Chieftain by Arnette Lamb Read Free Book Online

suppose Amauri’s been too busy to carry Lord Drummond’s luggage up.”
    To which chamber, she asked herself for the hundredth time. When no answer came, she again faced the grim truth that she had no idea of what to do with Drummond Macqueen. “I haven’t set Amauri to it yet.”
    “You could move Alasdair in with me and have his room to yourself.”
    Fairhope Tower had no guest chamber. When Red Douglas or Sheriff Hay visited, Johanna followed custom and relinquished her chamber for important guests. Bertie had given her a temporary solution to the problem of sleeping arrangements. “Have Evelyn move Alasdair’s belongings to your room and my things to his—before she sets the table, and tell her she’s to keep my business to herself or I’ll send her back to her family.”
    “I’ll tell her, but she cooed like a dove just moments ago when she spoke of Lord Drummond. Sooner or later she’ll tell him whatever he wants to know. If she doesn’t, young Alasdair will.”
    It was true, and Johanna must have ready answers to all of Drummond’s questions. But first she must know more about him. “Do you think he loved Clare?”
    Bertie stared at the ceiling. “He never told her so, although she asked often enough. They were young when they wed—he three and twenty, and Clare almost three and ten. He treated her well enough, but he never gave up his dallying women. One of them bore him two sons. Poor mites both died before they crawled, or so the gossip had of it.”
    Johanna knew how she would feel if her husband took a mistress and gave the woman children. She’d feel betrayed, and she would doubt her own worth. Poor Clare. Such misery might lurk around the corner. Of necessity, she grew more determined to speed Drummond to the Highlands and into the bosom of his clan.
    “I doubt he’ll stay,” she said.
    “I doubt he’ll leave.”
    Fear engulfed her. “Do not say that Bertie. He must go before he finds out I’m not Clare.”
    “You’ve won over bigger trolls than him, and canonize me if the sheriff offers his congratulations of it. I say hell quaff a few when he hears the news.”
    Ramsay Hay, the sheriff of Dumfries, had been her devoted champion until she had packed away the trappings of mourning. Then he had turned erstwhile suitor. Although she had been blunt and insistent when refusing his attentions, he had been equally persistent. She seldom worried about other men approaching her, for Ramsay kept most of them at bay. But could he chase off a husband?
    She tapped the stack of letters on her desk. “I’ve written him a message. I wrote to Sister Margaret and Meridene, too.”
    Tenderness wreathed Bertie’s weathered face. “The abbess’ll wear out a rosary praying for you. Mistress Meridene will picture it on one of her tapestries.”
    Never had children been so fortunate as Clare and Johanna, and later Meridene, for Sister Margaret had cared for them as any mother would. She had been so protective and nurturing that Johanna sometimes thought the abbess had chosen wrongly in her vocation. “I asked her to visit”
    “’Twould be grand if she did, and without haste, for Ramsay Hay will run his horse to ground getting here. Pity any who runs before his mission.”
    Moved by a fierce protectiveness toward her home and her son, she walked to the window and scanned the outer bailey. “Ramsay’s first visit should prove interesting and diverting. When he arrives, I’ll tell Alasdair he can patrol with the watch.”
    “He’ll pass up a custard for that.”
    “If there’s trouble between Drummond and Ramsay, it won’t do for Alasdair to witness it.”
    Bertie’s eyes twinkled with glee. “We should also bar swooning women and fretful babes from the table that night.”
    Johanna only half listened, for she had spied the elephant at last. Her heart clamored in her breast, for the animal appeared as a small gray dot on the horizon.
    Drummond was taking Alasdair for a ride. What if he took