Black Raven's Lady: Highland Lairds Trilogy Read Free Page A

echoing around the small inn room.
    Raine dared a peek back over her shoulder. A vein bulged on the side of his forehead. His swarthy features were flooded with crimson in his rage. He grasped her elbow and spun her around.
    “Jesus, Raine! What the hell were you thinking? In a few days, I’ll be sailing into battle. I can’t take responsibility for you.”
    “I’ll be responsible for myself,” she promised, steeling herself to meet his piercing green eyes. He could skewer her with a look, but she wouldn’t allow him to demoralize her. “I need to be on the Black Raven when you leave the Moray Firth. I must reach Steòrnabhagh as soon as possible.”
    “What the devil is in Steòrnabhagh except a nest of traitors?”
    Raine bit her lower lip as she frantically recited the answer she’d rehearsed all the way there. “I have a cousin who lives in the nearby village of Tolm on the Isle of Lewis. Lavinia MacAlistair is with child and due to deliver in a few weeks. She wrote imploring Aunt Isabel to attend her during the birth. But we decided the journey would be too taxing for my aunt and that I should come instead.”
    Keir studied the lass’s wide-set ebony eyes, searching for some sign she was lying. She had to be lying. ’Twas impossible to believe that her mother or uncle would have agreed to such an outrageous plan. And if they had, they’d have written him, requesting his assistance.
    He wouldn’t put such lunacy beyond Lady Isabel, however. Everyone knew the woman was half daft, with her potions and magic spells. She’d infected Raine Cameron with her foolish beliefs in faeries and elves when the lassie was still a wee halflin. He believed Isabel’s influence to be the reason for Raine’s estrangement from her loving mother. Lady Nina was much too sensible to set any store in her good-sister’s self-proclaimed magical powers.
    The second sight.
    Hell. What goddamned nonsense.
    Shaking his head, Keir strode across the room. He braced a booted foot against a carved sea chest in front of the rumpled bed and stared at the far wall. One thing was certain. He was now responsible for Raine. The Camerons had been close family friends since before he was born. Gideon Cameron, the maid’s dead father, had fostered Keir’s oldest brother, Rory. There was no way Keir could abandon Raine to her fate. He glanced over to meet the exasperating lass’s self-satisfied gaze. Damn. She knew it too. In fact, she’d planned on it.
    “Just for the sake of plain speaking, Raine,” he said, “I don’t believe your preposterous story. Not a word of it. But I’m obviously now responsible for your safety, whether I want to be or not.”
    Keir turned to Macraith. “Have two horses brought to the front of the inn. I’ll see to my young charge here while you finish charting our course out of the firth and into the North Sea. I’ll meet you on board the Raven in four hours. We sail at high tide.”
    “Aye, aye, captain.” His uncle flashed his wide grin and hurried out the door.
    “Where are we going now?” Raine asked with a frown.
    “You’ll need a heavier cloak,” Keir told her. “And sturdy boots suitable for a sea voyage.”
    Her jet eyes sparkling, she smiled in triumph. “What a fine idea! There were some things I couldn’t purchase at home.”
    “No doubt.”
    Keir would have laughed at her naiveté, if he hadn’t been so damn irritated by her arrival. Just how gullible did she think him?
    She couldn’t have secured those things in Archnacarry because someone would have asked if she were planning on going to sea.
    S EATED ON A sturdy bay mare, Raine gazed up at the square stone fortress that rose high on a cliff overlooking the Firth of Moray. True to his word, Keir MacNeil had escorted her to the market center of Inverness, where they visited several of the shops that lined the winding cobbled streets. She’d purchased a heavy cherry-red mantle with sable trim around the hood, sturdy boots, and a pair