The Hellion and the Highlander by Lynsay Sands

last few days, but she doesna react at all except to grow sweeter still. ’Tis as if she has no temper at all.”
    Will raised his eyebrows. “And that’s a bad thing?”
    “’Tis unnatural,” he said firmly.
    Will shook his head. “Not in England. At least, my own mother was just as sweet all the days of her life. ’Tis a trait admired by most Englishmen.”
    Kade’s lips turned down with disgust. “Then yer fools. A woman’d no survive long in Scotland like that.” He scowled. “Were bandits to beset Averill, I fear she’d thank them for troubling themselves.”
    Will chuckled at the suggestion but didn’t argue it either. Instead, he sighed. “Then I suppose I should not suggest that you marry her?”
    Kade gave a start at the words. “What?”
    “Well, you did mention while we were imprisoned that did we ever escape, you would have to find a bride to bear your bairns ere you ever did anything so foolish again as rushing off on Crusade,” he pointed out solemnly.
    “And yer thinking Averill and I…?” He didn’t finish the question but sank back against the bed with a frown to consider the suggestion. But as much as he liked the girl, and while it would save him the trouble of hunting up a woman later, he could not imagine marrying and taking Averill home to Stewart.
    Kade had a battle ahead of him when he reached his family’s home. A few years before leaving on Crusade, he’d received a letter from his sister spelling out how matters went. Mother had died, and Merry had taken over the running of Stewart. Their father was still laird in name and threw his weight around when drunk, but mostly he was too sotted to run matters, or too hungover to do so. Little Merry was running Stewart and would do so until she wed as she’d promised their mother on her deathbed.
    This news had immediately brought Kade home to Stewart, where he’d waited three days to find his father sober enough that he could broach the subject of taking over the task as laird himself rather than leaving it on Merry’s shoulders. He had, obviously, broached the subject wrongly. His father had refused even to acknowledge that his wife had for years run Stewart and that Merry had now taken her place. He was the laird at Stewart. He made the decisions, he insisted. He ran the castle and all their people. He was the great Laird Stewart and had every intention of remaining so and Kade could go jump in a loch if hethought he would take the title from him ere he cocked up his toes.
    His father had then, with Kade’s two younger brothers backing him, suggested Kade get the hell off Stewart land.
    Kade had left, and had someone asked him why at the time, his answer would have been the same as Will’s for not interfering with his father’s plans for his sister. Eachann Stewart was his father, his laird, and was of right mind. But while he’d believed that at the time, and while that might be true of Lord Mortagne, after thinking about it all these last years, Kade realized his father wasn’t in his right mind at all. The drink had a hold of Eachann Stewart and was keeping him from being a proper laird, or even any kind of example for his two youngest sons.
    That was what Kade was returning to, a possible battle to take over running Stewart, then no doubt a lot of hard work to set the place to rights if his sister’s betrothed had claimed her and his drunken father and brothers had been running Stewart into the ground in a whiskey-induced haze these last years. As much as Kade liked Averill and had enjoyed his chats with her since waking, Stewart was no place for a sweet and gentle woman such as her. Dear God, she would not survive a month in such rough surroundings, he thought unhappily, and shook his head. Perhaps he would have risked it were there a little more fire under the sweetness, something to suggest she might thrive despite adversity, but…nay, he would not take her there just to see her grow weary and worn down by