Highland Promise Read Online Free PDF Page B

protect this wee lad. Sorcha was much loved. Many will be outraged by her murder. Our allies will most certainly join with us.”
    “Allies like the MacMillans?”
    “Aye.” She struggled to smother a huge yawn. “Many will be eager to save Sorcha’s son’s birthright.” She finished her food, then gave James a small drink of her rapidly waning supply of goat’s milk. “When Sorcha was taken to court, it was immediately clear that she could have made a marriage that would have allied our clan with some of the most powerful ones in all of Scotland, but she wanted Robert, a distant cousin of ours. Nevertheless, she made many friends and her beauty and sweet charm aided my parents in making many new friends and allies. There is no judging how many may be eager to help us avenge her death. She won so verra many hearts.” James curled up on his blanket, sleepily sucking on his fingers, and she began to rub his back.
    “Ye must have won some hearts as weel,” Eric murmured, unable to resist the temptation to tangle his fingers in the heavy blanket of her hair. She had left it unbraided and it still hung to her slim hips in rippled waves, begging to be stroked.
    “Oh, I didnae go to court.”
    “Nay? Ye were ill?”
    Bethia tucked a small blanket around a now sleeping James. “Nay. ’Twas decided all monies should go to making sure Sorcha shined at court, e’en though all said she would shine e’en if she was dressed in rags. Sorcha was also able to win hearts with but a smile.” She sent Eric a brief, shy smile. “I fear I have a sharp tongue, dinnae hold a firm rein on my temper, and dinnae trust as easily as Sorcha did. Sorcha saw only good in everyone.”
    Eric did not like the portrait painted by Bethia’s words. Sorcha had clearly been the favored child, seen as the better of the pair. Even Bethia spoke of the woman as if she had been but one smile away from sainthood. Bethia had obviously been set in her sister’s shadow and left there. Eric suspected Bethia had not only had to fight to survive being the smallest at birth, but probably struggled continuously just to be noticed once in a while.
    “’Tis wondrous when someone can remain so pure of heart, their eyes unclouded by suspicion, but walking in that blessed state didnae keep her alive, did it?” he said.
    There was a hint of anger in his voice, a shade of sarcasm, and Bethia frowned at him. “Nay, it didnae. Robert was much akin to Sorcha. Bonny, trusting, and charming. ’Tis a pity such sweetness and beauty seems unable to survive long in this harsh world.”
    “There is truth in that, but a wee pinch of wariness is what keeps a person alive. If one is going to skip through life bonny, charming, and trusting, one best have a solid, wary, dour mon always at one’s back.”
    She smiled faintly. “Aye. One of us should have considered that,” she said, her sadness quickly returning. “We sent two sweet bairns into a wolf’s lair without a shield.” She lightly touched the sleeping James’s bright curls. “This bairn will be watched. He will also be taught how to watch his own back. The lad has the same sweet nature hisparents had, and whilst I dinnae wish to destroy that, I do mean to temper it.”
    “Ye will do that? I should think that your parents would take on the care of the lad.”
    “Oh, my parents will love him, for he is a part of Sorcha, but”—she grimaced, feeling a little guilty for what she was about to say—“they loved and raised Sorcha too, didnae they? They fall too easily beneath the allure of that sweetness and beauty and feel all others do as weel. Caution, wariness, the ability to look closely beneath a smile were ne’er taught. Thus they raised Sorcha and thus they will try to raise James. Nay, ’twill be my sad lot to tell this bairn that, sometimes, that smile hides a lie, or, worse, a dagger aimed at your heart. Mayhap Bowen will help.”
    Bethia felt Eric’s fingers clench briefly in her hair, and she