Tender Feud

He must have thought she was again considering running, for his look warned her not to attempt it. “I wouldn’t be so foolish as to try an escape. It will avail you nothing.”

Katrine raised her chin. “On the contrary. It will avail me a great deal of satisfaction.”

“And I will have just as much satisfaction preventing you.”

The lethal chill that had crept into his tone and his gaze reminded Katrine of how dangerous he was, how very dire her straits were. Her mouth went slack as she stared up at him, as she finally realized that she was at the mercy of a band of cutthroats and marauders. They could abduct her if they wished. They could murder her and strew her in little pieces all over the Highlands and she would be powerless to prevent them.

She shuddered, absently hugging her arms to herself, as much as was possible with her wrists bound.

Seeing her shivering, a dazed look in her eyes, Raith hesitated, then reached up and drew his long tartan plaid from over his shoulder. Grudgingly he held it down to Katrine. “Here, take it. Offering comfort to a Campbell—and a Sassenach at that—goes against the grain, but you’ll be useless to us if you catch your death.”

His consideration was charming, Katrine thought as she cast a dubious glance at the length of dark green wool. “I may have been away from Scotland for a while, but even I know the law. The clan tartan is illegal in the Highlands.”

His mouth tightened. “I don’t recognize the right of the English government to decree what I may wear or what weapons I may carry, but in point of fact, the tartan isn’t illegal for women. Though it ill behooves a Scotsman to instruct you English on your own law. Now do you want it or not?”

Katrine didn’t want to accept comfort or anything else from him, except her freedom, yet if she refused to take the plaid she would only be spiting herself; the mountain night air truly was cold, even though it was coming on to summer. She lifted her gaze to Raith and found him watching her mental struggle with cynical amusement. Fuming silently, quite aware that he would rather let her freeze, Katrine snatched the plaid from his outstretched hand and managed awkwardly to wrap it around her.

“Don’t feel you have to overwhelm me with your gratitude.”

Katrine didn’t deign to reply to his sarcasm. Squaring her shoulders, her chin thrust forward, she gave him a look of such utter disdain that he should have been frozen on the spot.

He merely grinned.

“Let Lachlan help you mount. If you can manage to hold your tongue and behave in a civilized manner, I imagine he’ll let you ride sitting up.” Then, as if she were beneath further notice, Raith turned his horse. “Douse those torches, lads, and let’s be off. We’ve a long ride before dawn.”

He was decidedly odious, Katrine reflected as she glared at Raith’s retreating back. Entirely, overwhelmingly odious.

Then the lights were snuffed out and the resulting darkness made her forget the shortcomings of the lawless Highlander, who was quickly becoming the bane of her existence, and focus instead on the lout who had precipitated her grim situation.

Hearing Lachlan come up to her, Katrine tensed and clenched her fists, prepared to defend herself from his violence.

“I’ll no’ fight with ye if ye’ll keep yer claws to yerself.”

She didn’t really want to fight with Lachlan either, not when she would likely come out the loser. Thus, because she had no choice, Katrine accepted the truce of sorts that he offered her, suffering him to toss her up on his chestnut, this time in the proper position. Or almost the proper position. Without the use of her legs, she was required awkwardly to ride sidesaddle, with her right knee hooked over the low pommel. She sat bolt upright, though, as he climbed up behind her, determined not to allow one inch of her person to come in contact with him.

It proved difficult when Lachlan spurred the animal into a bone-jarring trot to catch up to his fellows, for though Katrine frantically grabbed a handful of chestnut mane, she was thrown against her captor’s massive chest. Only the powerful arm that snaked around her waist kept her from falling off entirely.

The ride was a marginal improvement over the previous wild one, Katrine decided a short while later, but only marginal. At the moment they were negotiating a steep descent through a wooded ravine in the dark, while a patch of fog swirled around them. Katrine little doubted that any time now the sturdy chestnut would lose its footing and fling her to her death.

Desperately clutching the horse’s mane, she shut her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look. She was beginning to wish heartily she had never come to Scotland. Abduction was not what she’d had in mind when she’d dreamed of romance and adventure. This kind of danger wasn’t appealing in the least. Nor was this ilk of fierce, tartan-clad Highlander precisely the kind of soulstirring, bold but gentle mate she had yearned for. Bold, yes. Gentle, most assuredly not. Come morning, she would be sporting a dozen bruises on various parts of her anatomy.

Morning. An impotent wave of despair washed over Katrine. Unless she could return before then, before her absence was noticed, any chance she had of remaining in Scotland with her Uncle Colin would be less than niggling. He would send her packing, most certainly. And even though her abduction wasn’t her fault, by any stretch of the imagination, Katrine felt a stab of guilt for putting her uncle to such trouble when he had far weightier problems to concern him. The last thing she wanted was to be a burden to him, yet now he would be required to rescue her.

If he could find her.

Katrine’s shoulders slumped. How could her circumstances have changed so drastically in such a short span of time? Had it only been yesterday that she’d arrived in Scotland? Only yesterday that she’d eagerly awaited her first glimpse of the Highland hills she hadn’t seen since childhood?

Katrine shook her head as she recalled her excitement then. She had blithely sailed into the Firth of Lorne the previous day and booked rooms at an inn in the picturesque seaport of Oban. This morning, for two shillings, she’d hired a carter to carry her the twenty-five miles to her uncle’s house. She’d left her servants behind with instructions that if they did not hear from her in two days, they should send her trunks on to Uncle Colin’s and return to England.

The grandeur of the Highlands was all she remembered and more. Katrine had clung to the seat of the rickety cart and gazed about her in delight and wonder. To the north was the vast bulk of Ben Cruachan, one of the highest mountains in Scotland, adorned in vivid spring green. To the east, before her in the distance, spread a glimmering, steel-blue lake—Loch Awe, which had provided protection and sustenance to Clan Campbell for centuries.

At the end of the loch stood Kilchurn Castle, a huge stone edifice with a rectangular tower house that had been built by a Campbell and had served as headquarters for government troops during the Jacobite

uprising of ‘45. A short distance from the castle, near a scattering of crofters’ huts, was the large two-story residence that Katrine remembered from her childhood.

How far, Katrine wondered now as she clung to the chestnut mane, had she been carried from her Uncle Colin’s house? It had been impossible to get her bearings in the dark while hanging upside down from a galloping horse.

A moment later, Katrine roused herself from her depression, mentally flogging herself for letting her spirits sink so low. She had to escape on her own, of course. Or, barring that, she had to alert the soldiers who would come after her, so they could attempt a rescue. It would behoove her, she realized suddenly, to discover where she was now and where her abductors were headed.