldest, deepest Highland loch. Dinna be fooled by girlish fancies.”
    “I am not a girl.” Gelis raised a challenging brow. “I’m a woman full grown.”
    Though she did have
fancies
.
    Bold and exciting expectations she wasn’t about to share with her father.
    Dreams and desires so deliciously wicked, they’d scandalize her sister but caused her own belly to flutter and her secret
     place to burn and tingle in anticipation.
    Any man who called this wild and dark glen his home would be wild and dark in other ways, too. And she couldn’t wait to discover
     every one of them.
    But when they rode through the pend of Castle Dare’s gatehouse less than an hour later, pulling up in the cold, mist-swept
     bailey, some of her bravura slipped.
    The tongue-waggers hadn’t lied.
    Castle Dare
was
a gloomy rickle o’ stanes.
    Menacing, too, with unusually high curtain walls and soaring machicolated towers. Gelis shivered, her nape prickling when
     she caught her first glimpse of the great square keep. Its dark bulk frowned down on them, the thick walling relieved only
     by the narrowest arrow-slits. Silent, weapon-hung men-at-arms clustered everywhere, their gazes assessing, their steel gleaming
     in the smoking torchlight.
    Like scores of unfriendly eyes, the cross-shaped arrow-slits seemed to assess her as well, their blank stares making her shiver
     again. She reached to pull her cloak higher against her throat, but the instant her fingers brushed against her breasts, she
     lowered her hand. Putting back her shoulders, she ignored her uneasiness and moistened her lips, wanting to look her best
     when the Raven strode out to meet her.
    Not for nothing had she chosen her most flattering gown, a rich emerald-green affair, its dipping front piece made even lower
     by her own clever hand. Richly banded by an exquisite gold border, the bodice displayed the swell of her breasts in all their
     abundance, including a very deliberate glimpse of the top rims of her nipples.
    She meant to whet the Raven’s appetite, not hide her charms beneath the folds of a heavy woolen cloak.
    Even if Castle Dare’s forbidding countenance did send a few chills down her spine. Lucky for her, she’d been weaned on dark
     looks and scowls.
    Glancing at her father, she wasn’t at all surprised to see him still looking as sour as if he’d bitten into something bitter.
    “You could at least frown less fiercely.” She smiled brightly