Teresa Medeiros Read Online Free Page A

the north from declaring open warfare. Their last hope for survival lay in allying with the Camerons. But Morgan had no intention of crawling to Dougal Cameron on his belly. Not to save his clan. Not even to save his life.
    He topped a rise to find the Cameron’s domain spread across the glen below like a checkered quilt. The disparity between their lives struck him a harsh blow.
    The MacDonnells skulked in the mountains like rabid wolves. The Camerons presided over a spacious valley dotted with fat livestock and ringed by well-tended fields. The MacDonnells lived in a crumblingruin in imminent danger of sliding down a cliff. The Camerons lived in a manor house nestled among rolling hills and crowned by a castle tower.
    The bloody Camerons even had a princess.
    A rare smile touched Morgan’s lips. Would Dougal’s daughter remember him? For five summers the stubborn child had remained true to her pledge. She had never once tattled on him, not even when his mischievous tricks bordered on cruelty. Upon discovering he had picked all the threads out of her embroidery, she had simply tilted up that wee prim nose of hers, telling him silently that she expected no better from a no-count MacDonnell.
    If a pistol ball exploded through his heart before he reached the manor gate, Morgan would know whose dainty hand had wielded the weapon.
    Oddly cheered at the thought, he thundered down the slope, letting loose a jubilant Highland cry that would give the villagers of Cameron Glen nightmares for months to come.
    Sabrina wiggled forward on her elbows to peer over the edge of the gallery, bunching her cumbersome nightdress beneath her.
    “Careful,” Enid whispered, nibbling nervously on one of her fat braids. “My brother Stefan once got his head caught in the banister and we had to saw it off.”
    “His head?”
    “No. The banister.”
    Enid, Sabrina’s Belmont cousin, had arrived on their doorstep that spring with a trunk and an apologetic letter from Uncle Willie, hinting at some sort of disgrace. Sabrina found it difficult to imagine the docile girl being involved in anything more sordid than hoarding sugarplums from the dinner table. Her only vice seemed to be her craving for the lurid scandal pamphlets her brother sent from London. Tonight her round face was flushed with excitement at the prospect of being ravished and murdered by a clan of Highland savages.
    The drawing room had been stripped to spare medieval splendor. Braces of candles and bowls of oil had usurped her mother’s ornate lamps. Hazy light flickered over the faded tapestries that had been carried down from the attics to adorn the walls. At each end of the hall, banners emblazoned with the Cameron crest fluttered from the massive rafters. Sabrina found the effect enchanting.
    The Cameron men milled below—Sabrina’s uncles, cousins, and brothers, lean and resplendent in their stylish cravats and waistcoats. Her father had draped a narrow shoulder plaid over the sleeve of his velvet coat in deference to his heritage. Most of the men had wisely left their women at home, but as mistress of the manor, Sabrina’s mother flitted among them, exotically defiant in a shimmering
saque
gown that would have served her equally well during her days as a lady-in-waiting for Queen Anne. Pride swelled in Sabrina.
    “Mama looks like a queen, doesn’t she?”
    “Quite,” Enid dutifully agreed, although her hands were pressed over her eyes in terrified anticipation.
    Fists thundered on the massive door at the end of the hall. Enid almost bit her braid in two. Sabrina gave her cousin’s icy arm a squeeze.
    Total silence reigned below. The doors swung open with an agonizing creak. Sabrina swallowed a knot of trepidation. Even Enid dared to peek through her fingers as the Camerons turned as one to greet their guests, her father flanked by the tense forms of Alex and Brian.
    An old man strutted into the hall, trailed by a parade of ragged but forbidding men. Most were dressed