Highlander Mine Read Online Free

Hamish’s rounded eyes.
    I’d never seen Hamish so awestruck. He reached up tentatively to touch his fingers to the flat side of the blade.
    “Don’t touch the blade, lad, or you’ll be picking your neatly sliced fingers up off the floor,” Lachlan said with persuasive eloquence.
    “I wasn’t going to touch the blade,” Hamish replied, miffed that the soldier would think him so dim-witted. “I know it’s sharp. It wouldn’t be much use if it wasn’t.”
    Several of the other soldiers chuckled at this and I felt a ripple of shame that Hamish would respond with such impertinence. Lachlan, however, appeared more impressed by Hamish’s answer than angered. Strength and bravery were their currency, I supposed. Hamish understood this and had just bought himself a hint of this soldier’s respect. Clearly, despite his small size in the face of these enormous, armed men, my nephew was not intimidated. And there was a shiny-eyed eagerness to him that Lachlan could not help but respond to.
    “I’d offer to let you hold it,” Lachlan said, “but the sword outweighs you.”
    More laughter from the men.
    “Here,” Lachlan continued, retrieving a large knife from its holster at his belt. “You can hold this one.”
    Now that Hamish was well and truly engaged, the young woman in blue took the opportunity to make light conversation. She was clearly somewhat overcome with curiosity about my obvious predicament. Her blue eyes gleamed with bright interest, and her shiny brown hair waved prettily around a pale face that was highlighted by the subtle paint of pink on her cheeks.
    “I’m Christie Mackenzie,” she said. “This is my sister, Ailie.” She motioned to the woman on her right, whose beauty was equal to her sister’s but somehow more reserved. Christie’s beauty had a fresh, mischievous appeal while Ailie’s conveyed composure and sophistication. Ailie smiled politely. Her hair was darker than Christie’s and her eyes were a deep shade of indigo blue. “And this is our friend Katriona,” Christie continued.
    Katriona was perhaps as many as ten years older than the two sisters, and her manner was markedly less friendly. Her smile was so forced that if taken out of context, it might have been mistaken for a grimace, perhaps from a mild case of indigestion. She was not as beautiful as the sisters, but it could be said that she was exceptionally well presented. Any beauty she might have possessed was eclipsed by the pinched, rigid impatience that set her face, and by the youthful radiance of the two women she traveled with. The ill fit of my dress did not escape her notice, nor did she appear particularly pleased by Hamish’s precocious joy as he held Lachlan’s glinting knife.
    “I’m Amelia Taylor,” I said. “And this is Hamish.” I stopped myself from giving Hamish’s correct surname just in time. We were pretending to be siblings, I remembered. “My brother.”
    Christie asked the question she must have been dying to ask all along. “And you travel alone?”
    “We had an escort, of course,” Hamish answered, with such sincerity I suffered a pang of guilt that overshadowed any pride that might have accompanied it. The lad was gifted. I should, as his guardian, be grooming him for a career in stage acting and if he hadn’t been so staunchly adamant about his decision to become a soldier, I might have considered setting our sights for the theaters of London as a hideout, rather than the remote expanses of the Highlands. My guilt only compounded as I recalled telling him that it was likely that we would be reunited with his parents more quickly if we were particularly convincing in our storytelling. “But he met an untimely end at the hands of the dastardly bandits that stole our carriage and all our belongings.”
    This news was met with the collective dismay of his now-rapt audience. “Bandits?” said Lachlan, bristling, his eyes surveying the room as though they might be among us. “What