Highlander's Reckoning (The Sinclair Brothers #3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

that spilled around Ian and Mairi as they stood in the
doorway watching her go.
     
    By the time she reached Loch Doon, it had been dark
for hours. Luckily, all the extra activity around the village and castle in
preparation for her soon-to-be-husband’s arrival meant that it was easy for her
to find a boat to transport her back to the island. When she docked, the
portcullis still stood open.
    Clutching her cloak around her, she hurried under
the portcullis and into the courtyard. It struck her that although there was
still an air of tense anticipation hanging around the castle, the yard was
quiet and empty. She could see that light still shone from several of the tower
keep’s windows, though. Perhaps she wasn’t too late. Perhaps Daniel Sinclair
hadn’t arrived today.
    She eased open the large doors to the great hall.
Instead of finding it filled with servants and people sitting down for the
evening meal, the hall was nearly empty. Her eyes fell on her father, who stood
nearby wringing his hands. But then her attention shifted as a shadowy figure
crossed in front of the fire in the huge hearth.
    “Rona!” Her father’s voice pierced the eerie quiet,
but her attention was held on the stranger in front of the fire, whose head
whipped up and toward her.
    “Rona, where have you been? How dare you disappear
like that, and on such an important day?” Her father rushed toward her,
blocking her vision of the stranger. He wrapped his hands around her arms and
shook her hard.
    “Answer me, girl!” her father shouted, giving her
another harsh shake.
    “Laird Kennedy.”
    The stranger’s voice boomed across the empty hall,
and yet he hadn’t shouted. He merely spoke with complete authority.
    “I would thank you to take your hands off my bride.
Seeing as how I am the keeper of this castle and the lass’s future husband,
I’ll handle this.”
    Her father reluctantly stepped aside, but suddenly
Rona preferred to face her father’s wrath that this stranger’s cool, commanding
authority.
    As the man approached, she got her first good look
at him. He was garbed in a simple linen shirt, and though it was soiled and
dirty, it couldn’t obscure his large, muscular frame. Over one broad shoulder
was thrown a length of red plaid, which was fastened with a simple pin. The
plaid was also wound around his trim hips in a kilt. She had only ever seen
kilts on the rough Highlanders who occasionally passed through the village on
their way to fight the English.
    His lower legs were covered in woolen hose and tall
leather boots, which looked just as soiled and worn as his shirt. Though he
didn’t wear a great sword on his hip or strapped to his broad back the way the
other Highland barbarians she had seen did, he had a long knife secured to his
calf, making him look all the more fierce.
    But what truly took her breath away was his handsome
yet ominously stormy visage. His long, dark brown hair was pulled back loosely
from his face. Dark stubble obscured his jawline, but she could see that it was
firm and angular beneath his scruff. Frowning lips sat below his straight,
strong nose, and his eyes—they looked almost black in the low light of the
hall, but as he approached, she realized they were blue-gray like a squally
sea.
    “Leave us,” the man said flatly to her father,
though his eyes never left her. In fact, she suddenly felt very exposed and
vulnerable under his hard, sharp gaze.
    Without a word of protest, her father hurried toward
the staircase leading to the chambers above.
    Rona forced herself to straighten her spine under
the man’s silent stare. She wouldn’t be made to quaver in her boots by some
stranger, even if he was to be her husband. Never mind that his gaze made her
feel silly and tongue-tied.
    “I take it you must be Daniel Sinclair, third son to
the Laird of a Highland clan,” she said levelly.
    If her father had been there, he would have gone
into a fit at her impertinence for drawing attention to the