Tender Feud

The grimness of his tone didn’t quite cover the resonance of an underlying emotion, an emotion that at the very least was turmoil, but was more likely pain, Katrine suspected. She was surprised by the fierceness of her need to take away whatever was hurting him so.

“I love you,” she said then, quietly, her voice soft but her words clear.

Raith’s sharp intake of breath was audible in the silence. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I do, Raith. I know exactly what I am saying.”

He turned toward her again, giving her a hard look. “You’ve confused passion with love.”

Katrine met his gaze steadily. “It’s love. Sometimes it happens.”

Raith shook his head fiercely. “You’re concerned about last night. But you must realize…if there is issue from our union, I’ll provide for you.”

Issue? Katrine thought. Could he not bring himself to utter the word child? And if not, was it because of his past? Because he had lost his wife? Or because any child Katrine conceived with him would be part Campbell, part English?

“I would like to have your child,” she admitted in that same soft tone.

She saw his jaw clench. He stared at her, his expression taut, his eyes bleak. For a moment he even looked as if he might reply. But he must have thought better of it, for when he spoke, it was on an entirely different subject. “What do you intend to do about Meggie?”

He meant to ignore her comment, Katrine realized. He meant to forget the intimacies that had occurred between them, to act as if last night had never happened.

She might have argued with him then. She might have pressed the subject. But for once Katrine held her tongue. There would be time enough to make Raith see her love for him was real.

“I shall continue to teach her, of course,” she said quietly. “Meggie shouldn’t have to suffer because you and I disagree.”

Raith nodded as he rose to his feet. “She’ll be pleased.”

Without another word, he went to the door. There he hesitated a moment, but then he lifted the latch and left the bedchamber. The door shut softly behind him.

Gazing after him, Katrine hugged the blanket to her tender breasts. Their very tenderness was a reminder of all that had happened, of his hot mouth and passionate caresses. Could he dismiss their lovemaking so easily? Could he truly forget? She couldn’t, not at all. And she wouldn’t allow him to, either. If she had her way, Raith would come to realize what she already knew: that they belonged together.

Sooner or later the enmity between their clans would cease to matter to him. Sooner or later the devotion he had felt for his first wife would be only a fond memory. Someday, Katrine vowed, Raith would love her freely, without reservation or bitterness.

The thought filled her with anticipation and longing. And determination. And beneath that, she felt a hopefulness that would not be extinguished.

* * *

Her spirits flagged when she was required to face the household that morning. Not a soul except perhaps Meggie had failed to note that the laird had disappeared last evening after dragging the roy-haired Campbell upstairs to her bedchamber.

The speculation garnered Katrine a number of looks from the servants—some curious, some sly—that gave her a good notion of the rumors that were flying. She managed to ignore them primarily by throwing herself into her lessons with Meggie, but Flora wore a disapproving scowl the entire day, and at dinnertime the upstairs chambermaid muttered a word that turned Katrine’s face white with shock and then rage.

No one else spoke to her about it. No one, that is, but Callum.

Later in the afternoon, while Meggie was napping, Katrine wandered into the second-floor sitting room, feeling disconsolate and very much like a leper again. She had been given a lovely bedchamber that overlooked the mountains of Ardgour, yet even that had failed to raise her spirits. She hadn’t laid eyes on Raith since dawn, and she knew without being told that he had doubled his meticulous efforts to avoid her.

“So, did you manage to claim victory, bonny Katie?” Callum said from behind her as she ran an idle finger over a small rosewood table.

Katrine turned at the sound of his voice, and found Raith’s cousin lounging in the doorway. Her eyes widened at the splendid sight of him. He wore the dress of the duinhe wassel, the Highland gentleman, with kilt and tartan plaid, checkered hose and blue bonnet. There was lace at his wrists and throat, and his lavishly embroidered, short velvet coat would have been appropriate at court. She had never seen Callum dressed so fashionably. Yet he was defying the law, wearing the MacLean tartan.

“We’ve a Highland wedding to attend,” Callum said in explanation of his attire. “A Stewart lass and the son of a Cameron laird. It wouldn’t be fitting to appear in Southron dress, no matter what the English might decree.”

Distracted from her own concerns, Katrine shook her head. These proud Scots held fiercely to their customs, even if they might face the gallows for treason. She felt a surge of irritation at their stubbornness.

“What did you mean about my claiming a victory?” she asked, sounding annoyed.

“Your new accommodations. You succeeded in getting Raith to accede to your demands, I take it.”

Color rose to her cheeks at the calm assumption in his tone. Callum knew exactly what had occurred between herself and Raith, Katrine was sure.