Read Beneath a Dark Highland Sky: Book #3 for Free Online

set close watch upon us all through the years, waiting for that day to arrive. And now it is almost here. If only my Da and aulder brothers had lived. And my Mum…I miss her so but I canna speak of that now. I ha’e feared the Highlander’s coming since that time, when I was nearly five summers. I e’en hoped foolishly the Highlander would defy a king’s order and ne’er come. He could’ve arrived two years ago but he waited, and for whate’er reasons, I am glad to ha’e had that time. I am seventeen summers now and more mature and level-headed than I used to be. Now I ken I dunna ha’e to meekly accept my fate.”
    She frowned. “I hate the Highlander e’en though I ha’e yet to meet him. As a child, Nessa, I had to lose myself in learning to manage the keep after everyone was gone. I couldna bear to think of this place without my Mum or Da, without Gordon and Tavish. I threw myself into sword practice with the lads in the courtyard. I learned archery from Kendrew himself, a vera skilled chief huntsman as ye ken. No one would dare tell me after losing so many members of my family that as a lass I couldna do those things, that it wasna ladylike. But many a dark night, lying in bed, I would think about the day to come when I was older and would ha’e to marry the Highlander, a Maclean, and simply hand o’er e’erything I worked so hard to maintain in my family’s name! It is nae in my nature to do so, regardless of what a king wills. I am stubborn and proud like my Da was.”
    “E’en ye, with yer fierce temper and pride, canna defy a king’s order without consequence,” Nessa said. “Ye ken that e’en though James the Second is eight years dead, James the Third honors his Da’s decrees. Ye ken after Arkinholm, the Parliament of Scotland declared Douglas lands forfeit and permanently annexed to the crown, ne’er to be undone.”
    “Yea, I ken,” Sorcha said. “He has so graciously let us live on it since then, the Black Douglas bound by the whims of the border families whose fortunes rose when ours was destroyed, waiting for the Highlander to arrive and claim it and his bride. We had English help at the battle of Arkinholm, so as a clan we must straddle a fine line. An intolerable situation all around.”
    “An Englishman did save yer life once,” Nessa said. “Ye ne’er should ha’e gone that far into the woods by yerself.”
    Sorcha briefly closed her eyes. She did not want to think of that day in the dark woods, when she’d been exploring an old foot path not far from the abandoned mill. In a sun-bedecked glen near a thundering waterfall she’d come upon a group of four ragged-looking English raiders, three of whom were interested in taking something from her which she did not want to give. As they were tearing at her clothes, the fourth, a young lad with piercing blue eyes, fought them off fiercely. “Run!” he yelled as one of them slashed his face with a dirk, drawing a welter of blood.
    Sorcha obeyed without looking back, clutching her torn tunic to her breast. She ne’er knew what became of the man who had defended her, for she’d never gone back that way and had never told anyone except Nessa about what had almost happened. She merely reported to Kendrew that she’d glimpsed English raiders in the woods. If she had told Kendrew about the attack, she would never have been allowed in the woods alone again.
    The three men had gotten what they’d deserved. There was a great storm that night and their lifeless bodies were found the next day, washed ashore, near an inlet cave. She’d hoped somehow that the man who’d defended her had survived.
    Nessa sighed. “Enough about Englishmen. King James the Third is to be married next year to Margaret of Denmark, who will bring Scotland the islands of Orkney and Shetland in lieu of a promised dowry, so he willna be thinking much about our situation. Yet if ye outright defy him, Sorcha, refusing this marriage, it would reach the king’s