Love Above All Read Online Free Page B

have come to settle in Scotland,
so I just assumed you’d abuse an unconscious woman. But why should
I ever again believe anything my brothers say?” she ended with
unconcealed bitterness.
    “I am not a settler. I have been in Scotland
on legitimate business, as an ambassador from the English king to
King Alexander,” he said. “I am on my way home. Was it your
brothers who tried to kill you?”
    The sudden question caught her by surprise.
She’d thought she had distracted him from the issue of her would-be
murderers, but his intense manner told her he wasn’t amenable to
distraction. She was going to have to make up a story that was at
least partly true, in hope of convincing him that all of it was the
truth. And she couldn’t say anything that might make him decide to
remain in Scotland. Quentin must leave the border for English
territory as quickly as possible. It was her duty to speed him on
his way to the place where, surely, her brothers could no longer
threaten his life.
    “Yes,” she said. “It was my brothers.”
    “Why?” Quentin demanded.
    “It’s just a family quarrel.”
    “A quarrel serious enough to make men kill
their own sister?” He sounded as if he didn’t believe her.
    “As I said, they think I’m dead, so I’m safe
now. It’s Janet I’m worried about.”
    “Janet?”
    “My younger sister. She’s in school at
Abercorn Abbey. Murdoch wants to remove her from the school and
marry her off to one of his friends, a brutal man. Janet is
terrified of her proposed bridegroom, and Gillemore always sides
with Murdoch, so poor Janet is helpless against their scheme.”
    “Why did they decide to kill you?” His gaze
was so piercing that Fionna feared he didn’t believe any of her
story, though most of what she’d told him so far was true.
    “They discovered my plan to reach Janet
before they did. I was going to ride to Abercorn and take her away
to – to England,” Fionna ended with a lie.
    “Indeed? You’d spirit your beloved sister off
to a land ruled by the same Normans whom you dislike?”
    “I didn’t say I dislike Normans, only that my
brothers do. But now I am free to carry out my plan to save Janet
without interference.”
    “Do you think so?” He regarded her as if she
possessed no wits at all. “How will you travel, when you have no
horse? How will you eat without coins to buy food? Where will you
sleep at night? And how in the name of all the saints do you
imagine a young woman can ride alone through these lawless
borderlands without being captured and raped, or murdered? You call
that a plan? I call it madness.”
    With fists planted on his hips he loomed
above her, tall and muscular and completely sure of himself, easily
the most intimidating man Fionna had ever met, more frightening in
his quiet intensity than both of her noisy brothers together. She
trembled before him.
    “I have to save Janet!” she cried, not lying
now, frantic for her sister’s sake.
    “Then let me help,” he said.
    “Why would a Norman help me?”
    Quentin shook his head, asking himself the
same question. She was remarkably appealing, with her bare
shoulders showing pale and slim above the rough wool blanket and
her dark, reddish-brown hair curling in long ringlets around her
face. Her emotional distress had put color into her cheeks and a
determined sparkle into her bright blue eyes. Fionna of Dungalash
was not beautiful, but she was intriguing and intelligent.
    Her voice was wonderful to hear, low-pitched
and with only a faint accent. Quentin had never liked women whose
voices were high and shrill, attacking a man’s ears and causing
headaches. Like his wife’s voice. Quentin cut off that unhappy
memory the instant it arose. He did not want to think about his
late wife, or about the heiress King Henry had mentioned as a
possible reward upon successful completion of his mission to
Edinburgh. He would far rather gaze at Fionna.
    She possessed the most perfect skin he had
ever seen or