Jennifer Roberson (34 page)

 

Her brothers had come up from their own dwellings, their own business, to tell Cat hers. That she was back from Kilchurn, back as well from Achallader where the treaty had been signed, took no time to be carried about, and soon enough her brothers came back to the house they had left years before to marry and raise their own bairns, leaving their sister to make her own life.

Until now. Until they heard of Duncan Campbell’s elopement—it was a popular coffeehouse story, traded like wagers among Breadalbane’s enemies—and the dishonor done their sister. Who was to have been a countess.

She had no choice but to let them in. One day Chesthill would be Jamie’s, after all, when their father was dead. And so they came in, drank whisky, gathered themselves to her like kilt-clad chicks around a hen, appraised her closely—
—like a cow to be bred!—
—and muttered blackly among themselves that such treatment as she was shown by Breadalbane’s son called for harsh words and dirks.

“Oh, aye,” Cat said in blatant disgust. “Even the earl canna find his son . . . d’ye think you might do better?”

Jamie paced like a Highland wildcat, noiseless in bare feet. Dougal and Colin, less high-tempered than he, sat decorously in wooden chairs and drank down their father’s whisky. She was mildly surprised any was left, but they had found a tun put away beneath the house. Its smoky, powerful tang put her in mind of her father, smelling always of usquabae.

Cat disdained a chair. She sat instead on the bottom step of the staircase near to the front door, where Robbie Stewart had once pressed a sword to her throat. She wore trews, of which they disapproved, but she had never put on skirts when left to her own devices. She folded up her legs and leaned her elbows upon them. “You ken gey well ’tis
your
honor besmirched,” she muttered sourly. “You never cared much for mine.”

Jamie stopped pacing and wheeled back, plaid swinging. “And what does the earl mean to do? ’Tis his dishonor as well . . . we are all Campbells, aye?”

“Silver might do,” Dougal offered.

“Silver!” Jamie cried. “ ’Tis our sister’s future I’m thinking of, not having her substance bought and sold like a cow!”

“Och, save your thunder for Breadalbane; d’ye think to fool me?” Cat said wearily, shifting long legs and arms to plant elbows and buttocks into the stairs, and sprawled inelegantly. “You’d take silver for it, Jamie—you just want to make your noise so you might get more out of him.”

Colin laughed briefly. “Aye, well . . . ’tis a good way to fatten our purses, Cat. Even yours.”

“This is my home,” she said, intending to remind them she had a right to stay in it.

Jamie interrupted. “Mine.”

Cat stared, astounded, then scrambled up untidily to face him toe to toe, drawn up straight as a Lochaber ax. “And would you throw me out of it?”

“I’d sooner see you married,” he retorted, moving a step away. “You need a man, Cat.”

“And would you marry me off only so you can have this house?” She wanted to spit at his feet. “Just so you can move Ellen in here and spawn more bairns upon her? Well, ‘tisn’t your house ’till he’s dead, Jamie—”

“Or until someone kills him,” Dougal put in mildly. “For debts, most likely.”

Colin laughed. “Or he’ll put the gun to his own head!”

Cat stared at her brothers one by one. “Have you no shame?” she managed at last. “The man is our father!”

“And likely he sired us one by one in various drunken fits,” Jamie said flatly. “I doubt he’d have the wherewithal, else.”

“Oh, but
you
do!” she shot back. “Isna Ellen breeding again?”

Ellen was. The retort darkened Jamie’s face. “ ’Tis no surprise to me no man will have you . . . you’d shame him with that tongue.”

“Or shrivel his cock with her spite,” Dougal agreed cheerfully.

Colin grinned at her. “You’d best mind it, Cat, if you want to catch a man.”

“Aye,” Jamie said pointedly. “Or are we to think Duncan Campbell eloped to escape marrying you?”

“Go home,” Cat told them. “I’ll hear no more of your whisky-soaked wind. You are as bad as he is. Glenlyon breeds raukle fools for sons.”

“There are amends,” Jamie said darkly.

Cat sighed. “Then go to Flanders, aye?—and have the earl give you the silver you think you’re due. Now, go home. All of you. Una isna here—I’ve washing to tend.”

“If you were a countess,” Colin declared, “you’d have more women than absent Una to do the washing for you.”

Cat marched to the door and snatched it open. “I dinna want to be a countess. I dinna want untold women to do my washing for me. I dinna want anything at this particular moment save to be let alone.” She swung the door so it thumped against the wall, letting the daylight in.
“Go.
”

They went, Jamie muttering of stubbornness and ingratitude for their great care and affection while Colin and Dougal, less annoyed by her mood, set horn cups into her hands as they passed through the door.

“If you’re washing linens,” Colin said, “you might as well wash the cups.”

Cat slammed the door behind them. Angrily she set her spine against it in a vain attempt to bar further entry; if they truly wanted in, in they would come. “Pawkie bastards,” she muttered. “There isna a man in the world worth a woman’s time!”

She scowled at the cups. One was empty, the other nearly half-full. She would indeed have to wash them, but it was a waste of good whisky to pour it out on the ground.

—
I should ken what it is my father likes so gey well!
Cat lifted the cup, paused, examined its contents suspiciously, then gulped the liquor swiftly.

“Cruachan!”
she gasped as the fire burned into her belly. “Och, oh Christ
Jesus
. . . ’tis no wonder a man goes screaming like the
bean sidhe
into battle—he’s coals heaped up in his belly—” She coughed, pressing the back of one hand against her mouth. Her eyes watered. She caught her breath, tasting peat-smoke in her mouth along with the coals in her belly, then nearly choked in shock as a scratching sounded at the door.

She lurched off the door, spinning in place. “Which one of you doesna understand good Gaelic—?” Clutching the cups in one hand, Cat grasped the latch and yanked open the door. “I’ll hear no more of your pawkie words—”

Nor would they. Nor would
he,
leaning nonchalantly slantwise in the door with one shoulder lodged against the wooden jamb. “I’ve lost my bonnet,” he said. “Have you one I might wear?”

And Dair MacDonald smiled.

—
bonnie, bonnie prince
—

“Oh Christ,” Cat blurted. “I canna be drunk
already
—”

He arched one brow incongruously dark beneath the silvering forelock. “Already? Have you begun on it, then?” He spied the cups in her hands. “One for each fist, aye? Well, I’ve kent men as prefer it that way . . . though never a lass.” He grinned. “But then you have never been like other lasses.” “Och, indeed,” Cat said, senses all atumble and nothing at all in her world, in her body, making any sense. “I dinna like other lasses.”

The grin transmuted itself. Cider-eyes, whisky-eyes, were abruptly dark and intense. “Nor I,” he said plainly.

Glenlyon’s daughter said nothing as he came into her house.

MacDonald, in her house.

—
bonnie lad, bonnie lad
—

He shut the door on sunlight. “Cat,” he said. “Come home with me to Glencoe.”

She laughed at him.
Och, good Christ . . . does he think I’ll say him nay?
And dropped the cups altogether to fill her hands instead with the plaid across one shoulder, with the linen of his shirt, with the thick wind-tumbled hair unhindered by missing bonnet.

—
with silver in his hair, and white teeth a’gleaming
—

And a fierce, wild music skirling through her body far greater even than
ceol mor,
piping the Gaels to war.

 

T
he floor, as the braes of Craigh Eallaich before the Battle of Killiecrankie, was a field of tartan spoor. Dair’s kilt, unbelted, unpinned, had been discarded into tangled folds, mingling with woolen trews that once had been a man’s, but more recently—
and with much greater grace!
—had attired a woman instead. All such impediments as clothing lay strewn across the hardwood floor of a room Dair believed must be the Laird of Glenlyon’s; the bed was large enough for two, and as they were neither of them lacking in height nor length of limb, he found it much in favor.

But far more in favor for the woman who was in it, dawn-gilded hair caught now beneath his shoulder as well as her own.

He touched a sleep-tangled, wiry coil improbably
red
against pale linens; nothing, with Cat Campbell, so restrained as sandy rose or sullen auburn. But Cat slept on, no more self-conscious in sleep than she was awake, blatant in posture and pride.

Dair smiled drowsily, content with the day, the dawn; content within himself of what they had wrought in Glenlyon’s bed. Her passion, unschooled, had been the greater for his guidance, for his restraint and hard-won patience; she was an apt pupil and did not stint response. While Jean had been well cognizant of how to please a man and did so with consummate skill, Cat was wholly unaware and thus more honest. She was virgin and he hurt her, but the moment passed. Between the dusk and the dawn she had forgotten the pain, disdained the blood, and gave of herself freely even in awkwardness.

For her, he doubted the earth had shifted. It was more difficult for a woman, he knew, less generous with less time, and he had not been able to wait so long as he might have liked. But she, clearly, was not displeased. Once roused beyond the beginning there was pleasure in it for her, and would be more yet. They had all the time in the world to learn the ways, the movements, that most pleased them individually as well as mutually.

He shifted closer. Feet and knees aligned themselves perfectly. She was nearly as tall as he, so they fit together far better as spoons than one might expect. With his breast against her spine he could feel her steady heartbeat, and knew when her breathing changed.

She went rigidly stiff, as if astounded by his presence. Then she softened all at once and turned, grasping the hair caught beneath his shoulder to rescue her scalp. He shifted, smiling, and freed her.

She faced him now, brows level and eloquent, staring at him so critically Dair had to laugh. “Did you think I might be gone? Or naught but a dream?”

“No dream ever did
that,
”she declared. “But gone—aye. ’Tis dangerous for you here.”

“Why, d’ye expect your brothers to come in with dirks drawn, and claymores?” He grinned. “Aye, I saw them yesterday—had to hide myself away until they left the house. One of them had a gey black face, but the others were no’ so worried.”

“Jamie.” Cat’s generous mouth twisted. “He thinks I should be married with a house of my own so he might claim this one the sooner. As for dangerous—aye. I’ve a woman who stays with me.”

“I heard her,” Dair agreed. “Last night when she came up the stairs, but she didna look in here.”

“Christ, no!” Cat said fervently. “Una would have screeched like a snared coney. . . .” She shifted against the sheets, one foot hooked with his tentatively, uncertain of her welcome but wanting it nonetheless. “This is my father’s room. She’d no’ come in here.”

“Then we are safe,” he said, trapping the ankle between his own, “from such prying eyes as a screeching coney and three pawkie brothers.” He bent close, then rolled back as she jerked the covers from his hips. “Christ, Cat—what?”

She peered warily beneath the coverlet. When she lowered the bedclothes at last her eyes were stricken.

“What?” The expression disturbed him. “Cat—what is it?”

Her voice was strangled. “Dougal was right.”

“Dougal?” It was preposterous. “What has he to do with anything?”

“He said I’d shrivel it, and I did!”

“Shrivel . . . och,
Christ,
Cat—”

“With spite,” she explained. “Was I so spiteful?”

It was gey difficult not to whoop in laughter, until he thought of Una. Instead he had to muffle his noise against the pillow.

She was much perturbed. “Are you crying, man?”

When he could breathe again he nodded. “Oh, aye—but not from pain or sadness.” He hitched himself up on an elbow and caught her hand, lacing her fingers with his. “Cat—’tis nothing like spite. I promise. ”

“But—” Her expression was eloquent.

Dair opened his mouth, shut it, began again. “You’ve seen bulls rutting, and stallions—” She nodded. “—well, you ken verra well they dinna
always
look so large.”

“Well, no,” Cat agreed. “ ’Twould be gey difficult for a bull to walk, like that.”

He caught back a laugh. “Oh, aye . . . and for a man as well.”

She was dubious. “I saw Robbie—my brother Robbie—once. With Mairi. He looked verra much like a bull.”

“Smaller, I should hope, for Mairi’s sake!” Dair kissed one knuckle, then the back of her hand. “You didna shrivel it, Cat. Not with spite, or anything else. ’Tis only resting.”

She was sly despite her innocence, tightening her grasp. “Then wake it up, aye?”

Dair grinned toothily. “ ’Tis for the lass to do.”

“Oh, aye? How?”

“For you,” he said, “just breathe. You see?” He guided her hand beneath the coverlet, across his belly, and lower. “No’ so shrivelled now . . . and if you—”

A banging on the door below drowned out his quiet suggestion. Cat jerked her hand free and sat up rigidly, yanking sheets to her shoulders. The banging repeated itself, resolved into knocking.

“Oh, Christ Jesus,” she hissed, bestirring herself from bedding to search frenziedly for her clothing. “Oh Holy Mary—”

The banging continued unabated.

“Where did you put—? Oh, Christ—where is Una?” Cat knelt to the floor and began to scoop up clothing. “Is this—?—no, yours . . .
here
. . . oh good Christ—”

Dair sat upright. “Cease your swearing,” he said, “and come back to bed. ’Tis your house, aye?—you’ve a right to answer the door when you choose.”

Cat glared at him as she stuck one long leg into the trews and pulled colorful tartan over her knee. “And let Una see me come out of my father’s room . . . ?” She struggled with the other leg. “Who is at the door this early?”

“Not so early as that.” There was no dissuading her. Resigned, Dair bent and caught a shirt. “Here. You’ve got mine—” He stood, unabashed in nakedness, and put it over her head, pulling hair through. “Give me an arm, Cat—
here
—” He bent it at the elbow.

“I’ll no’ let you dress me like a bairn,” she said crossly, thrusting an arm through the sleeve without his aid. “Oh, I shouldna had that whisky last night—I smell of it . . .”

“—And of me, and I of you.”

Her face reddened. She yanked the sleeve up so her hand was free of voluminous linen, then put the other arm through as Dair held up the empty sleeve. “My belt—”

And froze as Una’s voice, outside the door, called her name.

Below, the banging continued. A man’s voice shouted loudly for someone to open the door.

Una’s voice was muffled by wood and distance. “Catriona—rouse yourself. I’ll go down to see to the door.”

“Oh,” Cat gasped, “she is at my door . . . wait you—” And whispering urgently, “Where is my belt—?”

“Here. Dinna let your trews fall down, or they’ll ken you’re no lad.” He grinned as she swore. “Now
I
am well acquainted with the truth of you, but strangers might not see it.”

She buckled the belt over trews and shirt. Coils of brilliant hair tumbled around her shoulders. “My shawl—” she muttered, then bent and caught up the mound of wool that was his plaid and kilt. “ ’Twill do, aye?”

“Cat!” But she threw a fold over her head, swirled the bulk around her body, and went out the door, leaving him with naught to wear but a saffron-dyed shirt, like a Gael going into battle. “Christ,” he muttered. “I might as
well
be, aye?”

 

Cat checked at the top of the stairs even as Una, below, opened the front door. There was a male voice, an authoritative voice for all its courtesy. Cat drew in a deep breath, briefly rearranged the mass of Dair’s plaid, and called out to Una to ask what was the matter.

Before Una could answer a man was in the house. A young man in military dress, hat tucked beneath an arm. “I am Major Duncan Forbes,” he said, “from Fort William, at Inverlochy. It is my duty to locate and bring in a man wanted for piracy.”

Una gasped noisily even as Cat drew herself up. “Piracy!” she said sharply, startled into genuine protest. “We are far from the water, Major . . . why d’ye think there would be such a man here?” With aplomb, she descended the stairs slowly. She was wholly aware of his puzzled appraisal; did he see the trews beneath the kilt and plaid? She had tried to hide them in a barrage of tartan, but there had been so little time. “Who are you looking for?”

“A Jacobite,” he said. Then, as if aware he might well be standing in the house of a fellow Jacobite, he mitigated his tone. “A supply ship on its way to Fort William was attacked. The boat was taken, stolen, and all its cargo as well.”

Cat reached the bottom step and paused. Was the accusation true?
Or some trumpery excuse because Dair fought at Killiecrankie, where the Jacobites had won?

“And why d’ye think such a man might come here?” she asked contemptuously, playing out the role. “My father is Laird of Glenlyon—you ken him, aye?—and sworn to King William. He is even now in the Earl of Argyll’s new regiment.” All of it perfectly true; let him read it in her eyes. “D’ye think the laird’s own daughter would hide a Jacobite pirate?”

Major Forbes inclined his head slightly. “Indeed, I know the name. It is also known Captain Campbell is with the regiment. But that does not preclude my duty. We have intelligence that this man might have come here. I’m afraid I have orders to search this house as well as the bothies.” His expression softened. “There is no cause for alarm, nor any reason to fear. If you are under duress, we’ll hold nothing against your denials.”

A kind man, withal, and a fool.
Good.
Cat came down the final step. “We’re hiding no man, Major Forbes, nor are we lying about it. But I canna—”

Una fell back with a shriek of alarm.
“Who is that
—
?”

Cat glanced back. Dair, shadowed in dimness, stood at the head of the stairs wearing her father’s trews. “Major Forbes,” he said evenly, smoothing his Highland accent, “have we met?”

The soldier frowned minutely. “No, sir, we have not. May I ask your name?”

Dair, descending, came down into the daylight, and Una drew in a breath.

“ ’Tis Alasdair—” she began.

“—Campbell,
”Cat finished swiftly, not daring to look at Una. She did not know why Dair had chosen to show himself, but if she thought quickly enough, the harm would be diminished. “He is a cousin of my father’s, and we—I—” She could not help it; her face burned with embarrassment.

Dair stood next to her now. He rested a hand familiarly on her shoulder. “Would you have a lass speak of private matters, Major?”

“Catriona,” Una expelled on a rush.
“Catriona Campbell
—”

Now was opportunity. Cat turned toward her. “I couldna tell you,” she said. “How could I? He is not a man my father would approve—” —
indeed not!
—“—nor would my brothers. But I made up my mind to do as I wished, instead of letting everyone else direct my life.” Every word true. “Una, I am sorry—but if you could understand—”

“Understand!” Una was horrified. “I understand very well, Catriona—but if you think I’ll permit such dishonor in your father’s own house—”

“I mean to marry her,” Dair said. “Would you have us handfast before you? You would make proper witnesses, aye?” His hand squeezed Cat’s shoulder. “Her brothers might be somewhat fashed about it, but the lass and I are set on one another. . . .” His smile was charming as he looked at Una, so very, very bonnie. “Can you not find it in your heart to forgive us, Una?”

Major Forbes smiled politely. “I’m afraid that must wait. I don’t believe the woman would care to forgive a Jacobite liar.” He glanced briefly at Cat, then looked again at Dair even as he motioned soldiers into the house. “Sir, I must place you under arrest. You are charged with piracy, and will be taken to Fort William until transportation to the Tolbooth in Edinburgh, where you will await the king’s pleasure.”

“He’s not a pirate!” Cat cried. “He’s my kinsman, Alasdair—”

“—MacDonald,” the major finished. His smile was kindly. “He may have shared your bed, but he is no kin of yours.” He gestured again, and a man was brought through the door.

Robbie Stewart, in shackles. Iron chimed as he moved. His face, beneath new bruises, was white and taut. His eyes burned avidly, an intense, brilliant blue.

Another time Cat might have rejoiced to see him brought down so low as this. But this moment, in this house, she wanted very much to wish him elsewhere, away where he could not identify Alasdair Og MacDonald.

He gazed at her a moment, a very long moment, expression inscrutable. Then he looked at Dair, standing rigidly near the stair. “You dinna ask why, MacDonald. D’ye think they tortured me for it?”

Even Cat knew better than that.

Robbie’s eyes were defiant as the soldiers closed on Dair. “Oh, a bit of a scuffle—I’ve no liking for iron, aye?—but ’twasn’t so difficult for me to speak to the point when they asked which of MacIain’s sons it was who went a-reiving with me.” Color burned on his cheekbones. “You see, Jean had come home by then.”