The Highlander's Stolen Touch Read Online Free PDF Page A

until she entered the stone building and turned back to Duncan, believing that he would explain everything now that his wife was gone. Instead, the man who he counted as his mentor and his friend shrugged and left him standing there.
    This day grew stranger with every passing moment, so Tavis decided to carry out his duties and not worry over this strange behaviour from those not old enough yet to be daft, but old enough not to act so foolishly. In two days, Ciara would leave to meet her potential husband and his family and she would not be his concern at all.
    In reality, and although the choice was in her grasp, there was little chance of her not marrying young James Murray. She’d turned down three other proposals, but this time the laird and her parents supported the match. The Murrays supported the match. So, the next time he saw her, she would be marrying someone else.
    Though he could not admit it, nor could he explain it, that fact did not sit well with him.
    Not at all.
    * * *
    Marian made her way to Jocelyn’s solar where her friends had gathered to discuss their plans. Though forbidden from trying to make a better match for her daughter than the one suggested by the laird, due to this stupid agreement with their husbands, she could at least know what her friends were doing. Duncan was not happy with her, for he knew she was about to interfere, and she would have blurted out the truth of it to Tavis if not for her husband’s interruptions.
    More than a year ago, the laird had discovered his wife’s matchmaking scheme and his surprise had turned into a challenge about whether he and his advisers—the men—could choose a better spouse for their children than his wife and her confidantes—the women—could. Neither side worried that the other would not choose carefully, they simply believed they could choose better. Unfortunately for Marian, her precious daughter was the first to come of age and be ready to marry.
    Now, as Jocelyn gathered them together to discuss their plan, Marian had to listen and not offer any suggestions or help.
    ‘He did not express any objections to her marrying young Jamie Murray,’ she finally blurted out when she could stand it no longer. ‘Not a word.’
    The silence that met her statement was followed by tsking and sighing, but no one offered any advice on how to make Tavis see the truth that each of the women gathered there had seen for years—he was the best man for Ciara. He’d shunned any attempt to get him to consider marriage again after his young wife died in childbirth four years before. Though men could be stoic and never admit to the softer feelings, they suspected that it had played a part in his resistance to finding another wife since that time.
    And through those difficult years since Saraid had passed, the only woman he did keep company with was Ciara. Their friendship had never waned since they’d met on her journey here from her home and clan. Nearing manhood, Tavis never shunned Ciara’s attentions or company, even though most young men that age would have. At least not until this last year, when something had clearly happened between them—something that had widened the gap.
    ‘I had such hopes of him acknowledging his feelings for her and saying so by now,’ Margriet, Rurik’s wife, said.
    ‘He watches her even when he does not realise it,’ Jocelyn offered. ‘But ’tis time for him to step forward and claim her.’
    ‘Before it is too late,’ Marian whispered, knowing that once Ciara left on her journey there would be little or no opportunity to stop the coming marriage.
    Or mayhap it was? Or they were wrong in their belief that he was the right match for Ciara? Her heart worried so much for her beloved daughter and for the things Ciara did not, and hopefully would never, know about her true parentage.
    Because of those secrets of the past, Ciara’s wealth had been inherited from a settlement made by Marian’s brother, the laird of the