What a Lass Wants Read Online Free

course, his information was twenty years old, dating back to the years before his da stole from the laird and was banished in disgrace. But surely things had not changed much in that time?
    “I understand Marshal Finlay’s seneschal and the priest traveled with him to Oban,” Bran said to Dougal, the constable, when he appeared. A big, brawny man with long red hair and a wiry beard.
    “Aye.” The constable’s tight, distrustful face eased with Bran’s command of the facts.
    “Did they leave you with the keys?”
    “Aye.”
    “And what of the supplies? Do we have good measure of the foodstuffs on hand? Can we provide for the queen in the manner she deserves?”
    Dougal shook his head. “We’ve no venison, and birds we have on hook will not last long with forty additional mouths to feed.”
    “Organize a hunt, then,” Bran said. “And have our cook speak with the queen’s cook about Her Grace’s preferences.”
    “Marshal Gordon?”
    Bran looked up. A young lad had come in through the big front door, his hair disheveled and smudges of dung upon his lèine. “What is it?”
    “There are three men in the close. MacCurrans, they claim. They say they’re on the hunt for a thief. They spied him traveling in this direction and they wish to search the grounds.”
    Bran tossed a look at the constable. “Do you know these MacCurrans?”
    “Nay.”
    Proper etiquette dictated he greet the visitors—but that would spell disaster. “I must see to the queen’s needs. Check their credentials and, if all is satisfactory, have your men-at-arms offer all due assistance to these lads. We cannot have a thief at large while the queen is in residence.”
    Dougal nodded and departed.
    Bran tasked the clerk with reviewing the accounts toensure they had sufficient coin to weather a lengthy stay by the queen, and then climbed the stairs to the third floor. He knocked upon the door to the queen’s rooms and was greeted at the door by a dour-looking woman in a white headdress. “Giles Gordon, milady. The marshal. I respectfully request an audience with the most senior of the queen’s ladies.”
    “Lady Gisele is tending to Her Grace.”
    He nodded. “Please inform her that for the moment all travel beyond the manor walls is curtailed. There is a thief on the loose. My constable and a contingent of our soldiers are on the hunt for the cretin, but until he is found, no one leaves the safety of the manor.”
    She nodded and withdrew.
    Pleased with himself, Bran went in search of a room to claim as his own. Forbidding travel would ensure word of his arrival in Clackmannan did not get back to the monks. Now all he had to do was avoid the MacCurrans until their search of the grounds was complete, give them a day to move on, and then he could steal a horse and head back toward Edinburgh.
    *   *   *
    Caitrina stared at the very plump Lady Etienne with a sinking feeling in her gut. “We’re not permitted to leave the manor? Not even to take a ride accompanied by soldiers?”
    “Non.”
Etienne scowled at her embroidery needle, which was buried awkwardly in the linen backing close to the wooden frame. “Why do you care?”
    Normally she wouldn’t. But Giric was out there in the woods somewhere, holding her sister captive. And Caitrina needed to find them. “When the new prince isborn, I will be tending to his care night and day. Until then, I would like to enjoy the waning days of autumn.”
    “It will take them no more than a day or two to find the thief.”
    To the other ladies-in-waiting, a day or two meant nothing. Another silk lily sewn onto their samplers, perhaps. To Marsailli, it could mean another shorn lock of hair . . . or worse. “Two days is too many. I wish to be outside. The air is crisp and bright.”
    Etienne shrugged. “Only a heathen raised in this godforsaken land would think thus.”
    Caitrina ignored the slight. They actually forgave her father for his crimes. He had been a French nobleman bent