The Accidental Highland Hero by Terry Spear Read Free Book Online Page A

keep, blocking her escape. But luckily, they didn’t see her before she slipped outside toward the kitchen where the smell of boar and baked brown bread wafted. Most likely the kitchen doorway led to a garden, and, from there, she could reach the stables. The kitchen staff would be busy serving the meal. Mayhap if she ran fast enough, no one would pay her any mind.
    Fraught with indecision, she stood frozen to the cold stone floor, her bare feet growing icier by the second. Men’s voices headed in her direction decided her fate. She darted for the kitchen and ran through it, where women stirred broth in iron pots over fire and others carried food into the great hall. Most didn’t seem to see her. But when Marsali nearly ran down a young girl carrying a platter of cheese, the girl cried out.
    “What…?” the cook said, but Marsali bolted outside into the garden of herbs and flowers and for the second time in so many hours felt a sudden rush of freedom.
    Having no time to tarry and ponder why she felt such a thing, she ran straight across the inner bailey. She thanked God the men on the wall walk looked out toward the hills, paying no heed to the small panicked woman who would steal a horse under their noses if she could and ride away from here as far as possible. Everyone else was inside the great hall, eating their meal. She prayed.
    Dashing into the stables, she found a horse to borrow. He whinnied at her, poking his head over the stall as soon as she entered the stable. She didn’t think a horse oft chose her. But she did think she could ride.
    She hadn’t time to saddle him before men shouted from the way of the kitchen. Her heart skittered. The cook must have raised the alarm.
    After scrambling atop a stack of hay, she slid her legs over the horse’s back. She prodded him with her feet until he exited the stable. With her heart hammering hard against her ribs and her feverish head pounding, she gasped when several men ran toward her.
    Half the laird’s staff she guessed. She was only one wee lass to cause such an uproar. If they hadn’t wished to kill her before, she had surely changed their minds now. The hardened looks on their faces, bearded, smooth faced, young and old, their mouths in grim lines and their eyes narrowed and fierce, like every one of them was ready to do battle, put the fear of God in her.
    Kicking the horse, she raced for the open gate, praying if He had any mercy, she would escape.
    Someone whistled, the horse halted, and she flew forward on the bony ridge of his back. After nearly throwing her, the horse turned toward the keep to her horror. She quickly grabbed his neck and held on tight, trying to direct him toward the gate, kicking his flanks again, without result this time. Doomed, she waited, shivers shaking her body with vengeance.
    “Who are you?” a man asked, stalking toward her with a purposeful stride, his looks similar to Niall, the same stubborn chin wearing a light sheen of whiskers, but a scar marred his cheek. The same auburn hair, except streaked in places by the sun. His intense look and the deep, angry timbre of his voice left her slightly dazed. Or mayhap it was the fever. His eyes the color of burnt umber narrowed when he reached up to grab her. His lips pressed together in a thin, straight line.
    His huge hands grasped her arms and pulled her from the horse, nearly causing her heart to stop. His fingers pressing against the brat still covering her sent a scorching flame through the woolen cloth and touched her skin. ‘Twas the fever, naught more.
    “Stealing my horse, Lady?”
    He…he seemed familiar somehow. Like Niall, and yet she couldn’t remember.
     Niall grinned, seeming to take the man’s actions in stride. “No one but you can ride the ornery creature, James. Think you that you have met your match?”
    Her heart fluttered. She should have known by the arrogant tilt of his stubborn chin and the way he carried himself with a rugged elegance that he was