Tess and the Highlander Read Online Free PDF

gesture made him smile.
    “I so wish I knew your name, lass.”
    “So c-c-cold…” she whispered weakly in her sleep,
trying to tug his warm hand beneath the blanket.
    He disengaged his hand from the young woman and
instead tucked the covers more tightly around her.
    “I am a man, my bonny islander, and there are limits
to a man’s restraint.”
    Her shivering was getting worse instead of
better.
    “’Twould be best for you to stop challenging all I
say.”
    Shaking his head, he leaned over and pushed her
closer to the wall. Then, with a deep sigh of resignation, Colin
lay down on top of the blankets and nestled against her.
    “I do not know if you’ll get any heat from my body
this way, but this is as much help as I’m willing to be.” He
crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the blackened ceiling
above. “And not a word of this to the men who come back for me,
understand? You’re not to say anything about me lying beside you
with you all…all naked beneath this blanket. And absolutely nothing about what a bloody gentleman I’ve been!”
    She tucked her cold nose into the crook of his
neck.
    Colin rolled toward her and drew the bundled woman
tightly to him, enveloping her in his warmth. “I have a reputation
to protect. So none of this gets out. Do you hear me, lass?”
    She didn’t say anything in agreement, but she didn’t
contradict him, either.
    A very good start, he thought.

 
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 3
     
    “He is alive. I know it,” Alexander Macpherson said
curtly to the two sailors preparing to take the news of his
youngest brother’s mishap overland to the family at Benmore Castle.
“You tell them that.”
    The ship, still buffeted by the strong winds and
stinging rain, strained at its anchor in Anstruther harbor on the
Fife coast. They had been lucky when there had been a slight lull
in the storm around midnight. Taking shelter in the barren,
windswept harbor, Alexander had been striding across the deck all
night, cursing the storm that was holding him hostage.
    Just because his ship was trapped, though, the
ship’s master was not about to sit idle. Alexander had already sent
off a dozen men on foot and horseback to the north and a dozen more
to the south with directions to comb every beaches and inlets from
Fife Ness to Kincraig. But the area being searched was only a small
stretch compared to the shoreline south of the Firth of Forth, and
he would need more men to broaden the search. He would find his
brother.
    As the two messengers dropped into the small boat
that would take them to the shore and to waiting horses, one of the
ship’s mates spoke up to the small group gathered by the railing.
“I for one have never seen a better swimmer than Master Colin.”
    Alexander understood the words were said as much for
his sake as anyone else’s.
    “Aye,” said another. “That sea could easily have
carried ‘im all the way to Leith.”
    “Knowing how ready the lad was to be done with that
lot at St. Andrews,” an old tar added, “I’ll wager he’s swum all
the way to Dundee. Why, the young devil’s no doubt sitting in front
of the fire at the Cock ‘n’ Crown right now, a cup o’ ale in ‘is
hand and a lassie on ‘is knee.”
    “Ye mean both knees.” The other corrected.
“The way the lassies throw themselves at the lad…” The sailor
paused, shaking his head in wonder. “What young Master Colin says
is right—why settle for one when ye can have ‘em all?”
    As the men laughed uneasily, Alexander looked out
across the harbor at the storm-lashed sea. He wished he could be so
sure. He wished he had Colin here now.
    His ship’s mate laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll
find him, m’lord. ‘Tis a sailor’s lot to end his days in the sea,
but Master Colin’s time was not up. I’m certain of it.”
    The ship’s master silently cursed the storm in
frustration. Though he’d continue to have his men scour the shore,
it would be much easier to sail up and