But Katrine didn’t want to lose her captive audience. After being shunned like a leper for three days, she would have been grateful to be noticed by the stable cat.
“Goodness,” she said quickly, bending down to the girl’s level, “you gave me a start, so quiet you are. What is your name? Mine is Katrine.” She didn’t add that she was a Campbell, for if the child hadn’t been warned about her already, she had no intention of divulging a fact that surely would send the girl scurrying from the room. When she received no response, though, Katrine bestowed her sweetest smile on the solemn child.
“It must be uncomfortable, kneeling the way you are on the stone floor. Would you like to sit over there, in that chair? You can keep me company while I work. Indeed, you came along at just the right time. You can’t imagine how I’ve longed to have someone to talk to.”
Flora returned just at that moment, bursting into the room, only to come up short when she noticed Katrine away from her work station. Flora’s frown turned into a sharp scowl when she spied the child.
In two urgent strides, she was across the room and grasping Katrine’s arm, pulling her to her feet. “What are ye about?” Flora demanded fiercely. “Ye keep away from her.”
Katrine took a startled step backward, thinking it unjust that Flora would ring a peal over her when she hadn’t been shirking her duties for more than a moment. But when the housekeeper placed a protective hand on the girl’s small raven-haired head, Katrine realized the woman was far less concerned about the wash than about safeguarding the child. Katrine was insulted. She would no more have harmed that solemn-eyed little girl than she would have hurt one of her own sisters.
Her green eyes flashing, Katrine drew herself up to her full height, but before she could say a word in protest, Flora turned to the child. “Be gone w’ ye now, lassie,” the housekeeper ordered, though not unkindly. “There’ll be a biscuit waiting for ye in the kitchen.”
When the young girl had scrambled to her feet and fled the room, Katrine unbridled her anger. “I only spoke to her for a moment, to say hello. And I never would harm a child, whatever you might think.”
“Keep away from her,” Flora said again, just as adamantly.
“Why? Who is she?”
“Ye dinna need to know.” The housekeeper looked down her sharp nose at Katrine. “Now, back to the wash with ye. And mind what I said about the linens. ‘Tis white I want them. White!”
“And I thought you a woman of compassion, if not superior understanding,” Katrine muttered, bristling with indignation as Flora stalked from the room.
Katrine returned to the wash, but the more she thought about the insult that had been leveled at her, the more she seethed, like the caldron she was stirring.
The heat of the fire didn’t help her temper any, either. After a time she began perspiring, and beneath her prickly wool skirt her scraped knee began to itch. She cast a longing glance over her shoulder at the window, but decided against opening it; Flora would no doubt accuse her of trying to escape and would withhold her meager dinner ration of oats. Brushing a damp lock back from her forehead, Katrine bent over and hiked her skirt up to her knee to inspect her itching wound.
“If you would turn the slightest degree, I could better see what has so captured your interest.”
Katrine jumped at the sound of the masculine voice, releasing her stirring stick as she whirled. Callum MacLean was leaning casually against the doorjamb, looking as if he had been there for some time. His arms were folded across his long leather vest, one brogue-shod foot angled over the other.
“What are you doing here?” Katrine demanded crossly.
“Watching you.” He flashed her a wicked grin. “You make a fetching sight, if I may be so bold as to say so.”
“No, you may not be so bold!” Katrine retorted, with all the dignity she could muster. The nerve of the man, spying on her like that!
But he seemed not at all repentant as he glanced downward at her legs. “Do you need assistance? With your skirts, I mean?”
Katrine returned his innocent look with a glare. “Thank you, but no, I do not require your assistance.”
Turning her back on the maddening young man, she tried to fish her stick out of the kettle and burned her fingers in the process. She could have wept with pain and frustration. When she finally found a grasp on the stick, she retrieved a garment from the wash and held it up to drip. It was a man’s shirt, large and finely stitched. The master of the house’s shirt, no doubt, Katrine thought with fury. Reminded again of her captivity, of her helplessness, she muttered an imprecation on the villainous MacLean laird who had landed her in such dire straights.
Soon, though, she again became conscious of the laird’s cousin. The rogue’s black eyes were burning a hole in her rigid back. When Callum remarked that he had come to see how she was faring, Katrine shifted her wrath to him and refused to answer.
“What has you in such a pelter?” Callum asked, amusement lacing his voice. “Was it something I said?”
Katrine ground her teeth, wishing he would stop tormenting her. If he made one more taunting remark like that, she would scream…or explode. “Why don’t you take yourself off? I’m sure you have more fascinating things to do than ogle me.”
“I don’t know about that. There’s little more fascinating to watch than a
lass in a temper.”
It was a measure of her frustration and despair that Katrine did what she did next. Whirling, she drew back her arm and let the dripping shirt fly. It hit the white lime-washed wall next to Callum’s head with a soggy splat. Though he’d been in no real danger, he flinched instinctively, but the roguish laughter in his eyes remained.
It was at precisely that moment his cousin appeared in the doorway. Raith surveyed the scene with cynicism: Katrine’s clenched fists and defiant stance, and the wet bundle that now lay on the floor. He lifted his gaze to his cousin’s, one eyebrow raised in question, then turned his eyes back to Katrine.
At his sudden arrival, Katrine felt as if her heart had stopped in midbeat. For the first time since they’d met, Raith lacked the dark stubble on his face, and she stared at him, trying to assimilate his changed appearance.