Free Bride for a Knight by Sue-Ellen Welfonder Page A

Jamie’s jaw and he flexed his fingers, waiting.
    Her composure regained, his new lady accepted her father’s men’s well wishes with perfect poise. She joined in their laughter and met their cheers and jesting with a dazzling smile, her sapphire eyes alight and glittering in the glow of the torches.
    And the longer Jamie watched her, the more she pleased him.
    Her voice carried to him, its low-pitch beguiling, its smoothness flowing over him like honeyed wine. Saints, but he wanted to touch her. Indeed, just looking at her was almost like a physical touching and he burned to cross swiftly to her and pull her into his arms, holding her close and letting her spill soft, sweet words all over him until he fair drowned in them.
    But someone had appeared with a generously heaped platter of fried apple fritters and spiced pears, the tempting delicacies drawing enough attention for Jamie to seize his chance.
    The time was nigh.
    Leaving the shadows of the window embrasure, he strode purposely toward the high table, his plaid thrown back to reveal the many-notched haft of his Norseman’s ax and the leather-wrapped hilt of his steel.
    Upon seeing him, Alan Mor grinned and reached for the ale jug, making to pour Jamie a cup of the frothy brew. But Jamie took the cup before his good-father could fill it, setting it deliberately out of reach.
    Alan Mor’s smile faded.
    “Ho! What’s this?” he queried, one brow arcing. “Refusing my ale? I’d think you’d be after quenching your thirst on such a notable day?”
    “Notable, aye,” Jamie allowed. “’Tis also a day for plain speaking.”
    Alan Mor eyed him. “My ears are open,” he said, sliding a glance to where Aveline stood in the midst of a crush of apple-fritter-eating clansmen. “Dinna tell me you are displeased with my daughter?”
    Jamie took the ale jug and poured himself a portion, not taking his gaze off the other man as he downed the ale.
    “Displeased with her?” he echoed at last, returning the cup to the table. “With surety, nay. But I am mightily vexed to have been duped. See that it ne’er happens again.”
    To Jamie’s surprise, his words only earned him another smile.
    “I would hope to stand higher in your favor, having arranged for you to have such a prize.” Alan Mor cast another quick glance in his daughter’s direction. “She—”
    “Is too great a treasure to be publicly shamed,” Jamie cut him off, his voice pitched for Alan Mor alone. “Embarrass her e’er again and be warned that you shall answer to me and there’d be no escaping.” Jamie let his fingers curl demonstrably around his sword hilt. “I would be after you in a thrice, on your heels as relentlessly as yon greyhounds curled before your hearth fire.”
    Again to Jamie’s surprise, the older man’s smile deepened and he slapped the table, this time even barking a laugh. “Saints, had I known you’d take such umbrage, lad, I’d have been more subtle,” he vowed, pushing to his feet. “But I am an auld, gruff man, unused to courtly airs and fine ways.”
    Unmoved, Jamie plucked a fine-looking morsel of roasted meat off the table and tossed the tidbit to a nearby dog. “Forget what I said about your greyhounds,” he said, wiping his hands. “Cause yon lassie a single moment of grief from this day forward and I shall be your shadow.”
    “‘Grief’?” The older man grabbed Jamie’s arm, turning him toward the cluster of revelers mid-hall. “Say me she doesn’t look happier than any maid you’ve e’er seen.”
    And she did.
    Jamie couldn’t deny it.
    “All the same,” he said, shaking off the other’s grasp, “I would that she remains that way. And I’d have a private word with her now. Somewhere away from your hall and where she may speak freely.”
    Alan Mor dropped back down into his laird’s chair, then waved a casual hand. “Auld and gruff I may be, but no’ thoughtless. My privy solar has already been readied for you, and with all the