Read Online Tamed by a Laird by Amanda Scott - Free Book Online Page B

play several instruments. That, I own, does interest me. Did he speak truly?”
    “Aye,” Jenny said. “But I warrant ye’ll want to judge for yourself.”
    He smiled then, the sweet smile she remembered from the night before. “I will, lass. I certainly will. Let me just fetch out
     my lute.”
    He dove back into the tent and emerged seconds later with two lutes, one of which he handed to her. Moving to a rocky outcropping,
     he used the skirt of his robe to whisk off dirt and pebbles, then indicated that she should sit.
    “Play whatever ye like and sing, too, if ye can,” he said. “I want to judge your skill, but ye needna try anything difficult.
     ’Tis not the nimbleness o’ your plucking that will impress me but your ability to entertain others.”
    Nodding, she swiftly reviewed the songs she knew and selected the Border love song she had been playing the first time Phaeline
     had commented on her skill. As Phaeline rarely said anything kind to her, that moment had impressed Jenny. Moreover, the love
     song had been one of her father’s favorite tunes. But whether the song would impress this man, she could not know.
    His lute was a fine one, its strings true of sound. Delighting in the instrument, she soon lost herself in the song. She was
     used to playing and singing for others, generally those she knew well, so she felt no self-consciousness now.
    When she glanced at him and saw that his eyes had shut, an image of her father looking just so made her smile.
    Opening his eyes, he looked as if he had detected the smile in her voice. Then, nodding, he reached for the other lute, plucked
     one string, then another, and soon was playing along with her. When the song ended, he began another one that she knew, and
     she quickly joined him, thoroughly enjoying herself.
    When that song ended, he said, “Ye play well, and ye’ve a pleasant voice. Ye’ll need to learn to flirt with your audience
     though, if ye would please them.”
    “Flirt?”
    “Aye, sure, for how else do ye think to stir listeners to throw their gelt to ye? We dinna entertain for nowt, lass, and the
     more ye impress your audience, the more they’ll fling. A tithe of all ye earn, by the bye, goes into the company fund to purchase
     aught we might need. Ye’ll keep the rest for yourself.”
    She had not thought about making money, and the thought now stirred only discomfort. “Might not some listeners expect other
     things of me if I flirt enough to make them throw money at me?”
    “They may think about such other things, lassie, but nae one here will expect ye to act on their thoughts. One of our gleewomen
     invites liberties, the others do not. It is all one to me. We’ll play only a short while here at Castle Moss before we depart
     for Lochmaben, so this be a good place for ye to show us your worth.”
    “What about the hurdy-gurdy? Bryan did say that you have one.”
    He smiled again, but this time she detected sadness in him. “I do have a
vielle á roué
that belonged to my son, but ’tis an instrument that requires two to play it. We’ll see after Castle Moss if ye’ll bide with
     us long enough to try that, or not.”
    “I want to see Lochmaben,” she said. “But I am unsure what I should do about Peg. This was all my fault, but I fear she may
     lose her place if she returns alone.”
    “She made a choice, just as ye did. Ye didna force her to come all this way.”
    Jenny nearly corrected him, knowing that Peg would have refused to go back without her. But she knew she could not explain
     that without revealing who she was and why Peg would feel obliged to stay. Remorsefully, she realized that she ought to have
     thought it all through before deciding to accompany the minstrels.
    She had acted on impulse, a fault she had thought she’d long outgrown. Her father had been quick to condemn her impulses whenever
     she had succumbed to them. She could almost hear him scolding her now from the high cloud on which, since the