Read Online The Knights of Christmas by Suzanne Barclay - Free Book Online Page A

right to explore.
    â€œI know,” she whispered. “It is the same for me.”
    â€œIt cannot be.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Because I am promised to another. The statement was not strictly true. In all honor, he was pledged to Janet, but he felt things for Kara of Edin that went beyond honor.
    God help them both.
    â€œThere is no shame in what we feel,” Kara said softly. “’Tis a special gift that comes to very few.”
    â€œLust,” he said curtly.
    â€œMmm.” She cocked her head. “Aye, there’s a fire between us that I’ve not known before, but there’s more.”
    Duncan wrenched his gaze away from the passion smoldering in her eyes, darkening them. “There can be nothing between us. We are too different...our hopes, our beliefs.”
    â€œOur methods are different, I grant, yet we both value the same things—honor, duty and peace.” She reached under the table, lacing her slender fingers with his large, callused ones.
    Duncan sucked in a sharp breath, the ordinary gesture rife with possibilities he dared not explore. Or did he?
    If he could not go back to Threave, what was to prevent him from staying here? The notion was as tempting as Kara herself.

Chapter Six
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    W hen the last bite of beef and last swig of mead had been consumed, Fergie rose and gestured for silence.
    â€œWe’ve partaken of the bounty, now let us honor those who went before us. Those whose sweat and blood kept Edin Valley free for us generation after generation.”
    Kara’s stomach knotted. Would this be the last generation to inhabit the valley? She saw her fear mirrored in the gloomy faces around her. Beside her, Duncan stirred restlessly, but he didn’t meet her gaze. Why would he not help them? What was it that kept him from making a commitment to her and her people? He’d said he was promised elsewhere, yet claimed to be unwed.
    â€œLet us go forth and pay homage to our ancestors,” Fergie said, his voice clear yet solemn as the occasion.
    The folk of Edin rose, quietly trooped out of the hall and across the bailey. Singly and in pairs, they marched over the drawbridge to attend a ritual nearly as old as the hills.
    â€œWhere are we going?” Duncan asked, walking beside her.
    â€œTo light the Samhuinn fires.”
    He flinched, and she could feel him drawing away, shattering the link that had bound them since the meal began.
    â€œYou do not have to come,” she said.
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    â€œHow can you practice such heathen rites and still claim to worship God?” he asked incredulously.
    â€œFather Luthais attended last year,” she said defensively. “He said it was good to remember those who’ve gone before us.”
    â€œFather Padric had me whipped for crying at my mother’s grave. He said it was not seemly to shed tears for a harlot.”
    Kara was so shocked she stumbled. “How horrible.”
    Duncan took her arm to steady her. “One reason I went on Crusade was to atone for her mistakes.”
    Kara stared at his profile, stark in the torchlight, appalled to see he really believed that. “Tell me of her.”
    â€œShe was the daughter of a neighboring laird. My father was promised to another, but ran off with her instead. Grandfather claimed she was a witch who’d ensorcelled Da.”
    â€œAnd this Cousin Niall vilified her after she was dead.”
    Duncan nodded, his throat working. “Da was killed in a Border skirmish when I was eight. A few months later, a man came to live in our tower. When he left, another took his place. And so it went on for two years till she died.”
    â€œYour mama was doubtless lonely.” And so were you. “’Tis hard for a woman to keep a place up without a man about. Just ask Una or any of the other widows.”
    Duncan nodded, but she knew he wasn’t convinced. She held tight to his hand as the procession wound its way across the