Read Online The Highlander Takes a Bride by Lynsay Sands - Free Book Online Page A

staying. Fenella had begged her not to go and she had agreed, but—Saidh suddenly glanced along the table in search of the woman. She’d hoped Fenella would leave her room for meals at least now that she was there. However, there was no sign of her.
    “If ’tis your cousin ye’re looking for, I think she took her meal in her room,” Murine said quietly, and then added, “At least I saw a maid slipping into a room with a tray o’ food on me way down. I do no’ ken if ’twas her room, but I ken it was no’ the master bedchamber and since e’eryone else is here it must ha’e been.”
    “Oh,” Saidh murmured. She supposed it had been too much to hope that her presence would lure her cousin below. However, if Fenella stayed in her room all the time, why did she want her to stay at all? Cripes, she hoped her cousin wasn’t expecting her to stay stuck up there in her room with her all day long. She couldn’t stand that.
    “Thank ye fer the offer,” Murine said suddenly, distracting Saidh from her thoughts. “But I think ’tis better that I just travel on with Montrose.” She smiled wryly and added, “I’m no’ at all sure he’d agree to send an escort back to bring me home later.”
    “Me brother would arrange an escort fer ye,” Saidh said solemnly.
    “Aye, I ken.” Murine smiled sadly, and then pointed out, “But this is no’ yer home, Saidh. Ye can no’ jest invite me to stay.”
    “Oh, aye,” Saidh muttered, peering down at the trencher that had appeared before her between then and the last time she’d looked. The servants here were quick and quiet, she noted.
    “Besides, Lady MacDonnell does no’ hate ye. I talked with her last night and explained how sweet and kind ye are.”
    “Sweet and kind?” Saidh asked with a wince.
    “Ye are,” Murine said firmly. “Why jest look how ye cut yer visit short with Joan to come see that Lady Fenella was all right. And this when ye’d had no idea that she’d e’en married again once, let alone three times. ’Twas sweet and kind,” she insisted, and then added, “And I told Lady MacDonnell that.”
    Saidh grimaced at the news.
    “I think ye’ll find she looks on ye much more kindly now.”
    “Well, that’s something then,” Saidh said with mild amusement, and then glanced sharply toward the door when it opened. She wasn’t surprised when the MacDonnell entered. She was surprised, however, by the small storm of reaction that seeing him walking toward her caused in her body. It was like the great hall at Buchanan when she and her brothers had raced through playing one of their games. They had run about madly, jumping and tumbling this way and that, sending things flying and banging about the room like a storm before racing out again with Cook or some other servant chasing after them, shouting their heads off. Her body was presently the great hall and all the liquids in her body were she and her brothers causing an uproar.
    “Laird MacDonnell is verra handsome,” Murine said suddenly beside her.
    Saidh merely grunted and turned her face down to her trencher as she tried to control her body’s response to him.
    “What is his first name, do ye ken?” Murine asked curiously.
    Saidh shook her head. She hadn’t a clue.
    “ ’Tis Greer.”
    Saidh stiffened as the MacDonnell breathed that by her ear. Straightening slowly, she turned to see that he stood directly behind her.
    “Rear?” she asked, managing a blank expression. “ ’Tis an odd name to give a boy.”
    “Oh dear,” Lady MacDonnell’s amused voice drew her head around to see the woman approaching the table from the doors leading to the kitchens. “No dear. His name is Greer. Greer. Not rear.”
    “Oh.” Saidh smiled apologetically, even blinking her eyelashes innocently as if she’d truly misheard the name. “Well that sounds much better.”
    “Aye, it does,” Lady MacDonnell agreed with amusement.
    Feeling the heat at her back withdraw, Saidh chanced a glance around