Until the Knight Comes (37 page)

“Och, but Aveline is more than pleasing. And spirited.” The courier stepped in front of him, blocking the way when Jamie would have paced back to the window. “She brings a healthy marriage portion, too. Prime grazing lands for your da’s cattle. I say you, you willna be sorry. I swear it on the souls of my sons.”

“I will think on it,” Jamie offered, doing his best to hide his discomfiture.

“Why don’t you hie yourself into the hall to get a meal and some sleep?” Kenneth clamped a hand on the courier’s elbow, steering him to the door. “Jamie will give you his decision on the morrow.”

Turning back to Jamie, he arched a raven brow. “For someone who spent his life yearning to win his father’s favor, tell me why you lost all color upon hearing of the man’s sudden need for you? Surely you aren’t troubled by this talk of a desired marriage?”

Jamie folded his arms over his chest, felt heat creeping up the back of his neck. Damn him for a chivalrous fool, but he couldn’t bring himself to voice his misgivings and admit he’d rather have his tender parts shrivel and fall off before he’d find himself obliged to bed one of Alan Mor’s daughters.

If he even could!

“Ach, dinna look so glum.” Sir Lachlan took the letter, glanced at it. “There is nothing writ here that binds you,” he said, looking up from the parchment. “You needn’t do aught you find displeasing.”

And that was Jamie’s problem.

Returning home, even now,
would
please him. So much, his heart nearly burst at the thought. And once there, he’d be hard-pressed to disappoint his father.

Or Aveline Matheson.

If indeed such an alliance required his compliance. Truth was, he lived by a strict code of honor, one that forbade him to shame an innocent maid—even if sparing her feelings came at the cost of his own.

Heaving a sigh, he snatched up his birthday tunic and donned it, unfinished seams or no. “We all ken I shall wed the lass if my da wishes it,” he said, moving to the door. “I’ll ride for Baldreagan at first light, and visit Alan Mor so soon as I’ve seen my father.”

His intentions stated, he stepped into the great hall, paused to appreciate its smoky, torch-lit warmth. The comfort of kith and kin, a crackling hearth fire. Everyday pleasures his brothers would never again enjoy. Indeed, compared to their fate, his own struck him as more than palatable.

So long as Aveline wasn’t the sister almost his own size, he’d find some way to tolerate her.

Or so he hoped.