Tender Feud

“Meggie has been embroidering a gift for you,” Katrine disclosed, hoping to provide a distraction. “Her needlework is quite exquisite. Meggie, love, why don’t you go and fetch it now? You can give it to your guardian.”

The child turned obediently, but all the happiness had drained from her piquant face. Raith could have cursed. Watching his young ward solemnly leave the room, he felt for all the world as if he had just betrayed Meggie, instead of having her best interests at heart.

“I think,” Raith muttered in his own defense, “that Meggie will like the woman I found. I wouldn’t have hired her else.”

“I’m sure she will.”

Katrine had answered evenly, with no hint of accusation, but something in her reply—regret or sorrow—made Raith give her a sharp look. What was she fashed about? he thought irritably. She should be pleased that her services would no longer be needed, that soon she would no longer be held hostage.

Just then he noticed what he had failed to see at a distance—a crescent-shaped piece of velvet placed high on her right cheekbone. A beauty patch, he thought curiously. One of the few traces of feminine vanity he had ever observed in her.

A flush of color tinged Katrine’s complexion when she realized what he was staring at. “We were trying on patches,” she explained, guiltily reaching up to remove the one on her cheek.

Raith forestalled her with a gentle touch. “No, don’t.”

No, don’t…let me. She remembered his saying it the night they had made love, when she had started to undress for him. Raith must have remembered it as well, for his gaze wandered downward over her bodice, in intimate appraisal. Katrine caught her breath as she looked into his eyes. They were hot and dark, a gleaming midnight blue. Her knees went weak, while her blood suddenly began racing through her veins like liquid flame.

“You’ve been showing Meggie how to ply a fan?” Raith’s voice had suddenly become husky. “You’ll have her breaking hearts…before she’s old enough to put up her hair.”

Katrine couldn’t summon her scattered thoughts to form an answer. Involuntarily, she swayed toward Raith, while his head bent slowly, reluctantly.

He was going to kiss her, she thought exultantly. He would take her mouth and then…

She sensed Meggie’s presence even as Raith’s warm breath caressed her lips. Abruptly, she felt him draw away. With fierce reluctance, Katrine turned to Meggie. Never had she been so disinclined to enjoy a child’s company. Never had she been able to summon so little patience.

Raith wasn’t at all regretful that Meggie had returned so quickly, though. He accepted her gift with effusive praise and genuine gratitude. And then made his escape, thankful that he had had the strength to leave Katrine at all after glimpsing the sensual longing in her eyes.

God’s mercy, but he wasn’t looking forward to the following days, for he knew how it would be. Much like the past month. He would find himself listening for the light echo of her footsteps, the sound of her laughter, or watching out his window at dawn, hoping to catch a glimpse of her as she stole out of the house. He would avoid the rooms where he knew she would be, or the ones where she might be.

Raith cursed again silently. He was a prisoner in his own house. He had made himself so. And there wasn’t a single bloody thing he could do about it. Not until he finally was quit of her.

She was no longer a prisoner in his house, Katrine realized with mild triumph. Her claiming Raith as her husband had had unexpected consequences, garnering her new respect from his clan. Despite Raith’s adamant renunciation of her, the MacLeans were taking seriously the possibility of a marriage between them.

The maidservants in particular offered Katrine curious looks and tentative smiles, as though wondering if she might indeed be their future mistress. Flora, too, overlooked her offended morals enough to resume her former kindly tolerance, and over tea one day, even unbent enough to utter one of her Scotch adages: “Let the tow gang with the bucket.” Let things take their course. That Flora would be willing to let a Sassenach Campbell assume the position the revered Ellen MacDonald had held surprised Katrine, until she realized that Flora, like her Highland kinsmen, was anxious for the laird to get an heir in the direct line, a line that had been unbroken since the first MacLean of Ardgour.

In any event, Katrine was no longer treated like a leper. Nor was she watched so carefully whenever she left the house. The MacLeans, she came to the conclusion, no longer expected her to try to escape. And while she wouldn’t go so far as to think she had earned their trust, it was gratifying to think they might accept her into their ranks, should Raith ever relent and accede to their marriage.

Not that he showed any inclination of doing so. During the next two days Raith shunned her totally. But knowing that she had the grudging support of at least some of his clan, Katrine was able to face the future with renewed optimism.

She was humming to herself one afternoon when she set out at Flora’s request to gather herbs for dyeing the tartan wool thread that was spun and woven into cloth right there on the estate. She took Meggie with her, for the child seemed to enjoy grubbing in the dirt. In Katrine’s apron pocket were spades to dig up rue root, which would be made into red dye, and shears to clip the branches of Scotch broom, whose leaves yielded green. Meggie carried the two cloth sacks.

The rue grew in the garden, a short distance from the house. They had dug up enough roots to fill one sack and were making their way to the glen in search of broom when they heard the clattering of hooves coming from the stable yard. Glancing behind her, through the branches of a birch tree, Katrine spied some dozen horsemen riding into the yard. They were wearing thigh-high leather gaiters and the scarlet coats of the English militia.

Two thoughts struck her at once: that the soldiers might very well be looking for her, and that Meggie was terrified.

Three weeks ago Katrine would have been ecstatic over the arrival of the dragoons, but now her only response was dismay. The hoarse whimper that Meggie uttered tore at her heart, as did the small hand clutching desperately at her own.

/>

Murmuring quiet words of solace, Katrine immediately abandoned the gardening tools and sacks and allowed Meggie to pull her deeper into the woods. When they were well away from the yard and completely hidden from sight, Katrine dropped to her knees and pulled Meggie into her arms, holding her small, shaking body protectively.

“Hush, love,” she murmured over and over again. “You’re my little lamb. I would never let anything happen to you.”

Eventually Meggie’s trembling ceased, but still they remained hidden. A long while later Katrine heard the tread of firm footsteps. Looking up, she realized Callum had come to find them.

“The troopers have gone,” he announced, taking in the sight of her holding the child.

Meeting Callum’s dark eyes, Katrine read approval in his knowing gaze. She knew exactly what he was thinking. She had lost the opportunity to escape, to expose the MacLeans as her abductors. She’d had only to show herself to the soldiers to turn the tables on Raith and brand him a criminal.