Amanda Scott Read Free

fault with my decision, Mary?”
    She could not mistake the warning note this time, and it occurred to her with no small impact that perhaps she did not know him well at all.
    “It was not my intent to reproach you, sir,” she said quietly.
    “Good lass.” He clapped her on the shoulder, then slipped an arm around her, urging her toward the entrance stairs.
    Like other tower houses built early in the previous century, Shian Towers was a tall, handsome combination of stronghold and dwelling house. Built in the shape of an ell with circular towers at every corner and angle-turrets projecting at the gables, it presented an impressive appearance. Shot holes pierced its walls, and projecting above the main entrance, in the angle of the ell, was a device called a machicolation, which Mary knew was for pouring unpleasantness on unwelcome visitors who managed to breach the curtain walls. The MacCrichton arms surmounted the door, which was huge, iron-bound, and located on the first floor level, twenty feet above the ground, at the top of removable wooden steps.
    Ewan hustled her up the stairs and inside, past a stout, woven-iron gate or yett that provided further protection against an enemy attack. As another prevention from assault, door and yett opened onto twisting stone steps that led up to the great hall and down to nether portions of the castle that undoubtedly housed the kitchen and servants’ rooms.
    Holding her skirt up with her right hand, Mary used her left to hold the rope banister as she preceded Ewan and his men upstairs to the hall. The stairs were narrow and wound in a clockwise direction as such stairs nearly always did, so that a righthanded swordsman would always have the advantage defending his home against an enemy charging up the stairs.
    In the great hall, a thin, fair-haired boy stirred up the fire and one of Ewan’s men used a torch to light myriad candles in sconces, revealing a high-ceilinged chamber with dark paneling that Mary saw could use oil and some rubbing. Racks of lances lined one wall, but in accordance with the law they bore no metal tips.
    “I suppose your family is abed and asleep at this hour, sir,” she said, continuing to gaze about while she took off her gloves, pushed her hood back from her thick, tawny hair, and untied the strings of her long gray cloak. When Ewan did not answer at once, she turned to look at him.
    He glanced from one to another of the three men who had accompanied them inside. Then, straightening, he said harshly to her, “There is no family here, lass, only ourselves, my men, and a few menservants.”
    Stunned, Mary exclaimed, “But how can that be? You said you were bringing me here to be married in the midst of your family, that I need not wait for my aunt and Sir Neil to return or for my cousin to recover after the birth of her child. For a year you’ve been saying that although your mother and father and younger brother are dead, you still had a large family to share with me. You said—”
    “I’ve said a lot of damned silly stuff over the past year,” Ewan interjected. “Not much of it was true, although it is true enough that I’ve got family to share. There are any number of them buried in our graveyard.”
    “You said you loved me,” Mary said, shaken and trying to gather her wits.
    “What if I did? Lots of lads say that when it will do them a good turn.”
    “What good turn? You know that I have no money or land, that I am completely dependent upon my aunt and my cousin Diana’s husband for my keep. I don’t even have a dowry. You said that you did not care about any of that.”
    “I don’t.”
    “Ewan, I don’t understand. Do you want to marry me?”
    “Oh, aye. I don’t want any misunderstandings later, and I’ve got to get myself a proper heir in any event, haven’t I?”
    “What misunderstanding could there be?” She was uncomfortably aware of the other men in the hall, and of the boy who had tended the fire and now squatted