Page 2 of The Highlander's Dare
Graham picked the best location he could find in the few empty spaces. Having entered the tournament last minute, it looked like they were nearly the last to arrive in this godforsaken country.
Lord, he hoped there were going to be more Scots about than just them and the Ross clan. The machinations they had planned for those rotten scoundrels would more likely be noticed if they were the only Scots in attendance. And they couldn’t have that messing up what they’d come here to see done.
Come hell or high water, they would return to Scotland with wealthy brides to save their clan from starvation—even if they literally had to steal them away. Highlanders had done so before, and they’d do so again, he was certain. Graham did, however, hope their plans at wooing worked, because stealing a wench away would make his personal future bleaker than it already appeared.
Dismounting from his horse, Graham was immediately nudged on his thigh by the snout of a medium-sized hound. He rubbed a hand over the dog’s mud-colored head and matted spine, his palm coming away with a stain of brown.
Seemed like Graham was not the only one in need of a bath.
The owner of the hound looked just as worn and dirty, though he nodded at them with respect. “Are you looking for a mercenary?”
Graham tried not to laugh. Silly Englishman, didn’t he realize that Graham and Cormac were basically mercenaries themselves?
Cormac brushed away the man with a swift denial of their need to hire him, and the two brothers ducked into their newly built tent to prepare for the feast. They stripped out of their miserable clothes and washed, redressing in their finest garments that were mercifully dry.
“Are ye going to meet the lass tonight?” Cormac asked, affixing the Sutherland pin to his tunic.
“Aye, as should ye, brother. We’ve only a sennight to make the lassies fall in love and leave their intended matches. ’Tis a tall order on our parts, but also theirs.”
“Should be easy for ye, Graham. The lassies are always dropping at your feet like flies on honey.”
Graham raised his brow skeptically. “Aye, but what if in this instance, the flies wish for vinegar?” Lord help them if the brides actuallywantedthe Ross brothers instead.
“I dinna see that happening.”
Graham shrugged. “I didna see the Rosses giving aid to the MacDonalds and look where we are.”
That was a sad fact. After several bad harvests and not enough food coming in, the Sutherland brothers had begged aid from the Rosses, who always seemed to have more than enough. But in a vile twist, they had refused and instead gave aid to the hated MacDonalds, who would not share. Most of the other clans in the area were either in the same boat as the Sutherlands or had only enough to feed their people.
Cormac ran a hand through his dark hair, the same shade as Graham’s. He let out a long sigh that told of the enormity of their situation. If they didn’t win the battles they’d come here to fight, there was a lot more at stake than their pride. Lives would be lost.
Winning even one bride would make things better, but two would put their clan back on a path to prosperity for generations to come.
“I believe in ye, my laird.” Graham squeezed his brother’s shoulder. “To the feast, where we’ll make a lucky lass believe in ye, too.”
LADYCLARA DEMONTFORThad promised herself that the second day would be better than that first, which had been boring to the point of tedium and also fraught with nerves.
She’d had to travel all the way from her family home in Normandy, where she’d lived a relatively comfortable life unaffected by the drama in England and court of her Aunt Isabella, who was married to the strange Prince John. The sailing across the Channel had been awful, and she’d been sick nearly the whole of it, only to land and find herself feeling sicker with what was to come in a sennight—a most unwanted marriage.
Today, Sunday, everyone had started to arrive at Rose Citadel.
With her father’s health suffering as of late, he’d not been able to attend, and her mother had stayed by his side. But remaining in Normandy did not leave Clara without her mother’s long reach wrapped around her neck. With her father, the once virile Count de Evreux, she’d often found an ally against her mother’s plots, but now, there was no buffer. And the countess had schemed with her sister and Prince John to marry Clara off to some savage in the Highlands. A brute that she was going to meet today. Baston Ross.
Nay, thank you very much. I shall not like to take you as my husband.
Just how was she going to work up the nerve to say it?
Somehow in the next sennight, she had to figure out a way to get rid of the brute. She’d never met him before, but everyone knew that Highlanders were only a step above wild hogs. Clara might even go so far as to say that a wild hog had mated with a beastly bear and thus created Highlanders.
Of course, it wasn’t ladylike for her to think this way, but neither was it ladylike of her to try and get out of the betrothal, which she wholeheartedly intended to attempt. Starting today.
All day long, she’d paced in her chamber, trying to come up with a viable plan. And all day long, she’d tossed each idea out the window and thought about pitching herself out too.
That hog was going to get a massive dowry from her father, given she was his only child. A veritable treasure that would raise up even the richest of nobles to infamy. And it was going to a man she’d never met, nor had she agreed to wed. The unfairness of that fact was infuriating. She growled at her fisted hands and then threw them up in the air.
“My lady?” Her maid raised a brow. “Are you unwell?”
That was a nice way of asking if her head was on straight. “I am fine.”
