Dreamer (Highland Treasure Trilogy) (3 page)

“Nothing! I just came up from the
Great Hall, and I heard you crying out in your sleep.”

Catherine turned and looked
groggily at the open door leading to the Master’s Chamber.

“‘Twas a dream.” A nightmare! A
horrible semblance of the long past mixed with her present. She ran a shaky
hand over her brow, wiping away the sweat. Nay, Laura was safe! Safe...as was
she, herself.

“Aye, but as long as you’re awake,
I was...well, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind sleeping in there for
tonight.”

Catherine stared blankly through
the dim light at the young woman. “You...you want me to sleep with you?”

Ellen giggled and shook her head.
“Nay, I was hoping you would change rooms with me. Every time I’ve been here
before, I’ve slept in this chamber. So I thought...if you wouldn’t mind...I’d
be happier in here, you see.”

“Well, I...” She frowned, trying to
clear her mind, but before she could even think of an answer, Ellen was pulling
the bedclothes back for her. “If you think...”

“You are a darling creature.”
Catherine felt the younger woman grasp her by the shoulders and direct her
toward the open door. “I’ll come and get you in the morning. You just go and
crawl into that bed and go back to sleep.”

Before she knew it, Catherine found
herself standing in the middle of the Master’s Chamber with a sound of the door
closing behind her. Nearly asleep on her feet, she pushed the thick waves of
hair back over her shoulder. As she climbed into the huge curtained bed, she
could hear the far-off sound of voices and hushed laughing.

Ellen Crawford was up to some
dangerous mischief, and such goings-on were incomprehensible to Catherine.
True, she felt a pang of regret for being thought a fool by Ellen, but more
important, she felt sorry for the good earl of Athol. Their upcoming marriage
already had all the markings of a farce.

Once again, Catherine reminded
herself, this was none of her business. Her plans were to tutor the young
people of Athol’s demesne, not to become the spiritual adviser to foundering
brides.

Weariness soon overtook her,
though, and the sound of the rain outside dulled her senses. She was so tired,
she later remembered thinking. She needed sleep. Why, the great gates of York itself could fall on her, she decided, yawning. She was not going to wake up again
until the sun was coming through that window.

In just a moment or two, slumber
wrapped her in its velvet cloak, and outside the rain relented and eventually
stopped.

This time, her dream was an old
one. Even as she entered the mists of sleep, it occurred to Catherine that she
had not had this dream in years. But there he was, her own knight of a thousand
romances, tall and strong, coming to her after the great battle, claiming her
for his own.

For he was now her husband. The
dragon lay dead in its lair, the treasure of gold and rubies and emeralds
returned to the castle’s vault. Order and goodness reigned once again in the
realm, and the night now offered its own promise.

But this time the dream was somehow
different...changing...going into a world of fantasy she had never experienced
before. She felt his body sink into the down mattress beside her, his arm slide
across the planes of her belly, his large hand rest for a moment on her hip
before drawing her against his warm, firm body.

It was all so real. Catherine’s
dreams often carried her to other worlds. Worlds she could see and smell and
feel. Worlds that she, upon awakening, would be certain existed somewhere.

But this...this was like no dream
she’d ever had, and she found herself shivering as her knight’s hand moved over
the thin linen of her shift to the hem. Her back arched reflexively as his long
fingers gently caressed the skin of her belly and traced the curves at the base
of her breasts. Her breath caught in her chest and she felt her body rise to
his touch when his hand cupped the full roundness of her breast. And as his thumb drew tight circles around the hardening nipple, sparks of fire shot through
her.

So new and yet so thrilling,
Catherine sighed in her state of bliss. To have a mere touch make her insides
quiver so exquisitely.

Something hot throbbed insistently
against her thigh, and as her knight’s hand again slid down over her belly,
Catherine’s lips opened and her breaths began to shorten. A soft moan escaped
her lips. Molten liquid was flowing within her, building in pulsing waves as
his fingers slid through her downy mound. She felt him move, felt his body
rising. There was a whisper, inaudible, almost a growl, and then her knight’s
lips were on her neck, moving, brushing against her earlobe, kissing the line
of her jaw...her cheek. Catherine waited.

 His kiss was gentle at first. A
brush of lips, but so real. So unlike her long recurring dreams of the two of
them drifting into each other’s embrace, her body molding to his as the mist
would softly steal around them. She could feel the pressure of his mouth. The
groan of approval when she parted her lips. And then the knight’s tongue swept
deeply into her mouth, shocking her with a reality that left her gasping for
breath. Catherine’s eyes flew open.

This was no dream. This was not her
knight. As she felt his knee press between her legs, she jerked her mouth away,
breaking off the kiss. She tried to push at his chest.

“What the devil...?” came the growl
through the darkness.

This was no dream, she thought
again with a flash of panic as the coarse skin of a man’s chin rubbed hard
against her cheek. She beat his naked shoulder with her one free hand. Grabbing
at his long hair, she yanked with all her strength, but nothing could move the
beast.      

His hand came up quickly, catching
hold of her wrist, but she reared up instinctively and bit down with all her
strength on a powerful forearm. 

The man gave an angry roar of pain
and leaped back, snatching his hand away. But this was all the time she needed
as she screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Hush, you cursed she-devil!” The
man shouted, leaning over her again. But Catherine went wild beneath his
shifting weight. Kicking him with all her strength in the groin, she twisted to
the side, clawing her way to the edge of the bed. But the villain grabbed her
by the waist.

“Wait! I’ll not hurt you, though
God knows, I...”

The door from the other chamber
burst open and, David Hume, holding a torch aloft, charged in, his sword
flashing in the light.

Catherine’s eyes darted from the warrior’s
naked skin to the gleaming flesh of Ellen Crawford in the open door behind him.

“Up, you villainous blackguard.
Prepare to die!” 

With a flick of his arm, her
attacker tossed Catherine to the side and leaped toward David, snatching his
own long sword from the floor beside the huge bed.

“Nay, you son of a whore! You’re
the dog who is about to choke in his own blood!”

Ellen’s shocked gasp stopped the
two men in their tracks.

“John!” she whispered, her panic
evident in the single word. Raising her thin chemise over her breasts in a
belated attempt to cover herself, the young woman started backing out the door.

Catherine’s head snapped around as
she saw her assailant move menacingly toward David Hume. Suddenly, there was no
question in her mind whose blood would be shed on this floor. The red-haired
giant Ellen had called John stood head and shoulders above David and from the
powerful breadth of his shoulders, Catherine was certain that he could cut her
would-be rescuer in half. And from the stunned look on his face, she doubted
David would even think to lift his sword in defense.

“You--you’re John Stewart!” her
warrior stammered.

“Aye, you filthy dog. John Stewart,
earl of Athol. And that wench you were keeping company with in the next chamber
is none other than my intended.”

It was sheer madness. There was no
other explanation. But Catherine, in the next instant, found herself standing
before the flaming-haired nobleman, blocking his approach.

“Stop!” she pleaded. “There has to
be a better way to settle this than by drawing blood.”

Athol hesitated, and as he stared
down at her, the man’s gray eyes flashed murderously. She stood her ground.

“You see, m’lord, I am Catherine
Percy. David Hume here was entrusted with my safety, and...and I’m quite certain
he must have had no prior knowledge that Ellen...”

The words dried up in her throat.
She stared as the blade of his long sword gleamed in the torchlight.

“Out of my way, woman!”

Catherine’s knees were ready to
buckle, and her head suddenly felt light, but she raised her chin in defiance.
“I cannot!”

Athol advanced a step, looking past
her at the man standing by the door. Taking a deep breath, she raised a
pleading hand and gazed with as much courage as she could muster into a face
ablaze with fury.

“He was given the task of
protecting my life until we reached our destination. And he has done an
excellent job...er, up to now. But now that the task is
finished
.” She
paused, hoping that David would pick up her hint. “And now that his task is
finished
,
I believe ‘tis my duty to see him safely
away
.”

There was no movement behind her.
How could men be so thick-headed? she stormed inwardly. Away! Run! Flee!

“We are
here at the end of our
journey
!” she pressed. “With the earl of Athol!”

“Out of my way, woman.”

“At the
end
of our journey!”

That did it. David must have turned
to flee with the speed of a falcon, dropping the torch by the doorway in his
escape. Responding quickly, the earl reached out and tried to move around her. 
But Catherine was quicker, throwing herself against his chest.

It was like hitting a wall of
moving rock at a gallop. Her breath was knocked from her lungs. She fell with
the grace of a meal sack to the floor as Athol picked up the torch and strode
from the chamber.

For a long while Catherine sat
still in the dark, listening to the shouts and curses and then to the sounds of
horses. She didn’t know if it was the impact of hitting the man so hard or the
cumulative effect of the entire episode that had left her unable to move. The
lodge was in an uproar now, and she could hear the sound of people rushing
about--while the steely voice of Athol could be heard above all of them,
shouting commands and cursing violently.

What in heaven’s name had she
gotten herself into? she thought groggily, trying to push herself to her knees.
Thank the Lord she had never developed a fondness for any man in
particular--other than her dream-knight--nor for marriage in general. And in truth, what she had witnessed tonight was a clear reaffirmation of that view.

She was
definitely not suited for matrimony. She could never make anyone a fit wife.
She would never know how to deal with this open display of temper and this
threat of violence.  Nay. And what of this business of a man coming to his
future wife’s bed uninvited, then not even recognizing her as someone else. She
brought her hands up to her flushed cheeks and again shook her head, pushing
from her mind how wantonly she’d responded to him at first, when she’d thought
it was just a dream.

She was still on her knees when the
door to the Ladies’ Chamber swung open. Closing her eyes, she felt him brush
past her without pausing.

Pushing herself shakily to her
feet, she stole a glance in the direction of the man who now stood by the bed.
His back to her, he was muttering under his breath as he wrapped a kilt around
him by the light of a wick lamp he had evidently carried in with him.

The earl of Athol, she thought with
a pang of regret, was quite different from what she had hoped he would be.

The man was supposed to be an
advocate of learning. She had expected him to be a serene, subdued looking
man.  But his actions, his behavior, in bed and out...Catherine felt her heart
start to race anew! Trying to force the memory of his mistaking her for Ellen
Crawford from her mind, she stared at her host. He was certainly not at all
what she had expected.

Ellen had told Catherine that the
earl was past seven and thirty years of age. So even in her wildest of dreams,
she hadn’t been prepared for the handsome face and the solid wall of muscle
that was just now trying to pull on long, muddy boots. With flowing, partially
braided red hair tumbling over a pair of broad shoulders, he looked more like
an outlaw than he did the cousin of a king.

Catherine couldn’t help but guess
what silly maneuvers she might have come up with as a young maiden to get the
attention of a man like him. Not that with her unassuming appearance she’d ever
have had even a chance of catching his eye. But all the same, she reminded
herself, it was a blessing to know that her life had taken a different route. A
far more sensible one.  

She shook her head and started
quietly for the door. As long as she kept her distance, perhaps they could
avoid meeting again for a while. In truth, right now, the incident that had
occurred in that bed embarrassed her dreadfully, and she had no doubt he
must--if he had a shred of respectability in him--be feeling as terrible as
she.

  Reaching the doorway, she started
to breathe again. She had to put what happened behind her and, perhaps, they
could pretend it had never taken place. He would not mention it, Catherine was
quite certain, and she could quietly go about the task of opening her school.

“Mistress Catherine.”

His hard voice raised the
gooseflesh on the back of her neck. She turned slowly and faced him.

“I’ve sent for the damned priest.
We’ll be wed when the cursed old fool arrives.”

“Wed!” The man was obviously out of
his mind. “To me?”