Highland Jewel (Highland Brides) Read Online Free

abruptly, "I will make amends. I will do better." She took a step nearer. She had promised her mother and her Lord that she would live out her days in this abbey. "I can be like the others. Truly—"
    The abbess raised a blue-veined hand. "It is not because of any shortcomings on your part, child.
    Although..." She smiled gently, her pale, patient eyes steady. "I doubt at times that the Lord wishes you to be... like the others. Still, it is not for me to command you to go. The decision is yours."
    "Then I must stay." Rose stepped quickly nearer, taking the Lady Abbess' hand in her own. "I made a vow."
    "I believe the Lord would understand, should you see the need to go," said the Lady Abbess.
    But the vow had also been to her mother. "Promise me you'll seek the peace and safety of the convent," she'd begged. "Promise me you’l1 never speak of the things you see in your head." Her voice had been only a whisper. "Do not dwell on them. Do not think of them. People would not understand, would not accept. Go to the abbey, Rose," she'd pleaded. "Do the Lord's work. You'll be safe there."
    Sometimes in the quiet of prayer time or during the darkness of night Rose would consider that. Safe from what? Were the images that sometimes appeared in her head evil things?
    "I must stay, Lady Abbess," she said, guilt wearing heavily on both sides, worry making her voice soft. "I must keep—"
    "And let me auld laird die?"
    Rose gasped, dropping Lady Sophie's hand to find the source of the voice that came from behind the iron grill.
    "This is one of the Scotsmen. Come to plead his cause," explained the abbess, but Rose failed to hear her words, for her entire attention was riveted on the large, dark shape of the barbarian behind the wrought-iron rail.
    God's whiskers! It was the dark image from her dreams! Breath stopped in her throat while her heart seemed to have gone stone-cold in the tight confines of her chest. "Who are you?" she whispered, knowing her words were rude and failing to care.
    Quiet held the place.
    "I am called Leith. Of the clan Forbes."
    His burr was as thick as morning fog—and as chilling. Rose felt a shiver take her, frightening her with its intensity. "I can't go with you." She whispered the words, as if saying them too loudly might awaken some evil demon.
    "Canna?" The Scotsman gripped the grill tightly, the flat of his broad nails gleaming pale in the light of the lone candle. "Or willna?"
    "Please." She drew back quickly, not knowing why, but feeling the frightful power of his person, the terrifying knowledge that he had appeared to her in her sleep. He was a large man, perhaps the largest she'd ever encountered. Or was she allowing the shadows and her own too-vivid imagination to frighten her?
    Lifting her chin up slightly, Rose clasped her hands before her chest, drawing upon inner reserves she was supposed to possess. "Do not ask me to break my vow to my God," she pleaded weakly. But within, she questioned her true motives for refusal. Fear?
    "Ye vows dunna urge ye to help a man in need?"
    The Scotsman's tone was somewhat jeering, she thought, and lifted her chin higher. "My vows urge me to follow my conscience and not the brutish insistence of a man with no understanding of my faith."
    He was quiet, but his eyes held her in cold perusal. "And me, I thought we shared the faith of Christ. But na. Me God calls for bravery of spirit."
    He'd called her a coward, she thought in silent shock. The man dared enter the hallowed walls of the abbey and imply she was less than godly! He had the manners of a boar in rut! In fact, she'd met boars in rut who were more becoming, she decided, refusing to acknowledge the fact that her own manners and thoughts were far from a model of purity.
    "Regardless of the fact that you think me spiritless," she said, breathing hard and raising her left eyebrow in stern condescension, "I shall not go with you." She turned stiffly away, feeling his hot gaze on her back and trying to still the