On a Highland Shore Read Online Free Page B

“Will ye have to be sharing? Should ye not have six heads amongst ye and not just one?”
    Ewan shook his head. “No, no, Da. Really, we found a head on the beach!”
    “Found a head? What d’ye mean?”
    The boys all talked at once. Father frowned as he listened, then met Margaret’s eyes over their heads. “Get yerselves upstairs now, laddies,” he said when they finished. “Ye too, Nell.”
    “Is it a war, Father?” Ewan asked.
    Their father shook his head. “I’ve heard nothing of one. Off with ye now.”
    Nell sighed as she gathered the boys, her long-suffering glance at Margaret letting her know that Nell resented being told to leave with the children. There was silence in the hall as the sounds of the boys’ excited chatter faded up the stairwell, then Father, his expression darkened, turned to his men.
    “Find the head. Bring it to me.” He waited until they’d left, then turned to Margaret. “Tell me again what happened.” He listened silently, with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes dark, but made no comments.
    When at last the men returned with the head, her father unwrapped the bundle and stared at it for several long moments. He touched it only once, to rub a strand of blond hair between his fingers before he pushed it away.
    “It’s a Norseman, isn’t it?” Margaret asked.
    Father nodded. “Bury it,” he told his captain, then called for his war chieftain and stalked across the hall and out the door, his men in his wake.
    Margaret waited, and as expected, Rignor returned, slumping to sit opposite her. He took a deep drink of Father’s whisky.
    “What was it the two of ye were arguing about this time?” she asked.
    “He says I’m not doing enough to learn how to be a chieftain.”
    “Did ye tell him ye’d try harder, Rignor?”
    He glowered at her.
    “Ye’ve only to try,” she said, leaning forward. “Ye’ll be a good chieftain when the time comes. Just tell him ye’ll try.”
    Rignor grunted and rose to his feet. “I’m weary of him always telling me I’m not good enough. And of ye agreeing with him. Some sister ye are, not even defending me. Like when they tell me not to marry Dagmar. Ye dinna help me at all! I’ll not be dissuaded no matter what they say. And dinna tell me I need to look elsewhere, or that we need any more alliances with the Rosses or another clan. I’ve heard it all a’ready. He’s talking about the Comyns now, as if the most powerful family in Scotland would need a marriage with us! I’ll not talk to ye of Dagmar and who I will marry.”
    “I wasna going to say anything of it,” she said, and in truth she was not. Her parents had exhausted the subject, telling their oldest son many times of his responsibility to the clan to marry well, that they would never accept Dagmar as his wife.
    Nor was Margaret about to say what else she knew, that several attempts at betrothal between Rignor and a desirable match had been quickly terminated by some rash action of Rignor’s. He’d insulted the father of one of the most important MacDonald families, a disaster that had yet to be remedied. And had been found in the bed of a maid of another possible match. Father had tried to make light of it, but the father of the lass under consideration had not. There were no further discussions. Rignor had, like she, been betrothed shortly after birth, and again a few years later, but both lasses had died in childhood. There was talk among the clanspeople that Rignor had been cursed, that he would never have a wife, and there were times that Margaret wondered if they might not be right.
    “Rignor,” she began, but he interrupted her with a wave of his hand.
    “They love Lachlan Ross, of course. Everyone loves Lachlan. And ye’re happy to marry him.”
    “I am,” she said, but again he did not let her continue.
    “But Lachlan is not the prize they make him out to be, ye ken,” Rignor said, leaning forward. “I’ve heard of the complaints of his