Beloved Imposter Read Online Free PDF Page B

was going in the right direction.
    Her feet sank into wet ground. Her skirts were heavy and laden with moisture. Still, her only concern was reaching the hills and caves. She could hide there until they stopped searching the area.
    A hand suddenly clasped her arm, another stifling the scream that rose in her throat. A piece of cloth was expertly tied around her mouth, and she felt herself being hoisted onto a horse.
    Fear spiked inside her as a body rose behind her. Thick arms imprisoned her and grasped the reins of a horse far larger than the mare she’d been leading.
    The Camerons?
    But they wouldn’t treat their lady in such a way. Nor would they gag her if they had discovered her deceit. Her body necessarily leaned against what seemed an enormous man.
    “Ye will no’ be harmed,” came a whisper in her ear.
    Then without any additional words from the man, the horse plunged back onto a trail, and she was aware only of speed and strength.
    She had escaped.
    But to what?
    Chapter 3
    “Where in the devil is Archibald?”
    Rory faced Douglas in the room that served them both as an office.
    Douglas raised his eyes upward, as if appealing to a higher being. “I canna say, my lord.”
    “Can not or will not?”
    “Archibald goes his own way.” Douglas avoided answering the question.
    “Aye, and so do too many on this property,” Rory said without trying to disguise his displeasure. “I do not think my father tolerated such disrespect.”
    “I do no’ think Archibald meant any disrespect,” Douglas said. “He has always had the clan’s interest at heart.”
    His gaze didn’t meet Rory’s, and that was rare. Douglas was the most forthright man Rory knew, particularly in the Scottish highlands, which too often bred duplicitous scoundrels.
    Rory was getting a very bad feeling.
    “I want to make peace with the Campbells,” he warned.
    “You made that clear,” Douglas said. “But they burned some of our crofts to the north. If we do not retaliate beyond reclaiming our cattle, they will continue their burning and stealing.”
    “I plan to meet with the Campbell in Edinburgh. A truce would help both clans.”
    ” Tis a fine dream, but I fear an impossible one. We have been fighting near a hundred years, ever since—”
    “Then it is time to end it. There has been enough pain and death. Both the Campbells and Macleans are losing cattle and men. Even power. An alliance would gain us both.”
    “And put the curse to rest,” Douglas added.
    Rory glared at him. God’s blood, he hated the very mention of that damned curse.
    He told himself he was a modern man. He did not believe in curses. Many women died in childbirth. Many lost their child as well. And his second wife? Fever had swept through Leith, the seaport near Edinburgh. His wife was one of many who died.
    Bloody bad luck. Nothing more.
    Still, the pain was always in him like the tip of a poisoned spear. He lived with loneliness. With fear. With memories.
    Maggie walking among the heather, her eyes lit with laughter and love and the pure joy of living.
    Maggie giggling as she told him they would have a child. A son. She was quite convinced of it.
    Maggie as she clutched his hand and tried gallantly to stifle screams when the baby wouldn’t come and she bled to death.
    Maggie who had been his first love, who had stolen his heart and never disappointed. She had thought otherwise. Her last words were, “I am sorry, so sorry … your son …”
    And then she stopped breathing.
    The agony was as fresh now as it had been then. Just as it was for Anne who had been an innocent, who had loved him even as he had not been able to return that love until it was too late.
    “Rory?”
    He looked back at Douglas.
    “You canna mourn forever. You have a duty to the clan.”
    “I will hear no more of it. Patrick will return. He will provide an heir. I will not.”
    He strode away, his heart like a rock inside him. He would not marry. He could not. He did not believe in