Meghan: A Sweet Scottish Medieval Romance Read Free Page B

a bit of a chance with him.
    And then there was her dear brother Gavin, the only brother younger than herself. Gavin held another view entirely from both Leith and Colin. He was the one who disregarded the mind and physical beauty altogether, believing it a sin to worship the temple of the spirit and a complete waste of one’s time—a woman’s, at least—to ponder any of life’s mysteries. Alas, that was something Meghan was wont to do. Her youngest brother encouraged her incessantly to seek to purify her soul, lest she end like their mother and grandmother before her—mad and all alone.
    But Meghan rather relished the thought of being alone, didn’t he realize? And if people thought her mad... well, then... She shrugged. They’d simply think her mad and maybe leave her be, wouldn’t they? And that was a good thing as far as Meghan was concerned.
    She only wished Gavin would live a little more and leave off with the preaching, for his own sake, certainly not for hers. Meghan had no qualms about boxing his ears when he carried on too much. She loved each of her brothers dearly—as she knew they did her—and she’d do anything for them, anything at all, except listen to Gavin’s accursed sermons. Her poor brother, they were nearly as harrowing as the poor raven’s unrelenting cawing.
    Mercy, but she had no notion what to do to help the accursed bird.
    She stood, hands at her hips, before the open window, frowning after it as it flew about the rafters and finally lit upon one of the support beams. And there it remained. She could swear it stared down expectantly at her.
    “Och now, I canna help ye all the way up there, don’t ye ken, ye silly creature.” Despite that she knew it was an absurd thing to do, she extended her hand to the agitated bird, and demanded, “Come down here now!”
    The raven merely flapped its wings, and cawed at her.
    Meghan crooked a finger at it. “Dinna speak to me so rudely,” she told the bird. “I canna help you if ye will not let me.”
    The raven quieted and cocked its head, peering down at her curiously, though it didn’t move.
    Had she expected it to? It was ludicrous to be nettled by the bird’s lack of response, but she was.
    “I’d wager you’d come down for Grammie Fia. Foolish auld bird,” she scolded the creature. “Stay, then, if ye—”
    “What are ye doing, lass?” a voice interrupted at her back.
    Meghan shrieked in startle, casting up her hands. She turned to face Colin. “Och, ye scared me, ye ill-bred oaf.”
    Her brother merely grinned at her, and cocked his head, in much the same manner the bird had, and Meghan narrowed her eyes at him. “Did no one ever teach you any manners?”
    “Ye know the answer to that, Meghan, love,” he said. “I learned my good manners from the same place you did.” He winked at her and chuckled. “Only it seems to me ye learned a few more lessons from daft auld Fia than I did. What do ye think you’re doing, talking to that witless bird? You don’t think it understands, now do ye?”
    Meghan’s cheeks flamed. She peered up at the bird, and then lifted her chin as she faced her brother, her hands going to her hips once again. “Of course not. I was merely trying to help the silly thing is all. It flew in through the window,” she explained, undaunted by Colin’s amused expression. “And now he canna seem to find his way back out.”
    Her brother smiled benevolently at her. “Meggie, dearlin’, ye have a good heart, lass, though you’re wasting your sweet breath. That bird does not ken a word you’re speaking and you’d do better to smack your bonnie head against a wall for all the good you’re doing.”
    “I suppose you’re right.” Meghan frowned up at the bird. “Ungrateful creature.”
    Colin’s lips curved into a roguish grin. “Of course I’m right.”
    “Och, though I hate it when you are, wicked gloating knave.”
    He lifted a brow at her. “That’s another thing you learned from auld