The Highlander's Dark Seduction (Secrets of the Darroch Clan) Read Online Free PDF Page A

walls hung with tapestries of hunts and battle scenes filled with warriors that looked like Magnus and Iain. “Come with me.”
    And with no other greetings, they hurried through a small hall and then a kitchen where a hearth fire blazed. They did not linger to warm their hands though. Lily tugged her toward an open door lit with candles from low-hanging sconces. Elizabeth could see the shadowy shapes of flour sacks and barrels of wine or ale, but in the middle of the food stores, there were benches, a table and two narrow beds as if the place had been prepared for a siege. The sight of those careful preparations only added to her fear.
    “Lily, I cannot lock myself away from danger while Magnus is out there.” She pulled her hand free from her friend’s and hugged her arms around herself. “I’m so frightened for him and I don’t understand the enemy he faces. Can’t we help?” She paced off nervous energy, walking in a circle on the smooth stones of the kitchen floor. “Can’t your husband help him?”
    “You are concerned for Magnus?” Lily frowned. “I mean, of course I am as well. I’m worried for both of them. But they are trained fighters and they understand the nature of the enemy.” She sounded more certain than she appeared as she bit her lip and smoothed her tawny hair.
    “Can’t we at least see what is happening out there?” Elizabeth’s gaze went to narrow slits in an exterior wall. “What will these
sidhe
creatures do? Do they fight like mortal men? Will they use swords?”
    Already she closed the space between herself and the narrow openings in the wall. The silver light did not shine as brightly here as it did in the front of the keep. She couldn’t stop thinking about Magnus and how weary he’d sounded.
    “I don’t know, exactly.” Lily frowned and followed her to the small window, dragging over a stool so they might reach it. “I witnessed a battle once, but the light was so bright I could not see for myself exactly what happened.” She set the stool beneath the window and climbed up onto the step before offering Elizabeth her hand. “Iain says they fight with swords though—just as Darroch men do. The
sidhe
move faster than mortals, but so can the Darroch brothers. I worry more for Iain now that his curse has been broken. He is all the more likely to be killed by a
sidhe
sword if he cannot track the enemy.”
    Elizabeth climbed onto the stool beside Lily, her gown snagging on a rough stone. She snatched it away impatiently, wishing she wore the kind of practical garb that attired her friend.
    As soon as her chin cleared the stone sill, however, her eyes went to the small, empty courtyard outside.
    “One of them rests like a silver shadow behind the Blackthorn tree,” Lily whispered in her ear, pointing with a finger to the far right.
    At first, Elizabeth could not see it. She gripped the stone sill tighter and bent her head so she would be level with Lily. And then, a soft glow became apparent even though dawn had already broken. A beautiful male warrior dressed in the exotic garb of a wealthy foreigner pressed with his back to the tree. A long sword gleamed at his side, the jewels in the hilt a colorful splash of color in the silver light.
    “What does he wait for?” Elizabeth asked, nervous tension rising in her throat. She wished she could hear something, anything, that would give her a clue what happened outside the enclosed courtyard’s walls, but she did not even hear the buzzing sound that preceded the attack earlier when her carriage had been waylaid. “Do you think he will try and enter the kitchen?”
    Elizabeth’s gaze went to the barred door on the far side of the hearth on the opposite wall of the storeroom that Iain had bade them to enter. Would the
sidhe
warrior try to breach the walls of Invergale that way?
    “Nay.” Lily’s hand grabbed hers in an ice-cold grip. “Look.”
    On the opposite side of the courtyard, a leather boot dangled over one wall. A