Highland Promise Read Online Free Page A

he had done something to help, but he bumped into Anne. 
    Water sloshed from the buckets she carried and soaked her skirts.
    Malcom grabbed the buckets, “What are you trying to do Anne?  First you sit out in the night air and now you half drown yourself.  Do you think we don’t have enough to do?  We can’t afford for you to take ill.”
    She shoved against his chest.  “I’m trying to do my part.  I’m doing what you said I had to do.”
    Malcom caught her hand before his chest again and she winced. He forced it open to find the skin angry and red.  Her hands were beginning to roughen, not the hands of a lady any longer, but those of a servant.
    He had done this to her.
    He pushed her out the door and closed it behind them.
    “I didn’t mean you should do the work of a man.  I didn’t mean you should hurt yourself.”  His thumb stroked over her petal soft skin and caressed her reddened palm.
    “What am I supposed to do then?”  She spat.
    It was too much.  Her eyes sparked with anger and confusion.  Her lips pulled down in a frown.
    He lost all control as he pulled her to him and kissed her.  She didn’t resist him.  Her body was pliant in his arms as he pulled her ever closer.  His lips parted hers and his tongue touched the sweetness of her.  He sighed as his body reacted to her in a way he’d never felt.  His chest burned with something he couldn’t explain as he learned the secrets of her sweet mouth.
    When her arms circled his neck he was lost.  Nothing mattered but her.  Nothing mattered but tasting more.
    “Malcom?”
    He pulled away from Anne, panting, confused.  Fiona stood just behind her.  Fiona who had filled his bed more nights than he could count. Sweet Fiona, now with tears in her eyes, all because of this English curse that had come into their lives uninvited and unwanted.  This woman who had bewitched him.
    He looked at Anne.  That was what she had done.  This was nothing but a spell she had cast over him and he had been too weak to resist it.
    He stepped back in horror as he realized what he had done.  Fiona’s pale face held accusations that he couldn’t deny.  He turned and walked away.  Away from Fiona’s pain and away from Anne’s look of drunken desire.  He knew it was cowardly.  He should say something, to both of them, but he wanted peace.  All he wanted in his life was just a season of peace.  Anne had shattered all hope of that.
    He made his way to the barn and saddled his horse.  He shouldn’t have come back.
    “You shouldn’t take yours.  He needs the rest.  Take mine.”  Alan said as he stepped into the dimness of the barn. 
    Malcom met his eyes.
    “Does this have anything to do with why I saw Fiona cryin’ just now?”
    “Aye.”  Fiona was Allen’s cousin, although Allen had never had issue with her sharing Malcom’s bed, he might have issue with this situation and as cowardly as it was, Malcom wanted to avoid that, at least until he understood what had happened himself.
    “You know I’ve never made it my business, but she is my family and I’d rather she not be treated like a harlot.”
    “I don’t plan on treatin’ her like a harlot.”  Malcom felt heat creep up his neck.  “I have thought of finding her a husband, when all this dies down.  I will make sure she is cared for.  Ye have my word on it.”
    “I think you should see about getting it done sooner than later.  She doesn’t deserve this and if there is a child...”
    Malcom turned on his sister’s husband.  “This what?  What do you think is goin’ on then?  And what do ye think I’d do about a bairn?  I said I would see to it, do you question me?”
    Allen didn’t shrink from Malcom’s anger.  “I think you will be havin’ another woman in your bed while you’re here and Fiona will have to serve her.  How would that make her feel?  She knows there could never be a marriage, but she loves you Malcom and a child would only make it harder