Amanda Scott Read Online Free Page A

responding to his movements and voice, but then the dog turned its head toward the door, and he heard what it had heard much sooner, a rapid clicking of heels on the stone floor of the great hall. A moment later, the door swung back on its hinges, and his sister entered the room.
    Even to her brother’s critical eye, Lady Bridget Mingary, at sixteen, was beautiful. Her long black curls, unconfined by any cap, looked as soft and as shiny as the large blue satin bow into which she had confined a bunch of them at the back of her head.
    Her round face and large, almost circular, dark blue eyes gave her a baby-faced look. Her tip-tilted nose was small, neat, and adorable; and her full, pouty lips and round cheeks owed their deep rosy color to nature rather than to rouge. Her chin, too, was softly rounded, and her smile, when she chose to display it, was wide and revealed small, even, sparkling white teeth.
    Bridget’s body was all gentle curves from her full, plump bosom to her tiny waist and flaring hips. Her hands and the neatly shod feet peeping beneath the hem of her gown as she walked were small and dainty, her fingernails neatly rounded at the ends and delicately pink. Her skin was rosy and smooth, without a blemish. She would undoubtedly grow plumper with age and look more like Michael remembered their mother looking, but at present, she was undeniably lovely. Unless, of course, one considered her temperament.
    As she strode into the room, the dog rose with graceful dignity tinged by wariness to watch her.
    Lady Bridget said sharply, “Stay, Cailean! Don’t touch my gown. Michael, do you like this dress? You’d better. It is the only silk one I own.”
    He repressed a surge of irritation, knowing full well that she did not care what he thought of the green-and-white-striped gown she wore, although its overdress, opening as it did in a vee down the low, square-necked bodice and falling away at her impossibly narrow waist to expose an underdress of sunshine-yellow satin, was extremely becoming. Exerting himself to sound more patient than he felt, he said, “You cannot have a new dress, Bridget. I’m sorry, but I thought I explained my reasons clearly the last time you asked me.”
    “Michael, you’ve simply got to be reasonable. I’ve written to Aunt Marsali, as you know, for you gave my letter to Mr. Cameron yourself before he left to visit his brother in Edinburgh. In any event, you did not say that I must not write to her.”
    “Why on earth would I forbid you to write to our aunt?”
    “Well, you didn’t, that’s all, and you must have known that I would be asking her to take me to parties this spring, for she promised that she would do so when I grew old enough, and I have decided that I am, so I simply must go to Edinburgh this year.”
    “Bridget, we have had this conversation too many times. Even if I agreed that you are old enough, which I do not, I cannot afford to send you to Edinburgh.”
    Her lovely eyes welled with tears. “But how will I ever get married if I never meet anyone? You never think about me, Michael. You think only about your stupid dogs and this horrid, drafty, decrepit old castle, and never, never about me!”
    Her voice had risen alarmingly, and he spoke quietly in an effort to calm her. “I do think about you all the time,” he said, “but it is my duty as chief of our clan to think about all our people, and about Mingary.”
    She stamped one small foot. “But what about me ?”
    He remembered the letter. “I received another offer for your hand.”
    Her neatly arched eyebrows snapped together in a scowl. “Another one? Dare I ask if this one, like all the others, comes from Sir Renfrew Campbell?”
    “It does,” he said evenly.
    “I am surprised that you do not simply order me to marry him,” she snapped. “You would then be rid of me, at all events.”
    Goaded, he said, “He wants my forests still, for his damned bloomery.”
    Her chin rose. “You should not use