Stolen by the Highlander Read Online Free PDF Page B

uncle had ordered, Brodie posted no guards around the gathering or on the path to this clearing. Caelan and two of his friends sat across from him and Rob. Arabella’s twin brother and two other Camerons made up the third side. In spite of the air of companionship and reverie, there was no lack of suspicion among the group.
    ‘You are younger than your sister?’ he asked of Malcolm Cameron. He wanted to know more about the lass, no matter how he fought the urge.
    ‘Aye,’ the younger Cameron replied. ‘Only by a few minutes, but she is the elder.’ Those minutes mattered not when there was a son to inherit the titles and most of the wealth.
    ‘You fought well today,’ Brodie said. ‘Who taught you the sword?’
    ‘My uncle Niall trains the young warriors. I know you held back in the yard,’ he replied. ‘Your control was well honed. Who taught you?’
    Brodie got to his feet and walked over to sit nearer the young Cameron. Others talked amongst themselves and he did not wish everyone to hear his every question. ‘My uncle Grigor,’ he said, sitting down on the log there. ‘I have heard the story of Niall and Grigor meeting in battle. Mayhap fifteen years ago?’
    Malcolm shrugged and shook his head. ‘Where was this?’
    Malcolm held out a skin of ale and filled Brodie’s leather cup and then his own. There had been skirmishes and battles between their families for generations and, unless this treaty was successful, there would be more.
    ‘On the other side of the loch,’ he said. ‘’Tis said the fight lasted a day and a night.’
    ‘Yet both survived?’ The brother’s eyes glinted with suspicion.
    ‘’Twouldn’t be a good story if they died,’ he said, laughing. Raising his cup, he cheered, ‘A Mackintosh!’
    ‘A Cameron!’ Malcolm added his own.
    The others joined in the boisterous battle cries and then drank deeply. Caelan retrieved another skin and began to pass it around. This looked more and more like a drinking challenge each minute. Mayhap that was his uncle’s intent? After things calmed, he turned his attention back to Arabella’s brother.
    ‘So who taught her to ride that beast?’
    If he had not been watching the man’s face, he would have missed the darkness that filled his eyes and the stark pain. But Brodie saw it and a tightness filled his gut for a reason he could not explain.
    ‘She wasna supposed to ride it. The horse nearly died at birth, but she nursed it to health. Then, when it grew to the size it is now, my—our—father forbade her to ride it.’ Malcolm drank deeply then, as though preparing for the telling of some terrible bit. ‘He tried to train it and decided to break it when it would not come to heel. That horse threw every rider that tried, so my father ordered it destroyed.’
    ‘What stopped him from doing so?’ he asked, almost afraid now to hear the answer, for he knew the lass was in the middle of it.
    ‘Bella did. She stood in front of the horse and refused to allow it. My father bellowed and shouted and threatened her and the horse, but she would not relent.’
    ‘What did he do?’ The Cameron was not known to be a soft man or one that would let a defiant daughter stand in his way. Or a defiant anyone.
    ‘He told her the only way to save the horse was for her to mount it or he would break both of them.’
    Even though Brodie knew the outcome, he found himself holding his breath. He knew Euan to be a harsh man, but this surprised even him. From the tremor in Malcolm’s voice, he must have witnessed this.
    ‘So, she whispered to the horse, climbed on his back and claimed him as hers.’
    ‘I know him well enough to know that your father would not have let her disobedience go unpunished.’ Why he said that, Brodie did not know. He just needed to know.
    ‘He did not. She could not move or sit for more than a week.’
    Brodie reached for the skin being passed around, filled his cup and emptied it. The wine did not ease his concern but it did