Lord of the Black Isle by Elaine Coffman Read Free Book Online Page A

when she felt a hand clamp around her wrist and she was hauled ignominiously to her feet. She searched her mind for an excuse, knowing full well that Angus MacLean was going to be furious with her, and she was now wishing she had not tarried to look at the stranger.
    â€œWhat do ye think ye are doing oot here? Are ye daft, woman?”
    It wasn’t the voice of MacLean but of one of his soldiers. She glared at the hand gripping her wrist, and then, without looking at him, she said, “I must be. I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
    â€œYe would do well to mind yer tongue. What are ye doing roaming aboot here alone and afoot? Ha’ ye no sense?”
    None of MacLean’s men would ask her such a question, so Elisabeth turned her head and stared into the handsome, chiseled face of a man with the darkest blue eyes she’d ever seen, so dark, they were almost purple. But her wrist was starting to feel the loss of circulation.
    â€œ Ouch! You’re cracking my wrist, you ogre,” she said angrily, and saw he looked irritated enough to really and truly put her head on a pike. And suddenly, she saw the way he was looking at her and she knew he was thinking about her having seen him sans clothing. Well, if he thinks I’m going to mention it, he has a long wait. However, she would have to admit that she was truly embarrassed to know he had seen her, and she could not help the rosy stain of mortification she felt spreading over her cheeks.
    He removed his hand, ignoring the way she rubbed her wrist. “Who are ye, and what are ye doing out here alone?”
    She waved her hands, hoping to quiet him, as she glanced back the way she had come, praying she had not been followed. “Shhh… they will hear you.”
    He looked like he wasn’t buying whatever she was selling, so she tried again. “Please, I was captured by the MacLeans of Mull. I managed to escape, but they are not far behind me. Please, let me go before they come looking for me, for they will most assuredly haul me back to Duart Castle and hold me indefinitely as their prisoner. Believe me, they have taken me captive before, more than once. I can tell you now that it wasn’t a lot of fun, so I was hoping to be spared the indignity of it again.”
    He stared at her as though he was talking to someone from Mars, so she tried smiling at him.
    The hardness of his gaze softened somewhat as he asked, “What is this word ‘fun’?”
    Good Lord , she thought. I’m about to be captured and he wants to play vocabulary? She decided the best thing to do was to give him a quick synonym…
    Entertaining … “Fun means the same thing as entertaining,” she said, quickly glancing behind her.
    â€œThen why didna ye say entertaining if it means the same? Why have two wirds with the same meaning?”
    She was ready to throw her arms up in the air from exasperation. All she knew was that she had to end this running dialogue or they would be here all day, and time was something she did not have. “Look, I will explain that to you later,” she said, “but right now, I have to get away from here… and fast!” She turned to leave, but he caught her by the arm, more firmly this time.
    â€œListen! I am sure you mean well, but if you don’t want to fight a dozen MacLeans, you should really let me go. Please! I don’t want to be their prisoner again!”
    â€œWhere is yer home, lass?”
    â€œThe Isle of Mull, but I’m on my way to Soutra Aisle to study medicine there.”
    He jerked her arm, which pulled her against him, and she stared into his angry face just as he said, “Ye lie! Soutra Aisle is a friary and they allow no women there.”
    â€œThey will allow me, for I have a letter from Lachlan Mackinnon, the abbot at Iona. I am going to Soutra to familiarize myself with the herbs and medicines the friars use and to learn their methods of treating