Bride for a Knight by Sue-Ellen Welfonder Read Free Book Online

walking stick Jamie was sure she’d used in his youth. “Alan Mor had the idea after your brothers . . .
er
. . . when his eldest daughter no longer had a betrothed. And we”—she waved a hand at the clansmen suddenly hanging on her every word—“agreed for your da.”
    Jamie’s eyes flew wide. “You agreed for him?”
    Morag nodded, a touch of belligerence tightening her jaw.
    “What else were we to do?” She tilted her head. “Your da isn’t by his wits and willna leave his bed. So we held a clan council. God kens, he’d reached a fine alliance with the Mathesons and he needs the grazing grounds that would’ve been Sorcha’s bride portion. Alan Mor offered a way to uphold the agreement—”
    “By seeing me wed to Matheson’s youngest daughter?” Jamie stared at her. “Da knows nothing of this?”
    “He does now,” Morag owned, still looking too uncomfortable for Jamie’s liking. “He’s agreed to honor the alliance.”
    “And I wouldn’t be standing here were I not willing to meet my obligations,” Jamie returned, his gaze sliding again to the Horn of Days, the great looping swath of his grandfather’s plaid hanging so proudly above it. “He needn’t worry I would unsay his sacred word.”
    Rather than answer him, Morag fidgeted. “A man of your da’s ilk is ne’er so easily pleased.”
    Jamie looked at her with narrowed eyes, but she’d clamped her lips together and he knew the futility of trying to pry them apart.
    So he glanced about the smoke-hazed hall, keenly aware of his kinsmen’s speculative stares and the telltale shifting of their feet. The revealing way the tense silence throbbed in the air.
    Curling his fingers around his sword belt, he frowned against his suspicions. Morag was keeping something from him and there was only one way to find out what it was. Not that he should care, all things considered.
    But another glance at the dais end of the hall, this time at the empty laird’s chair, twisted his heart. Much as he didn’t care to admit any such weakness.
    Sentiment was a dangerous thing.
    A pitfall he’d learned to avoid whenever his father crossed his mind.
    Giving in to other emotions, he grabbed Morag one more time and planted a smacking kiss on her cheek. “Dinna you worry,” he said, lifting his voice so all could hear him. “I am not here to set Da’s plan to naught. And I’ll do my best to mend the rift between us.”
    His declaration made, he snatched up a platter of hot, cheese-filled pasties—a savory favorite of his da’s—and strode from the hall, swiftly mounting the spiraling stone steps to his father’s bedchamber.
    A room steeped in darkness and shadows for the shutters were securely fastened and none of the torches or cresset lamps had yet been lit. The only light came from a large log fire blazing on the hearth and a lone night candle.
    Munro Macpherson lay asleep in his bed, the covers pulled to his chin, one arm flung over his head.
    And the longer Jamie hovered on the threshold gaping at him, the harder he found it to breathe.
    So he stalked into the room and plunked down his peace offering on a table beside the hearth. “Cheese pasties just as you like them,” he said, his da’s snores telling him he hadn’t been heard.
    “You’re looking fine,” he lied, wondering when his great stirk of an irritable, cross-grained father had grown so old and frail. “A bit of sustenance in your belly, a hot bath, and you’ll be looking even better.”
    “I dinna want a bath and I told the lot of you I’m not hungry!” Munro’s eyes popped open and he glared at Jamie. “I only want—holy saints!” he cried, diving beneath the covers. “Would you jump out of the dark at me again?”
    “I’m no ghost.” Jamie crossed the room and pulled the covers from his father’s head. “I’m James of the Heather, come home to help you set things aright.”
    “You!” Munro pushed up on his elbows, color flooding back into his face. “I gave