Page 1 of Falling for Her Highland Steward
Prologue
The church of St. Finian in the village of Gowanlea was very small, able to house only fifty people or so when it was packed to capacity, and since it was always quiet just before sunset, the boy had chosen that time to study his prayer book.
He was not particularly devout, but he was determined that he should learn to read, as some of the other boys of his acquaintance could. He was tired of being the butt of their jokes and being called stupid because the best he could do was sign his name, and he could only do that with great difficulty. He was not stupid, and he was going to prove it.
“How are you doing?” a kindly man’s voice sounded behind him. It was the voice of the elderly priest, Father David Quinn, who had been an extremely handsome man in his time. He had a head of thick white hair, bright blue eyes, and even now retained the proud, straight-backed bearing. He was one of the boy’s favorite people. “Ah, I see where you are having difficulty,” the priest said, nodding sagely as the boy showed him the book.
“I am sorry,” the boy said as he showed the man the marks he had drawn in the margins. “I had tae write these tae remind myself o’ their shapes.” He was embarrassed because the book had been a present from the priest, and now he had defaced it.
“The letters ‘q’ and ‘p,’” the priest laughed. “Do not fret, my son. I still have problems with those letters, and I have been reading for most of my life! Do not worry about the book. I gave it to you as a gift, and you may do with it as you wish.”
The boy smiled, glad that Father Quinn did not think him stupid. He was eight years old, skinny and dirty, and his biggest desire in life was to be accepted by his peers, especially those who looked down on him, and there were many of those. As well as that, he wanted to be big, sturdy, and muscular so that he could stand up to them. “I sometimes think I will never be able tae dae this, Father,” he sighed.
“You will do it,” the priest said firmly. “I have faith in you, and so does God. Now, let us do some reading.” He flipped through the book till he came to the story of David and Goliath. “If ever a story was written for a boy to read, it is this one.” He placed his finger on the first word. “Now, what does this say?”
The boy began to read, painfully and slowly, stumbling over some of the words until he had read the first few sentences.
Father Quinn patted his back, smiling at him. “Well done, my boy!” he said. “I am very proud of you. We will soon have you reading the whole Bible from cover to cover with no mistakes. How are you progressing with your numbers?”
“I remember the first ten, o’ course,” the boy answered. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. After that, there is eleven and twelve, but some o’ the teens get me a bit mixed up.”
“But you know the numbers ’til twelve,” the priest pointed out. “Now, write them out in words.”
The boy looked at him in horror. “I have no idea how tae dae that!” he protested.
“Then it is time you learned,” Father Quinn said sternly. “Write ‘one’ first.”
The boy took out his chalkboard since he did not wish to deface the holy book any more than he had to and began to write again. He wrote down what the priest had told him to, made a mistake, and rubbed it out. It took him three more attempts to find the right spelling, by which time he was becoming angry and frustrated. Sensing that it was time to call a halt, the priest gave him a cup of watered-down ale and said: “Rest awhile.” He watched the boy’s angry face for a few moments before speaking again.
“Have you ever seen a baby learning to walk?” he asked curiously.
“Aye, my friend’s wee sister,” he replied, puzzled. “Why?”
“Did the baby stand up then begin to walk straight away?” the priest asked, looking at the boy keenly.
“No,” he answered. “She fell down again an’ again.”
“How many times?” Father Thomson asked.
“Many times,” the boy answered, beginning to understand what the priest was telling him. “More than I could count. Sometimes she hurt herself an’ cried.”
“What if she had given up the first time?” Father Quinn raised his eyebrows in a question.
“Then she wouldnae be able tae walk,” the boy said in wonder, smiling as realization dawned on him.
“Exactly.” Father Quinn’s blue eyes crinkled in a smile. “And I tried to get into the seminary to become a priest twice before they accepted me. What does that tell you?”
“That ye should never give up,” the boy replied in wonder, realizing that perhaps he was not so stupid after all.
“So will you give up?” the man asked, smiling. “Just think, if you had given up trying to walk, you would be sitting on that seat, not being able to go anywhere.”
“Never!” The boy was fired with a new determination. “I will never give up!”
The priest smiled and was just about to go on with his instruction when there was an almighty bang at the back of the church, which made them both jump and turn toward the source of the sound.
The heavy wooden door had been thrown open so hard that it had thumped against the wall of the church and knocked off some of the plaster, then crashed back into place, where it stood shuddering on its hinges.
A man stood there, a heavy muscular figure with dirty and tousled sandy hair and a belligerent expression on his face. He carried a stout wooden spade in one of his huge hands and looked as though he would enjoy doing someone’s face some serious damage with it.
