Highland Song Read Free Page A

himself, lest they think he’d gone and gotten into Seana’s whiskie .
     
     
     
    At home Gavin could hear everyone gathering in the hall to sup so he took the opportunity to run back to his chamber to snag himself another tunic before anyone could spy him running around half bared.
    Luckily, his sister Meggie was no longer doing his laundry, and wasn’t likely to notice that the green tunic she’d sewn for him last year had suddenly gone missing. Alison, his eldest brother’s new wife, was too sweet to ever say a word, even were she to notice. But she wouldn’t. She was too busy trying to build Leith a proper home—not that Meggie hadn’t done so. In fact, Gavin couldn’t help but wonder how Montgomerie was faring with his warden of a sister. Like their grandminny, Meghan was a force to be reckoned with and like their Da, she had a temper as unpredictable as the Highland winds.
    Och, but in the end, they had all been burdened with their father’s demons—even sweet Meggie.
    Morosely, his thoughts centered on their father. The old man had only smiled ever when his cock was between a pair of thighs or his tongue was deep in a jug of whiskie . Not much else had pleased him. Gavin and Meghan, being the youngest, had mostly been spared his heavy hand, while Leith had borne the brunt of their Da’s temper.
    As for poor Colin… his Da had dragged him out by the collar wherever he went carousing. As a result, his middle brother had learned the ways of women long before most of their peers had come out from beneath their minny’s skirts. It should have made for a poor husband, but Colin was surprising them all with Seana.
    For his part, Leith drove himself and everyone else to death’s bloody doorstep in pursuit of perfection. Alison MacLean with her crossed eyes, was the last woman any of them would have suspected he would lose his heart to. And yet he had.
    In fact, both his brothers had wed women who, while lovely, would be deemed by their father’s standards as less than perfect.
    Gavin wasn’t necessarily drawn to beauty and in fact he believed beauty reared demons of another sort—had Meggie not suffered enough over hers? Like their mother and grandmother before her, his sister had borne the biting tongue of women for leagues. “Mad Meghan Brodie” they had named her, and only Lyon Montgomerie—a Sassenach—had ever had the balls to match wits with his canny sister. Gavin had to chuckle over that, for it seemed to him that, despite the claims that her husband was a beast on the battlefield, in his sister’s presence, Montgomerie was naught more than a hapless pussycat. And come to think of it, he wondered where all the cats had gone to today. They had simply disappeared.
    Unbidden, his thoughts returned to the painted lady...
    She was certainly beautiful, though not in a conventional way, however she wasn’t his, he reminded himself, nor was he looking to fill his bed. Nay, he had too many other things to concern himself with right now. He had not spent his entire life fighting his Da’s influences to succumb to them now. If, indeed, he ever did wed, he wanted a sweet Highland lass—not too beautiful, but pleasing to the eye—someone who was loyal and passionate and full of love. Someone who was soft-hearted and meek but strong in body with a song in her heart.
    Anyway, he would likely never see the girl again. She’d fled without even telling him her name, and he doubted, despite her claim to rights, that she was from anywhere near these parts.
    From the hall, the sound of voices and laughter drifted to his ears, but the female voices were new to this house. It filled him with a strange void. He sighed, giving his bower a long look. This house where he had lived his entire life was growing quite crowded. Everything was changing. He missed the fresh blooms Meggie had kept in his chamber... the way she had fluffed his pillow and kept the brazier burning in anticipation of his return. Now both his