Elizabeth English - The Borderlands 02 by Laird of the Mist Read Free Book Online

kin forever. His mind had known that all along, but the agonizing burden of
guilt he carried had blocked out every other pain. If he thought of it at all,
it was with a bitter sense of justice. What right had he to warmth or happiness
when his foster brother and the men whose safety was his responsibility, all
lay moldering in cold clay? But tonight his sight had cleared and he saw that
in the madness of his grief, he had thrown away everything that still had
meaning for him.
    He braced himself against the shattering wave of
homesickness that threatened to overwhelm him. His choices had been made and
there was no turning back. All he could do was go on, living one day to the
next, taking each moment as it came.
    "Tell me about these bairns of yours," he
said to Jennie, trying hard to return her smile, then broke off as a crash
resounded through the hall.
    A tray of wooden mazers lay scattered on the stone
floor in a puddle of spilled ale. Above stood a woman, her face bone white
beneath her coif. The smile faded from Alistair's lips as their eyes met.
    It was her. Oh, it couldn't be, not here and now, and
yet it was. "I am but a mortal woman," she had said, but he hadn't
quite believed her. It seemed completely incongruous to see such a woman in
Maxwell's dingy hall, dressed in the common clothing that ordinary women wore. But
it was her. He knew her with a flash of certainty too deep to doubt.
    Yet a moment later he did doubt it, for this
woman was very different than the young lass he had met on Beltane Eve. She
looked at least ten years older—close to his own age, thirty, he guessed. Her
gown was a hideous high-necked thing that hung loosely on her gaunt frame. A
plain linen coif covered every bit of her hair and framed a face too pale and
thin for beauty. Her cheeks were sharp, her mouth a taut thin line, so
different from the full and lovely lips he had touched so briefly with his own.
    But her eyes—ah, once he looked into her eyes he knew
her once again. Even at this distance he could see them shining like sapphires.
And beneath that ugly coif was hair as black as midnight. But who was she? A
servant? Impossible! This was some sort of trick, or a disguise...the whole
thing made no sense. His heart began to pound and shake within his breast as
they faced each other across the crowded hall.
    "Clumsy bitch!"
    Brodie Maxwell grabbed her by the arm and drew his
hand back. Alistair was across the floor before the motion was complete.
    Brodie rounded on him, scowling, and tried to shake
Alistair's hand from his wrist. "She's my wife, Kirallen, and I'll thank
ye to stay out of it."
    Wife?   Oh,
no, she couldn't be his wife! Not Brodie Maxwell! The eldest of the brood was a
blunt and surly man, with a slow wit and fearsome temper. Oh, Brodie could not
be wed to this faerie woman. The very thought was sickening! Alistair looked at
her and she bowed her head, a muscle twitching at the corner of her mouth.
    "Well, wife or no, she's but a wee bit of a
thing," Alistair said, keeping his tone light and friendly. "Hitting
her won't mend matters. Instead why don't ye come and tell me what you're
paying."
    Brodie' hand fell from his wife's arm and he gave a
short bark of laughter. "Dinna tell me you've come to fight for us! It
must be true then, all I've heard. Banished, were ye? Banished wi' a price upon
your head?"
    "That is my own affair," Alistair said,
resisting the temptation to smash his fist squarely into Brodie's face.
    "Not if ye fight for me, it's not."
    "'Tis my sword for hire, not my past. Are ye
interested or no'?"
    Lady Maxwell slipped away back toward the kitchen. She
stopped at the doorway and looked over her shoulder with a fleeting smile that
stopped Alistair's breath.
    "God's blood, ye always were a touchy bastard,
Kirallen," Brodie said. "Too proud by half—at least while Ian was
alive. Come down a bit, haven't ye, now that he's gone?"
    Alistair would have given anything to spin on his heel
and walk away. Or