“Diana, I cannot just remove you. I must have justification. This union received the king’s support, so we cannot break it without a good reason. I will find it, but it will take some time. In the meantime, you will sleep in my chamber, and I will post guards outside your door. Take your rest. He will not bother you today.” He kissed her forehead and headed out the door. As soon as it closed behind him, Diana fell onto the bed and cried herself to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
You’ll find one of my mistakes in this scene. While a fair-haired Connor could
have changed to dark hair as he aged, the opposite rarely happens. Here I have
Jamie as dark-haired, but he was the fair-haired.
Micheil Ramsay found his love, Diana of Drummond. When they finally arrived on
Ramsay land, she had a special treat. The very first Ramsay festival, and another
situation where a lass outdoes a lad, my favorite.
The day of the Ramsay Festival had finally arrived. The sun shone bright on the late autumn day, making it warm enough to be outside. Diana was excited to finally be allowed out of the castle, but yet she had no wish to watch her husband joust. The day before she had walked inside the keep to see if she was better, and there were no problems. Brenna was confident she could walk out to the fields as a judge.
Micheil strolled alongside her, carrying a fur and an extra plaid to keep her warm. Torrian and Logan had already taken a cartload of stools and benches to the field for the ladies to sit on. Even Micheil’s mother had promised she would come out to watch.
Quade had made sure everyone in the clan understood they were to come to the festival rather than working. They had planned a large feast for everyone in the courtyard after the event.
The first competition was for those under ten. Micheil and Diana were to be judges, and Quade and Torrian had everything arranged. There were ten entrants of various ages, including Alex’s twins, Jake and Jamie, Lily, Maggie, Molly, and five other members of the clan. Ten separate lanes had been set up to accommodate all of them. The course was mostly as Torrian had described to her, and Micheil and Diana assigned two guards as backup judges to assist them at the end in case all ten competitors ended up throwing their hazelnuts at the same time.
The ten lined up as their parents screamed their encouragement. At the last minute, Alex held his hand up to Micheil.
“What is it, Grant?”
“Just need to make this a bit easier on everyone.” The youngest competitors were his two boys, and they stood at the end of the line, shoving at each other in the hopes of getting ahead start over the other. “Lads!” A loud bellow stopped all the chatter, including the twins’ squirming.
He marched down the line, picked up dark-haired Jamie without uttering a word and carried him under his arm down to the opposite end of the lanes, moving all the contestants down one to make room for him. Once he had settled Jamie in a different lane, he turned to the event coordinator, Quade, and nodded. “Mayhap they will not kill each other with eight others between them. They are a wee bit competitive.” He made his way off the field to the good-natured guffaws of the spectators.
“One, two, three, go!” Ten pairs of legs flew across the logs, and a couple of entrants fell right away. Micheil followed the course with them as judge, but Diana remained seated at the side with her family. Hoots and hollers followed their trail through the obstacle course. By the time they reached the tent, Jamie and Jake and another boy were way ahead of the rest. Molly was ahead of Maggie, and Lily spent too much time giggling to progress very far or fast.
The three lads hit the beginning of the long field where the race would take place ahead of the rest, but Molly was gaining on them. Logan shouted, “Come on, Molly. Show the lads who’s the best.” He wrapped his arm around Gwyneth, who was holding Sorcha on her hip, biting her fingernails as she watched her eldest daughter compete.
Molly was three strides behind the lads, but as soon as she hit the field, the spectators all took their eyes off the leaders to watch her race.
“Logan, she runs like the most beautiful deer I have ever seen,” Gwyneth said.
Diana was in awe. “Gwyneth, I have never seen anyone so graceful. What a lovely sight.” She couldn’t help but pull for a lass sent out by her own sire.
And indeed, Molly sailed across the field with elegance and strength that gave her speed way beyond the others, her long strides powering her to the end way ahead of the boys. She picked up a hazelnut and flung it, missing the target by a long shot.
Logan shouted, “Come on, Molly!” He glanced at Gwyneth. “Wife, could you not have taught the lass how to hit the broad side of a stable?”
She had thrown three nuts and missed each one by the time the lads caught up with her. She had one left and flung it as hard as she could, finally hitting the very edge of the target. Micheil declared Molly the winner, while Jake came in second and Jamie won third place.
Logan ran over and tossed her into the air after they announced the winner and pinned a ribbon on her.
Molly could not stop smiling.
The Brightest Star in the Highlands
Book 7
I loved Aedan Cameron for being different. He and Jennie were perfect together. The only two who could love the treasure. Many in the land sought the reputed treasure, but no one would have been as pleased as Jennie to see what it was. Inside the box were two items: a book with diagrams of human anatomy and a box full of a new material no one had seen before—paper.
Chapter One
