Free Highlander Betrayed (Guardians of the Targe) by Laurin Wittig

in the castle?” Scotia whispered.
    “Aye, you did, several times.” Rowan silently cursed the heat rising in her cheeks but she could not make herself look away from him.
    Duncan called out, catching Nicholas’s attention. Rowan took advantage of that moment to escape the trap of his dark eyes and beguiling smile. She trained her gaze on the trencher of food in front of her and gave thanks for Duncan’s distraction. And yet, even though she wasn’t looking at Nicholas anymore, the restlessness grew like an itch she couldn’t pinpoint but that was slowly driving her mad. She squirmed in her seat and peeked at him through her lashes as he moved quickly and efficiently to a seat across from Duncan, where he piled roast boar and onions onto his trencher as if he hadn’t eaten in days.
    Rowan forced herself to look away again and take a bite of her own food. Maybe her injury had been worse than she thought? Maybe she’d been hit in the head with a falling piece of the wall and didn’t remember? Maybe she was addled by the memory of him crouched beside her, holding her hand so carefully that she felt both fragile and protected. It was not a sensation with which she was familiar, and though she would have denied it even a few days ago, she had to admit, at least to herself, that it had been nice to be treated so, even if it was only for those few moments.
    She was as bad as Scotia, it would seem, her head muddled by a braw man, but Rowan would not follow in her cousin’s ways. She did not have the luxury of setting aside all responsibility and duty to act upon attraction and impulse, especially with Aunt Elspet so sick.
    “Why do you stare at our visitor?” Jeanette tried not to smile as she spoke, but the teasing gleam in her pale blue eyes gave her away.
    “I do not,” Rowan pulled her attention back to her trencher again, not even aware of when it had drifted back to the man.
    “Aye, you do.” Scotia leaned forward so she could peer around Jeanette, a smirk on her face. “He is a braw lad with that mysteriouslook in his eye and those broad shoulders. I think his hair is near as black as mine. We’d make beautiful bairns.”
    “Scotia!” Rowan knew she glowered at her cousin who only grinned back at her. “I doubt a grown man would have aught to do with a wean like you.”
    “I am not a wean anymore, just spirited.” Scotia lifted her chin. “There are men who like me well enough.”
    Rowan rolled her eyes. “There are men who like you a wee bit too well.” She lifted a slice of boar from the platter in front of her and dropped it on her wooden trencher. Jeanette leaned back in her chair between them and silently watched the two. “You would be wise to keep… them… at arm’s length.”
    “Is that why you were below the wall, Scotia?” Jeanette asked. “Pray, tell me you were not meeting with Conall again.”
    Shock coursed through Rowan’s spine. “Again?” It was her turn to look from one cousin to the other. “This was not the first time you have gone against your father’s command?”
    “I told you, I am not a wean anymore. I am a woman, with a woman’s desires.”
    “And a wean’s discipline.” Rowan threw herself back in her chair and looked over the gathering, wondering if perhaps Kenneth really would kill the lad. More likely he’d force the two to wed. “You do ken the troubles you chance bringing down upon your heads if you keep seeing that lad?” She leaned across Jeanette toward Scotia, her voice barely above a whisper, even though neither Kenneth nor Elspet were in the hall. Gossip had a way of scurrying through the castle like rats before a flood and this was something she did not want spreading to Kenneth’s ears. “If you love him, how can you place him in the path of your father’s wrath, and then talk of no one but Nicholas?”
    “You shall never understand, Rowan,” Scotia hissed at her, her eyes snapping with anger.
    Rowan pushed her trencher away. Scotia was