Read At The Laird's Command (Sword and Thistle Book 3) for Free Online Page B

mother had died giving birth to the littlest one, and there was no one but me to care for them. After the laird had taken me, I relied upon Arabella to care for the little ones. But who was caring for them now? My father hadn’t come into the castle for protection. He’d fled with the children into the mountains to stay with kin. With the enemy roving the countryside, my heart ached wondering who was cooking up the meals and seeing to it that their little bellies were full.
    Perhaps that’s why I found my way to the castle kitchen, where the cook saw me lingering near the door. “Out!” the intimidating woman said, waving her spoon at me like a sword. She hadn’t liked me much since the time I boasted that I could make the best meat pie in the clan. She’d liked me even less when I proved it. Though I’d sensed a brief appreciation for me when she’d tested the flake of my crust, the siege—or discovering that I’d stolen her cast-off paddle—had made her hostile again.  
    “I only want to help ,” I told her.
    “Keep the laird happy,” she said. “That’s how you can help. That’s your job.”
    Well, it was, wasn’t it? And it was work I had come to treasure. The easiest, most pleasurable work of my life. Work made even more pleasurable that evening when the laird sniffed at my neck, and said, “Roses?”
    “Aye, do you like it?”
    He pulled me closer against his broad chest, smiling all the while. “I like the scent of roses. Reminds me of warmer days. T’is not my favorite flower, though.”
    “What is?” I asked, for I wanted to make a study of him.
    “ Heather ,” he said at once. “I love the purple blossoms of heather, just like your eyes. Heather has always been my favorite, even before I met you. Now that you have come along, no other shall ever supplant it.”
    My breath caught at the seriousness with which he spoke these words and I desperately hoped to believe he meant more by them than a discussion of flowers. “I—I don’t know if there is such a thing as heather perfume, or I’d wear it for you.”
    “I like the perfumed scent of you now, but your own scent is no less perfect. Especially when you are aroused,” he said, stroking my nude hip to bring us closer together in the bed. Arousing me so easily with his touch, as he always did, even though we’d already been intimate. “But I have something else for you to wear…”
    “Oh?”
    “Aye,” he said, grinning. “Go to my wardrobe and open the little chest inside.”
    I rose from the warmth of his bed, naked, as I crossed the room. And inside the little chest he indicated, I found such a remarkable thing that I gasped to see it. Pearls. A long strand of them, with that peculiar sheen that drew the eye and made the heart skip a beat. I could not begin to imagine the expense of them. “I’m afraid to touch them.”
    “They were my mother’s,” the laird said. “Now they are yours.”
    I whipped my head around to look at him, to be sure he was not jesting. For it would be a cruel jest, one that would wound me, truly.  
    To mention his mother even in the same breath as me…
    “You can’t give such a thing to me!” I cried.
    Smugly, he replied, “I’m the laird. You must not tell me what I can and canna do.”
    I stood there, still as stone, my fingers yearning to touch the beautiful pearls, my heart warning me never to touch them. These pearls were more expensive than anything I had ever seen. Worth more than my father’s croft if he were to buy it outright, I should think. Worth more than me. “But my laird—”
    “I cannot spoil you with dainty cakes from the kitchen when we are rationing. I cannot woo you as I would like to. If I had my way, I would shower you with jewels and fine dresses and flowers and foods so rich they would make you moan with pleasure. Alas, in this moment and in these circumstances there is very little that I can do for you or with you that I would like to, but this no one can