Read Online Thorn in My Heart by Liz Curtis Higgs - Free Book Online Page A

eyes on you that day by the loch near Auchengray”
    “You saw me soon enough, riding into Glentrool in search of my new husband.”
    He nodded slowly. “A bonny queen of Scodand you were, astride your chestnut mare. I'd gone out that evening to
pit the brain asteep
, as my mother would say.”
    “My dear Alec.” She smoothed a hand across his weathered cheek. “Meditating on the hills like a
halte
man.”
    Alec chuckled, a gurgling sort of laugh. “Not holy at all, merely trying to put my thoughts aright. Then who should appear in the gloaming but my betrothed and her maids, descending from
heiven
like angels amid the heather.”
    Jamie's cheeks heated at their sentimental murmurings. He'd heard the story of his parents’ unusual courtship many times. But not like this. Not in a poet's words from an old man's lips. He edged toward the kitchen, longing to escape, when his mother looked up and caught his eye, motioning him to wait.
    She shifted her gaze back to her husband and leaned closer. “Alec…” Her manner was innocence itself. “Another bonny lass lives at Auchengray now. A suitable wife for your heir.” Rowena's tone grew more persuasive. “My brother, Lachlan, the young man who accepted your father's generous bride price and who sent me to you so long ago, has two grown daughters of his own: Leana and Rose. Remember?”
    “So he does.” Alec nodded slowly, grimacing as he did. “Poor fellow raised the twa lassies all these years without a mother. They'd be of a marrying age now, I ken.”
    “Aye,” she murmured, “they would.”
    Jamie stared at the two of them plotting his future, and his anger rekindled. Gone from bad to worse, this wretched day. Now he was required not only to steal away under the cover of night, but to find a wife and produce an heir as well. His desperate thoughts tumbled over one another, entangled with a dim memory of two wee cousins he'd met on a trip east with his parents a dozen years past. One pale, one dark. But so young! Round-faced children, not brides.
    “Leana has seen no more than twenty summers and Rose fewer still, with many years of childbearing ahead of them. Both are bonny, Lachlan tells me in his letters.” Rowenas teeth gleamed in the candlelight. “And neither one is English.”
    “Well then!” Alec McKie was clearly convinced. Pounding the arm of his chair with a shaky fist, he declared, “Find Jamie. Let us make our peace with each other before we send the lad off hunting for a bride.”
    “Find Jamie, you say?” His mother winked at him across the room. “I know just where to look.”

Eight
     
    And then comes a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.
     
    G EORGE M AC D ONALD
     
    K eep your horse to the path,” Rowena had cautioned him. “And beware the bogs.” Useless words when the hoary mist was so thick Jamie could barely see past his geldings nose. The night air crawled about like a living thing, nearly smothering him. His damp shirt clung to his skin, and hair sprang from beneath the brim of his tricornered hat in unruly waves. No wonder Evan returned from hunting looking so
frichtsome.
A gendeman's grooming was no match for Galloways wild autumn weather.
    Jamie squinted into the mist, straining to see what might lie ahead. The narrow track along the Water of Trool would lead him west to his first night's lodging at House o’ the Hill Inn. An hour earlier he'd copied a map from his fathers adas, the crude rendering now safely tucked inside his small traveling pouch. Two new cambric shirts and a fistful of coins rested beside the map and a brief but vital letter from Rowena to her brother, Lachlan McBride, giving the McKie blessing on the marriage. He'd also packed bannocks and hard cheese to last a day or two. Not that he'd likely need them. After a short night's sleep, he would break his fast and turn south to Monnigaffand Creetown, veer east to Gatehouse and Carlinwark, then press on to Newabbey and his uncle's