Tender Feud

Those years had been sober ones. Both Aunt and Uncle Gardner were strict Presbyterians and had looked down their noses at anything resembling cheer or merriment. After her mother’s death, Katrine had done her best to ensure that her two younger sisters didn’t suffer because of it. She had taken primary responsibility for raising the girls, softening their aunt’s stern precepts and harsh standards, intervening with persuasion and reason—and her rapier tongue when the need arose.

Sober years, yet happy, as well. And they had passed quickly. Only two months ago Katrine had been preparing for her youngest sister Roseline’s marriage, checking the fit of their mother’s wedding gown.

It had been a poignant moment, ripe with memories and the ache of parting. To see a sister whom she had cared for like her own child blossom into a young woman, to send her off into the world, to bestow her hand on a husband… Surveying Roseline in all her wedding finery, Katrine had felt her eyes grow misty. She’d experienced the feeling once before, with the middle sister, Louisa. Louisa had married three years ago and was already a mother herself, confined now for the birth of her second child.

Katrine’s melancholy during that moment with Roseline had led her to confess her determination to return someday to the land of her birth. Hesitantly she’d told her sister of her childhood yearning that had grown stronger over the years…a restless hunger to experience life beyond the market town of Ramsey, whose greatest claim to fame was its excellent production of cabbage and leeks. The East Anglian countryside was dreary and uninspiring—flat farmland that couldn’t compare to the wild splendor of the Scottish Highlands. She wouldn’t be content to settle there, not without ever once attempting to satisfy her longing for adventure and romance.

If truth were told, that was the real reason she had remained a spinster. She’d always felt there was something lacking in the English gentlemen of her acquaintance; they were too tame and colorless for her passionate heart.

“When I marry—” she told Roseline with fervor, “if I do—he’ll be a leader of men, bold and daring…a fighting man, like Papa was…yet one who can be gentle…a man with fire in his heart, who can fire my blood—” Katrine broke off then, flushing as she became aware of how inappropriate such conversation was for her sister’s tender ears. But she hadn’t despaired of someday finding her soul mate.

Then Roseline had married, leaving Katrine feeling lonely, even a bit extraneous. She’d decided finally that the time had come to pursue her own future.

It hadn’t been easy, convincing her Aunt and Uncle Gardner that she was serious about returning, but she was of age and possessed her own funds, so eventually she’d prevailed. Though still protesting, Uncle Gardner had insisted on making her journey as safe as possible. Thus supplied with coach and horses, accompanied by an armed manservant and maid, Katrine had traveled across England to Liverpool, where she’d taken ship for Scotland.

How excited she had been upon her arrival yesterday! Now, however, she couldn’t summon the slightest interest in her surroundings. She was too weary even to contemplate escape, and could muster only a halfhearted curse on the brigands who had abducted her and who now seemed intent

on letting her perish from exhaustion and hunger.

To her surprise, the raven-haired Raith appeared at her side just then, grudgingly letting her drink from a flask of water and handing her an oatcake to eat. Katrine was taken aback by his attentiveness, and grateful, as well. Yet she decided not to thank him.

When he’d rejoined his men, she munched slowly on the oat bannock, listening to the clamp of bridle bits as the horses chewed on what vegetation they could find among the pine needles—

Horses?

Katrine’s head came up. An abduction couldn’t continue without horses.

Her pulse rate accelerated to the speed of galloping hoofbeats as she realized she had the perfect means to foil the MacLeans’ scheme, or at least to delay it. The horses were milling about, untethered. The fierce Highlanders were a safe distance away, ignoring her presence. If a strange woman dressed in white suddenly began jumping up and down while flapping her bound arms and shrieking at the top of her lungs, the horses would bolt and… And Raith MacLean would murder her.

In spite of the chill, Katrine felt her palms begin to sweat as she tried to calculate how long it would take for him to reach her, and whether she could possibly survive if he did.

But she might never have a better opportunity than now to attempt an escape. And if she didn’t try now, then she would never forgive herself.

Hastily Katrine finished the last bite of oatcake, but she could hardly swallow, she was so nervous. Not giving herself time to change her mind, she awkwardly gathered an end of the plaid in her hands and carefully rose to her feet.

Then, taking a deep breath, she opened her mouth to emit a bloodcurdling screech.

Chapter Three

The pandemonium was instantaneous. Katrine’s undignified antics at once sent the horses clattering into the dark night and brought startled shouts from the Highlanders. To a man, they reached for dirks and claymores to defend their small band from enemy attack. All except Raith.

Quite sure Katrine was the cause of the chaos—not the victim—he vented an oath and tore after her.

Katrine had already turned to run, but she wasn’t quick enough. She felt a hard arm close around her, yanking her painfully backward and lifting her off her feet, just as his hand clamped fiercely over her mouth to stop the piercing wails.

Katrine struggled in his arms, determined this time to fight to the death—or almost the death, since she would prefer to live—and managed to kick his shins with her slippered heels. Raith swore again, before one of her legs somehow tangled with his and they both went sprawling. Even though he threw out an arm to cushion their fall and took most of the impact on his left hip, the jar knocked the breath from Katrine’s body.

She lay there panting, aware that his hand had momentarily left her mouth, but she was unable to summon another shriek.

“God’s teeth!” Raith ground out, breathing hard himself. “Are you bloody well trying to court death?”

She felt his fury in every line of his body, in the arm crushing her ribs beneath her heaving breasts, in the powerful chest that was pressed against her back, in the steel-muscled thighs cradling her derriere—

Katrine suddenly stopped breathing altogether, acutely aware of the wanton intimacy of their position. She felt his male reaction to her closeness…a slight stiffening, a definite swelling, a subtle heat flowing between them. Her own body felt hot and…and excited. There was no other word for the sweet shock of being pressed against his hard masculine contours.

Alarmed by her own reaction as well as his, Katrine shifted her hips, trying to ease the pressure, but she only succeeded in insinuating herself more suggestively into the cradle of his thighs.

“By the saints,” he hissed on an indrawn breath, “will you cease your blasted thrawing, you damned Sassenach?”