A Highlander Never Surrenders Read Free

against his hard angles, and swept his mouth over hers. His kiss was like sin, tempting her to abandon any last shred of decency she possessed and beg him to take her with him.
    “I’m persuaded,” he said, releasing her with a smack to her rump and a lecherous wink that promised he would return.
    Feeling like a silly spring maiden, Lianne waved them farewell, then tossed her apron over her shoulder and headed for the patron calling for a drink.
    “Ye look like hell.”
    Robert slid his gaze to Graham, riding alongside him, as they left the town of Stirling. Everything else pained him too much to move. “I feel like I was tossed into it.”
    “Ye needn’t fret about that, Rob,” Graham said, readjusting his cap forward over his brow. “Hell wouldn’t have ye. Which is fortunate fer me. I don’t want to spend eternity with ye.”
    Robert didn’t believe his friend would spend an instant in that fiery place. If anyone could find a way to convince God that he belonged in His good graces, it was Graham. “Though you lack any kind of honor when it comes to women, bedding them is not a sin deserving of eternal damnation.”
    The doubtful crook of Graham’s mouth convinced Robert otherwise.
    Robert smiled, then cringed and lifted his hand to his jaw. “Then for your soul’s sake, find a lady to give your heart to and let her make a decent man of you.”
    Graham cast him an askew glance and laughed. “I fear yer books about the courtly ways of love have led ye far from the truth. Ye ferget I have eleven sisters, most of whom are wed to miserable bastards who began as decent men.” He held up his palm when Robert would have spoken, cutting him off. “Lasses are fer caressing, bedding, and leaving. Else ye’ll find yer ears pricked by constant troubles, and yer manhood as useless as yer battle sword.”
    “Mayhap the fault lies with your sisters,” Robert pointed out. “Callum is not miserable with Kate.”
    “Aye,” Graham conceded, watching the bruise below the young earl’s eye turn purple. “Yer sister is a rare jewel. But even the Devil MacGregor has traded in his claymore fer a sprig of heather clutched in his fist.”
    Robert sighed and shook his head. He had much to say on the matter, but his jaw felt like it had been hit with a mace. Besides, he’d had this argument with Graham a dozen times and each time his words had proved fruitless. Graham held fast to the belief that the only things lasting and tangible on this Earth were battle and death. And he was determined to enjoy his life in betwixt the two.
    “We should have taken my army,” Robert said after a moment of silence. “If Connor Stuart were standing in front of us right now, I fear I couldn’t pull my sword from its sheath.”
    “I told ye, Rob, yer army would only have alerted him to our search. Stuart is cunning. ’Tis why he is the leader of the Royalist rebellion. Remember ’twas he who set the ambush upon General Lambert’s army after they crushed the rebellion in Cheshire a pair of months ago. I am familiar with his brand of strategy. The tales of his prowess grow each day. According to some at the inn, Stuart fights even Monck’s men now. He attacked a legion of the governor’s garrison not far from here. He is well skilled and trained to sense danger days before ’tis upon him. We’ll find him faster with just the both of us. Trust me in this.”
    “I do. For I still recall your cunning in breaching the walls of Kildun when MacGregor came for my uncle two years past. But I am out of time, my friend.” Robert worried out loud, rolling his shoulder to loosen the cramp setting in. “In a few short days I will have to face General Monck empty-handed.”
    At first, Robert had considered it an honor that General Monck had commanded
him
to find the Royalist rebel, Connor Stuart. Since there was no longer anyone formally “in command” of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, the Royalists’ campaign to