Page 1 of Lyon’s Gift (The Highland Brides #2)
PROLOGUE
T he forest was their sanctuary.
Meghan and her grandmother spent many a morning in the dimness of the woodland, gathering herbs for her grandmother’s potions. Just now they were searching for sweetbriar upon MacLean land, and Meghan was on her hands and knees, crawling across the ground at the forest’s edge, painstakingly inspecting foliage.
They were not supposed to be here, she knew, as old man MacLean was apt to be angry if he discovered them once more upon his land. Last time he had accused her grammie of poaching, though there had not been a whit of evidence in their sack. All they had borne away with them that day were weeds and little more. He did not know her grandmother if he thought she would do such a thing; her grammie would never eat an animal if she looked the creature in the eyes beforehand.
“Ye dinna have to look so carefully, Meghan,” her grandmother said. “’Tis not so wee a plant, child—more like a shrub.”
“I remember, grammie, and you said look for the pink flowers, too. So I’m looking, but I dinna see any.”
“Och, lass! That’s because you’re crawling on your belly like a viper. Get yourself up before you grind the dirt into your sweet knees.”
Meghan peered back at her grandmother over her shoulder, watching her an instant. The old woman was hunched over, scanning the plants, murmuring to herself as she scrutinized each one. Every so oft she would bend to pluck a sample and then crush it between her fingers.
“Be careful with the thorns,” her grandmother said, as she inspected a small branch of some plant.
“I will!” Meghan wished her grammie wouldn’t treat her like a wee bairn. She was all of eight summers now, and not nearly so little anymore.
Her grandmother, oblivious to her complaint, began to sing and dance.
“Wretched mon, why art thou proud,
That art of earth made?
Hide not behind your shroud
But fore thou came naked!”
Meghan giggled at the sight of her, dancing so lively, and felt warmed by the old woman’s joy.
“Ta ta dum, da dum, da dum,” her grandmother hummed.
Meghan made to rise, but in that instant she spotted a face peering out at her from behind a wide oak and she gave a startled blink. The face was just about the size of her own, and the eyes were wide and full with fright. They were visible only an instant and then they vanished behind the tree.
Her grandmother carried on.
“When thy soul have journeyed out,
Thy body with the earth covered over
That body that was so haughty and loud Of all men is hated
Ta dum dee dum, dee dum! ”
“Och, Meghan,” she called suddenly.
“Aye?” Meghan replied. She turned to peer over her shoulder to see if her grammie had noticed the face as well.
“ Never let a handsome smile turn your head and woo your heart, d’ ye hear me, lass?”
“Aye, grammie.” Why was her grandmother so concerned with boys, when Meghan certainly wasn’t?
“Ye know Adam took that apple all on his own, d’ ye not? Bluidy knave blamed it on Eve because he dinna have the nuts to take the burden on his own.”
Having heard this tale more times than she could count, Meghan rolled her eyes.
“It serves him right Eve shoved that apple down his cowardly throat and he bears it still.”
“Aye,” Meghan said. She crawled closer to the tree, her heart pounding within her breast. But the face did not peek out again, even when she’d neared the trunk, and she was sorely afraid they’d scared her off. Holding her breath, she craned her head about the tree trunk, and gasped at the sight of a wide pair of eyes as green as her own staring back at her.
“Oh,” Meghan said. “There you are. I feared you’d run away.”
The little girl said nothing, merely stared at Meghan and cast nervous glances over Meghan’s shoulder at her grandmother, who was still carrying on behind her like a mad woman. Meghan turned to watch her grandmother, seeing her through another’s eyes, and frowned. The old woman suddenly fell to the ground upon her knees, cackling in delight at some discovery she made. Meghan winced at the sight she presented.
Meghan turned back to the little girl. “She’ll not hurt you, I promise. She’s not truly mad, she’s just my grammie.”
The little girl’s face was frozen in an expression of doubt and her eyes shifted warily to Meghan’s grandmother.
“Och, Meghan,” her grandmother said, “I believe I’ve discovered something here!”
The little girl’s eyes widened in sudden fear.
Meghan shook her head. “Dinna worry, I willlna tell her you are here.” Meghan smiled and then called out, “What is it, grammie?”
“Touch-me-nots!”
Meghan loved the delight with which her grandmother embraced all things great and small.
“What are they good for?” she asked, trying to keep her grandmother’s attention from turning to their unexpected guest.
Her grandmother cackled. “Not a bluidy thing! Have you ever seen such a thing, Meghan?”
“Nay, mum,” Meghan replied. She glanced again at the old woman who was now lying upon her belly on the bracken of the woodland floor. And she would have had Meghan get up off her knees? Meghan rolled her eyes again.
“Looky here! Ye touch the wee buggers and the pods burst with seeds.” Meghan watched her grandmother poke her finger at a few, and then listened to her laugh.
She turned back to the little girl. “I am Meghan. What’s your name?”
“Alison,” the little girl replied, still staring at the cackling old woman.
“We’re looking for sweetbriar,” Meghan whispered.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe for my grammie’s potions.” She realized belatedly how her disclosure must sound and winced.
“To turn people into toads?”
“Och! Nay,” Meghan said. “My grammie would never do such a thing. I have never once in my life seen her turn anyone into a toad. But I did hear her call my brother Leith a frog.”
The little girl tilted her head, looking as though she wanted to believe Meghan. “She wouldn’t turn me into a frog?”
“’Course not.”
The two girls sat peering at each other a long instant, and Meghan wondered if she dared ask.
“Do you wanna be my friend?” she asked. “I have never had a friend so little as you.”
The little girl seemed to forget her grandmother and her fear. “I’m not so much littler than you.”
Meghan grinned. “Perhaps. But I’ve never had a friend ’cept for my grammie.”
Her grandmother shouted. “Meghan, listen! Do you hear them, child?”
“Hear who?”
Alison retreated behind the tree.
“Woodland sprites! I think they’re speakin’ to me, lass, though I cannot be certain. Do you hear them too?”
“I hear nothing, grammie!” Meghan peered around the tree again. “She’ll not hurt you, Alison. I swear it on our friendship.”
“I did not say we could be friends,” Alison argued. “My da will not let me play near the auld witch—I mean your grandminnie.”
Meghan’s face fell, her hopes dashed.
Alison shrugged. “But maybe I can sneak away … if you will too?”
Meghan thought about it less than an instant, desperate as she was for a friend. “Oh, yes! I will,” she promised. “So then are we friends?”
“Aye,” Alison said with a smile.
“Meghan, are you certain you did not hear them?” Her grandmother cocked her head to listen closer. “I know I do! Listen child.”
“I’m listening,” Meghan said, and turned again to her newfound friend. “I must go and help her now, but shall we play in the meadow this noon?”
“Aye!” Alison nodded eagerly. “I shall meet you by the cairn.”
“Verra well, then.”
“Come alone,” Alison said.
“I will! Go now … before she comes to look for me.”
Alison nodded, and didn’t tarry any longer. She cast a glance at Meghan’s grandmother and then leapt up and hurried away.
Meghan watched her go, and felt as great a burst of joy at her own discovery as her grandmother had with hers. And then she turned toward the old woman to see what she had found.
She crawled to where her grandmother lay, and sprawled there beside her on the ground. The two of them completely forgot about searching for herbs as they played with the little yellow flowers and green pods, poking at them and watching them explode. For long minutes, they giggled together upon the forest floor. It was nice to have such a sweet grandmother, Meghan thought. But today was a special, special day for she had also made herself a friend.