Stealing the Bride Read Free Page A

courage the same as any Leask man. But if ye want the greatest reward, ye shall have to be willing to earn it.”
    “I never thought to marry above where I was born.” She didn’t care for how meek her words sounded. The church would approve but her pride didn’t.
    “Fine, Elspeth, if ye have outgrown yer boldness, so be it. Simply tell the man to go back to his land. That ye will not have him. I’ll find ye someone else to wed.”
    “That would be rude since ye have invited him here.”
    She closed her lips because her brother shrugged in response to her argument. Men. They were so foreign to women. She often wondered just what God had been thinking to create it so that they needed each other to produce children.
    “Remember, Elspeth, William Wallace didna do what those that came before him did. He employed new ideas and strategies and defeated the English because of his modern thinking.”
    “We are not talking about battle here, Brother. Besides, I wouldn’t be the first woman to ripen with a bastard and be denied a wedding. What of my child? It is not an easy thing to be called bastard.”
    “Monroe will wed the mother of his child. The man is still wearing a beard in mourning for his family.”
    That shocked her. Since the man had invited his neighbors over to negotiate for a bride, she would have expected him to shave and move on.
    What sort of a man longed for a woman and daughter that fate had stolen from him? A son she might understand, but now she felt a tender stirring inside her chest. Maybe the man didn’t want to get married any more than she did, but was being pressured by his kin. That was something she understood.
    Dunmore shrugged. “Besides, I did nae promise him ye’d handfast.”
    “Ye did nae? In truth, Dunmore?” That tender emotion stirred again, this time stronger. Could it be that the man wanted to meet her and discover if there was anything between them? Now that would be too much to hope for. It would mean he was not ruled by lust for coin and land.
    Dunmore cuffed her gently beneath the chin. “I told him that ye are wild and proud of yer purity.”
    Elspeth snorted at him. “Now yer back to praising me for holding tightly onto my virginity. What happened to yer suggestion of handfasting?”
    “Be who ye are and meet the man. If he does nae please ye, I’ll negotiate a contract with the Setons. There’s a second son in that clan I think would have ye with what ye come with.” He held up his hand to still her next comment. “But Monroe is still coming here to meet ye, so ye can hide above stairs if ye’re too worried about not being able to remain a maiden just because ye’ve been in the same room with him.”
    Elspeth frowned at him, but her brother clearly thought his plan a sound one. She battled against the urge to feel defeated but it was becoming harder, especially when she noticed her brother’s men peeking around the edge of the wall to see how she was taking the news.
    Oh, fie upon it.
    With her own mother gone, there was no woman with enough position to force her brother to see reason.
    “I am going riding to think the matter through,” she announced in a firm tone. “And I am taking yer horse, not some tired-out mare.”
    That drew a frown from her brother. He adored his stallion, but so did she. At least there would be some enjoyment from the day’s events. Her brother didn’t care to share the prized animal but she was going to take what enjoyment she might.
    “You will nae.” Dunmore crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s time for ye to stop straddling a horse. No man wants that in a wife. I should have forbid ye that years ago.”
    Elspeth narrowed her eyes. “I’m asking for a bit of time to think it through. ’Tis nae much of a concession to let me ride out on a horse that has some life in him. Seeing as how ye told Monroe how untamed I am. Ye can’t very well have the man showing up and seeing me walking along on a mare with my legs hanging