Bride of the Black Scot by Elaine Coffman Read Free Book Online

clans.”
    “It was still uncivilized.”
    His look was direct. “I spared the third man, did I not?”
    Her throat was too dry to respond.
    When she did not speak, his brows narrowed. “You should not
judge that which you know nothing about,” he said.
    Speechless still, she stared at him. In the moonlight he had
been a thing of beauty: the strong angles of his face; the play of firelight on
his dark hair. She did not realize the man she teased with reckless ease was
such a mighty warrior.
    Her first thought looking at him in the bright light of day
was that she had jumped into water way over her head.
    Dumbstruck, she allowed Angus to give her a leg up. The
moment she was in the saddle, she collapsed in a weak heap.
    Stephen rode up beside her. “Perhaps your speechless state
is a sign of wisdom,” he said.
    “Every man has his weak side,” she said in her defense, then
urged her horse forward.
    “Aye,” he said softly, “and you may prove to be mine.”
    At that moment, Edith came charging forth on her small pony,
looking a bit worse for wear, her hair flying about her face, bonnet askew.
“M’lady, are you all right?”
    “I am fine, Edith,” Juliette said. Then seeing the concern
on Edith’s face, she smiled and said, “Truly.”
    “Oh, m’lady, when I saw him riding back with you…his sword
all bloody…oh, my heart fair dropped to my feet. How many of them were there?
Did they touch you? I have never seen such a bloody display of vengeance. I do
hope you turned your head away, m’lady. It wouldn’t do for a lady of your
breeding to witness such barbaric acts as blood drawing I must—”
    “ Silence! ”
    Stephen Gordon’s voice ripped through the air and echoed
through the trees beyond. Juliette started to say something, then thought
better of it.
    Stephen looked at Edith’s slack jaw, then at Angus. “If she
so much as opens her mouth, gag her.”
    “Aye,” Angus said, showing no emotion when Edith snapped her
mouth shut.

Chapter Four
     
    Soon they were on their way again, Juliette taking the place
Stephen assigned her, to ride beside him on her own horse this time. In spite
of what he said about gagging Edith, Juliette found she could not be quiet. Perhaps
it was simply a way to ease the stiffness from her body, or to keep from
thinking about the bloody scene she had witnessed earlier. “How much farther?”
she asked Stephen.
    “To where?”
    “To Craigmoor Castle, of course!”
    “Four days ride…more or less.”
    She sighed in exasperation. “And where exactly is Craigmoor
Castle located?”
    “Near the village of Craigmoor.”
    Juliette gritted her teeth and prayed for patience. It would
not do, she supposed, for her to knock him from his horse. In truth, she was
ready to throttle the man. “And where, pray tell, is the village of Craigmoor
located? Is it near the coast?”
    “In Scotland, you are never more than forty miles from
water, lass.”
    She nodded. “Thank you for that interesting bit of
information. I shall try to remember it, for I am certain there will be many
times when I will want to pass such enlightenment on to others.”
    He didn’t say anything, but that didn’t bother Juliette. She
had spent half of her life being ignored by her father and her younger sisters.
“Are you going to tell the Black Scot about the MacBeans?”
    He gave her a suspicious look. “How do you know they were
MacBeans?”
    “Just before we stopped, you said we were in MacBean
territory, so naturally I thought…they were MacBeans, were they not?”
    “Aye, they were MacBeans.”
    “Were they after me?”
    “They tried to take you, did they not?”
    “Yes, but did they come looking…particularly for me?”
    “Aye, I told you about that before. They would have seen the
taking of you as a good way to humiliate me, nettle the King of England and
fill their coffers with ransom money.”
    “Oh…ransom. You mean they wouldn’t have forced me to marry
the leader of the