Warrior's Moon Read Free

better man than some that had been in her life. His reputation as a fierce but fair leader even as far south as England had led to her choice to travel on his lands instead of taking a more circuitous route to her final destination.
    They rode for another ten minutes before meeting up with the Sinclair warriors.
    Shona halted her horse and the rest of her party followed suit.
    “Who are you and what are you doing on our land?” Though the big warrior’s words were abrupt and his demeanor nothing less than fierce, Shona felt no fear.
    Something about the man speaking made her think he would not hurt them. Perhaps it was the flash of concern in his eyes when he looked at her children. The Sinclair soldier would have been devastatingly handsome but for the garish scar on his cheek, but Shona felt no draw to him.
    She had only ever wanted one man in her life, despite having been married to another. And that had not changed. Nor did she believe it ever would. She did not lament her lack of interest in the opposite sex, however.
    They could not be trusted and she was better off keeping what was left of her heart for her children and her children alone.
    “I am Shona, Lady Heronshire, seeking safe passage through your laird’s lands to visit my family on Balmoral Island.” The words were formal, but she spoke them in flawless Gaelic…her native tongue.
    “Did you get that scar in a fight?” Eadan asked in Gaelic before the warrior had an opportunity to reply to Shona’s words.
    Audrey gasped, but Shona just sighed. Her son had no cork for the things that came out of his mouth.
    The fierce warrior’s attention moved to her five-year-old and he studied Eadan closely for several long moments, Shona growing increasingly nervous with each passing one. Why such an interest in her son?
    Surprise flared briefly in his gray gaze before it narrowed in inexplicable speculation. “I did. Do you ride as protector of your mother?”
    Shona didn’t understand the man’s reaction to her son, unless it was to the fact that such a small
English
child spoke Gaelic so well. She’d spoken to both her children in her native tongue since their births and they each communicated equally well in Gaelic and English.
    Just as she did.
    Her son mayhap even better than she did. His grasp of English exceeded her own, despite her years living in that country.
    Eadan puffed up his little boy chest and did his best to frown like the warriors in front of them. “I do.”
    “You sound like a Scot, lad, but you dress like a Sassenach.”
    “What’s a sassy patch?” Marjory whispered from her perch in Shona’s lap.
    “An Englishman,” the big warrior answered, with a barely there smile for her daughter’s interesting pronunciation of the word, proving he’d heard the quietly uttered question.
    “Oh.” Pop, Marjory’s thumb went into her mouth. It was a habit Shona and Audrey had worked hard to break her of, but the little girl still sucked her thumb when she was overly tired or nervous.
    After two weeks of grueling travel and coming upon men who looked more like giants than soldiers, the tot was no doubt both. Shona sighed again.
    This brought the big man’s attention back to her. “I am Niall, second-in-command to the Sinclair laird. My men and I will accompany you to the keep.”
    “Thank you.” What Shona really wanted to say was
thank you but no
.
    She’d rather head directly for the island. She was tired of traveling and she wasn’t going to feel safe until she’d gotten the Balmoral laird’s promise of protection for her and her small band.
    To refuse the hospitality of the other laird, however, would not only be considered rude, but she’d no doubt they would end up traveling to the keep no matter what she might say on the matter.
    She’d learned long ago that some things were beyond her control.
    *   *   *
    T he keep was a fortress, far superior to that of the
MacLeod holding where she’d grown up and even more