Scottish Brides Read Free

one?”
    With even greater reluctance, she admitted, “Aye.”
    â€œWould you tell me why, when you knew I came on Lady Valéry’s behest to gather the traditions of Scotland and record them, you failed to tell me about the marriage kilt?” He walked toward her on silent feet, his shadow falling on her, the smoke of the fire chasing after him as if it wished to caress him. “You told me about the stone on the hill, reputed to be placed by giants, and about the wishing well from whence the ghosts rise on All Hallows’ Eve—things so common to Scotland, they were not worth writing down. But the marriage kilt—you said nothing of that.”
    Of course she had said nothing. The four days he’d spent with her had been a time set aside from reality and duty. For four brief, enchanted days, she had cared little about shouldering her duties as a true leader of her people should. She had cared only about Hadden and the way he made her feel.
    Not love; she knew about love. That was what she had felt for her uncle before he’d been put to the horn, and her father and her brother before they’d fled to America, and her mother before she’d died of grief.
    This had been a different kind of emotion—carefree, full of laughter and unexpected passion. She hadn’t cared that he would inevitably walk away; she had only cared about grasping one perfect moment before it was too late and she died an old maid worn down by her burdens.
    â€œThe marriage kilt?” he prompted.
    She lifted her chin and looked at him. He stood too closely. She could see each strand of his hair, trimmed and combed and damp, smell the scent of heather and leather and soap, sense his outrage fed by the need for her that smoldered in him. Every hair on her skin lifted, but she wouldn’t step away, and she dared not look away. She didn’t remember him being so tall , and she had never thought she would be afraid of him.
    But she was.
    â€œI didn’t remember it.” A lie.
    Which he recognized. “You didn’t remember it,” he repeated. “You didn’t remember the pride of the MacNachtans.”
    â€œNo.” Another lie, but better to tell a lie than to acknowledge her own skittish decision to never think about marriage, mention marriage, and, most especially, not to dream about marriage and how it would be to share her life with one man who would be there for her forever . . . or until another vista beckoned. “Why would I remember that old thing? It’s hidden in a trunk somewhere, and I never think of it.”
    â€œLady Valéry said the MacNachtans drag it out to show all their guests.”
    â€œI don’t.” It would have been better if she could have held his gaze. But the blue flame in his eyes scorched her, and her nerve broke. She looked off to the side.
    â€œCoward.” He only breathed the word.
    Yet she heard. She heard everything he said, but she could not hear everything he thought. They were not so attuned as that. She would not allow it to be so.
    The silence mounted as she watched his hand rise from his side toward her. Toward her face, there to stroke her cheek as he had loved to do. His outstretched fingers quivered as if he fought the need to touch her. Fought it as much as she fought the need to be touched.
    A footstep outside the doorway made them spring apart, and Sima bustled into the chamber followed by two beaming maids. One carried a steaming tureen of soup, the other a basket with the promised potato scones. The maids placed the food in the center of the small, round table while Sima took in the scene at a glance. Andra thought she heard a small huff of exasperation before the housekeeper burst into speech. “Sit ye both down and eat yer fill o’ me fine cock-a-leekie soup. ’Tis a long time until mornin’, and a fair climb t’ the top o’ the tower.”
    Startled, Andra asked, “The