Betrayed Read Online Free PDF Page A

laird, he will probably find fine husbands for our Morag and for me.”
    Fretting, Margery asked, “But what would our mother think of such an arrangement as Fi has made?”
    Jean snorted. “Our mother did what she had to do to survive our father, and Fi will do the same to survive the laird.”
    “Ye don't know that,” Elsbeth said. “Why, ye can't remember our mother, for she died when ye were barely three.”
    “No, I don't remember her,” Jean admitted, “but Flora often says how like Mother in character Fi is, even if she looks like our father.”
    “Did I know our mother?” Morag wondered aloud as Margery wiped her face clean of the supper stew.
    “Mam died when ye were born,” Margery said.
    “Why?” Morag said. She always asked why, though she knew the answer that she would be given.
    “Because God wanted her in heaven, our Morag,” Elsbeth replied in kindly tones. Margery drew off the child's gown, leaving Morag in her chemise to climbinto the large bed she shared with the twins and settle herself in the middle, which was her usual place. “Now shut yer eyes, and go to sleep. Tomorrow is a big day for us all.”
    The three other girls finished their ablutions and, garbed only in their chemises, climbed into bed.
    “I'll leave the candle burning for Fi to see by,” Jean said, snuggling down into the feather bed she shared with Fiona.
    In the hall below, Fiona found the high board cleared, but her two aged servants were nowhere in sight. She suspected they had already climbed to their attic and gone to bed. Folding back the wooden shutters on a sleeping space set in the wall near the fireplace, she hauled a feather bed from a storage chest and placed it in the space, adding a pillow and a coverlet. “When yer ready to sleep, my lord, ye'll find the sleeping space comfortable,” she told the laird.
    “Have ye slept in it, then?” he teased her.
    “Aye,” she said shortly. “Whenever our father wanted to use our mam, he sent us to the hall to sleep. Good night, my lord.” Fiona hurried back up the stairs to her chamber.
    Watching her go, he contemplated what a strange female she was. Saucy and bold she was without a doubt, yet loyal and protective of those she loved. She seemed to have little use for Dugald Hay, her sire, but then few had ever had use for the Hay of the Ben. He had not been a well-liked man, particularly after his rape of and forced marriage to Muire Hay, who had been betrothed to Angus Gordon's father, Robert. Dugald had kept to himself after that, siring child after child upon his unfortunate wife in his desperate attempt to gain his father-in-law's lands, for those lands would only be his if he sired a son on Muire. What had hebeen like in the years after Muire's death? How had it affected his daughters, particularly the fierce Fiona?
    He smiled. She was really quite lovely. He would enjoy initiating her into the amatory arts. Even though he had earlier questioned her virtue, he knew without asking that she was absolutely ignorant about what transpired between a man and a woman. She had been too young for such things when her mother had died, and it was unlikely Dugald Hay had enlightened his daughter.
Unlikely?
Unthinkable!
    Tomorrow night they would be safe at Brae Castle. Tomorrow night she would be his. Why did the thought excite him so? He had just met the lass. He hardly knew her. Yet he wanted to possess her, wanted to taste that ripe mouth, wanted to caress that fair white flesh, wanted to feel her lithe body beneath his. The laird of Loch Brae climbed into his bed space and, not without some difficulty, finally fell into a restless sleep.
    He awakened slowly, realizing that it was still dark, although the skies outside the tower's window were graying. He heard soft sounds in the hall, saw shadows moving about. He reached for his sword and waited to see who the intruders were and what they could possibly want from this poor place. Then suddenly he heard a giggle,