The Highlander Series by Maya Banks Read Free Book Online Page B

awoke. The lady was afraid but promised me she’d protect me. And so I promised her that I would take us here to you so that you could protect her. You won’t let Duncan Cameron marry her, will you, Papa? You won’t let him hurt her again?”
    He gazed anxiously up at Ewan, his eyes so earnest and serious. He looked so much older than his eight years in that moment, as if he’d taken on a great responsibility, one far greater than his age warranted, but one he was determined to follow through with.
    “Nay, son. I won’t allow Duncan Cameron to harm the lass.”
    Relief flooded Crispen’s expression and suddenly he looked extremely weary. He swayed in his chair and leaned over on Ewan’s arm.
    For a long moment, Ewan stared down at his son’s head, resisting the urge to run his fingers through the unruly tresses. Ewan couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride at the way Crispen had fought for the woman who’d saved him. According to Alaric, Crispen had bullied Alaric and his men the entire way back to the McCabe keep. And now he was bullying Ewan into keeping a promise Crispen had made in the McCabe name.
    “He’s asleep,” Alaric murmured.
    Ewan carefully ran his hand over his son’s head and held him solidly against his side.
    “Who is this woman, Alaric? What is she to Cameron?”
    Alaric made a sound of frustration. “I wish I could tell you. The lass wouldn’t say a word to me the entire time she was with me. She and Crispen were as tight-lipped as two monks with vows of silence. All I know is that when I found her, she was severely beaten. I’ve neverseen a lass abused as she was. It turned my stomach, Ewan. There’s no excuse for a man to ever treat a woman such as he did. And yet, as badly injured as she was, she took on me and my men when she thought we were a threat to Crispen.”
    “She said nothing the entire time she was with you? Let nothing slip? Think, Alaric. She had to have said something. It simply isn’t a woman’s nature to be silent for prolonged periods of time.”
    Alaric grunted. “Someone should tell her that. I’m telling you, Ewan, she said nothing. She stared at me like I was some kind of toad. Worse, she had Crispen acting like I was the enemy. The two whispered like conspirators and glared at me when I dared intervene.”
    Ewan frowned and drummed his fingers on the solid wood of the table. “What could Cameron want with her? Furthermore, what was a highland lass doing in a lowland abbey? Highlanders guard their daughters as jealously as gold. I can’t see a daughter being packed off to an abbey days away.”
    “Unless the lass was being punished,” Alaric pointed out. “Maybe she was caught out in an indiscretion. More than one lass has been wooed between the sheets outside the sanctity of marriage.”
    “Or maybe she was a difficult harridan her father despaired of,” Ewan murmured, as he remembered how difficult and recalcitrant she’d been just moments ago. That scenario he could believe. But again, she would have had to have committed an egregious sin for a father to send her so far away.
    Alaric chuckled. “She’s spirited all right.” Then he sobered. “But she protected Crispen well. She put her body between him and others more than once, and she suffered greatly for it.”
    Ewan mulled on that truth for a long moment. Then he looked up at Alaric again. “You saw these injuries?”
    Alaric nodded. “I did. Ewan, the bastard kicked her. There were imprints of a boot on her back.”
    Ewan cursed, the sound echoing across the hall. “I wish I knew what her connection to Cameron was. And why he wants her badly enough to abduct her from an abbey and beat her senseless when she refused to marry him. Why he’d then think to use my son to sway her.”
    “It would have worked, too,” Alaric said in a grim voice. “The lass is very protective of Crispen. If Cameron had threatened him, she would have consented. I’m positive of that.”
    “This presents a