Tender Feud

Her efforts to the contrary, he was always in her thoughts. She found herself alternately worrying whether or not he would kiss her again, and whether or not she wanted him to—and how she would respond if he did. She knew very well she ought to box his ears if he dared take any more liberties, but she very much feared she would wind up returning his kisses, as she’d done before. Oh, if only her uncle would rescue her! Katrine wished she had remembered to ask Raith that night in the library if anything had come of his visit to the Duart MacLeans, but she wasn’t about to approach him with the question now, or even with the letters she had written to her sisters and aunt in England. Those she gave to the housekeeper to give to him. She didn’t dare to go near him herself. She didn’t trust herself.

She did, however, occasionally berate the Ardgour laird under her breath for taking so long to resolve the issue of her release, and when Flora overheard her muttering about Raith’s heartlessness, the dour housekeeper responded with one of her Scots adages: “Give your tongue more holidays than your head.” Katrine accurately took it to mean “spend less time talking and keep your thoughts on your work.” Still, she couldn’t help thinking about Raith.

She had been at Cair House for a fortnight by her calculations, when she discovered more about his late wife. She had accompanied Flora into a small, elegant sitting room to fetch a sketch pad to use in her drawing lessons, when her attention was caught by a portrait hanging over a damask-covered settee. The likeness was of a young lady dressed in the height of fashion, her hair curled and pomaded and piled high on her head, her porcelain complexion accented by powder and patch. She was small and delicate and quite beautiful.

“Is that Ellen MacDonald?” Katrine asked, somehow already knowing the answer. Even before Flora nodded brusquely, Katrine found herself staring at the MacLean’s late wife.

Her costume was exquisite. The heavy overskirt of ivory brocade was arranged over wide hoops, open in front and looped up at the sides to show a wide expanse of satin petticoat. The square, low-cut bodice boasted a satin stomacher, while each elbow-length sleeve ended in a fall of costly lace. Katrine couldn’t help feeling inferior, but it had less to do with the gorgeous gown than with the woman herself.

“She was very beautiful,” Katrine admitted in a small voice.

“Aye, that she was. And with the sweetest nature ye’d ever hope to find.”

The pointed glance Flora gave her made Katrine lapse into silence. To be compared to such a paragon of virtue, grace and beauty was highly depressing.

She was thinking of Ellen that afternoon when Raith paid a visit to the nursery to observe Meggie’s progress. Immediately Katrine tensed, discomfited by where her thoughts had been.

When Raith’s blue eyes found hers over Meggie’s head, Katrine glanced away self-consciously. Was he also mentally comparing her to his late wife? Katrine was wearing a practical day gown of gray serge that once belonged to Ellen, and though her brilliant red hair was brushed and coiled into unaccustomed near submission, she couldn’t hope to compete with the memory of Ellen’s dainty elegance.

With effort Katrine gave up brooding about the late mistress and roused herself to greet the laird with civility, and to exhibit her pupil’s advancement as an artist. Meggie was dressed in a clean frock, her dark hair neatly drawn back with a ribbon, and she proudly showed Raith her sketch of a rather lumpy butterfly.

At the tender smile of approval he bestowed on his ward, Katrine felt an unwanted emotion stirring within her. No wonder she had found herself responding to his kiss earlier. Any woman would be attracted to a man who was capable of such gentleness toward a child.

But his gentleness with Meggie didn’t extend to herself…except when she’d been shot at and he had comforted her…except when he’d allowed her to write to her family....

Katrine listened to his praise of Meggie with only half an ear, giving a start when Raith concluded in a quiet tone, “Miss Campbell is to be commended.”

He was looking at her again, Katrine realized, and there was no sign of the usual fierceness or disdain on his features.

“Thank you,” Raith applauded her in that same softened voice.

The words settled inside her, warming her. For once she had done something he hadn’t found fault with. But it was a relief when, after a few more moments, he left her alone with Meggie.

From then on, however, Katrine had trouble concentrating on the lesson. Finally she cut it short and took Meggie down to the kitchens for a treat—which was a mistake, she soon discovered. Flora, along with several of the servants, was busy cooking and baking, and had no time to spare for the child. Katrine settled Meggie in a corner with a dish of crowdie pudding, then donned an apron and went to work preparing hotchpotch, a Scottish dish of mutton chops and vegetables.

When Meggie was done with licking the last drop of pudding from her spoon, Flora sent the young girl away and delegated Katrine to fetch a pail of buttermilk from the buttery. Katrine complied eagerl

y, anxious to be outside. The rain had finally stopped, and an occasional shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds to brighten the afternoon. She fairly skipped over the cobblestones—until she spied Lachlan MacLean entering the small stone building of the buttery. Wondering what errand had brought him there, Katrine slowed her steps. When she reached the door, she peered silently inside.

Lachlan was kneeling in one corner before one of the long cooling vats, but it was the sight of the heavy claymore in his hands that startled Katrine. She would have sworn he had been unarmed when he entered the buttery. There was some sort of cupboard beneath the vat, she realized.

Just then Lachlan shut the small door to the cupboard and rose to his feet. Katrine jumped back, out of sight, her heart pounding. She was certain she had seen something she wasn’t supposed to have seen.

Stepping back around the side of the building, she waited until she saw Lachlan hastening toward the mews with the claymore. Her curiosity burning, she ventured into the buttery and carefully scanned the corner where he had been. She could see nothing out of place, yet there had to be a false panel beneath the vat. She’d seen it with her own eyes.

What she discovered after several moments of prodding and probing made her sit back on her heels. A secret weapons cache. A deep underground cupboard that was filled to the brim with arms of all kinds…broadswords and claymores and dirks, flintlock muskets and pistols, blunderbusses, targes—the round, flat shields used by fighting Highlanders—and bullet bags. She had little doubt that she would find the accompanying powder flasks beneath one of the adjacent vats, unless Raith considered it too dangerous to store gunpowder so close to the house and had secreted it elsewhere.

Raith. Katrine felt her heart start to pound slowly, painfully against her ribs at the thought of him. Not only were these tools of destruction—in sufficient quantities to conduct a small war—but it was treason for such weapons to be in the possession of a Highlander. A hanging offense. While she might cherish the thought of Raith MacLean cooling his heels in jail for an eternity, the thought of his being hanged was quite another matter. Yet that might be his fate anyway if it could be proved that he was the one who had abducted her. Did she want him to hang?

Very slowly Katrine closed the cupboard door. She would have to give careful consideration to the matter before she decided what she should do with her newly discovered information.

Deep in thought, she was startled when she came out into the sunlight with the buttermilk, for she found herself face-to-face with the grizzled old man who had tried to blow her head off.

Hector appeared surprised and unhappy to see her, too. Gnarled and bent, he stood there glaring at her fiercely, looking as if he would like to attempt her murder again, this time with his shepherd’s crook.

“I…” Katrine stopped and swallowed hard, realizing there was no need to offer an explanation for her presence in the buttery. He couldn’t have seen her spying, for if he had, no doubt he would have dispatched her to her Maker by now.

He was holding something wrapped in a bloody cloth, and when Katrine’s gaze dropped to it, Hector shoved the gory parcel into her hand. “Ye’ll gie this to Flora MacDonald,” he ordered.