Highland Master Read Online Free PDF

ones the men occasionally added to also, had her both amused and amazed. Arianna had married into a very large and strange family, yet she could hear the affection for them all in her cousin’s voice.
    A part of her was jealous of all her cousin had done, and even more jealous of how she had found herself part of such a large, loving family. Triona recognized her jealousy but found no rancor in it, just an understandable envy. She had never had such things but had always wanted them. An equal part of her was happy for Arianna because, despite her anger at her husband, Triona could hear the love she had for the man every time she spoke of him.
    When Arianna admitted to being tired and needing to seek her bed, Triona also excused herself. She wanted to stay and speak with the men, her mind eager for any conversation that did not have to do with breeding stock or planting fields, but did not yet feel comfortable enough with them to linger without Arianna there as well. Although she was accustomed to dealing with men, they were men-at-arms, farmers, and other villagers. The men who had come with Arianna were knights and men of the world. In some ways she was intimidated by them, by their greater knowledge of the world outside the boundaries of Banuilt.
    Alone in her bedchamber, she dressed for bed and banked the fire. A small part of her missed Boyd, but only because she now felt as if all the weight of Banuilt rested on her shoulders, and she could have done with his sharing at least the small part of it that he had when he was alive. The fact that she did not miss him in any other way struck her as very sad. It should not be that way, and yet she knew he would not have missed her all that much if she had been the one taken by the fever. He would have found another wife with a good dower so that he could have continued to make Banuilt—once little more than a peel tower and grazing land—into a grand fortress.
    Triona wondered what it would be like to love a man as she knew her cousin loved her husband. By the way Arianna and the others talked, that love was returned, and the man would soon come hunting for his wife. They had implied that, even if Sir Brian MacFingal had thought to allow his errant wife to stew in her own anger for a while, his clan would push him to go to her, for they would not wish the man to risk losing her. She envied her cousin that, and hoped the woman knew how very fortunate she was.
    It did puzzle her that Arianna was so close to her cousins, because when they were younger, she had gotten the feeling that Arianna’s parents, though loving, had not often mixed with the very large Murray clan. More than Triona’s had, yet there had been expectations placed on Arianna that, from all her grandmother had told her, would never have been placed upon other women in the Murray clan. Arianna had never complained, however, and Triona had known even back then that her cousin was far luckier in her family than she was.
    She sighed and stared up at the ceiling. There was a lot she did not have, but she knew she had more than most. It was not good to envy what others had, especially if there was little chance that one would ever gain that for oneself. That way led to a poisoning in the heart and mind. Triona knew she would never have what Arianna did, and would have to accept that sad truth. Her own family had sent her off to her aging husband and had never once checked to see if she was happy to go or even happy to stay. They had seen her marriage as an advantageous one, a connection that would aid her brother in gaining some much needed influence with people who could get him into the king’s court and rid them of a lass who would only have been a burden to them as she aged.
    “I have friends,” she whispered. “I have Ella and I have Banuilt. I have a great deal to be grateful for. I have food enough to keep from starving, a roof o’er my head, and clothes on my back. I have a nice soft bed to curl up in