The Chieftain's Yule Bride - a Highland Christmas novella (Clan MacKrannan's Secret Traditions #10) Read Online Free Page A

any he'd met in his travels.  They were also the clan's Three Wisewomen, Elders with the Bard, and took far too keen an interest in the old Celtic fertility rites.  The unusually high birth rate in the village was put down to the benefits of organic food, long winters in cosy cottages, and men keeping their ballocks cool by wearing the kilt.  The clan knew it was far more than that which kept the local pre-natal clinic so busy.
    He looked round the table at each of them.  And they were off again, laughing themselves silly.  Even Robbie was smirking fit to burst.
    "Fair enough," said Callum with a shrug.  "No' a crime to have an eye for a pretty lassie, and a disgrace to my name if I didn't.  Tell me about the portrait.  Is it of her ancestor?"
    "A composite of her bloodline, I would think, her name being Harper," said Robbie.  "Bound to be a Viking throwback somewhere with that coloring.  It was painted as a prophetic gift, a sort of good wish to come true in the future, so to speak.  One of those 'From My Family To Yours' kind of thing."
    "What?  You mean he painted something to make it happen?  Someone?"
    "Oh aye," said Kenzie.  "Used to be a common enough thing.  Likely it started out with cave paintings of animals when folks were wishing for a herd to come by.  I'm always telling my clients that visualization techniques are nothing new, though folks would usually expect results quicker than two centuries."
    Callum brought a hand up over his jaw and then put it back on the table quick.  Damned if the oak's feel had no' gone through his head and set his spine ringing.
    "So you're telling me he painted this lassie as a wish?  A wish for what?"
    "What I got told by my dad was that some chieftain would know her when he saw her," said Robbie.  "Never happened until now."
    "I knew her straight away.  Like shaking hands with a ghost, I can tell you.  So how old is the painting?  When was this minstrel here?"
    "More recently that you might think," said Gillian.  "Only about two hundred years ago.  My gran told me that the Chief was so delighted with his music that he lauded him to all the Yule guests and filled up his diary for years ahead."
    Callum cocked a brow at her.  "A Regency minstrel?"
    "Indeed he was, and could turn his hand to many a thing beyond his travelling harp.  Most artisans had second and third trades in those days, in case of injury or the work drying up.  My gran also told me he didn't live very long after he left here.  Went home to Orkney and died happily in his bed.  A shame, that.  He would have been famous in good society had he lived."
    "Right... and he made the Chief a present of an imaginary lass who might or might not stop by here one day.  Or she might miss seeing the chieftain by a week, or might never be born at all."
    Tara scoffed wryly at that.  "Ach, chieftain, it's a nice painting anyway whatever its purpose.  And she does exist.  She's just walked into MacKrannan Castle by name of Freya Harper!"
    She started giggling again and set the other two Wisewomen off.  Callum couldn't help but grin at this unexpected turn his life had taken.  Unexpected to him.  Apparently this lot had always known it for a possibility and had been foretold of it far more recently.
    "A pity she did no' come packaged with an instruction leaflet," he said.  "So what I am to do with her?  Will there be a formal Tradition written in the books by way of ritual to follow?"
    "I do no' recall there being anything at all," said Robbie.  He ran his eyes round the Wisewomen who all shook their heads.  "You're on your own with this, chieftain."
    "I doubt that."
    "Trust in your ancestors to guide you on the right path and we'll be here if you need us."
    "That I never doubted.  The painting's safe in the Vault?"
    A rumble of thunder sounded over the ocean.  Winter was definitely upon them.
    "Oh aye.  One of the first to go down there when the castle was getting opened to the public.  The