Read Jennifer Roberson for Free Online

reduce him completely to ash, leaving him vulnerable to the cold winter’s blast of Breadalbane’s wrath.
    Comhairl’taigh.
    He had signed away his oath. He would sign away his daughter was there a man who might accept her, dowry or no.
    But Cat, being Cat, was safe.

Two
    C at lay belly down in the streamside turf, transfixed by water. That the earth was damp and her clothing soiled because of it did not discomfit her; she trailed one sleeve of her threadbare shirt into the water itself, soaked now to her elbow, and attempted to sing the speckled trout into her hand.
    Such blandishments did not impress the trout. Cat thought of tickling it, but she had neither the patience nor the skill; a hook worked best of all, but she had lost her only one in a stubborn snag. Now she used her body as the pole and her song as the bait.
    Shadow stirred, blocking out the sun. “There’s naught to catch, in there.”
    Cat ceased singing and clamped her teeth together. “There is.”
    “Och, no—you’ve scairt them all away with your noise, aye?” Robbie, the eldest, threw himself down beside her, stretching out full length to examine the stream, and her arm in it. “You’ve done naught but soak yourself.”
    The speckled trout darted away beneath an outcrop of sedge-sheltered granite. Cat cast a black scowl at Robbie, who seemed disinclined to explain his presence. Pointedly she asked, “Has Mairi run off wi’ a man in place of the lad?”
    Unprovoked, Robbie laughed and displayed his missing eyetooth, then rubbed a rough-knuckled hand through his red hair. “Och, no—not from me, aye? She’d do no better than the laird’s own son. And I’ve no complaint of her that I am lad in place of man.”
    Still Cat sought provocation; better to sting him before he stung her. “And have you told her you’d handfast with her?”
    Level brows twitched; he, of them all, shared more of Cat’s features, though on him, a male, they were more comfortable. “I dinna mean to handfast with her. Why would I tell her so?” He paused. “And what do you ken of Mairi and me?”
    Cat held her tongue. She would not admit she had spied upon them.
    Robbie did not seem perturbed that she knew. “ ’Tis her time now,” he said briefly, explaining away Mairi’s absence. “She isna a woman who wants a man when her courses are upon her.”
    Cat felt the blush engulf her face until she burned with it. She was not a fool, nor blind; she knew what courses were, and she knew how bairns were made. But she did not know how to discuss either with her brother, who had teased her all too often about such things as breasts unbudded.
    Robbie rolled over in extravagant abandon onto his spine, settling shoulder blades into the turf. He flung an arm across his eyes to block the sun. “So, he is gone, and I am left to be laird in our father’s place.”
    Cat, out of habit, was moved to protest. “Not yet. He isna dead, aye?”
    “Gone,” he repeated succinctly. Then, thoughtfully, “D’ye think Breadalbane will give him silver again?”
    She stared into the water until her eyes burned. “He isna a fool, the earl. He must ken Glenlyon would only wager and lose it again.”
    “Aye, well—he is head of the clan, aye? He will do what he will do.” Robbie’s tone hardened. “But ’twill be my misfortune Father leaves naught to me to spend by the time he is in the ground, and pastures empty of cattle.”
    “Dinna count the silver and cows beforehand,” she said sharply. “You are not Glenlyon yet.”
    Robbie dug his buttocks more snuggly into turf. “He said so, Cat: while our father is gone, I am laird in his place.”
    She made a rude sound. “And what d’ye get of it?”
    Robbie’s soft laughter was muffled by his shirtsleeve. “The chance to be a man.”
    “ Mairi would say you are, aye?”
    “No, not just because of Mairi. Because of—other things.”
    It was highly suspicious. “Other things?”
    “Things that dinna concern you, as