Pride of the Clan Read Online Free Page A

travelling in the Highlands, especially in this weather. I couldna let them ride on to Blair.”
    Logan rolled his eyes but offered no response.
    Margaret glanced quickly at Logan but she too remained silent.
    The men trudging behind him grumbled, understandably disgruntled.
    Rheade inhaled deeply, anticipating another rollicking from Tannoch. It seemed nothing he ever did met with his brother’s approval. Margaret’s perfume stole up his nostrils. There was nothing like the scent of a woman to soothe a man’s worries, but it did nothing to calm his arousal. It conjured a memory, but of what? Mayhap the roses his mother had loved? The lass from Oban seemed to have let go of some of her fear and relaxed against him. The only problem was the effect her closeness was having on his manhood. He wondered if she understood the significance of the hard flesh beneath her bottom, but doubted it. Despite her attempt to impress him with her unpracticed flirtation earlier, he suspected she was an innocent.
    The notion only increased the pleasant tugging in his balls.
    Nor was she the inexperienced horsewoman she wanted him to believe. She seemed perfectly comfortable atop Dubh, more so than many men of his acquaintance. Had it not been for the unfortunate circumstances, he might have thoroughly enjoyed this ride with a beautiful woman nestled in his lap, especially now the sleet had stopped.
    But such carefree days were a thing of the past. A king lay dead. Queen Joan had declared herself Regent and now ruled for her infant son, but there were many who would seek to take advantage of weakness in the Scottish realm. The English would turn their greedy gaze once more to their northern neighbor.
    “ Bluidy assassins,” he muttered.
    “Aye,” Margaret murmured.
    He’d a sudden silly urge to kiss the top of her head, to whisper reassuring words that all would be well. Instead he mumbled, “Not far now.”
    When they sighted the sturdy sandstone walls of his home, her body stiffened. It saddened him. Despite Tannoch’s antagonism, he’d been happy here, loved by his parents until their deaths. His mother had died birthing another bairn after Logan, a long awaited daughter who’d survived her mother by only a day; his father had succumbed to his grief not long after.  
    Looking back on those dark days, Rheade had rebelled against the notion a man could miss a woman so much that life ended when she died. Or had guilt finished his father off? Isobel was years beyond what most considered child-bearing age when she fell pregnant with Màiri, and had lost eight bairns in infancy.
    He often daydreamed what it would have been like to have a sister—if Màiri had lived.
    “Dunalastair,” he declared proudly in an effort to lift his own spirits as well as Margaret’s. “Seat of Clan Robertson.”
    “It’s much grander than Ogilvie House,” she replied wistfully.
    His heart went out to this bonnie lass. She’d travelled far from home in hopes of wedding a man who’d turned out to be one of the most hated fugitives in Scotland. And when he was captured, the horror would only then begin. She might be homesick now. Dread filled him. She would soon rue the day she’d ever left Oban.
    ~~~
    Margaret was awed by the incredibly tall tower of Dunalastair. Someone with an eye for beauty had designed and built it. A rare burst of sunlight bathed it in light.
    “’Tis pink,” she declared with a giggle.
    Rheade chuckled. “Sandstone,” he explained. “That’s what causes the reddish hue. It was constructed two hundred years ago as a royal hunting lodge,” he went on. “Our clan has built onto it since then. Many kings have laid their heads here. Alexander, Edward of England, Robert the Bruce even.”
    His obvious pride warmed her heart. If only this place had been the home of her betrothed, and this the braw man she was to wed. She barely knew Rheade, and the circumstances were difficult, but she’d never felt more comfortable with a