Highland Hope (Wild Thistle Triology Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

arm. The nerve of him, she fumed. Her father had once reigned from the Laird’s chair.
    Oak with a tall back and thickly carved arms and legs, the chair represented strength and endurance. Traits she lived for, traits engraved deep within her very character. She straightened her shoulders and looked over the group of men.
    Hope cocked her brow, waiting for one of them to speak. As usual, she was left without a drink or even offer of one.
    “Have ye inspected the bag?”
    She glanced at Connor, relieved it ’twas him who spoke and not Liam. Liam made her nervous. She always looked behind her as she paced the corridors of the keep, walked the battlements. As if she expected him to lurch out from behind and topple her over the edge, her distrust of him was so strong. Connor, on the other hand, had been her father’s most trusted man. In battle, they’d fought as a team and almost died as one. Her father’s friend still bore the grotesque scar traveling from his temple to the base of his strong jaw. The strike had nearly cleaved his head in half and miraculously, he’d lived where her father had died.
    “Nay.” She lifted the flap of the bag and emptied its contents onto the distressed table. A hunk of dried meat, a quill, a linen shirt, and a lone piece of parchment piled before her. Not much to call belongings, but she couldn’t fault the man for traveling light. She was disappointed there wasn’t more, but she fingered the paper, enjoying the tension emanating from the men. With a peek beneath her lashes, Hope watched each of them attempting to appear uninterested, but failing miserably with eager gleams highlighting their eyes.
    Liam pounded on the table. “Bollocks! What does it say?”
    Hope leaned forward and swept the contents back into the bag. Despite the shadows the candlelight offered, she could read anger and contempt on Liam’s weathered face. His ire threaded through his body, making him as tightly wound as the string of one of Faith’s bows. He lurched for the parchment, rattling the table, displacing the tumblers and candles. Waxy tallow and ale mixed together as they formed a river which dripped onto the hewn flooring.
    Connor caught Liam before he completed his task. “Get hold of yerself, man.”
    Stephen leapt from his chair, spilling it backward with a resounding thud. Ian sat, face stricken.
    Liam ripped his arm from Connor’s grasp. “Get off me, ye eejit .”
    By Saint John, she thought to herself, she must tell them. “Sit down,” Hope said loudly, with enough authority, even Duncan looked in from the corridor. She caught and held her cousin’s gaze.
    He nodded, then turned back to the hallway. Duncan’s broad back acted like a door, impermeable to interlopers.
    “Sit down,” she repeated. This time, her low, guttural command cut through the chaos.
    Each man stilled, threw a look in her direction, and sat.
    Hope stood. When she was certain the men were going to stay, she began pacing the room, circling the table, heightening the tension so thick it was like the fog of the sound on a moist spring morning. In response, the men’s temper simmered like the cresting waves of the water before a storm, much like the storm during her father’s death.
    “I’ve made a decision regarding MacKerry.”
    Liam lifted his shoulders and shifted to the edge of his seat. Leaning forward, he pounded his fist on the table. “Speak woman.”
    Hope lifted a brow and waited until the old man sat back into the chair. “As you are all aware, my mother was my most trusted adviser.”
    Liam waved an impatient hand. “Aye, aye. Go on with it.”
    Hope held a sigh and glared at Liam. “I’m in need of another to help me rule.” She looked pointedly at the men. “And to follow my father’s decree.”
    Connor cleared his throat. “We ken this, laird. Tell us yer plan,” he said softly and with a nod of encouragement.
    She chuckled, then sobered. “I have spoken with the prisoner MacKerry and I will