Some Like it Scot (Scandalous Highlanders Book 4) Read Free Page B

myself.”
    â€œHavenae ye already bedded every unmarried lass in the Highlands?” his brother asked. “Nae a one’s caught yer attention?”
    â€œI’ve bedded barely three quarters of ’em.” And that wasn’t even counting the redhead in the trousers. “A night’s fun, aye, but a lifetime? Ye’re giving me the shivers.”
    â€œTimes are changing, Bear. Ye need to change, as well, or ye’ll find yerself left behind.”
    Given the alternative, being left behind didn’t sound so terrible. At any rate, not having a wife and bairns left him free to scout Haldane Abbey again. The trouser lass had called it her place, which said to him that she’d settled in there. He therefore had a fair suspicion he’d be seeing her again, and that the next time he did so, he wouldn’t be the one caught unawares.

 
    Chapter Two
    â€œElizabeth, it’s me,” Catriona MacColl announced in a low voice, making her way over a fallen doorway archway in the long hallway, down an uneven trio of stairs, and into the one solid room remaining in the old fortress.
    Or relatively solid, rather. She could see the sky in one corner, and rain trickled down the wall to gather in a growing pool creeping outward with spidery tentacles. Mostly because of the existence of several old worktables and a dented teapot she’d decided this room had once been the kitchen.
    At any rate, the old ruin had never had a proper stove that she could tell. Its last occupancy had been too long ago for such an innovation. Instead, a chest-high fireplace fitted with iron shelves and a turning rack squatted against the middle of the longest wall. The room was large and windowless, and in the days when it had been fashionable for nobles to eat food cooked on a hearth, the rack would have been turned by a servant boy or even a dog in a wheel.
    Since she had neither of those, she nudged the pile of blankets beside the hearth with the toe of her boot. “Elizabeth. Did ye put the water on to boil?” she asked, even though she could clearly see that no pot hung over the fire.
    The blankets stirred. “The water had a cricket in it.” Hazel eyes with long, straight lashes blinked beneath a neat coif of dark blond hair.
    â€œSo ye scooped it out and put on the water, aye?” Catriona dragged a heavy, three-legged table nearer the light of the fire and set down the venison to slice it into strips and then cubes with her boot knife. She needed to sharpen the damned thing; it was nearly like sawing with a spoon.
    â€œI hope we haven’t yet sunk to something that barbaric,” Elizabeth MacColl returned in her proper London tones. “I dumped it out in our pond, there.”
    Catriona stifled a sigh and sawed harder. “Then ye went out and fetched another pot of water, I assume.”
    The blankets stood. “You told me not to go outside. And I’m certainly not going to use the stuff running down the walls.”
    â€œBoiling it would’ve killed the cricket, ye know.”
    â€œBut not my memory of it being there, paddling across the surface.” Elizabeth shuddered. “Honestly, Cat, why couldn’t we stay at an inn? You said this was MacLawry land. They take in refugees. And an inn would have been warmer and drier than this. And you wouldn’t have to hunt our dinner. Or cook it.”
    â€œI reckon this is safer,” Catriona returned. “And it’s nothing I’m nae accustomed to. Now. Will ye cut up the wild onions while I fetch more water?”
    â€œYes, of course.” Elizabeth shrugged out of the blankets. She wore a pretty yellow muslin beneath a wool mauve-colored spencer jacket, fit for the fanciest drawing rooms in London. “I am trying to be helpful, you know. If you need anything sewn or embroidered, you’ll be happy I’m here.”
    â€œI’m happy now, ye goose.” Catriona straightened to hug