Free Highland Grace by K. E. Saxon Page A

grace
as she walked over to the hearth, lifted the lid on the pottage and
took a whiff. Then, setting the lid to the side, she turned and
took a rounded loaf of day-old bread from the basket and sliced it
in half before she cut the center from it and made trenchers for
their meal. Did she have any idea how beautiful she was? He watched
her as she scooped the pottage into the trenchers and placed them
on the table.
    She was still rising from her bent position
when she gasped. Her hands flew to her abdomen and Bao’s heart took
a dive into his stomach before it lodged like a shot from a
manganel in his throat. He bolted to her side and grasped her upper
arms. “What? What ails you?” He stepped in closer, placing a hand
over the one she held to her stomach. She tensed at his touch,
which put an answering vise grip on his heart, but allowed the
contact. “Is it the babe?” he asked.
    “I believe the babe just quickened.” She held
her gaze on her belly. “‘Twas a light tapping feeling. I was
beginning to worry that I wouldn’t recognize it, but”—she smiled
and her voice held wonder—“I did!”
    “Of what are you speaking, Jesslyn? How could
you not recognize something you’ve already gone through
before?”
    She went still. A look of dread washed over
her face followed instantly by a mask of serenity and she took
several paces away from him. He narrowed his eyes and said, “Is
there something you are not telling me?”
    The silence that followed held weight, but
finally, with a sigh, she walked to the table, took her place and
said, “Sit. I shall explain while we eat our meal.”
    Bao sat down and took several bites of the
pottage and watched her do the same before saying, “I’m glad to
know the babe is hale, but why did you worry that you wouldn’t know
when the babe quickened?”
    She lifted her eyes from her trencher. “I’ve
never had a babe before.”
    Bao sat forward. “Wha—?”
    “Alleck is the offspring of my sister and
Graeme, my husband.”
    “Your sister? Alleck is your sister’s bairn? Does Alleck know this?”
    Jesslyn pushed her trencher out of the way.
Leaning forward, she rested her crossed arms on the table and
studied the remnants of the pottage as she replied, “Aye, I told
him a bit o’er a year ago.”
    Bao was stunned. “How came it that you and
Graeme wed?”
    “My sister was living at the MacBean holding.
Graeme had been gone warring for almost the entire time Janet
carried his babe. She became ill and needed to remain abed the last
four moons of the pregnancy and sent me a missive requesting that I
move from the MacLaurin holding, where we were raised, to the
MacBean holding and take care of her while she regained her
strength. I, of course, agreed.” Jesslyn’s mouth turned down at the
corners. “Unfortunately, she died delivering Alleck.”
    “Aye, I assumed that to be the case. Where
were your parents—your mother?”
    Her eyes closed tight and her brow furrowed.
He was beginning to think she would not answer when she said, “My
father was one of the men who died that bloody day of the massacre
at the MacLaurin holding. He was Laird MacLaurin’s lieutenant.”
    Bao leapt from his seat and leaned toward
her. “Christ’s bones! Are you saying my father was
responsible for your father’s death?”
    Her eyes still tightly shut, she nodded.
    And he’d thought her brother’s perfidy
unforgivable. The fact that she’d known this and held no rancor for
Bao because of it tore at his already stinging conscience like the
cut of a thousand blades. He turned and stormed across the room.
Bao’s mind reeled with the recollection of all Daniel had told him
of that fatal, fateful day. Laird MacLaurin had sent most of his
men to find the culprits who had set fires and killed livestock
along three different MacLaurin borders. Thinking ‘twas some
mischief his rival, the MacPherson, was up to, Daniel’s grandfather
had kept only a few men back to guard the keep. But,