Claire Delacroix by The Last Highlander Read Free Book Online

on him,” Morgaine said quietly. “He fell down the stairs and hit his head.”
    Her soft tone undermined Alasdair’s resistance to her charms. He forced himself to watch the advisors. What the enchantress said was true enough, but the pair made more of this revelation than Alasdair expected. They nudged each other knowingly, exchanged a wink, then offered him bright smiles.
    The man pushed the torture device up his nose once more. “But all the same, you must know your Scottish history. Can you settle this dispute for us, for once and for all? What happened at Bannockburn?”
    “Bannockburn?” Alasdair racked his brain but could not remember anything of a place with such a name. It did not help his memory to have the enchantress’s emerald gaze locked upon him. With eerie certainty, Alasdair knew she watched him without even looking her way.
    Yet, despite her obvious interest in his response, Alasdair could not lie. “I do not even know of such a place as Bannockburn,” he admitted.
    “Aha! You see - they don’t even teach their children about such a humiliating loss!” the man crowed. He pulled a shiny and colorful volume from his pocket, then handled what must be a very precious manuscript with abandon. Fanning the pages, he bent the book open and tapped the vellum with a knowing fingertip.
    “Says all about it, right there.”
    Alasdair leaned forward, as he was evidently expected to do, but could make no sense of the myriad black lines.
    He supposed this would not be an opportune moment to admit that he had never seen much point in learning to read. That was the business of monks and clerics, not men who had battles to fight and a living to wrest from hostile soil.
    Or so he had long maintained.
    ’Twas Morgaine, to Alasdair’s astonishment, who seemed to guess the truth.
    She sidled up beside him, some enticingly feminine scent rising from her skin to tease Alasdair’s nostrils. He thought immediately of a pallet piled high with coverlets and pulled close to a fire, the sorceress Morgaine securely in his lap.
    Alasdair clenched his fists as a fantasy that could only be magically induced possessed his mind.
    But he could not stop the image of himself peeling away those garments that revealed Morgaine’s form so temptingly, kissing those luscious lips all the while. He guessed that she would have skin as creamy as fresh milk, softer than soft and smooth from her head to her toe. He saw his hand sliding over the curve of her shoulder, slipping downward to cup her breast...
    “After the failure to regain Edinburgh Castle,” she read crisply, her finger tracing the path of the script. “Robert the Bruce rapidly lost ground in his attempts to claim control of Scotland from the English. In the wake of his failures, Bruce died forgotten...”
    The words slowly penetrated and Alasdair straightened with a snap. This fiendish creature had laid claim to his very mind!
    “That is a lie!” Alasdair interrupted, outraged that even Morgaine would insist on such travesty. “That is a clarty lie! Robert the Bruce is a hero, yet full of vim and vigor! And Edinburgh Castle was taken from the English just this last night!”
    The trio blinked, clearly unconvinced.
    “Last night?” Morgaine breathed. She stood right beside him, her breast nearly touching his arm, but Alasdair steeled himself against her charms.
    “Aye, last night it was,” he said firmly, his certainty in the timing faltering slightly before such skepticism. “Or perhaps the night before, I am not certain how long I slept.”
    The three were still openly dubious.
    “I led the attack myself!” Alasdair insisted. He turned to Morgaine, certain he could persuade her of the truth. “You have but to take me there! Take me to Edinburgh keep and I will show you the truth!”
    Her eyes were filled with sympathy. “We are there,” she said quietly and offered him an apologetic smile.
    Nay! It could not be true! Alasdair looked about himself with alarm.