The Accidental Highland Hero Read Online Free Page A

knocking the breath from him.
    ‘Twas not a good position to be in during a fight.
    He tried to jump to his feet, but weariness cloaked him in a shroud of refusal. Staggering, he unsheathed a throwing dagger. He barely had time to aim it when the Dunbarton swung his sword at James’s head.
    Whack!  The dagger hit the Dunbarton in the temple.
    The man teetered on his horse for a moment then plummeted to the ground. Dead . Meaning to take the beast alive, James cursed under his breath.
    Noting a missive in the man’s belt, James reached down to remove it.
    Meet the ship at the aforementioned time and bring the precious cargo here post haste.
    James smiled wryly. He would send his cousin and seneschal with several of his men and intercept this precious cargo before Laird Dunbarton could get his grubby hands on it.
    ****
    An icy wind tugged at Eilis’s plaid brat cloaking her head while she held onto the ship’s railing with a death grip. Her brother’s cries still echoed in her mind. His rounded green eyes filled with tears of terror still held her hostage. He was all she had left in the world, and she wanted more than anything to free him from their uncle’s tyranny. But what could she do?
    A woman set upon the Irish Sea, bound to marry a man she didn’t love, pretending to be her cousin?  She feared she was destined to fail, and all she could hope for was the creaking ship sailing across the frothing sea from Ireland to Scotland would sink.
    The wind howled, black clouds boiled into mountains above, lightning flashed, casting jagged bolts of light into the rising waves, and she threw up her morning meal over the ship’s railing.
    “You must come back to the captain’s quarters, my lady,” Agnes’s maid clutched the railing and commanded Eilis, although her brusque manner revealed a hint of fear. Could the maid of steel be afraid of the storm?
    Eilis hoped so, as much as her own insides quaked.
    The waves lifted the ship toward the heavens then dropped it, crashing it into the next black trough. The elderly woman shrieked, her face as gray as her eyes.
    “I am sicker down there than I am up here. Leave me be and go inside with you.”
    “Nay, I cannot leave you alone with the crude men on this ship.”
    The woman had to be daft. “They will have naught to do with me!  They are too busy trying to keep the ship afloat!”
    “I order you, my lady, come back inside.”
    Command this!  Eilis heaved the last of her oatcakes over the side, tears splashing down her cheeks, mixed with fresh rainwater and the salty sea. If she fell overboard, she would not have to marry the old Dunbarton chief. She would not have to lie about who she was and forever fear he’d find out.
    But she was a coward, and the small nagging voice in her head said she had to return for her brother and rescue him some day. Staring into the angry waves capped with white foam, dashing into the ship’s hull, beating it with horrible vengeance, she couldn’t jump.
    “My lady—”
    “Nay, go away. Leave me be.” Mayhap a wave would wash Eilis overboard when she hadn’t the courage to do it herself.
    “You cannot mean to throw yourself over the side. Our clan will be punished for it, and you will be hated for all eternity.” The maid curled up her lip. “Besides, your uncle kept Ethan as an added bargaining tool in case you get other notions.”
    Eilis glared at Wynda, her pasty face angry and determined. How could Eilis hope to survive Dunbarton’s scrutiny when she could keep no secrets from even Agnes’s maid?
    The woman’s eyes bored into her like icy gray daggers. “Think you I do not know what you are planning.” She grabbed Eilis’s arm, her fingernails digging into the flesh through the long-sleeved kirtle. “Come with me, my lady, or I will fetch the guard. He will not be as gentle as me.”
    As if the woman had ever treated her with even a wee bit of gentleness. But thank God he was just as seasick as Eilis, and she was sure