Night of the Highland Dragon Read Online Free

heart, broad-shouldered.
    In dim light and in the right clothing, she could have passed for a man, especially if she’d had her hair up. She could certainly have been the figure in the image William had seen.
    Plenty of people could.
    Plenty of people didn’t inspire rumors about how they maintained their youth, nor were they heir to a small village and a castle in the back of beyond.
    Nor did most people regard outsiders with the look of a magistrate hearing dubious testimony.
    This was not a woman disposed to welcome him with open arms and questions about the latest London fashions. This was a woman well-positioned to make trouble for him if she had the inclination. William wasn’t exactly up to speed on the law in remote parts of Scotland, but he had the impression that the local nobility still had a touch more power than the foxhunting-and-waltzing crowd he’d been used to.
    Legal questions aside, she could probably command the loyalty—or at least the mercenary inclinations—of a few strapping local men. That could be enough of a problem for William. His training had carried him through a number of scraps, and he was still years from a walking stick or a chair in front of the fire, but he was one man, and mortal.
    Being a man with sound tactical sense, he did not press his luck but simply listened.
    â€œNow, Claire,” said Mrs. Simon, “that’s no’ a fitting subject for the lady, nor for our guest to be overhearing.”
    Luck was with him—luck and the moodiness of adolescents. Claire pouted. “I dinna’ see why not. If there’s a wolf about, or a bear or a great cat, and it starts eating us all, it’ll be her business, will it no’? And well for him to take care if he goes wandering about the place.”
    â€œThere hasn’t been a wolf here in a hundred years,” said Lady MacAlasdair, quietly amused. “Nor bears for a century or five, and no cat larger than the tabbies in my stables for much longer than that. Graham’s not talked to me,” she added dryly, “nor yet has his father, but I’d imagine the poor beast broke its neck.”
    â€œIt didna’ look that way, from what Graham said. Of course,” Claire added, “he’d not tell me much. But he did say as its eyes were gone, and its throat.”
    â€œThat sounds more like crows and rats than wolves and bears,” the lady responded without a trace of alarm or disgust. “Nothing dire there, unless you’re the cow.”
    â€œOr the boy, I should think,” said William, “if it was one of his father’s beasts.”
    â€œShe was that,” said Claire, “and one of the best milkers, and Graham’s da’s fair taken him ower the coals for it. The which is noways fair.” William guessed that was a comment on the injustice of the situation. Certainly Claire’s blue eyes flashed in a way that suggested where her loyalty lay, no matter how attractive she might temporarily find a stranger. “He swears he latched the gate afore he came away, and he’s never a dishonest lad,” the girl added.
    â€œIf lying meant you could take your dinner sitting down for the next week,” said Lady MacAlasdair, “nobody but a saint would tell the truth. Was the gate latched the next day?”
    â€œWell, no,” said Claire, flushing.
    â€œIt’d have to be a very talented wolf, then,” William said gently.
    As he spoke, he thought he heard Lady MacAlasdair’s voice as well, too faintly for him to hear what she’d said. It almost sounded like Latin: a curse? He wouldn’t have expected a woman of her rank and age to know Latin, much less swear in it.
    He wouldn’t have expected a woman of her rank and age to be sitting in a boardinghouse parlor and talking about dead cows.
    When William turned toward Lady MacAlasdair, he caught a glimpse of narrowed eyes and thin lips. She quickly made