Highland Avenger by Hannah Howell Read Free Book Online Page B

slipped through her mind every so often.
    What she had never been able to accept, or forgive, was how thoroughly the boys’ parents had ignored their sons. Claud’s family barely stopped themselves from spitting on the children in their disgust that their precious heir would sully himself with some common wench. But this did not seem as great a crime as the way Claud paid no heed at all to his own children. Her boys had been set aside or scorned by every person who should have cared for them. Arianna could not bear it if the boys thought she, too, had deserted them.
    “Michel and Adelar will be safe, will they nay?” she asked softly as she listened to Brian settle down between his own blankets.
    Brian could hear the fear she held for those children in her voice. He had to clench his hands into tight fists to resist the need to reach out for her, to comfort her. Her love for her false husband’s bastards was something he could only admire.
    “My kin will protect them with their own lives,” he said. “As will my whole clan.”
    The words carried the force of a blood vow. Arianna knew her ability to trust had been badly damaged by Claud’s deceit. Yet, she trusted in the words Brian uttered, the promise to keep her boys safe weighting every word.
    “We are a false trail,” she whispered, suddenly fully understanding his plan.
    “Aye, and my dearest hope is that your enemy sends most of his men after us. We will lead them straight to their deaths.”

Chapter 4
     
    After making certain Sir Brian had left, Arianna groaned softly and rubbed her aching backside. Aside from a few fading bruises and the ugly remnants of some of the deeper scratches, she was fully recovered from her ordeal in the water. Since it had only been three days, she realized she had not been as injured as she had first believed. Spending three days in the saddle had left her with many a new ache, however.
    She had not worried much about the riding for she often rode and had done so since she had been a small child. The aching in her backside and thighs told her that regularly meandering around her family’s and then her husband’s lands on a placid mare was a far cry from the riding she was doing now. Arianna hoped she toughened up soon even though she was not sure that a lady should want such a thing. Her husband had certainly made enough cutting remarks about how often she rode to make her believe men did not want their women to be toughened, either.
    “But then he was ne’er truly my husband,” she said as she moved to rub down her horse.
    Her steps faltered a little when Arianna realized that the hurt and shame she usually felt upon confronting that harsh, ugly truth had eased. In the months since Claud had died and everyone had discovered the truth she herself had only just uncovered, the sting of the shame that had so crippled her had weakened. Anger, however, still flared hot whenever she thought on the matter.
    “And I have every right to be furious,” she told the horses as she moved to rub down the packhorse. “That cowardly bastard Claud used me, lied to me, and betrayed me and my clan. I wasnae his wife; I was his unwilling mistress. Aye, and he and his cursed family stole from us for they took my dowry and have ne’er offered to repay it despite the fact that I was ne’er married to their wretched son. And did his family e’er apologize for what was done to me? Nay!”
    Warmed by her anger, she did not even try to push it aside as she had been doing for far too long. Arianna gave each of the horses a pat on the flank and then moved to gather wood for a fire. She had carried the weight of her false marriage and Claud’s betrayal on her shoulders for long enough. She had also accepted the increasing derision and disregard of Claud’s close family, wondering if they were right to think she was to blame in some way for their heir’s folly in staying married to some woman they thought so far beneath him.
    Her family would be