My True Love Read Free

staring down at the table.
    “That is carelessness, not rancor,” Hannah said with a kind smile. “Who have you bedeviled?”
    Anne thought of Ian and his taunts. If she were truly a witch, she might have silenced him. Turned him into a spider, just like the ones he liked to throw at her.
    She shook her head. “But Ian says there are witch finders about,” Anne whispered.
    “Not at Dunniwerth, Anne Sinclair.”
    She nodded. That much was true.
    Hannah reached out and tipped her chin up. She blinked, but then forced herself to meet the wise woman’s eyes. “You are not a witch, Anne. Do you believe me?”
    She wasn’t completely sure that she did. But she’d been raised to respect her elders, to listen to their words and heed their instructions. So she nodded her head and made herself smile.

 
    Chapter 1
     
    Dunniwerth Castle, Scotland
    March, 1644
    A nne tied the rope to the post erected for just such a purpose, then reached into the bottom of the boat for her basket.
    She and Hannah had become friends in the fifteen years since a frightened child had gathered her courage and ignored myth, legend and the dictates of a father she adored.
    As Anne had feared, her original journey across the loch had been discovered. Her father had, surprisingly, not prevented her visits to the wise woman. However, he had insisted that she learn to swim the loch, and be taught in the proper manner of rowing the small skiff.
    Anne took her short cut through the trees, glancing at the odd circular building in the clearing as she did so. She’d discovered it on her third visit to the island. Once a year she and Hannah tended to this place, removing the weeds, straightening the stones that lay in front of the building. It seemed the proper thing to do. The small structure with its arched doorway and elaborately carved keystone looked to have once been a chapel. And the gravestones were sad markers that turned the clearing into a place of reverence.
    Anne stepped through the opening in the scraggly bushes, past the large stone in the shape of a boot. Still further up a small incline, and she was there, the path to Hannah’s door more worn but just as inviting as it had been all those many years before.
    “You are late,” Hannah said as she entered, her smile taking the sting from her words.
    “You say that every time I come,” Anne said, placing her basket on the table. “Just as I refute it.”
    “I am older than you. You are supposed to give me respect, not arguments.”
    Anne smiled at her friend. This, too, was a constant complaint. “You would dislike it if I conceded every point to you, Hannah. You would then have no one with whom to debate.”
    Hannah laughed, the gentle sound of it cascading through the cottage.
    “You know me too well, Anne.”
    Anne smiled, placed her basket on the table. “I have the flour you wished, Hannah, and a bit of honey from the cook. She says that she will take a few of your candles in trade.”
    “Will she?” A raised eyebrow accompanied the remark.
    “You know, of course, that she sells them,” Anne said, glancing at her friend. The years had been kind to Hannah. There were few white strands among her blond hair, and her face showed its lines only in the bright sunlight. At this moment, however, there was a furrow on her forehead. A precursor to irritation. She’d been the brunt of it too many times as a child not to know the sign.
    Hannah nodded. “I’ve heard as much.”
    “Why, then, do you not confront her?”
    “There are some situations that are better left alone, Anne.”
    “Because you never come to Dunniwerth?”
    Hannah glanced at her. It was a subject rarely raised between them. Anne’s curiosity occasionally bubbled beneath good manners and the empathy she felt for the older woman. Even as a child she’d known that there were some topics that made Hannah uncomfortable. Today, however, the answer was important. Not solely because of a cook with trickery on her