Charming the Shrew Read Free Page B

didn’t know every one of them, had since they were all wee lasses. There were pretty ones and plain ones, some were thin and others more plump. Some had auburn hair and others blond, but none of them stood apart from the others. None of them were truly different from the other lasses. Most were pleasant, and in that regard would be fair as a wife, but none of them stirred him. Well, some of them stirred him, but only in a physical way. None of them captured his mind and heart the way Mairi had Duncan’s or even the way his mother captured Da’s. Still, perhaps one of the lasses listening raptly to the bard sing about…
    Tayg listened more carefully. Surely it wasn’t another song about him. He rested his head in his hand. This had to stop. The songs were absurd, elevating a simple warrior to the level of a hero.
    The bard finished the song with a flourish on his harp, and applause erupted from the crowd. Several of the lasses tittered, then cast him knowing glances over their shoulders. Lasses were always fluttering around him like beautiful moths drawn to a flickering flame. “’Twould appear I am to enjoy myself,” he said, more to himself than to his companions.
    “That you must not do,” Sorcha said, catching his full attention with her serious tone. “’Tis time we spoke of your future.”
    He had made peace with his future, yet a chill ran down his spine at her words. The grimace that passed over his father’s face served to strengthen his unease.
    He pushed his chair back and propped his feet upon the table, affecting an unconcerned pose. “Wish me well, Duncan. ’Tis my future we discuss.”
    Duncan smiled. “Perhaps you shall like your future. It seems to me that you are ready for it.” He raised his cup to Tayg and drained the contents. “For me, I’m off to see to Mairi’s comfort.”
    “Give her my greetings,” Tayg said, then turned his full attention to his parents. He didn’t see any sense in putting this off any longer than his year of fighting already had. “My future?”
    Angus rose from his seat and paced the length of the dais. Sorcha watched him, but she would not meet Tayg’s eyes. His parents’ unusual behavior made the skin on his scalp prickle, not unlike the way it did just before the enemy surged into battle. He glanced from one parent to the other, waiting for one of them to speak.
    At last Angus sighed and propped a hip on the table so that Tayg was trapped between his parents. A lively tune flowed from the bard, at odds with the serious looks on Angus’s and Sorcha’s faces.
    “You ken you are to be chief, aye?”
    “Aye.”
    “You have proved your mettle this year past. I believe you will serve the clan well.”
    Tayg forced himself to maintain his relaxed pose, watching and waiting as he had done so often in war. “I shall do my best. I promised Robbie ’twould be so.”
    Angus actually smiled. “I do not doubt it. Robbie would not allow his responsibilities to go unanswered. He was always very serious in that way.”
    “Aye, he was.”
    “As we would ask you to be,” Sorcha said.
    The prickling spread from his scalp down his back, and he found himself braced for battle.
    “Sorcha, I do not think ’tis the time now to speak of such things.”
    “Wheesht, Angus, ’tis past time for the lad to wed.”
    “Wed?” Tayg’s feet thumped to the floor, and he reached for his tankard. The growing gleam in his mother’s blue eyes worried him, and he realized ’twas too late to escape before she sprang whatever plan she had on him.
    “If we are to avoid much turmoil within these walls, we must see you wed immediately. ’Twill be a long and dismal winter if the lasses are at odds over you, especially with their mums pushing them all to it.”
    “I do not wish to wed.”
    “Few men do until confronted with it,” Sorcha said. “There are plenty of willing lasses here in Culrain. You shall wed before the month is out, and all will be well.”
    “Nay,