How to Marry a Highlander Read Free Page A

cakes.
    But in this miniscule flat he’d brought them to a fortnight ago, he saw everything: the creases on Sorcha’s serious brow, the pallor of Elspeth’s sober face, the dampened hope in Moira’s lovely eyes, the white knuckles of Lily and Effie’s hands holding each other’s tight, the avoidance in Abigail’s hunched shoulders, and the sympathy in Una’s smile.
    “Allou a man a moment’s peace, will ye?” He unclenched a hand and rubbed the back of his neck.
    “Will ye take us to the park today, brither?” Beside Effie, Lily nodded encouragingly. His seventeen-year-old sisters were itching to be out and about.
    Elspeth crossed her arms. “So ye can ogle the gentlemen there too?”
    “There be no harm in ogling, Elspeth. ’Tis what our brither brought us here to do. Get husbands!”
    “There’s a wee bit more to getting husbands than ogling, Effie,” Una said, a twinkle in her eye. She lifted a commiserating brow at Duncan.
    He loved all his half-sisters, but secretly Una was his favorite. With her serene and ready humor she reminded him most of Miranda.
    Fortunately, Una wasn’t a daft fool who’d thrown herself into the hands of a knave and got herself killed.
    “Aye, there’s a wee bit more to it,” he said. Damn if he knew what. Back home no men of worth came calling on the poor Eads sisters. There were only farm lads, shepherds, and traveling peddlers. And all of his sisters, friendly as their mother had been, welcomed every man into the castle as though he were a saint. Only Sorcha and Una had any idea of the harm that could come to them.
    Lily and Effie were hungering for male attention; he could see it in their bright eyes every time a pair of breeches walked by. And Moira was a prize an ignoble man might steal right out from her own home if he found the opportunity—dowry or not.
    He couldn’t have left them at the castle while he came here in search of suitors. So he’d brought them along in the hopes of finding decent men who’d jump at the chance to marry an earl’s sister, however poor.
    “I’ll take ye to the park, lass,” he said.
    Effie’s brow screwed up. “Dressed like that?”
    Behind her open book, Abigail stifled a laugh.
    Duncan scowled. He stood and the tunic fell about his thighs. Woven of soft cotton like his trousers, it fit his size far better than anything else he owned.
    He moved toward the chamber he’d used as his bedchamber until a fortnight ago. “Outta ma way nou, or I will.”
    Giggles followed in his wake. He cast back a wink. Then he closed the door and stared at the feminine garments strewn across the bed that four of his sisters shared now.
    In his pocket was a total of seventy-two pounds, all the money he had in the world. After the shearing there would be enough to repair the roof on the castle or to eat over the winter. Until then, he had nothing. He didn’t know a thing about finding husbands, and the men he knew in London were the sort he would never allow near his sisters. The sort that had taken Miranda.
    The land was barren, the flocks decimated from plague the year before, famine before that, and overproduction under his father’s haphazard tenure. Whatever stores of grain and good will there’d once been, his father had lost on unwise investments that his second wife had encouraged him to pursue. When Duncan had finally gone home a year and a half ago, after nearly a decade’s absence, the place had been in ruin. The bankers had not responded to his pleas. The estate, they said, would never produce. The Eads clan would get no more assistance through honest channels.
    There was another option, of course. If he went to Myles and asked for a loan, his former employer would give it to him. But the price Myles would demand for it would be too high. He couldn’t do it. That life was behind him. It had to be. For his sisters’ sake.
    He needed air. Now. And sunlight. Anything to shove away memories of those years in dark alleys and