To Marry A Scottish Laird Read Online Free PDF Page B

He’d gingerly felt around on his back earlier and noted the size of his wound. That plus the amount of dried blood he’d found in his boots when he’d tried to don them told him as much. His plaid had been clean, but the boy hadn’t thought to check inside his boots. Cam had set them to soak in the river with a couple of large rocks to hold them in place, hoping that would remove the dry blood.
    That recollection had Cam sitting up. Gritting his teeth against the pain that shot up his back, he glanced toward the river, eyebrows rising when he saw that Jonas was no longer at the river’s edge. The sudden worry that the boy might have fallen in had Cam getting abruptly to his feet. He had his plaid wrapped about his waist and was at the riverside in a trice. There was no sign of him there, but the river could have taken him downstream. The current wasn’t strong, but there was a current.
    Cursing, Cam began to follow the river, scanning the surface for the boy’s floating body. He’d gone perhaps twenty feet when movement in the shadows ahead made him slow and squint his eyes to see better. Jonas stood ahead, at the water’s edge. He was disrobing, obviously intending to bathe.
    Cam paused and relaxed, glad he hadn’t called out. The boy obviously wanted privacy for the task or he wouldn’t have come so far downstream. Cam was about to turn and give him that privacy when the boy took his hat off, allowing long hair to come tumbling out. His eyebrows rose at that. Most peasants kept their hair short to keep it out of the way while working. It was also a sign of their status. Jonas having hair that tumbled down his back almost to the top of his braies was just a bit startling. But that wasn’t the only surprise. The boy tugged his tunic off over his head, revealing bandages wrapped around his upper chest in a wide swath.
    The sight made Cam clench his fists as Jonas began to unwind the wrapping. He hadn’t realized how badly the boy had been hurt in the attack. Here he’d apparently taken a mammoth wound, and yet the lad was the one who had looked after him while he—
    Cam’s thoughts died abruptly as the last of the bandages fell away and two rather generous breasts popped into view. Shocked to the core, Cam merely stood there gaping like an idiot as he tried to accept what his eyes were telling him. Jonas, the fine young chap he liked and respected, was a girl. A fine figure of a girl too, he saw, as she dropped her braies and started into the water. She had a figure that—
    Bloody hell!
    Turning abruptly, Cam strode silently back the way he’d come, not stopping or even slowing until he reached the spot he’d been lying on earlier. Pulling the plaid up around his shoulders, he then lay down, pulled the plaid to cover his head and shoulders and then firmly closed his eyes. The moment he did, an image of Jonas stripping off his braies rose up against the back of his eyelids. Her , Cam corrected himself. She’d taken off her braies.
    Dear God, Jonas was a Josephine . . . or perhaps a Joanna, or something along those lines. He had no idea what her real name was. Or how much to believe of the tale he’d been told. Was there really a message to be delivered? He suspected that was true. He’d seen the scroll himself. And lad or not, she was still delivering the message, though whether it had been a deathbed request or not wasn’t certain.
    On the other hand, Cam reminded himself, she hadn’t stolen his gold or left him to die at the roadside, so he suspected he could trust her word and that the majority of the tale was the truth. Actually, it made a lot of sense for her to travel as a boy. Had she been dressed as a woman, he wouldn’t have come upon her being robbed, but raped. Which was no doubt the reason for the disguise, he realized. It wasn’t safe for a lass to travel alone.
    A lass, he thought. Damn. Cam lay still for a moment, but then recovered enough from his shock to decide it made no