Come hell or high water, they would return to Scotland with wealthy brides to save their clan from starvation—even if they literally had to steal them away. Highlanders had done so before, and they’d do so again, he was certain. Graham did, however, hope their plans at wooing worked, because stealing a wench away would make his personal future bleaker than it already appeared.
Dismounting from his horse, Graham was immediately nudged on his thigh by the snout of a medium-sized hound. He rubbed a hand over the dog’s mud-colored head and matted spine, his palm coming away with a stain of brown.
Seemed like Graham was not the only one in need of a bath.
The owner of the hound looked just as worn and dirty, though he nodded at them with respect. “Are you looking for a mercenary?”
Graham tried not to laugh. Silly Englishman, didn’t he realize that Graham and Cormac were basically mercenaries themselves?
Cormac brushed away the man with a swift denial of their need to hire him, and the two brothers ducked into their newly built tent to prepare for the feast. They stripped out of their miserable clothes and washed, redressing in their finest garments that were mercifully dry.
“Are ye going to meet the lass tonight?” Cormac asked, affixing the Sutherland pin to his tunic.
“Aye, as should ye, brother. We’ve only a sennight to make the lassies fall in love and leave their intended matches. ’Tis a tall order on our parts, but also theirs.”
“Should be easy for ye, Graham. The lassies are always dropping at your feet like flies on honey.”
Graham raised his brow skeptically. “Aye, but what if in this instance, the flies wish for vinegar?” Lord help them if the brides actually wanted the Ross brothers instead.
“I dinna see that happening.”
Graham shrugged. “I didna see the Rosses giving aid to the MacDonalds and look where we are.”
That was a sad fact. After several bad harvests and not enough food coming in, the Sutherland brothers had begged aid from the Rosses, who always seemed to have more than enough. But in a vile twist, they had refused and instead gave aid to the hated MacDonalds, who would not share. Most of the other clans in the area were either in the same boat as the Sutherlands or had only enough to feed their people.
Cormac ran a hand through his dark hair, the same shade as Graham’s. He let out a long sigh that told of the enormity of their situation. If they didn’t win the battles they’d come here to fight, there was a lot more at stake than their pride. Lives would be lost.
Winning even one bride would make things better, but two would put their clan back on a path to prosperity for generations to come.
“I believe in ye, my laird.” Graham squeezed his brother’s shoulder. “To the feast, where we’ll make a lucky lass believe in ye, too.”
Lady Clara de Montfort had promised herself that the second day would be better than that first, which had been boring to the point of tedium and also fraught with nerves.
She’d had to travel all the way from her family home in Normandy, where she’d lived a relatively comfortable life unaffected by the drama in England and court of her Aunt Isabella, who was married to the strange Prince John. The sailing across the Channel had been awful, and she’d been sick nearly the whole of it, only to land and find herself feeling sicker with what was to come in a sennight—a most unwanted marriage.
Today, Sunday, everyone had started to arrive at Rose Citadel.
With her father’s health suffering as of late, he’d not been able to attend, and her mother had stayed by his side. But remaining in Normandy did not leave Clara without her mother’s long reach wrapped around her neck. With her father, the once virile Count de Evreux, she’d often found an ally against her mother’s plots, but now, there was no buffer. And the countess had schemed with her sister and Prince John to marry Clara off to some savage in the Highlands. A brute that she was going to meet today. Baston Ross.
Nay, thank you very much. I shall not like to take you as my husband.
Just how was she going to work up the nerve to say it?
Somehow in the next sennight, she had to figure out a way to get rid of the brute. She’d never met him before, but everyone knew that Highlanders were only a step above wild hogs. Clara might even go so far as to say that a wild hog had mated with a beastly bear and thus created Highlanders.
Of course, it wasn’t ladylike for her to think this way, but neither was it ladylike of her to try and get out of the betrothal, which she wholeheartedly intended to attempt. Starting today.
All day long, she’d paced in her chamber, trying to come up with a viable plan. And all day long, she’d tossed each idea out the window and thought about pitching herself out too.
That hog was going to get a massive dowry from her father, given she was his only child. A veritable treasure that would raise up even the richest of nobles to infamy. And it was going to a man she’d never met, nor had she agreed to wed. The unfairness of that fact was infuriating. She growled at her fisted hands and then threw them up in the air.
“My lady?” Her maid raised a brow. “Are you unwell?”
That was a nice way of asking if her head was on straight. “I am fine.”
“Suppose ’tis time for you to head to dinner before your betrothed comes to find you.”
Clara resisted the retort prepared to roll off her tongue, and instead nodded. If Baston Ross came to claim her, she’d not have the chance to choose a seat at the feast well away from him. Even his name was stupid. Baston. So close to Bastard. Maybe that was what she’d call him by accident. Nay, nay. She was willing to work on getting rid of the boar, but not on insulting him so openly. Who knew what he might do, and she didn’t want to have to defend herself from him.
This entire tournament was just as stupid as Baston Ross. Men pounding at each other with weapons for a prize. Didn’t they have anything better to do? And at the end, she’d be tossed over a horse and dragged away to Scotland. Clara didn’t even want to get married. What she wouldn’t give to be back home in Normandy, practicing with her arrows, and laying in the field with her pets. She’d been forced to leave behind her four hounds, two sheep, three pet rabbits, a squirrel, two cats, and her entire coy pond.
The only pets her mother had allowed her to bring were her horse and her hawk. Those were considered regal and ladylike. Everything else was too much trouble, the countess had claimed.
And Clara had cried all the way to England. There wasn’t a way she’d be able to replace the irreplaceable. Her new husband wasn’t going to allow her to have them, of that much she was certain. Baston Ross would probably eat them!
Nay, not her new husband. She shook her head. She couldn’t think of him in such terms. Her soon-to-be-ex-betrothed.
“My lady?” Again, her maid interrupted her thoughts. “Are you ready? Every step outside has me jumping that it is he.”
That was enough to get Clara’s attention. She hurried to the door of her bedchamber, a special suite set up just for her, which would be the place she’d be mauled after the wedding if she wasn’t successful in getting rid of the Bastard Hog.
If only they would allow women to participate in the games. She might have had a chance at accidentally shooting him with her arrows. Now that would have been a real treat. She didn’t have to kill him, just maim him a little, and then he certainly wouldn’t want to marry her.