Riona Read Online Free Page B

as well.”
    Slinging one leg over the short neck of the smaller horse, the poet slid to the ground. Taking up the reins, he led it over to the water’s edge, where Kieran let Gray graze on the new grass.
    “He’s bred to these hills, sure of foot,” Kieran consoled, letting Bran’s latter remark slide. His companion would not.
    “And you’re baptized in the church, though painfully short of faith.”
    Kieran rolled his eyes. “So it’s St. Bran now, is it?”
    “Far from it, sir. I am not the son I should be and I may not agree with all God permits, like any child with any father, but I don’t take kindly to others ridiculing Him. If you’ve no regard for the Father, then at least have regard for my right to revere Him.”
    Kieran met Bran’s solemn gaze and nodded as guilt warmed his face. Heber had had a way of making him feel the same with regard to his faith—or lack of it. It vexed Kieran how Heber had accepted the death of his father in battle—and the resulting suicide of his mother—as the will of a loving God. It was beyond him
    “You have my sincere apology, bard, so long as you don’t start telling me how He’s my father, too. I’ve said it before—” Kieran increased the volume in his voice in warning when Bran started to speak—“a father wouldn’t treat His Son the way I’ve been treated.”
    “Are you better than His own Son, who also prayed to be spared an unthinkable death, yet was denied?”
    Kieran shook his head. “No, as far as I see it, He let His own Son down, too.”
    “No, it was all part—” Bran broke off at the sharp look Kieran gave him.
    Good. Heber hadn’t been so easily dissuaded when he’d felt the urge to preach God’s goodness.
    “But if you keep on this track—” clearly Bran was not finished after all—“you’ll make no headway with Riona.”
    Riona. Back to the second of Heber’s last wishes. Kieran exhaled a long, weary breath.
    “Riona will have no choice in the matter. I gave Heber my word as his anmchara in life and death.”
    “It will take more than a promise to a soul mate to make Riona change her mind about you. She turned you down once when she had no reason.”
    Kieran winced at the reminder. Was there anything harder to tolerate than a smug poet? The new king of Gleannmara needed to take a wife to provide heirs. Any lass in the kingdom and more would leap at the chance to become the bride of such a prosperous tuath, and Riona was not only the choice of logic, but of his heart as well. Kieran had always adored her as his precocious foster sister, but when she returned from her schooling at Kilmare for his parents’ funeral, he’d fallen in love with the woman she’d become. At least he thought it was love. No beauty before or since consumed his mind day and night. Especially the nights.
    I cannot give you my heart, dear brother, for it belongs to God
.
    Kieran’s mouth tightened and his teeth clenched until the tide of anger, hurt, and humiliation from the past ebbed. Jerking Gray’s head up with the reins, he sprang up on the startled stallion’s back.
    It took a moment to calm the horse. Once Gray stood statue still and ready for his command, Kieran spoke his mind. “Aye,
then
she had no reason,” he conceded with ominous overtone.
“Now
she has no choice.”

T HREE
    I t was the busiest time of year in the dairy, but Riona loved it. Spring was a time of rebirth. The sun, allotted more time by the changing season, coaxed seedlings bullied into hiding by winter’s chill out of the ground with the promise of even more light and warmth to come. New life flourished all around. Calves, lambs, and piglets suckled their mothers, growing stronger and sturdier of foot by the day. And here she was, a lady by birthright, performing a dairymaid’s chores in their midst.
    Still, Riona would far rather be outside than closed within the walls of the abbey. Her energies were too ambitious to be satisfied closeted with needlework and