On a Highland Shore Read Online Free PDF Page A

people, that he neglects them, that he spends all his time at court and all his coin on clothing for himself. It will be difficult for him to find room in his life for a wife, Margaret.”
    “That’s not true!” she cried. “He’s always been kind to me. And to you. He went hunting with ye last visit.”
    “And what was it he caught, aye?”
    She frowned at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
    “I dinna like him, Margaret. That’s what it means.”
    He left the hall again without a backward glance. Margaret sighed.
     
    Her father ordered the patrols around the borders of his land increased, sent word to the neighboring clans of the find, spent hours in deep conversations with his war chieftain that halted when anyone else came near. He told the rest of them nothing. No other heads were found. No news of unrest came from the runners who arrived from other clans, and people stopped looking over their shoulders and worrying. All of Somerstrath waited, but as the days passed without incident, everyone calmed. Except for Margaret, who continued to feel unsettled, as though her body had felt a shift in the air that her mind had not yet recognized.
    She told herself it was simply bridal nervousness, that she was uneasy because these were her last days at Somerstrath. She’d done some traveling; she’d been to the MacDonald and Ross holdings, and to visit her Aunt Jean’s family, the Comyns. She’d feasted with nobles and clan chiefs and a king, but most of her life had been spent here, on her father’s small part of the Clan MacDonald lands. Her discomfort, she told herself, was nothing more complicated than that she was leaving everyone and everything she knew. As eager as she was to wed, part of her heart always would be here at Somerstrath.
    She would not be here to see the winter storms come in from the west, to feel the wind lift the salt spray high above the water and sweep it into the keep, would not be here to see the rainbows that curved from the mountains or disappeared behind the blue islands offshore. Would not be here to listen to the stories told on winter nights, of mighty Somerled, from whom her family descended. Of the great warriors gone before who had risked all for honor or for love, of selkies and banshees and giants. She would not be here for the birth of her new brother or sister, would not know the child at all, would not see her brothers grow and change. She’d be married, living inland, surrounded by luxury and mountains and burns that mimicked the sea, but far from home and family. Of course she felt unsettled.
    But she shouldn’t, she scolded herself. It wasn’t a stranger she was marrying, it was Lachlan. Their life together would be splendid. She could visit Somerstrath; Lachlan did often enough. Nell and her brothers could visit her. And Fiona would be with her, for she’d convinced her parents of it. And she still had time here, a fortnight, before everything would change.
    In that, she was wrong.

Two
    J UNE 1263
F ERMANAGH ,
U LSTER , I RELAND
    M y lord.”
    Gannon MacMagnus looked up from the letter he was writing to Patrick Maguire, his stepfather, and leaned back in the chair provided by the croftholder in whose home they’d spent the night. He’d been about to write Patrick that all was well on his western lands, that the perimeter ride Gannon and his younger brother Tiernan had been on had proved uneventful. But one look at the man who now stood in the doorway made Gannon suspect that those words would never be written.
    It was Alban Maguire, his brother at his side. Both men were tacksmen of Gannon’s stepfather’s and Gannon had known them for years. Alban’s face was lined with grief, his manner shaken. His brother was pale and grim. Whatever this was, it was serious. Across the room Tiernan looked up from the bridle he’d been examining and the brothers exchanged a glance.
    “What is it, Alban?” Gannon asked.
    Alban twisted his hands together before him.