The Heiress Bride by Catherine Coulter

Author:Catherine Coulter
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 1992-12-12T23:00:00+00:00

* * *

It took Philip less than two hours to get her lost in the Lomond Hills. It took Sinjun another three hours to find her way back to the castle. However, the morning wasn’t a waste by any means. She’d met five crofters’ families and drunk five different ciders. She found one man who could write—Freskin was his name—and thus he had a quill and some foolscap. She began to list all their names and what needed to be done in repairs. They had little grain, and nothing could keep the fear from Freskin’s wife’s face when he said it. They needed a cow and a couple of sheep; ah, but it was grain that was most important.

If any of the men, women, or children believed it a pitiful state of affairs for her that she was here only because of her healthy stock of groats, they were polite enough not to say so. Sinjun began to understand more and more of the local dialect. It was either that or drown in lilting sounds. A sweetie wife, she learned, meant a gossip. Freskin’s wife was certainly a sweetie.

Since the day was beautiful, she let her mare canter over the soft rolling hills and through the forests of larch, pine, birch, and fir. She drank from her cupped hands from Loch Leven. The water was so cold it made her lips tingle. She let her horse wander through a clump of fir trees and nearly stumbled into a peat bog. She held her mare to a walk over the harsh barren moors of the eastern hills. All in all, when she returned to Vere Castle she was tired and had quite enjoyed herself.

She paused atop the rise she and Colin had halted at such a short time before. Vere Castle still looked magical, perhaps even more so now that she felt a part of it. She reminded herself to purchase some material to make pennants to fly from those four castle towers. Perhaps she could even find a lovely young girl with golden hair to sit in one of the tower windows and plait and unplait her hair.

She was singing when she espied Philip, surely on the lookout for her, near the massive Tudor front doors.

“Why, Master Philip, what a fine chase you led me! Goodness, you did best me, didn’t you? You just wait until I take you with me to visit my home in southern England. I’ll get you lost in the maple woods. But I will leave a trail of bread crumbs for you to follow home.”

“I knew you’d come back.”

“Yes, naturally. I live here.”

Philip kicked a pebble with a very worn shoe. “I’ll do better next time.”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. She grinned and ruffled his beautiful thick black hair—his father’s hair. “I have no doubt you will try to do better, but listen, Philip. I am here to stay, you know. Best accustom yourself, don’t you think?”

“Dahling’s right. You are ugly.”

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