The Bold Heart (The Highland Heather and Hearts Scottish Romance Series) Read Online Free PDF

cart. The back was filled with sacks of grain over which a length of burlap had been tied.
    His eyes gleamed upon seeing the saddle, and he motioned for one of his men to take it away before patting the empty seat next to him and winking. “Hop to, lad. I’ve business with the watchkeeper. You’ll have until noon to get your men to the cart, and I’ll smuggle them out the gate,” he said, pausing to spit on the cobblestones. “After that, our ways part. For good.”
    Merry nodded and leapt up by his side.
    The cart lurched forward, and they didn’t speak as they rolled through Carlisle’s narrow teeming streets, over the rough-planked bridge that spanned the moat, and to the castle gate.
    The two guards merely waved them through, and as the cart rolled by the eastern tower, Robert nodded. “There,” he muttered into his beard. “You have until noon, young fellow. Give wings to your feet.”
    Merry didn’t need to be told twice.
    Crossing herself, she hopped off the cart and sprinted toward the tower. The oaken door stood unguarded. There was not a man in sight.
    Putting her shoulder to the door, she pushed it open cautiously and slipped inside.
    Voices.
    “I’ll have another,” one was saying. “’Tis wine fit for the king’s table, it is.”
    “You’ve had enough now,” another replied.
    “Hsssst,” came yet a third. “Do you want every man to know?”
    Peeking around the corner, she saw three guards crouching around the kegs of Rhennish wine, and in the opposite corner, she saw an iron door with a ring of keys hanging on a nearby hook.
    It only took a moment, and she had the keys. Another moment, and she was down the steps.
    She gagged as she was met by the rank odor of unwashed bodies swarming with flies. But with sweaty palms, she crept forward, praying she would find Ewan quickly.
    The braying of the guards’ laughter drifted down the stairwell as she peered into the cells.
    “And what are you looking for?” one of the cell’s occupants called out.
    “Who’s the long lad?” another asked.
    Ignoring them, Merry scanned the faces.
    It was difficult to see. The torches on the walls provided little light beyond illuminating the wall behind them. And the stench of the place was overbearing, leaving her yearning for the sea and the crisp clean winds of Skye.
    The guards above broke out into a drinking song, a raw reminder that she had little time to spare.
    Determined, she pressed on.
    And then she saw him.
    A virile, powerful man, a battle-hardened warrior standing in the corner. Light from the torches fell upon his flaxen-hair and face, revealing eyes as blue as the sea and arms of corded steel.
    And even though she hadn’t seen him in well over ten years, she recognized him at once.
    Ewan MacLean.

Chapter Two – Who Are Ye Truly?

    “And who’s the long lad?” Alec Montgomery asked, looking down his aristocratic high-bridged nose at the strange dark-haired youth approaching the cell. “Ho, there. Did ye bring whisky?”
    “Whisky?” a prisoner retorted from the cell next door. “They treat us worse than dogs. At least they feed their curs.”
    “Aye, but ‘tis an extraordinary day this,” Alec tossed the words over his shoulder. “In but a few short hours, I’ll swing from the gallows. That’s deserving of a draught now, aye?” He laughed. But it was a bitterly false laugh and his green eyes were hard. Humorless.
    Ewan MacLean eyed Alec in keen irritation. The young chestnut-haired man’s reckless ways had landed them in their current predicament, a situation proving unusually difficult to escape from.
    “Stay wary, Alec. Our time will come,” Ewan cautioned under his breath and then pivoting on his heel, eyed the strange lad peering through the rusty iron bars that separated them.
    A swift assessment revealed that he wasn’t a guard.
    Nor a fighting man.
    For a brief moment, Ewan felt a sense of recognition. But upon closer inspection, he found the beardless boy’s