The Love Slave Read Free Page B

his house as soon as they were weaned. Indulf, who was two and a half, and Culen, who was one, were still nursing, but he’d have them as soon as they were not. He realized he should have taken the elder children three years ago. Their mother was a cold woman. For a brief moment his thoughts turned to Regan MacDuff. She had no one, poor lassie. Her mother’s passion was for Gruoch alone. Regan would be better off in the convent to which he was sending her. His cousin Una was the abbess there. Regan would find kindness and companionship within the walls of St. Maire’s.
    Young Donald Ferguson ran from the hall of the tower house and up the hill where the sheep were pastured. To his surprise, he found both of the twins, but Jamie MacDuff was there as well, as Donald had known he would be. “Gruoch!” he called. “The MacFhearghuis is in the hall, and he would see ye! I’ve come to fetch ye. Yer to be married next week, sister! My brother, Ian, is eager for his bride!” Donald grinned.
    Gruoch MacDuff turned from the young man with whom she had been in conversation. “Dinna speak so intimately to me, whelp,” she chided Donald. Then she asked, “When did they decide the wedding date?”
    “Just now,” he said. “My father asked the she-wolf who is our mother if yer flow wasn’t finally upon ye. She said it was just this month, but I know that to be a lie.” He grinned again at her.
    Gruoch paled. “Ye canna prove it,” she said low.
    “And if ye tell yer father,” Regan interjected, “ye’ll nae live long enough to join the MacFhearghuis’s household, Donald” She smiled sweetly at him, all the while fingering the dirk in her waistband “Think very carefully, whelp, before you decide what you will do.”
    “Yer as mean as our mam,” he told her sourly, and turned back to the tower house.
    “They say I’m like my sire, Torcull MacDuff,” Regan called after him, laughing.
    “Are ye afraid of nothing at all?” Gruoch asked her twin. “I dinna think ye’ll make a good nun, Regan mine.”
    “I hae no desire to be a nun, but a nun I’ll be,” her sister answered. “There is no other choice open to me.”
    “Ye could take a man, and hae a bairn,” Jamie MacDuff spoke.
    “And be hunted down and killed wi’ my babe because I am in line to inherit Ben MacDui? I thank ye for yer suggestion, Jamie MacDuff, but ’tis nae a good one, I fear. The MacFhearghuis is a fierce man, and a bad enemy to hae, as our father found out.”
    “If ye switched places wi’ Gruoch and pretended to be her, then ye’d be Ian Ferguson’s bride. If ye did, Gruoch and I could flee away to some other part of Alba, or Daldriada, or Strathclyde, to live our lives in peace, free of the Fergusons.” His brown eyes were serious.
    Gruoch gasped with his words. “Ye might at least ask me before ye decide to change my life,” she said sharply, and Regan hid a smile. “I am the heiress to Ben MacDui, not Regan!”
    “Do ye nae want to wed wi’ me then, Gruoch?” He looked hurt
    “I’m betrothed to another, Jamie MacDuff, and besides,how would ye support me and the bairns we would hae? Yer no lord.”
    “The MacFhearghuis will be wondering where ye are,” Regan reminded her twin. “Come, we must go.” She looked at the crestfallen young man. “Yer a fool, Jamie MacDuff,” she said to him. Then taking Gruoch by the hand, she led her back to the tower house.
    “Why do ye lead him on so?” Regan demanded as they hurried along.
    Gruoch shrugged wordlessly, and Regan knew she would get no more from her unless her sister wanted to tell her. Doted on by their mother, Gruoch was but a younger version of Sorcha MacDuff. Much of what she thought, she kept to herself. She had a passion for vengeance against those who she believed had done her wrong. Still, there was an odd bond between the twins, for Regan sensed a fragility beneath Gruoch’s hard veneer. Perhaps that was why she was always jumping to her sister’s