A Scottish Love Read Online Free Page B

back for them in two weeks’ time. To pay for his services, she used the money she’d made selling two bonnets and several of her better dresses.
    Dear God, soon she’d be down to bartering her unmentionables.
    She wondered if Helen was worried about this journey. Helen rarely complained, however, a trait that made her an excellent companion. Yet she also rarely asked any questions, a meekness of character that occasionally grated.
    This day reminded Shona, oddly enough, of when she’d arrived in Inverness, but for its contrasts, not its similarities.
    Back then, she’d been genuinely mourning Bruce, a very nice man, a kind and thoughtful husband. If no excitement ever entered her marriage, if one day blended into another seamlessly, if she was endlessly bored, it was to be expected. After all, Bruce was much older and had his life arranged to suit him. He was old enough to be her grandfather, she’d heard one old biddy say once, a thought she tried not to have on those rare occasions when Bruce came to her bed.
    Back then, she’d been draped in black, swathed in it until she felt as if she couldn’t breathe.
    Even though she was no longer officially in mourning, she had little money to purchase new clothing. The dress she wore was black, with white collar and cuffs. If they were of a more similar figure, she might have borrowed a dress or two from Helen. But the older woman was shorter and less fulsomely endowed in the bosom. Wearing one of Helen’s dresses would have made her look like a plump ptarmigan.
    “Are we not going to call on Fergus first?” Helen asked.
    She shook her head. “He’s barely had time to settle in,” she said.
    “Two days.”
    She looked away, wishing Helen wouldn’t pursue the subject.
    “You don’t wish him to know.”
    “He knows,” she said quickly. “He just doesn’t want to sell Gairloch.”
    “Then why not see him before we leave?”
    Her gloves needed mending again. She hated darning her gloves, but if she didn’t, the seams became worn and split, making her look impoverished. Once, she would have thrown away a pair in such a condition, then made her displeasure known to the shopkeeper.
    When had she bought these? More than three years ago, but that’s all she could remember.
    “Or is it Colonel Sir Gordon you don’t wish to see?”
    Why had Helen suddenly become so curious?
    “I’ve never known him as Colonel Sir Gordon,” she said tartly. “He’s only Gordon to me. I’ve known him since we were children.”
    “Do you find him very changed?”
    Such an innocuous question from someone who normally didn’t question anything. Had Helen suddenly become perceptive? If so, that might prove uncomfortable.
    She didn’t particularly want to think of Gordon. Not as a hero, not as Colonel Sir Gordon, not as the first Baronet of Invergaire, or the heir to the Invergaire Armament Works. Not even as Gordon, who’d been her first love, as well as her first lover.
    “Yes,” she said, her voice steady. “I found him greatly changed. I hardly knew him.”
    She laid her head back and closed her eyes, lying with such ease that she should have been ashamed.
    The time had come to begin to live her life, whatever shape or form it was to have. Bruce belonged in a time labeled then.
    Just as Gordon belonged in long ago.

Chapter 3
     
    M ore than three hundred years ago, England withdrew its broken and exhausted troops from Scotland, drained from years of Henry VIII’s rough wooing of Scotland.
    Mary, Queen of Scots, was fifteen years old, and about to be wed to the Dauphin of France in Paris. The powers in Edinburgh were concerned about the bargain. If she bore a child, the crowns of Scotland and France would be united. If she proved barren, the crown of Scotland would be forfeit to the French.
    John Knox began to preach the doctrine that was to reform the church in Scotland.
    And in Invergaire Glen, on the shore of Loch Mor, near Moray Firth, the Imrie Clan began building