The MacNaughton Bride Read Online Free Page B

family in
general.   Grant was an almost disturbingly
good natured fellow who enjoyed drinking at least as much as his brothers, and
women quite a bit more so than either of them.   Women loved him.   They flocked around his youthful good looks and wanted to mother him,
and he was all too happy to let them attempt it, anyway.  
    But he was also in
possession of the MacNaughton temper.   Kell controlled his the best of all of them.   Cheesy the least – and his nose had been broken more times than
any of them because of it.   It took
a lot to get Grant going, but once he had decided that a fight was necessary,
he was as deadly accurate and adept at it as his brothers.   He had to learn to be to survive the
loving attentions of his two older brothers.
    There were several things
that would get Grant’s ire up, but two were predominant:   the mistreatment of a female –
for he had the utmost respect and admiration for any woman of any rank or
station – or any animal.   No
two things were more likely to guarantee a miscreant a thorough beating such as
he had never experienced than either of those two acts.
    None of the brothers was
married – Grant being the least likely candidate, not simply because of
his age, but because he was constantly being offered the chance to sample yet
another lovely who was throwing herself at him.   Why would he confine himself too just one woman?
    Of course, that was all
going to change today, and the brothers were doing their level best to make
sure that the eldest had as good a time as was possible, despite himself.   They were of a mind that Kell took himself and his station entirely too seriously
sometimes, and this was one of them.   He had banned the usual round of celebrations with his friends, which
should have been a week or so of drinking their way from house to house, only
to end up here, this morning, to get married.
    “What’s she like, brother?”
Burke asked.   He almost waggled his
eyebrows, but decided against it.
    Kell sank down in a chair, considering the question seriously.   “She’s a tiny little sparrow.”
    Grant leaned forward,
looking at Kell as if for the first time.   “Why, I do believe our dear level
headed brother is in love, Burkey .”
    Burke, of course, had to
assume the same position, leaning forward so far that he almost fell out of his
chair.   “You think so?”
    Kell scoffed at the thought.   “How could
I be in love with her?   I just met
her less than a day ago.”   He
squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, and his brothers adopted know it all grins
that increased his discomfort several fold.   “Besides, whether I love her or not doesn’t mean a
thing.   I’ve already accepted and
largely spent her dowry.   She’s
going to be my wife, regardless.”
    Grant sighed
dramatically.   “So much for your
romantic poet’s heart, big brother.”   His tone clearly stated that he was quite sure that Kell didn’t possess either the poet or the heart.
    “Is she pretty?” Burke
asked boldly.
    Kell vaulted out of the chair and out the door, but his brothers were in hot
pursuit, not about to let him duck out of their fraternal inquisition.   He was the first of them to marry, and
the younger two were bursting with curiosity about his bride, and their soon to
be sister in law.
    Kell ran up the huge staircase as if the hounds of hell were following him, and the
closest equivalent on Earth was.   Ducking into the room he was using short term didn’t help one bit
– they followed him in like they belonged there.
    Finally, he turned and
confronted them.   “Boys, I’m
perfectly capable of getting dressed for my wedding with no assistance from
you.”
    They didn’t take the hint,
and they’d deliberately told his French valet, Pierre, to make himself scarce
for this particular ritual.   There
were no chairs to sit in, so they leaned against the sill and the wall, staring
at him as if he held the secret to eternal