Warrior’s Redemption Read Free

complain aloud that his life couldn’t possibly get any more complicated?
    Malcolm MacDowylt, beleaguered laird of the MacGahan clan, pinched the skin on the bridge of his nose and wished to the gods he’d never stepped foot out of his bedchamber this day. The bird that had flown into his open window at sunrise should have been warning enough of the gods’ intent at mischief. Foolishly, he’d ignored the sign and carried on.
    Walk softly and have a care for your tongue, lad, lest you stir the anger of the old gods.
    His father’s voice echoed in his mind, naught but a memory now.
    Aye, the old gods were busy this day. Neither his heavy burden of guilt nor the cursed drought that had plagued the land for months, threatening a winter of starvation for his people, had satisfied the denizens of Asgard. Not even his younger brother’s arrival thisvery morning with the distressing news of his father’s passing and his sister’s resulting peril had satisfied their perverse pastime of plaguing him.
    No, their judgment of his failures made clear their anger was in full bloom. Now, as if to drive home the spear of their discontent, they’d sent this
woman
to torment him.
    “Am I to be kept waiting in attendance upon your daydreaming for the entire night, or will you send a servant to prepare my chamber?”
    Of all the penance he might have expected the old gods to demand of him, he’d never imagined they would send Isabella’s mother to torment him.
    So much for his ability to imagine the worst. The truth of the matter stood before him in all her arrogant glory. Elesyria Al´ Byrn clearly expected his meek compliance with her demands.
    What choice had been left him? None. At least none that was honorable, and he would consider no others.
    “As those who brought you here have seemingly left without you”—if they’d ever been there to begin with!—“I can hardly turn you out into the mercy of the night, now can I?”
    “Tinklers,” she murmured with smile and a sigh, her hand fluttering through the air like a midsummer butterfly. “Everyone knows how unreliable they are.”
    Tinklers unreliable? Not in his experience. They were, however, rumored to be agents of the Fae. Just as Isabella was rumored to have been born of a Fae mother. The very woman, it would appear, nowstanding in front of him, her foot tapping impatiently on the stone floor.
    “Well? It’s hardly proper to keep your own dear mother-in-law standing about on these old legs.” The woman lifted a hand to her back and stretched as if she’d reached the limits of her endurance.
    His own dear mother-in-law, indeed.
    More like his own personal bundle of guilt.
    “Janet!” he called, startled to find the old maid already at his side, her disapproving glare fastened on him. “Please show my—show Isabella’s mother to a guest chamber and see that she’s made comfortable.”
    “And high time it is, too,” Janet muttered, a disapproving glare cast his direction. “It’s more respect for yer elders you should be showing, if you dinna mind my saying so.”
    Not that it ever mattered what he minded when it came to the chief maid in his castle. Janet always freely spoke her mind. He had, after all, encouraged her to do so.
    The women turned to leave the solar but his guest stopped, sending a warning smile in his direction. “I’ll be about settling my things in my chamber for now, but come first light, I’ll be back down. I’m wanting a chat with you, my son. There’s much I’ll be wanting to hear from your own lips. Much I have need to hear about what’s happened to my Isabella.”
    Malcolm dipped his head in a respectful nod and, after the women departed, once again pinched the spot between his eyes as if by pressure alone he could force the worry from his brow.
    There was one discussion he’d no desire to hurry into.
    His marriage to Isabella had been nothing more than a means to an end. He’d barely known the woman, but the act had allowed