Free Taming a Highland Devil by Kimberly Killion Page A

would have told Effie. Wouldn’t she? If Vanna was carrying another man’s child, then…
    ’Twas impossible not to let her hopes soar at the possibilities.
    “Lady Reay,” Jocelyn prompted Effie when she failed to respond. “The child your sister is carrying does not belong to Laird Sutherland.”
    A fierce pounding knocked between her ears. A pounding she quickly realized was her heart. She shook her head, trying to sort through the deluge of thoughts now racing through her mind.
    “If ye deny the possibilities, then ye are a fool.” Jocelyn grabbed Effie’s elbows and shook her. “Laird Sutherland loves ye and—”
    “Please, cease!” Effie jerked out of Jocelyn’s hold, desperate to protect her heart. “None of this changes Vanna’s condition. Her child will need a namesake.” Effie pushed past Jocelyn, needing to process all that she’d said, but the adamant woman followed her.
    “Then mayhap she should marry the man who sired her child. Whoever he is, he’s in the guest solar with your sister now.”
    Effie stopped. Her heart beat so wildly she grew lightheaded. If what Jocelyn said was true, Effie could have Magnus, but she would have to name Vanna a whore to get him.
    Jocelyn laid a sympathetic hand on Effie’s forearm. “I know what ’tis like to be torn from the one ye love. If ye care for Magnus at all, then dinnae walk away. Dinnae let her win.”
    Effie stared at Jocelyn. The scared coward inside her urged her to leave and never look back, but the woman who’d won the love of a Highland warrior demanded she expose the truth.
    She nodded, inhaled a breath of strength and took the steps that put her in front of Vanna’s door. Muffled groans hummed through Effie’s ears and called upon her maternal instincts. ’Twas past time Vanna took responsibility for her actions. Effie no longer cared that her sister was of noble blood. It didn’t matter if the father was a lowly peasant. The man would have to answer to her, as well as Ian.
    Effie flung the door open without knocking and the sight before her nearly sent her into a swoon.
    Vanna lay naked on her back in a pile of disheveled covers, while Ian thrust wildly between her spread legs.
    “Oh my God in heaven!” The musky scent of sex attacked Effie’s senses. She covered her mouth with both hands to hold back the vomit stinging the back of her throat. Shock didn’t begin to describe the emotions rushing through her mind and body. She was mortified, disgusted, enraged.
    “Effie!” Ian lurched off Vanna and quickly draped his undertunic over his head. “I thought ye left.”
    Vanna shrieked and covered herself with the bedding.
    “Mary, Margaret and Moses,” Sylvie whispered in the background. “’Tis incest.”
    Hands fisted, nails digging into her palms, Effie turned her full fury on her brother. “This is beyond repulsive. She is your sister!”
    Ian shook his head, held his hands out, palms up. “We both know Da dinnae sire her.”
    ’Twas true Effie had questioned Vanna’s parentage. After all, Besse had been nothing more than an unpaid whore.
    “Look at her, Effie.” Ian rushed on. “Besse was fair and blonde. Da shared our red coloring.”
    “This is your justification?” Effie was sickened by his argument. It didn’t matter if Vanna wasn’t his blood kin, he’d been a brother to her for all of her nineteen years. “How long have ye—?” She couldn’t say the words. ’Twas blasphemous.
    “Since Da died.” Ian blew a heavy breath and lowered his pale lashes. Shame pulled his face downward. “Vanna comforted me. We comforted each other.”
    Da’s death had affected Ian in ways Effie couldn’t comprehend, but this—this was monstrous. She held no sympathy for him or Vanna for that matter. “In comforting one another, did ye get her with child? Is that why we were forced to travel in the dead of winter to Dunrobin, so ye could trick Laird Sutherland into claiming your bastard child?”
    Ian glared at her.