A Highland Knight's Desire (A Highland Dynasty Book) Read Online Free

eyed them all. “The rest of you, too. Gather what information you can and be at the edge of the tree line by dark.”

Dressed in a brown monk’s habit, cinched around his waist with a rope, John grumbled, “You should have let me wear the priest’s vestments. Did you ever even read your Bible passages?”
    Duncan smoothed his hands over his black priest’s robes—hardly more lavish than John’s. “You know I did. Besides, I’m leading this charade. Put up your hood.” He walked with his brother through the wooded path linking the abbey to Alnwick Castle.
    “I’ll be glad when we finish with this task.” John ran his fingers along the inside of his collar and stretched his neck. “England doesn’t agree with me.”
    A tic twitched above Duncan’s eye, as it always did before he stepped into peril. “Nor me.”
    It was dusk after they passed through the barbican and neared the gateway of the castle. With two octagonal towers on either side, Duncan studied the fortifications. Four guards stood at the top of the towers, armed with arrows and pikes. The curtain itself was immense. Twice the size of Kilchurn Castle, the fortress sprawled in every direction like a mountain range. Cannons lined the curtain walls—must have cost the earl a year’s worth of income. Three arrow slits loomed as dark caverns on each side of the gatehouse.
    An impressive stronghold in anyone’s eyes, yet a Scottish army had laid siege to it only sixteen years past.
    Duncan and John wore only hauberks and chausses beneath their robes. His armor left tied to Archie’s saddle, Duncan felt naked without his claymore strapped to his back. He wasn’t walking into Alnwick unarmed, however. His dirk was hidden beneath his vestments, though all Duncan had to do was reach through an opening at his waist to grasp it. As always, for added protection, he and John both wore daggers lashed to their calves and arms.
    As they approached the gate, the sentry lowered his pike across his body, pointing the razor-sharp lance at them.
    Duncan leaned into John. “Let me do the talking.”
    “Do I not always?”
    The tic above his eye twitched again. “Nay.”
    John emitted an exasperated cough as they stepped up to the guard.
    “Stay back.” The man trained his pike between them. “State your business.”
    “We’ve a meeting with Father Chamberlain,” Duncan said in a practiced English accent. He’d “borrowed” the robes while John chatted with a monk and learned the name of Alnwick’s resident priest.
    The guard eyed them both from beneath his conical helm and raised his chin. “The priest didn’t notify me visitors would attend him.”
    “How could he?” Duncan asked. “We’ve been sent with a message from the abbot.”
    The guard hesitated and glanced over his shoulder. “Have you any weapons?”
    Duncan spread his palms to his sides. “We’re men of God.”
    The guard inclined his helmed head toward John. “What about you?”
    Duncan made a show of speaking in Latin to ask John to hold up his hands. Only then did he obey. His younger brother couldn’t affect an English accent for his life—sounded as Scottish as the Highlands, even when he spoke Latin.
    Duncan offered a thin-lipped smile. “BrotherJulius has taken a vow of silence.”
    The guard upended his pike and tapped the staff on the cobblestones. “I’ll allow you to pass this once.”
    “My thanks,” Duncan said. He grasped John’s elbow and pushed ahead—straight through the gates of hell.

Chapter Four
    “Slow your pace,” Duncan whispered. Without his armor, he could have floated through the castle grounds.
    Entering the inner courtyard, he quickly took in their surroundings. A five-story keep to the east. The grey stone walls of the chapel loomed directly across. Once they found her, the direst part of their escape would be exiting the gateway and the long trail within the walls to the outer barbican.
    “Now we’re inside, how do you plan to leave?”