Page 55 of Never Kiss a Highlander

Her brother, David, now the laird, had been away fostering most of her life and when he returned to take over their da’s duties, he immediately began looking for a husband for her. ‘Twas the cook who reminded him Lorena was only ten and three years.

David was nice to her on occasion, but most times ignored her also unless he was in a foul mood and then she would feel his fists. She had learned soon after his return to stay out of his way.

She had foolishly high hopes when she did marry at the age of ten and six, but her husband was brutal. The best thing he’d done for her was to die after only two years of marriage.

What was it about her that made her so unlovable? She never asked for much. Like all young lasses, she liked the attention of the guardsmen, of finding a coin or two in her brother’s study to buy something shiny when the vendors came around and speaking with the village girls.

It was right before her marriage to that beast Avery Gordon that the girls she’d been gossiping and shopping with found out she was the laird’s sister. “We thought ye were one of the castle maids,” Kiley said. She narrowed her eyes and studied Lorena. “Ye doona look like the laird’s sister!”

“Nay. We have different mothers. I think David looks like his mother and I’ve been told I look like mine.”

Kiley laughed. “It must have been quite annoying to yer da to have two bairns and neither one look like him.”

Lorena smiled at herself in the looking glass, remembering the good times she’d had with the village girls. Once she returned from her marriage, she didn’t have the desire to search them out. She knew they were probably happily married with maybe even a bairn or two.

She didn’t want to see their happiness. Not that she begrudged them their husbands, but she knew in her heart that kind of happiness would never be hers.

Now she was once again being shoved off onto a laird who not only didn’t want her but was in love with another woman. She’d heard the stories when she had visited Dun Ugadale with her brother. Mayhap she should do as she told The MacKay and jump off the bridge into the river where her parents had drowned.

She laid her head on her folded arms and cursed the one tear that slid down her cheek. ‘Twas just one more in a stream of them she’d cried over the years. Just as she sat up and wiped her cheeks there was a knock at the door.

This was it. ‘Twas time to do her duty and marry another man who would also ignore her while he pined for a lost love.