Beware A Scot's Revenge by Sabrina Jeffries

Author:Sabrina Jeffries
Language: ron
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Pocket
Published: 2009-04-27T21:00:00+00:00

Unsure what to expect, Venetia crossed the bridge over the burn separating Lachlan’s land from her father’s. She’d asked Lady Ross to bring her here, but the woman had worried about anyone recognizing her.

Given how many years Venetia had been away, she found that highly unlikely, but just in case, she’d Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html borrowed an arisaid from a servant to cover her head. She had to see what had happened in the years she’d been away. Especially after Lachlan’s comments about burned-out cottages. Lachlan. No, she wouldn’t think about him. Their three days apart made her miss him too much…and realize she’d probably read too much into his kisses and caresses. Although he’d visited the manor, he’d never once asked to see her. He’d inquired about their whereabouts and taken any rebuff in stride, as if his inquiries had been motivated only by politeness.

His mother said that his pride kept him from showing that he cared. Venetia wanted desperately to believe her, but she’d begun to lose hope. By now, Papa had received Lachlan’s letter and was heading to Scotland. If Lachlan never relented…

A band closed around her chest. How could she blame him for not wanting to marry the daughter of a man who’d ravaged his countrymen? That was how the people at Rosscraig saw Papa. Thinking she was a Ross cousin, they’d spoken freely of how the earl allowed his factor, McKinley, to toss people off the land with cruel abandon.

And now as she wandered Braidmuir, careful to avoid the groundskeeper or occasional shepherd, she quickly saw the results. There were no burned-out cottages, but there might as well have been. Of the twenty-two crofters’ huts, only four appeared inhabited, probably by sheep farmers. What had happened to the red-faced potato farmer who’d given her rides on his plow horse when she was a child? Where was the toothless granny who’d sat in front of the pink cottage, churning her spinning wheel every fine day?

Gone, all of them. Tears trickled down Venetia’s cheeks. Only the Ross estate nearby bustled with life. Clansmen tilled land, coopered whisky barrels, and tended the stills. Women did their washing while their children swung from branches and gathered heather. Lachlan had struggled to keep his people in their homes, to make sure they were provided for, even when it meant risking his life. Even when it meant this foolish kidnapping. Now that she knew why he’d done it, she could hardly bear to remember the insults she’d hurled at him. Especially when she saw Papa’s land lying silent except for the bleating sheep.

She brushed tears from her eyes. The Cheviots were everywhere, clogging every pasture, jostling up every hill. They’d overtaken even the grassy glen near the burn that bounded the property, the one Lachlan had always liked to fish.

Must they take this bit of her childhood from her, too? Temper flaring, she began shooing the flocks, trying to force them to leave the glen, but they only stumbled off a few feet before returning to grazing.

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