Read Only For A Knight for Free Online

were so alike.
     
Almost adrift on the blessed peace his mere presence lent her, she dared to stretch gingerly testing fingers along the top of her forehead again, measuring in silent assessment the damage to her brow.
     
She sighed. A lifetime spent living close to the land had stripped her of embracing anything but the cold, hard truth. But hurtful or nay, there was e’er room for hope.
     
And Juliana collected hope, seizing every wee shimmer of goodness that she could, stashing each precious blessing in her heart like bright water-washed pebbles.
     
Aye, she’d learned early on to always look on the more felicitous side of whate’er life laid at her feet.
     
So she reached inside for her deepest strength, then eased herself back to look into the face she so cherished. Touching her head wound again, she tried to give him a not-too-wobbly smile.
     
But when even that small effort proved too difficult, she contented herself by lighting her cold lips to his cheek in the dearest kiss she could muster.
     
“See you, Kenneth, now we shall be truly alike,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “Now we will have nigh matching scars.”
     
“Kenneth?” The man’s deep blue gaze, so familiar and yet not, sharpened. He stared at her, his brows drawing together in a frown.
     
Nay, more a look of total perplexity—an expression that nowise detracted from his dark good looks or hid what she only now noticed.
     
The irrefutable truth that his handsome face bore nary a scar.
     
Certainly not the three vertical slashes she’d expected to see marring his left cheek.
     
There was simply nothing.
     
Naught save his undeniable handsomeness and the intensity of his questioning gaze.
     
Juliana bit her lip. For the first time since she’d wakened, an icy chill sluiced through her. “You are not—”
     
“Kenneth?” he repeated, pushing to his feet. “Nay, to be sure, I am not, though I once had an uncle of the name.” He sketched her a quick bow.
     
A fully unabashed naked bow!
     
Juliana stared. Faith, she could even feel her jaw dropping. Foggy-headed or no, she was quite certain she’d ne’er seen a more . . . naked man. She blinked. Her heart began to pound in her throat and she started shivering again—even as her cheeks flamed hotter than two clumps of red-glowing sea coal.
     
“Sir Robert MacKenzie at your service,” the strapping knight said, wearing his nakedness as boldly as she sought to cover hers. “But ‘Robbie’ will suffice.”
     
Staring at him, Juliana drew the great plaid closer about her chilled body. “MacKenzie?”
     
She blinked again. Faith, but the name gave her an inexplicable jolt.
     
He merely nodded. “The MacKenzies of Kintail. My father is Duncan MacKenzie, the Black Stag. Mayhap you ken the name?” He paused a moment, then continued when she only gaped at him. “I am his son and bound home to wed my betrothed.”
     
This time it was her turn to nod. But she couldn’t speak for her mouth had gone ash-dry. And something—a swift-descending emotion best described as a sharp stab of resentment—made her insides tighten and quiver like a well-wrung cloth.
     
Most disturbing of all . . . she didn’t know why the name MacKenzie distressed her. As did the name of his family’s stronghold, even though he hadn’t spoken it aloud.
     
She knew the name regardless.
     
Eilean Creag Castle.
     
Juliana shuddered, just the whisper of the dread place sent hot bile rushing to her throat. She curled her fingers deeper into the soft woolen folds of the plaid and looked at the knight, the knifing pain in her head clearly addling her wits.
     
As with his name, she had no idea why the mere thought of his home so repulsed her.
     
“. . . and you?” he was asking her in a friendly enough tone but with a definite hint of easy command lacing the gentle question.
     
Hearing it, some inborn thread of rebellion made Juliana straighten her back and square her shoulders—despite the agony the brisk movements cost