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

out of the castle entirely if he hadn’t known it would break Heather’s heart. Instead, he’d had to hide Arabella away by offering her work in the physicker’s laboratory.  
    Clearly he hadn’t hidden her well enough.
    The laird cleared his throat. “You want to marry her? But she’s a…”  
    The laird was going to say whore , but the look of warning in the russet-haired warrior’s eyes spoke of trouble he didn’t need. Besides, John didn’t like to disparage the younger sister of the woman he adored. So he tried for a more diplomatic approach. “Davy, you must know that you won’t be the first man to have Arabella.”
    Davy smiled with amusement. “I took her maidenhead, my laird.” Well. That changed everything, of course. Still, the laird fumbled, trying to decide if he should be angry or congratulatory about this revelation. Davy must have sensed his confusion, because he added, “She offered it, willingly, of course.”
    But that is no sort of woman to take to wed , John thought. Or at least that is what he’d always been taught. A wife guarded her virtue until a union was sanctioned. A wife was meant to bring a dowry and provide bairns for a man’s hearth.  
    The laird scratched the back of his neck. “What can Arabella give you in marriage that you can’t have from her already?”
    “Love and commitment for all her days,” Davy replied, then, perhaps sensing he sounded altogether too sentimental for a man at war, he added, “I’m not an ambitious man, laird. You must give thought to things like alliances and the like. You must worry for your wife’s reputation, for her holdings, and so on. I realize that even as we speak, you may be thinking of taking a bride from a rival clan in order to negotiate your way out of this siege. But I’m not the clan chieftain. I can marry for love. It’s the advantage of being one of the little people.”
    It was one of the advantages, and it irritated the laird as it had never irritated him before. “You can marry if and when I say you can marry, Davy of Clan Macrae.”
    Davy smiled wryly. “Which is why I’m asking.”
    There was a part of the laird that wondered why he was arguing. What was it to him if one of his warriors wed an unsuitable girl? But John felt as if a battle raged inside him that depended somehow upon his answer. “Davy, it will reflect poorly upon your honor if you marry her. Those who do not think young Arabella is a witch believe she’s a harlot.”
    “She’s neither,” Davy insisted.  
    The laird believed otherwise and it gave him no joy to be the one to say so. “She was betrothed to another man a mere month ago. Since then, I heard from the squeaky little maid that she’s been seen with her skirts up around her waist and a man swiving her in the hallway. She was seen being carried up the stairs by a lover for a tryst. And beyond these indiscretions, I’m told she’s lain with Malcolm, too. Malcolm , your own bosom companion.”
    Davy’s wry smile didn’t leave his face, but a tightness at his eyes showed he was annoyed. Very annoyed. “And to think, laird, some people say you’re a cold and unfeeling man! Little do they know how you take such an interest in the small lives of your people. Why, even though you’ve a whole castle to defend against a siege, you take the time to listen to the gossip of squeaky little maids so that you know exactly which of your men is dallying with which crofter’s lass!”
    The laird felt these words like a cold bucket of water to the face.  
    Davy’s words shamed him as a meddling fishwife, as they were meant to. And so John was forced to retreat behind reasons he could defend. “Marriage isn’t a decision to be entered into lightly. Wed in haste, repent in leisure.”
    “Aye but a man likes to have something to fight for. And if the worse should happen, I would like to give the woman I love the protection of my name if nothing else.”
    Gods blood . Something about those