Seduced by a Rogue Read Online Free PDF Page A

care who collects the Crown taxes? A
     most tiresome task I am sure! One would expect him to be glad that someone else saves him the trouble.”
    “Bless ye, my love, he cares because collecting them would not only increase
his
power over Annandale but also that of Clan Maxwell. It would also allow him to demand fees from us
and
from his grace, the King, for that service. Sithee, he would thereby considerably increase the contents of his own purse.”
    “Do you not also collect a fee?”
    “Aye, sure, I receive a bit from each to defray my cost in conveying the gelt to Stirling each year. But I’d have nowt but
     ill will to gain by increasing such fees at a whim, as the sheriff could. I must depend on those others to support me in times
     of trouble, as I support them. Sithee, if we had to wait for a Maxwell to protect us, we’d wait a gey long time. But never
     mind all that now. How are ye feeling today?”
    Hastily excusing herself before her stepmother could launch into one of her interminable, much-too-detailed descriptions of
     exactly how she felt, Mairi went up to her own bedchamber.
    Dunwythie’s explanation of the sheriff’s likely motives had discomfited her, if only because it had reminded her yet again
     of her tenuous position in her family.
    Although her father had railed against the sheriff many times over the past year, he had not explained the man’s motives so
     clearly before. So the explanation itself had also made it clear that she still had much to learn.
    Eldest sons learned all about such things from childhood, she was sure, because everyone knew they would inherit their fathers’
     lands, titles, and responsibilities. But, because a man could sire a son at any age, particularly if—like Phaeline—his wife
     was years younger than he was, surely most men without sons kept their hopes of producing one right to the brinks of their
     graves if not until they tumbled into them.
    Dunwythie, encouraged by his lady wife, was just such a man.
    Most of them also delayed teaching their daughters about their estates, just as Dunwythie had done. No need to teach a daughter
     if one was going to have a son!
    The problem was, of course, that if one did
not
have a son, the daughter inherited without knowing much about her inheritance.
    Mairi was in just such a position. She would inherit her father’s estates as a baroness in her own right if she survived him
     and he had no son. But if Phaeline gave him one, Mairi would have only an elder daughter’s portion to offer a husband. Consequently,
     at the ripe age of nineteen, she was still unwed.
    Fiona had been right to say that Mairi needed an eligible suitor. But a man wanted to know what a woman would bring to a marriage
before
he pursued her.
    Quietly opening the door to the bedchamber she shared with her half-sister, Mairi found Fiona reclining with her stitchery
     against a pile of cushions in the window embrasure. Not that she was stitching. Cloth, needle, and thread rested in her lap
     while she stared idly at the ceiling.
    Shutting the door with a snap, Mairi chuckled when Fiona bolted upright.
    “Fortunately, it is only I, dearling, not your mother.”
    “I did not hear you until you shut the door,” Fiona said. “That latch makes almost no noise at all now.”
    “Shall I order someone to make it squeak again? An efficient gillie must have oiled it in the foolish belief that he’d be
     doing us a favor.”
    “Mock me all you like,” Fiona said with a grimace. “
You
did not have to listen to a lecture about idleness only a half-hour ago! And just because my lady mother saw that I had stopped
     stitching for a moment to think.”
    “Prithee, what grave matter occupied your thoughts so completely that you let Phaeline catch you dreaming?” Mairi asked.
    Fiona’s blushes answered her question.
    “Good sakes, it was that cheeky Jardine!”
    “He is not cheeky,” Fiona countered. “He is charming and delightful, not to mention good