The Intended (43 page)

Jaime nodded as the soft knock came at the
door. They both stiffened.

“‘Tis only Caddy.” He said it like a curse.
“On second thought, I think we’ll not be taking her with us.”

Jaime smiled. “Has she been standing guard
outside the door?”

“She wanted to stand guard inside, to
keep...”

“You from kissing me?” she finished, lifting
her face and grazing his lips with her own. “Or perhaps touching
me?” She let her hands move over the sinewy musculature of his
back. “Or was she afraid of you making love to me?” She lay back
and looked at him suggestively.

The Highlander swallowed once. “I believe she
was more worried about me than you. I mean, she knows how
vulnerable I am, and how demanding you can be.”

She hit him squarely on the chest. “You are a
rogue, Malcolm MacLeod.”

“Aye, but I am your rogue, my love. Yours
alone.”

The second knock at the door separated the
two. After giving her a lingering kiss on the lips, Malcolm stood
to leave.

“Until dawn?” she asked.

“Until then, my love.”

Damn Henry, she cursed. No man would tell her
what to do. Catherine repeated his words in her mind as she made
her way up the stairs. Well, say what he will, she would do as she
pleased, and she would accept no master.

And damn Edward, as well, she muttered as she
reached the top floor of the palace. If he hadn’t been so cruel,
she thought, if he had treated her better, then it would be
his
bed she’d be going to. Damn him.

Damn them all.

Malcolm sensed her presence as soon as he
closed his chamber door.

As he stepped into the room, he felt the
anger rise in his chest. The cast-off cloak, thrown carelessly to
the floor, told him that his instincts were correct. Catherine was
here.

Glancing in the direction of his curtained
bed, he saw a candle flickering dimly on a side table, but the
woman wasn’t there. Turning his head, though, he quickly found
Catherine, sitting quietly in a chair by the window. Her golden
brown tresses cascaded over her shoulders...and whatever it was she
had wrapped herself in.

“I was beginning to wonder if you were ever
going to return,” she cooed. As she spoke, Catherine stood up
slowly, allowing the blanket that she was holding to drop in a pool
at her feet. The skin of her naked body glowed in the candlelight.
“But then, I knew it would only be a matter of time before you got
tired of that silly wench.”

Malcolm remained where he stood, though every
impulse in his being cried out to cross the room and break her
neck.

“You can’t resist me, and you know it.” She
smiled, raising her hands to her breasts, lifting them enticingly.
“I have watched you, taking these in with your eyes. Now they are
yours...as is the rest.” Catherine swept her hand invitingly
downward, caressing her own skin as she did.

Malcolm was not even close to falling prey to
Catherine’s charms. He continued to struggle against the violence
he felt toward the woman, his hands curling into fists at his
sides.

“Come to me, Highlander,” she purred, walking
slowly toward him. “I was here, you know. I watched you with her. I
know what you are capable of. Aye, I saw the way you drove into
her, again and again. But she can’t satisfy a man like you, can
she? That’s why you’ve come back from her chamber now. You need
more of a woman than Jaime is, to see to your pleasure. You need
me.”

Catherine’s hand came up and touched his
shirt, sliding lower over his hard belly. He caught her wrist with
a force that made her cry out in pain.

“You animal,” she laughed, twisting her wrist
free. “I am only
glad
to help you get ready.”

“Leave, woman.” Malcolm’s eyes blazed as they
looked piercingly into Catherine’s. “Leave now.”

She laughed heartily as she shook her head.
Placing both her hands on his chest, she gazed up to his face. “I
won’t, you see. Not until you’ve repaid the debt you owe me.”

“What debt? I owe you nothing.”

“But you do,” she whispered, once again
tracing with her fingers the lines of his stomach. He caught her
wrists again, with even more force than before, and pushed her
away. She laughed once more. “That night when I found you fucking
that wretched Jaime, while I, Catherine Howard, stood there in the
corner—naked and ready to come to you, myself—that was the moment
when you both incurred your debts to me.”

“You are sick, woman,” Malcolm answered
through clenched teeth.

“Nay, foolish man. I made
her
sick,”
she answered. “That was how she has begun to pay. By making her
sick, by giving her more than she needed—more, anyway, than that
doting old physician intended—I began to collect on her debt. But
only began, for I am not yet done with her. She has more to pay
yet, much more. But from you, I need...”

With a movement like lightning, Malcolm
grasped her hair with one hand and jerked Catherine’s head back.
Her eyes flashing with anticipation, she looked up at him, and her
lips parted with a knowing smirk.

“Listen carefully,” he growled into her face.
“You can take your whore’s tricks elsewhere. They will get you
naught, here. And I will tell you something else. You speak of
paying debts? This dangerous game you are playing has a price, as
well. That price is your life! And I am not speaking of your future
husband’s fondness for replacing wives.” Malcolm jerked her head
back again, this time making Catherine cry out in pain. “If you
even try to get close to Jaime, if you harm her in any way, I will
strangle you with my bare hands.”

“You wouldn’t dare to hurt me,” she scoffed
haughtily.

Malcolm stared at her for a moment. Then,
with a growl, he dragged her to the window with such violence that
she lost her footing. Shoving the windows open wide, he pushed her
naked body half out of the opening, holding her only by one arm and
her hair. Her white skin looked almost blue in the light of the
moon, and her other arm flailed about in the empty air.

“I am a Highlander, remember?” he rasped. “No
more than a filthy barbarian.”

The woman’s eyes widened in fear as she gaped
at the paving stones far below.

“Use your imagination, wench.” Malcolm shoved
her out a bit further. “Your twisted body mashed on the stones
there. Can you not see them, the guards all passing by and smirking
at your naked limbs? Can you not hear them, telling stories about
who’d slept with you the most. And all of them claiming they’d only
done it out of pity.” He shook her, loosening his hold on her
arm.

“Don’t drop me!” she cried out aloud, waving
her hands desperately in the air. “PLEASE!”

“Why not? Why should I let you live?” He
pushed her out still further. She hung now with her feet barely
touching the edge of the window casing. “After all you’ve done,
‘tis you who must pay the debt, Catherine.”

“I swear. I swear,” she wept. “I’ll never
have anything to do with you, nor with Jaime. Don’t let me
fall.”

Malcolm again shook her, eliciting sobs from
her, as it appeared he clearly meant to let her drop.

“
Please
!” she choked. “I’ll do
anything you want.”

His movement was abrupt as he pulled her with
one swift motion back through the window. But her feet hardly had a
chance to touch the floor, for Malcolm dragged her quickly across
the chamber.

“Aye,” he spat. “You will.” Jerking open the
chamber door, the Highlander threw her, naked and weeping, into the
corridor.

Catherine crouched, stunned at the rapid turn
of events, and gaped at him.

“You will stay out of my life,” Malcolm
ordered, shutting the door and leaving her in the darkness of the
deserted hallway.

Catherine grimaced as the heavy door closed
tightly in her face. Looking up and down the hall, she quickly rose
to her feet and ran to the deeper shadows of a nearby alcove.

“Pig! Animal!” She cursed Malcolm under her
breath as she ran a hand through her wild tresses, causing her
golden hair to fan out over her bare breasts. He wasn’t worth her
spit. And that slut Jaime. Let him have her for all she cared.
After all, it was Edward whom she wanted to keep from marrying the
bitch. She was finished with them both.

Furtively, she made her way down the stairway
back toward her room, pausing in every shadowy corner, alcove, and
window seat. As she padded along with stealthy steps, dead Howards
leered down at her from the paintings that hung on the walls. The
long corridor stretched out before her, lit only by the moon that
shone softly through windows lining one side. Anyone could walk
these halls at this time of night, Catherine thought. But then,
suddenly, the whole idea amused her, thrilled her even.

Catherine stepped up into a window seat, and
pressed her warm flesh against the cool panes of the window.
Perhaps she needed to expand her circle of...friends. She was
already attracting better-looking men than she had in the past,
Catherine reminded herself. In her position, she deserved men who
would respect her, men she could teach to satisfy her every need.
Men that she could control.

Catherine brightened at the thought,
recalling the handsome face of Sir Thomas Culpepper and that other
one, Sir Francis something. They were both gentlemen of Henry’s
Privy Chamber, and neither had taken his eyes off of her—even
once—during dinner.

Aye, that was what she needed, Catherine
decided, chills racing through her. Stealing back the way she had
come, she turned down the corridor to where she knew the two men
shared a bedchamber. It was always worth knowing where the young
gentlemen resided.

Reaching their door, Catherine once again ran
her fingers through her hair, arranging it carefully to display
just the right amount of her ample breasts.

Her soft knock on the door was answered by
the shuffle of sleepy steps, and then the shocked gaze of a man,
standing in his shirt at the open door and staring with his mouth
agape at her naked body.

“Sir Thomas,” she whispered sweetly, sounding
almost surprised that he had found her standing naked in the
hallway at this time of night. “I don’t know how...I wonder if you
might help me with something.”

The man glance anxiously over his shoulder as
another man approached.

“Ah, Sir Francis,” she drawled. “I was just
telling Sir Thomas that I was hoping you two gentlemen might not be
too tired to help a poor maiden in distress.”

Both men shook their heads as if
dreaming.

“I am so glad,” she said happily, taking the
two men by the elbow and leading them toward the bed.

She could not breathe.

Edward’s fingers were wrapped around her
throat, pressing hard. She pried at his hands, trying to fight him
off, loosen his grip on her. But he was too strong. Feeling the
last of her breath burning in her chest, Jaime fought him with all
her might. Her hands scratched at his face as her feet tried to
kick free of his weight.

But she could not breathe.

Gasping for air, Jaime Macpherson sat bolt
upright in her bed, her sweat-soaked shift sticking to her body.
Filling her lungs with great gulps of air, she nearly wept at the
wonderful sensation of breathing again.

She shuddered at the vividness of the dream,
at the horror of coming face to face with Edward. At the hate that
oozed from him as he strangled the life out of her. It was so much
like those other dreams, the ones she had experienced as she lay in
that terrifying slumber, drugged and dead to the waking world. She
felt the tremors run involuntarily through her frame.

These were only dreams, she reminded herself,
glancing at the open window. The moon, bathing the chamber with a
pale glow, was sinking in the western sky, and darkness still
reigned over the earth. Soon, though, she thought. Soon enough, she
would be leaving here and put her fears behind her. Put behind her
any chance of facing Edward. Soon enough.

Feeling cold from the breeze coming in the
window, Jaime shivered again and reached down to pull up the
bedclothes that she had kicked off during the restless night.

And then she saw him.

Out of the darkness, like a slow-moving fiend
coming to possess her soul, his dark form approached with evil
intent. She stared at him in disbelief, thinking that he was just a
specter, a shade, created in her dream-clouded mind, but when he
drew his dagger from its sheath, she knew he was no shadow.

“Edward,” she managed to utter, staring at
him in terror.

“That is all you have to say?” he asked,
coming ever closer. “After all the time I’ve been away, that is all
the greeting I get from my bride?”

She scurried back toward the head of the bed.
His eyes swept over her hungrily, fixing on her breasts through the
clinging shift, and Jaime snatched a pillow from the bed, shielding
herself from his malicious scrutiny.

“What are you doing here, Edward?” she asked,
her voice quaking slightly. “No one expected you...”

Reaching the side of the bed, he snatched the
pillow away and threw it across the room. Like a wounded bird, she
scuttled further from him.

“No one expected me to escape what? My
prison?” He snarled. “My fate? But you were all wrong, my raven.”
With a quick grab, he took hold of her wrist and dragged her across
the bed. “I am a pirate far more than I am a courtier. Escaping
those fools was no more than a mere nuisance for one with
my...desires.”

She fought him, twisting away, but stopped as
her eyes riveted on the dagger that now pointed at her face. She
had no doubt he would use the weapon on her. She looked up into his
face and saw the evil curl of his lips.

“Why are you here?” she whispered.

“Much better,” he hissed. Dropping the dagger
on the table beside the bed, Edward grabbed her other wrist and
dragged Jaime up against his chest until her eyes were at the same
level as his.