This Heart of Mine Read Free Page B

wedding. Ye have but to claim her!”
    “Is there another, perhaps, who has captured yer heart?” Angus Gordon went on suddenly. “If there is, I’d not force this match upon ye, for I want ye to be happy with yer wife, Alex, as I was with mine. Yer mother was the love of my life, and as sad as I am to be leaving ye, I’ll be glad to be wi’ her again. It’s been a long year since my Isabelle left me.” His voice trailed off sadly.
    Alex could feel unbidden tears pricking the back of his eyelids, and he fought to prevent them from overflowing his eyes. “There’s no lass, Father,” he said quietly. “Ye know it.”
    “Then go to England and wed wi’ the girl I chose for ye. She is yers for the asking, and both Adam de Marisco and I always hoped to unite our families by this marriage. It is my dying wish, Alex. I would not take ye from another, but if there is truly no other, then ye must honor this betrothal to my friend’s daughter. Ye’ve never before objected to it. Do this final thing for me, my beloved son.”
    In the last of the icy, howling winds of winter that roared about the dull gray stone turrets of Dun Broc , Alexander Gordon heard again the voice of his dead father importuning his speedy marriage. Seated at the high board in the Great Hall of his castle, he looked at his brother-in-law, Ian Grant, and knew he had no other choice but to marry. He had but lately overheard one of his nephews saying to the other, “Papa says that one day this will all be mine. I will be the earl.”
    The innocent, yet prideful words spoken by his sister’s eldest child had suddenly brought home to Alex his father’s desperate dying wish. A Grant the next lord of BrocCairn? Never!
    Alex understood why his father had made an English match for him. The English queen was, despite her age, a maiden, and no issue of hers would inherit the throne of England. It was her cousin, and his, young James Stewart, the king of Scotland, who would one day rule England.
    Although Alex had spent as little time at the Scottish court as possible, even he could see Jamie Stewart’s eagerness to have his inheritance and flee south to a more civilized clime. The English nobility were less fractious than their Scots counterparts. The English kings had the kind of longevity a royal Stewart could not seem to count upon. Not one Scots king since the time of the first James Stewart had lived longer than forty years, and not one had died a natural death. The current Jamie must wish as would any normal man for a long life, but Scotland was not the place for it. When he inherited the throne of England and went south to claim it, those who went withhim, and those already married to good English connections, would be the ones to prosper. That was why Angus Gordon had made an English match for his son.
    Alex sat back in his chair and watched Ian Grant through narrowed eyes. Ian was a nice-enough fellow, but it was high time he made his own way. He had grown soft living at Dun Broc with all its small comforts. It was past time for him to return to his own holding in the glen below—a holding that he badly neglected—and made something of it. Forced back there, Alex thought with a wicked smile, his sister Annabella would be sure to ride her spouse hard to improve her lot.
    “I’ll be leaving for England in a few weeks’ time,” Alex began.
    “Why on earth are ye going there?” demanded his sister, stuffing a piece of pigeon pasty into her mouth. Bella had grown plump of late, Alex noted. Was she breeding again, or was it simply too much good living?
    “I’m going to claim my bride, Bella. It’s high time I married and started a family. It was our father’s dying wish.”
    Annabella Grant choked on her mouthful of pasty, looking stunned at her elder brother’s surprising revelation, but before she could swallow and speak, her husband was actually taking the initiative and speaking for them.
    “Marry? Ye’re near thirty, man! If ye must