Once Upon a Highland Christmas by Lecia Cornwall Read Free Book Online

older sister on both visits, she wasn’t sure those meetings counted at all. He’d barely even looked at her, the second sister, the spare. . . . She felt her cheeks flame despite the cold. The garron trudged on across the blank white landscape, eager for home.
    â€œThere’s Ben Laggan,” Iain said, pointing out a gray mountain wearing a thick shawl of fresh snow. “Glen Dorian and Dundrummie are on the other side. You must have come through the pass there.” He pointed again, but she could see nothing but snow. “It’s blocked now.”
    â€œHow far is it to Craigleith?” she asked. She pictured a cottage like the one they’d just left, snug and warm, his wife at the door . . . and his sister, of course. Did he have bairns as well? Her cheeks flamed again at the thought of facing his wife, telling her that she had spent the night naked in her husband’s arms. Would she believe it had simply been necessary? Alanna wasn’t sure she’d believe such a tale, not when a man looked like Iain MacGillivray.
    â€œAbout four miles,” he answered her question. “It won’t take long. We’ll be there in an hour. Sleep if you want.”
    She sat up straight, as she’d been taught. She’d not give Missus MacGillivray anything more to fret about, and she most certainly could not sleep on a strange man’s chest, or on a horse. But perhaps she’d close her eyes for just a moment against the dazzling brilliance of the snow.
    I A I N F E L T H E R body relax into his as she fell asleep, warm this time, a soft, sweet weight in his lap, and he shifted her more comfortably against his chest so her cheek rested on his shoulder. He looked down into her face. Her lips and cheeks were pink now, but there were dark smudges under her eyes—­soft hazel eyes, he recalled, wary and wide and beautiful. She needed a bowl of Seonag’s nourishing broth, a comb, a bath, a proper bandage for her injured knee, and hours of sleep, but he’d still never seen a more beautiful woman. He might not have peeked beneath the covers, not even once, or looked above her knee, or below her shoulders, but his body knew what hers felt like, the slender curves, the softness of her skin. And now, the angle of her bottom against his groin and the movement of the horse were proving to be arousing in the extreme. He kept still, not wanting to wake her, or alert her to his condition. She belonged to another man, a man no doubt pacing the floor before the altar, burning to have her back again, to marry her and bed her properly before his own hearth. Iain felt a rush of jealousy and tightened his grip on her shoulder for a moment before reminding himself that she did not—­could not—­belong to him. Their paths led in different directions—­his to England, hers to Dundrummie village, and her wedding. He wondered about her husband. Was he a crofter, a blacksmith, a baker, perhaps? Whoever and whatever he was, he was a lucky man indeed.
    He turned his eyes up to the glowering sky and concentrated on counting the garron’s steps.
    They could not reach Craigleith quickly enough.

 
    Chapter Five
    Dundrummie Castle
    â€œW HAT DO YOU mean you can’t find her?” Lady Devorguilla McNabb, the dowager countess of Glenlorne, demanded, eyeing Dundrummie’s half-­frozen gamekeeper with suspicion. The man had been out for hours, was flushed with cold and exhaustion, but he hadn’t found Alanna. “She didn’t just disappear!” Devorguilla insisted.
    It was too soon to imagine that anything truly unfortunate had happened to her middle daughter, or to consider that Alanna might have run away, or even eloped to avoid her wedding. Alanna was sensible and obedient.. She wouldn’t do any such thing. Devorguilla bit her lip and looked at the clock. Still, Alanna had been gone all night, and it was nearly midmorning. Fortunately,