"I gave my word."

Braden looked at Jean and smiled. "I would ask one more thing, Laird MacKay."

"What might that be?"

"I would like to wed Jean."

Her father's hazel gaze turned to her. "And you Jean? What do you want?"

"I want to marry Braden."

Her father's lips pressed together as he stared at them a moment before he heaved a great sigh. "Than I suppose we ought to plan a wedding."

Deafening cheers erupted around them. But Jean heard nothing. She was lost in Braden's eyes and the pleasure of his kiss.

The Laird's French Bride.

Connie Brockway.

The castle buzzed with activity. Floors were mopped, privies limed, larders stocked, bedding laundered. Carpets were beaten, faces washed and new tapers set in place of the old, even if the old were not yet burnt out. All of this was being done because Rob Macalduie, the young Laird of Barras's would-be bride was on her way to inspect his holdings, buildings and his people to see they were worthy of her. In addition, she was coming to look over the young the laird himself with much the same purpose in mind. If she liked what she saw, they would be wed three days hence. If not, she would leave.

For as well as being a very rich girl raised in the French courts and fostered by the powerful Duke of Gordon, Jeanne Forbes and was one of the king's favourites. As such, even though a marriage between her and Rob would unify their two Highland clans clans that had been fighting for generations the duke had given her the unprecedented prerogative to deny Rob's suit if she didn't find favour with him. It was not a pronouncement that anyone in either clan their wealth and manpower depleted by years of contention liked.

What if this Jeanne with her frenchified notions took a dislike to a tapestry in the Great Hall? Or what if they served her mutton and she preferred beef? What if she favoured slender men dressed in black velvet and lace? Well, she'd certainly not find his likes in the tall, broad-shouldered and heavy muscled figure of Rob Macalduie who'd spent most of his twenty-two years swinging a claymore.

How could the king have agreed to leave the fates of his brave liegemen to the whim of a seventeen-year-old girl?

But he had and there was nothing for it but to hope that Jeanne Forbes understood her duty. At least, everyone agreed, Rob understood what was at stake. Which is why he'd been driving his servants and kinsmen this past fortnight, exhorting them to scrape lower, bend a deeper knee, and above all to be careful of what they said and in what tone they said it.

None of which sat well with his cousin, Alex Graham, who thought it all well below the dignity of a laird of Barras to humble himself for a girl. But then Alex also thought he would have made the better laird than young Rob and in spite of the old man naming Rob his chosen heir with his dying breath should have been named such with the old laird's passing four years ago. It was a claim that Rob had never bothered nor needed to refute. He'd let his record on the battlefield and the prosperity his people enjoyed speak for his ability to lead. Now, he wanted to guide them on to a new path one of peace. Truth be told, at twenty-two Rob Macalduie of Barras was sick unto death of death.

Indeed, Rob was so sick of killing and raiding, ambushes and slaughter, and so set on the notion of peace, that he'd taken pen to paper to court Jeanne Forbes from afar. He'd begun his suit nearly a year ago when the subject of an arranged marriage between them had first been broached by the king himself. His first letter still had the power to embarrass him in recollection.

Young girls, his aunts had counselled him, love pretty words, particularly words they could wrap in ribbons and tuck beneath their pillows at night. If securing her hand entailed having to spout sweet-sounding inanities then, by all that was holy, inanities he'd spout. He would have done far more to secure welfare for his clan.

He'd been surprised when in her returning letter she'd bade him dispense with such fudge and went on to advise him not to bother writing again in an ill-fated attempt to convince her that he was the sort of man he imagined she must want. Thenceforth he'd dispensed with the inanities and written her, if not eloquently, honestly.

In return for his efforts, he found himself discovering his bride's nature. Her letters revealed Jeanne Forbes to be practical and willful, comically pleased with her own cunning though Rob suspected she wasn't nearly so sly as she imagined herself to be generous, quick-witted and engaging.

The only thing he didn't know about his bride was what she looked like.

At the start of their correspondence she had made the stipulation that they should not tell each other anything of their physical appearance, as appearances can change in a heartbeat a point she graphically illustrated in a tale about an uncle who rode down to a pub one night a bonny, braw man and returned two days later sans nose, one eye and an ear, lost in a brawl in the tavern's yard. She thought they should instead focus on that which mattered more their characters, their values, their temperaments.

Which was all very fine and high-minded, but when everything was said and done, though mature far beyond his years, at his core Rob was still a young man and could not help but want what every young man wants, which was a bonny armful in his bed. But, he couldn't insist. She had him, in all ways, at point nonplus. He needed to win her, not the other way round.

Which is why he stood now surrounded by his closest kin in the small gatehouse annexed to his small castle's outer curtain wall, awaiting the arrival of his would-be bride, about whose looks the only thing he knew was that she had red hair like all the Forbes. His men would have laughed themselves sick if they'd known how apprehensive he was. He'd stood unarmed and afoot and, without a tremor, faced down the mounted charge of his enemy; he'd dived into an ice-choked loch with nary a second thought to drag an unconscious kinsman from its frigid clasp; he'd felt a broadsword plunge into his shoulder but fought on without check until the battle was over. Yet at the thought of meeting this lass, this Jeanne Forbes, his belly clenched and his heart stuttered in his throat.

What if despite her lofty-minded intentions, despite the communion they'd found in their letters, despite what he wanted, what their people needed, she would not accept him as her husband?

He had never doubted himself before. He had never been allowed that luxury. A laird must be purposeful and certain, show no doubt or indecisiveness. And he hadn't. But that was as laird. As suitor ... what did he know of his strengths if he had any or weaknesses? Even if she was a squat, sour dumpling with a pockmarked face or a bony, unsmiling crone, Jeanne Forbes was a prize and a plum one at that.

He, on the other hand, was but a minor lord. Not pretty. Uneducated. Without court manners. She bent to his suit and he knew it well. Barras was a lesser estate, his clan negligible in the Highland hierarchy. His castle might be well-made and snug in winter, cool in summer, but there was no gainsaying it was small. He had no money for velvet gowns and jewels, no troubadour to sing her to sleep at night, no imported spices to tempt her palate nor even a cook who'd know how to use them all things her letters had revealed she was accustomed to. She improved his prospects; he did not improve hers.

What if she took one look at Barras castle and decided to return to the French court where she'd been raised? And the worst of it was that not all he feared had a political foundation. Whatever the girl looked like, whether or not she was a beauty, her words had found their way into his imagination, his mind ... his heart.

For the third time in as many minutes he glanced out the small, narrow window at the road leading to the castle gates. Though still some miles off, her party could be seen making its slow, stately approach. A dozen men-at-arms and half again as many courtiers pranced about a pair of large, richly painted wagons. Outriders in hunting garb rode the fields on either side of the road, their falcons sweeping the sky above, their coloured jesses streaming like banners against the blue summer sky.

"She'll be pox-faced, have no doubt of it," Colin Frasier, his uncle, warned him for tenth time. "Why else would she be so old and not yet wed?"

"At seventeen, she's hardly a hag."

"She'll be pretty enough," allowed his foster brother, Francis Macalvoy. "But as cold as the Shetlands in January. French women are all cold."

"Ach. I say tumble her on her arse and spread her legs wide." Alex, arms crossed over his chest, sneered. "She'll say 'aye' soon enough she's with child."

"I might warn you, anyone raping the lady is far more like to find themselves beheaded then bedded."

At the sound of the female voice the men swung toward the doorway. A slender young woman stood silhouetted in the doorframe. The afternoon sun set a nimbus glowing around rich, red-gold coloured curls that fell in long ringlets over her shoulders and flirted with creamy bosom displayed above her gown's low decolletage. Her eyes were dark and tip-tilted at the outer corners, lending her a faintly exotic air. Her brows were equally dark and elegantly arched. A lovely, breathtaking lass.

She wore a mantua of rich blue linen, the front skirt pulled back and fastened into a train that revealed the front of the embroidered petticoat beneath. The bodice was simple, the decolletage low and square cut, but the exposed corset beneath was studded with pearls and tooled in silver threads, laced tightly up the front and ending in a pronounced V at the waist. Around her shoulders hung a soft, primrose-coloured cloak. A fashion not seen in the Highlands, the effect was lush and rich and provocative.

But it was not her dress that struck silence into the four men, nor her amused tone, nor even the sight of her rampant red-gold tresses or dark, flashing eyes. It was the white bitch standing silently at her side, the girl's hand resting lightly atop its wide, anvil shaped skull.

She wasn't a particularly large dog, but from her thick neck and powerful shoulders to the heavy, rounded haunches and deep chest everything about her bespoke immense power. Dark, intelligent eyes stared unblinkingly at them from above a jaw bulging with massive muscles. A dark teardrop-shaped mark rode beneath one eye.

Rob had seen this sort of dog before. Called an Alaunt, it was used on the battlefield, terrifying the enemy with its tenacity and ferocity. Of late, however, he'd seen it being used in baiting, a "sport" for which Rob, as one who'd been on both sides of similarly savage and unfair matches, had no love.

Why this slip of a girl was companioned by so fierce a creature interested him. And who the bloody hell was she aside from the obvious answer that she was kin of Jeanne's, a fact attested to by the red hair. But as such, why would Jeanne Forbes send her lady's maid unescorted to his castle?

"I have heard the Scots were a reticent lot, but hadn't realized they were mutes," the girl declared as their surprised silence dragged on. "Of course, being overheard plotting the rape of one of the king's favourites might rob the hubris from even the most arrogant Highlander."

Her gaze was flickering between the faces of the men silently regarding her, finally coming to rest on Francis Macalvoy's lavishly clad figure.

Ah, Rob thought, she has been sent beforehand to report back to her mistress her impressions of Jeanne's future husband and has decided that Francis must be the laird.

Certainly he looked the part more than Rob. Francis liked well the nicer things of life and dressed in finery and frippery whenever the opportunity arose. 'Twas a crime that even though he wore his dun-coloured hair cut to his shoulders and scented, his face would never win a lady's heart. Beneath a thick beetling brow, a battleaxe had skewed an already over-sized lantern jaw permanently out of alignment and the pox had added their deep marks to his gentle, homely visage.

But whatever beauty he'd never claim about his face, Francis seemed determined to make his own in his dress. To greet Jeanne Forbes, he'd donned a grey doublet, slashed and pinked as were his trunk hose. His trews were a deep burgundy and the cloak suspended from his shoulder was deep green velvet lined in gold.

In contrast, Rob doubtless looked his subordinate. He wore but a simple leine and leather waistcoat under a short coat of dark green wool and, of course, his plaid, belted at the waist. Except for his stockings and shoes, his legs were bare. He'd caught his hair back from his face and bound it, not bothering to let it flow to his shoulders like Francis in the style his foster brother assured him was most admired at court. Well, they weren't at court, and best this girl reported back to her mistress that the laird of Barras was no popinjay.

"Some of us speak, lady," Alex said, a curl on his lip. "Though we prefer action to words. Perhaps you'd care for a demonstration?" He leered at her as he stepped forward and Rob was about to intervene when a great, deep rumble issued from the chest of the white dog. Alex stopped, uneasily regarding the tensed bitch who'd stood up now, her hackles raised.

"Who are you, lass? What are you doing here, unescorted and unprotected?" his uncle, Colin Frasier asked.

The girl touched the dog's head and at once the bitch dropped to a sit. She smiled, steel as well as humour in her gaze. "I'm hardly unprotected, as you see. And as to who I am, I'm Joan, maid of milady's chamber. And as to why I'm here, I come bringing the Laird of Barras a gift from the Lady Forbes."

Once more her gaze flickered towards Francis who, Rob was amused to suspect, seemed to have been struck mute by the sight of a real French lady. At least French-raised. That hair was born in the Highlands and no doubt of it.

"And what would that be, Joan?" Rob asked, coming forward from where he'd stood in the back.

The girl's gaze swept over him, widening a bit in an expression Rob could not read before a faint blush spread over her cheeks, confounding and beguiling him all at once, for he had said nothing to give rise to that sweet blush and yet once he'd seen it, it lodged in his heart, enchanting him. Caught offguard, he shook off the sudden, intense attraction. 'Twould never do to go lusting after his bride's companion. He was not that sort of man and he had no intentions of becoming one.

"Well?"

In answer, the girl reached beneath her cloak and withdrew from some inner pocket a small, wriggling white creature, a pup but a few weeks old, Rob guessed.

"He's an Alaunt," the girl said proudly, petting the broad head of the beast beside her. "Paula here's only whelp. Both Paula and the sire's ancestors came from the Holy Lands, brought back with the crusaders from my ... my lady's family. I," the girl's eyes fell, suddenly shy, "I trained her."

"Paula?" Alex burst out, laughing. "Ye named the bitch Paula?"

"Aye," she said. "For the saint."

"What sort of name is that for a baiting dog?" Alex jeered.

Joan swung towards him, her eyes flashing. "She's no baiting dog and never will be. She's a companion and a guardian should there be cause. But she'll not ever spill her blood for the obscene pleasure of a bunch of drunken boys." Her eyes flashed with contempt and disgust.

At this, Alex surged forward in fury, only to meet the immovable bulk of Rob's massive arm. "Stay, Alex," he murmured through clenched teeth.

His cousin needed no further instruction. Alex was a loyal man, if not a temperate one. He spun away from Rob, stalking to the door and shoving the girl aside as he passed, spitting down at her, "I'd keep the bitch close if I were you," and Rob, already angry at Alex's treatment of Jeanne Forbe's liege woman, felt a black rage seize him.

Before he realized his own intent, he'd snatched Alex back and spun him around, gripping him around the neck and slamming him to his knees.

"By God, Alex, you go too far," he rumbled. "If you-"

"Stay!"

Rob felt another's hand on his shoulder.

"Leave off!"

Again he heard Francis's urgent voice and looked up to meet his foster brother's worried gaze over Alex's head.

"Let him go or Joan will be forced to report to her mistress that having no foreigners to fight we fall upon each other like the very pit dogs she decries," Francis said in a low voice. "Leave off, I say."

Thank god for Francis's reasoned calm, a calm for which Rob himself was usually known. But some instinct had snapped to life at Alex's threat and he knew that he would never allow any man to lay rough hands on the gallant girl. With a bare nod of acquiescence, he released his hold on Alex's throat, leaving his cousin sputtering and groping his way out the door with the aid of his amazed father.

He looked up at Joan. Her hand was clenched at her bosom, her eyes wide and frightened. Her gown's sleeve had pulled up revealing a crescent-shaped red welt on her forearm. Rob froze.

He knew the story of that scar: a brazier filled with roasting nuts, a greedy toddler and inattentive nurse. He knew because in one of her first letters to him Jeanne Forbes had written him about her "battle scars".

Jeanne, not Joan.

But then, Joan was simply the Scottish version of Jeanne. She had come, Rob realized, to learn about him covertly. If she had arrived as herself, his behaviour would be at its best and his kin and servants would keep their tongues well guarded. But if she arrived as a simple companion, she would be more likely to learn what his servants and kinsmen thought of him.

It was, he acknowledged, a practical ploy. And a cunning game.

One that two people could play ...

The dark-haired young giant moved with lethal quickness for one so large and broad-shouldered. One moment the sneering, fair-haired Scot was growling his threat and the next he was on his knees clawing uselessly at the vise-like grip around his throat. And then the man Jeanne took to be her intended husband for who else but he would be wearing such princely garb? proved further proof of this supposition by staying the giant's hand and sending the other two men from the room.

He was a judicious man then, neither passionate like the young giant nor violent like the other. A worthy man, then. A man who understood prudence and politics. She should be happy. Delighted. For political reasons had brought her here to this small castle to accept its laird as her husband.

She shouldn't be surprised by his actions. In his letters, Rob Macalduie's commitment to a lasting peace amongst the feuding Highlanders had been framed in careful, weighted words. His thoughtful and circumspect letters had demonstrated the statecraft that would be necessary to ensure it. Aye, he was a statesmen in the making, was Rob Macalduie.

And it was for just that reason she had ventured on this impersonation. For Rob Macalduie's words had been too carefully select, too self-conscious, had sometimes made her feel that she'd revealed too much of herself in her own effusive ramblings while discovering too little about him. She wanted to know, to really know, what sort of man she'd agreed to wed. It was a small enough thing to insist upon.

She studied her fiance now as he stood in deep and tense conversation with the young Scot whose broad back all but obliterated her view of the laird. She'd been told that Rob Macalduie had been in more battles than she had years and it stood to reason that he'd carry physical reminders of them. She knew that physical beauty was a vanity and an illusion but ... she had hoped that he'd be not unpleasant to look at.

But alas, he was. His brow overhung deep-set eyes like a rock shelf over small pebbles, and his heavy brow stretched across that great land bridge like a brown weasel. His huge jaw hung at an oblique angle, caved in at one side. But he did have kind eyes worried eyes, but kind and his hair was pretty, thick as a lass's, long and scented. And he was well-shaped. Though not so well-shaped as the large young warrior who had turned towards her.

Now, he was handsome. His eyes were a clear green, fringed by thick short black lashes, his brow high and clear, his nose was bold and straight. His jaw was clean-shaven, his shoulders and the breadth of his chest beneath the leather waistcoat strong and hard, and the size of his hands and the length of his muscular legs and Oh my. She pulled her gaze away, feeling her face growing hot. His wide, well-shaped mouth quirked in a smile. The brigand! The great lout! He obviously thought she'd blushed because of him. Well, aye. She had. But he was no gentleman to make note of it.

And 'twould not do, besides! He would be her kinsman in but a few days.

"Lady," the laird was saying and, even though it was hard to pay him the heed he merited when the younger man was watching her so intently, she forced herself to do so.

"Aye, sir?"

"When will your lady be arriving?"

Lady? Oh. Oh! He meant her! She must stop paying heed to the grinning Highlander.

"If I may make a request, sir. She bids your indulgence in letting me be her eyes and ears here for a single day."

"Why so?" asked the giant.

She essayed a prim smile. "So that when I return to her tomorrow I might teach her better how best to please."

"Ach!" At this the young giant broke into laughter, winning a sharp look from his laird. "Those are pretty words, lassie. Skilful. Are they yours ... or hers?" His smile was vulpine.

Damn the man. He would make his laird doubt her. "Sir?" she managed to say with a guileless smile.

"Faith, yer a beauty," he murmured, his gaze roving over her person so openly she felt another blush rise. Why didn't the laird do something? But then, why should he? If his man indulged in a flirtation with his intended's companion, what matter was it to him?

Well, it would presumably be a great matter when she revealed who she was. She should do so now, before this got out of hand and the black-haired giant found himself exiled when the laird recalled his brazenness towards her. But ... she hadn't learned anything of the laird yet and very soon it would be too late. She would be married to him. This would be her most promising opportunity to see him as his people saw him. Perhaps her only opportunity.

She would be careful. Starting now. She turned away from the dark-haired Highlander towards the laird, ignoring the giant.

But he refused to be ignored.

"But, won't your lady be uncomfortable, sleeping in a wagon on a narrow cot with a lumpy mattress?" he murmured from close behind her. "Why subject her to that when here her bed would be strong. And broad. And firm."