The Highlander's Harlot (Sword and Thistle 1)

“Good! Then you know it already. Now the laird can have you spell out any filthy word he’d like to teach you, or he can swan you about, bragging that he’s bedding a woman of letters.”

Ian started to rise, but I caught his sleeve. “Wait! I know the letters, but I don’t know how to string them all together to make sense of them, yet.”

Scowling, he snapped, “And what you’ll need that for, flat on your back, I can’t begin to guess.”

He was a big man; he might have snapped me in two. But somehow, I sensed that I had the protection of the laird. At least for now, and that emboldened me to say, “I didn’t ask for this, ye ken.”

“Aye, you did,” he rejoined, crossing his meaty arms over himself. “I was there when you asked for it.”

“When I consented to it,” I reminded him, heat flaming at my cheeks. “And if I didn’t, then what would have become of my father? He’d have died!”

“He’d have died with his honor,” Ian said.

“What honor?” Why I was so determined to argue with him, I couldn’t say. But I added, “My father didn’t give up the share he owed to our clan chief. He swore his fealty and didn’t—”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that score, you daft woman. But your father still had his pride as a man; he

’d have rather died than give you up to be the laird’s plaything, but you took that from him, as did the laird.”

I heard in his voice a very real note of censure for John Macrae. “The laird says that you disapprove of him…”

Ian’s mouth thinned to a gash. “I know what he does to women and I don’t approve, no. You must be a natural born whore to have weathered a night with him, where other girls would curl up upon their beds and weep half the day.”

I gulped, suddenly frightened again of the man who had seemed so civilized playing upon his chessboard. And I wanted to ask just what the laird did to his women, but to ask would be to admit that I didn’t know. And if there was anything that was likely to break our bargain, it was that. “Perhaps those other women simply weren’t suited to him.”

Ian snorted. “Och, aye. I suppose most women aren’t suited to climb willingly in bed with the devil.”

“The devil?” I asked. “And yet you’ve sworn yourself to him.”

Ian grinded his teeth. “I’m a Macrae. He was the choice of the clan. He’s the chief and I’m his chieftain. I’ll fight for him, and I’ll die for him. But the day he looks sideways at a sister of mine, is the day my oath isn’t worth spit and it’ll come to war.”

I swallowed again. Just what sort of man was the Macrae that his own men feared he’d debauch their sisters? I inhaled sharply, then squeezed my hands into fists until I could be brave. “Then isn’t it better his eyes are on me than on your sisters?”

Ian tilted his head, an lock of hair falling over his eyes as he appraised me. He grunted. “He’s right about you. You’re a saucy wench.”

“But you’ll teach me to read?”

“Aye,” Ian Macrae said, finding his chair again. “I will.”

~~~

“Your breakfast,” Brenna said, slamming down the tray.

“Only porridge today?” I asked, for I’d come to expect the biscuits and heather-infused honey.

“Must have forgotten it,” she said, irritation in her voice.

And I didn’t think she forgot at all. Because she was, by my count, the only friend I had in the castle, and because she reminded me, too, of my own younger sister Arabella, I asked, “Is there something wrong?”

She tugged a bit on her cap. “Does the laird know that you entertain his men in your chambers when he’s away?”

My eyes widened. Oh, that. “Do you mean Ian Macrae?”

“Is there someone else that visits you every afternoon and stays half the day?” I’d thought Brenna was a mousy thing. Timid. And I still held to that opinion. But clearly her sense of propriety brought out her inner Scotswoman. “I suppose a woman of your ilk has to take whatever man that has coin for her, but you might do well to wait until the laird’s eyes have turned from you, if you don’t want to be the cause of bloodshed.”

“Brenna, the laird sent Ian to my chambers.”

I’d meant to say more—to explain that he’d come to teach me to read—but the way Brenna’s cheeks turned scarlet made me think she assumed something quite different. “Oh,” she said, unable to meet my eyes, looking entirely miserable. “Well, then. I suppose you must obey.”