Highland Brides 03 - On Bended Knee by Tanya Anne Crosby

Author:Tanya Anne Crosby [Crosby, Tanya Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical romance
Publisher: Oliver-Heber Books
Published: 2012-11-08T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Seana didn’t really know why it suddenly bothered her so much so that she lived in what was basically an oversized grave. Until now, it had seemed perfectly suitable and she hadn’t worried much what others thought.

She’d been sleeping in the old cairn for as long as she could recall. Her da had found the monstrous tomb before Seana’s birth. Initially, it had served as shelter from a storm, but her da and her ma had never left it.

Then her mother had grown ill and Seana had come into the world, and her ma had passed away. She and her father had been here ever since.

Little more than a hollowed pile of rubble set against the side of a cliff, it served its purpose well enough. From the outside, it appeared little more than a carefully laid pile of rocks, but from within, it was cavernous. In ancient times, her da claimed the dead were laid to rest here, entombed with their finest possessions and sometimes, Seana thought she heard their voices behind the earthen walls. Partially buried beneath the ground and deeper yet into the cliffside, its walls were made of soil, while the roof was constructed of stones, large and small, braced with wooden slats that were set into the cliffside. The earthen walls kept the wind from pummeling their backs, though the roof seldom kept them dry enough. And yet, she had never had any complaints. She didn’t have the first clue why suddenly she should feel ashamed of her home.

Mayhap because no one had ever come to see her before.

Och, but why should she care what Colin thought? It wasn’t any of his affair where she laid her head at night!

So why was she running through the dark woods, casting glances over her shoulder in fear that he would follow?

She reached the cairn and found it dark but for a single lit candle. Seana opened the door her da had built and ducked within. She went at once to check on her father. He was lying upon his pallet with his eyes half open, staring at the ceiling.

For an instant, Seana’s heart stopped.

“Da!” she exclaimed, and fell to her knees.

He seemed to rouse from his stupor and turned to look at her. He smiled. “Och, lass, I was but remembering…”

Seana reached out to touch his face, to brush his hair aside, but he seized her hand and brought it to his heart, pressing it there.

“Do ye remember, Seana… the time I left you alone here in this cairn…

Seana did. Without his speaking another word, she knew the night of which he was speaking. Heart aching, she pressed her hand against his chest. “Aye, Da.”

“I would never have left ye alone, child—not all night—but I fell asleep by the still—and came back to find ye weepin’ yer sweet lil’ eyes out.”

Seana sat beside him and held his hand, remembering too. She had been naught more than ten summers. “I was afraid you’d gone and left me, but I was a silly little girl, da.

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