Tender Feud

But she couldn’t have left Meggie, even if she’d wished to see Raith arrested. Which she didn’t. As strong as her earlier desire for revenge had been, her feelings had changed entirely. She no longer wanted to see the Highlanders overtaken by the law. She only wanted to protect Raith and his clan.

Even so she regretted the lost opportunity. For in hiding from the English militia, she had also missed the chance to show the world she was there of her own free will.

“What did the soldiers want?” Katrine murmured, knowing the answer but asking anyway.

“You, of course. Your uncle is searching for you.”

Callum’s reply didn’t surprise her, but his gravity did. His expression was far more serious than usual. When she eyed him questioningly, he hesitated and glanced at Meggie, as if judging whether or not to speak in front of the child.

Then he exhaled a breath in what was almost a sigh. “The game has changed, Katie. Three of the Duart MacLeans have been imprisoned in the tolbooth in Oban. They’ve been charged with your abduction.”

She looked for Raith in vain. He seemed to have disappeared—probably, Katrine decided, in order to avoid a confrontation with her. She desperately needed to talk to him about his plans, for when she had searched the mews for him, she was shocked to find his clansmen gathered in the great chamber, readying their fighting weapons for use…sharpening claymores and dirks, oiling the firing mechanisms of muskets and pistols.

She combed the house to no avail. Deciding Raith must be away, she waited anxiously for him to return. She didn’t hear him come in that evening, didn’t even know if he ever made it back to the house. Katrine went to bed with plans to corner him first thing in the morning.

She wasn’t required to wait till then, however. Meggie suffered another of her spells that night, and despite the fact that Katrine had been too restless to sleep and so responded the instant she heard the screams, Raith was there before her, soothing the terrified child.

He didn’t want her there, she could tell by his granite-faced expression. But Katrine refused to leave. She sent Flora back to bed and prepared a mug of warm, laudanum-laced milk herself. She decided, while they waited for Meggie to fall asleep, that Raith must have been in his bedchamber all the while, the one place she hadn’t dared venture without permission—though she had knocked and received no reply.

He might as well have remained there, for all he acknowledged her presence. He said not a word to her. Indeed, never once did he even glance in her direction. Katrine could see very well that he didn’t intend to discuss the situation with her. Not unless she forced him to.

As soon as Meggie was breathing evenly, Katrine broke the silence. She spoke his name softly, and saw the immediate tensing of muscles beneath his shirt. But otherwise he didn’t acknowledge her existence.

“Raith, what do you intend to do about the MacLeans?” she pressed when he remained silent.

“It’s none of your concern.” Abruptly he rose with Meggie in his arms and carried the sleeping child to the bed, tucking her beneath the covers.

“None of my concern?” Katrine whispered with growing impatience. “How can you say that?”

In answer, Raith turned on his heel and strode from the room. Katrine hastily blew out the candle and followed him down the corridor. “Raith, wait!”

“Go back to bed!”

The order was nearly growled as he stormed into his bedchamber. When the door slammed in her face, Katrine shoved it open. Halfway across the room, Raith turned and gave her a savage look. “Get out!”

Katrine scarcely heard him, for she was staring at the pile of weapons that lay near the hearth. In the light from an oil lamp, she could see the whetting stone that Raith had been using to sharpen a claymore.

Slowly shutting the door behind her, Katrine gazed at him in dismay. “You’re planning a raid, aren’t you?”

“What did you expect me to do? Sit on my hands while my kinsmen rot in jail?”

“No, but I didn’t expect you to take vengeance this far.” Her hand swept out to indicate the lethal-looking pile of weapons. “This is barbaric.”

Raith’s jaw clenched. “I mean to set the MacLeans free.”

“And then? Even if you can manage it, just what will that solve?”

He hesitated before exhaling his breath on a sigh. “Perhaps nothing.” She saw the moment of vulnerability written across his hard face before he shuttered his emotions.

“Of course not,” she persisted, driving home her point. “You’ll only be back where you started, with the rents still outrageously high and me as your prisoner. And what good has that done?”

He didn’t reply. Incredulously, Katrine watched as Raith stalked over to the hearth, threw himself into an armchair, picked up the heavy claymore and resumed the task that had been interrupted by his ward’s nightmares. It was obvious he didn’t intend to listen to her. Katrine raised her hands in exasperation. “I don’t understand why you insist on being so stubborn. Why won’t you simply talk to the duke?”

As usual when this subject came up, they joined in battle.

“To what purpose?” Raith retorted, flinging her a scornful look. “Argyll only understands force. He would never consent to lowering the rents.”

“How do you know till you try?”