Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2) by Tanya Anne Crosby Page B

certain he had never once tried a single sip or it may have put hair on his tongue. “Border lords dinna consider themselves Scots,” he reminded his king.
    And it was true. Alongside Donnal MacLaren, his grandsire had raided both Scots and English alike, and for the most part, Jaime considered himself English as well, but he wasn’t prepared to argue the point just now.
    David raised his cup. “Reivers, all!” he exclaimed. “And yet feckless as they may be, it was the border lords who first came to my aid.”
    “Whenever it suited them,” Jaime contended.
    In his humble opinion, if someone wasn’t for the king they were against him and the border lords tended to give their loyalties to the man with the biggest sack of gold. For the most part they were kings unto themselves, beholden to none—not even his friends. The instant his grandsire kicked up his toes, it took Donnal MacLaren all of one week to ride out against him—the time it took to gather men and saddle horses.
    “My father was English, as was your mum,” Jaime argued, preferring to align himself with relations who understood the meaning of loyalty.
    David set his tankard down upon the table. “Pah! You knew your sire for but a day. Your minny was a Scot,” he asserted, and then he poured himself another dram. “I chose ye for this task, Jaime, because you’re a bloody Scot. ’Tis time ye recalled how to be one!”
    Even were Jaime inclined to argue, he could not. He’d had a single encounter with the man who’d sired him… at the age of six—an awkward meeting after which his mother confessed him the truth. In many ways, David was far more a father to Jaime than his own had been. Regardless, he did not feel like a Scot. Whatever memories he had that were pleasant were all fostered beneath David’s and Henry’s tutelage.
    David quaffed his whisky, eyeing Jaime’s full cup, lingering in his hand. “Drink up,” he demanded once again.
    “God’s breath,” Jaime swore. He dreaded the taste of the rancid whisky , though not so much as he dreaded the inevitable return of the discussion to the lass now sitting in his gaol. In his gut, he realized David had been pondering what to do with her from the instant she’d pummeled him down in the hall. Reluctantly, he took a swig, and fortunately, this time it went down easier.
    David grinned. “That’s my boy,” he said.
    Jaime smiled, and was forced to confess, if only to himself, that the warmth sidling into his gut wasn’t entirely due to the libation. With some chagrin, he must confess that David’s endearments made him feel like a wee lad… a notion that was nearly forgotten to him as a man.
    David seemed to sense the turn of his thoughts. “Your Da would have been proud, Jaime, your minny too.” He eyed Jaime over the rim of his glass. “She was friend to my Maude, did I ever say?”
    Jaime nodded, taking another sip and turning the whisky over with his tongue. It wasn’t so bad, after all. In fact, it left a rather pleasant taste on the tongue.
    “She attended our wedding,” David said, retelling the tale yet again despite the fact that Jaime had heard it more times than he could count. The king’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he drifted into memory. “We were your age,” he offered. “Twenty-nine precisely, though I may as well have been ten. God’s teeth, ’tis no easy task being husband to a strong-willed lass. Alas, but how could she not be? She was heiress to Huntingdon and Northampton as well.”
    Jaime raised a toast to David’s queen. “And lest you forget… great niece to the Conqueror himself. With a bloodline like that, she was bound to be the consort of a great king.”
    David’s brow furrowed. “Dinna flatter me, Steorling. ’Tisna your way and I’ve had more than enough of arse kissing to last a lifetime.” He coughed quietly, clearing his throat. “Do ye know what I prefer?”
    Jaime opened his mouth to reply, but the king continued without