Tender Feud

Katrine shook her head obstinately, yet her defiance was really an effort to hold despair at bay. “How can I possibly leave with you? I can’t ride since I can’t sit down without agony.”

“I’ll supply a cushion for you. Now come. You’ll want time to pack and say goodbye to Meggie.”

His determination was unshakable, she could no longer doubt it. Fighting back the sickening, hopeless feeling of desperation, she thanked Morag for her kindness and took her leave, saying that she hoped she would be able to visit again some day. Then adjusting her shawl over her shoulders once more, Katrine accompanied Raith outside.

She hesitated as the door shut quietly behind her with a finality that sounded like a death knell. The gray mist had dissipated somewhat, and she could see Raith’s horse cropping grass at the end of the path.

Raith had taken a single step down the path when Katrine’s self-command failed her. “Raith, wait! Please…” When he turned impatiently, she stared up at his hard, uncompromising features. “Please…don’t make me leave. I want to stay here…with you. It sounds foolish, I know, but I’ve always thought it my destiny to return to the Highlands, to find my mate....”

The words trailed off into an anguished void, her last grasping hope dying at the fierce resolve she saw in his blue eyes. She would have lowered herself to begging if she had thought that would convince Raith to let her remain as his wife, but she doubted any amount of pleading could persuade him. Her hand moved to her breastbone as if to slow the near-painful pulsation there. How could she love so deeply and not have it returned, not even a little?

The misery in her face broke through the cold barrier of detachment Raith had, by sheer force of will, managed to keep in place till now. Silently he stared down at the woman gazing at him with a quiet though desperate intensity. Love lay naked in her eyes—love and hurt and longing. An ache swelled up inside him that left him momentarily still and helpless. Love. A love he didn’t want, couldn’t have.

A future together was impossible. He despised everything she stood for, her clan, her English government, her fragile gender that reminded him how powerless he was to control life’s events. Yet how could he hate someone who was regarding him with such hopeless devotion, with such despair? How could he bear to deny her anything she wanted?

Katrine saw the struggle Raith was waging within himself. For a moment she saw the same agonized intensity in his eyes that she herself felt, the same gut-wrenching vulnerability written across his face that she had seen once before—last evening when she had asked him about the future. He was a man caught somewhere between love and hate…if what he felt for her was anything like love.

“Raith…why? Why can’t I stay here with you?”

“Katrine, please don’t ask it of me.”

The vulnerable catch in his voice tore at her raw emotions, made her vision blur with tears. “You don’t have to marry me. You wouldn’t—”

“Oh, God.” Helplessly, Raith reached out to her and drew her into his arms. “Don’t. Don’t weep.”

She made a valiant effort at control, forcing herself not to plead with him, not to beg. “I only wish,” she whispered finally, “that our clans could live in peace.”

“No, Katrine. You’re chasing a dream.”

Raith leaned back, taking her face in both hands, wiping at the wetness beneath her eyes with his thumbs. Mustering his resolve, he gazed down at her, at her lovely face, at her riot of tresses, the color of fire and passion. “Bonny Katie,” he murmured. “Beautiful hot-haired, hot-tempered Miss Campbell…always setting the heather on fire. You don’t belong here,” he said in a tone he had to fight to keep from being gentle. “You belong with your own people.”

That was his final word, she knew it. With mute wretchedness, Katrine nodded and stepped back. Her throat hurt from needing to cry, but she drew her dignity around her as she would a cloak, holding her shoulders erect, determined to salvage some semblance of pride.

Yet pride was a pitifully small barrier against the pain she was feeling. It was all she could do to force the words, “I’ll walk,” past the ache in her throat.

Raith didn’t argue. Instead he gathered the horse’s reins and followed silently at a distance, leading the animal.

He let Katrine outpace him, so that she arrived in the yard before he did. Her steps slowed as she saw Callum lounging against the house wall, beside the door. He was apparently waiting for her.

He arched a dark eyebrow at the bleak eyes she raised to him when she reached his side. “So you’ll be leaving after all?”

Katrine nodded.

“Raith is a bloody fool.”

“Perhaps it’s for the best. What kind of life would we have with a marriage founded in hate?”

Reaching up, Callum touched her cheek gently with a finger, tracing the track of a tear. The tender gesture was both comforting and sad, and it made Katrine want to cry again.

“I should have fallen in love with you,” she murmured. “How much simpler everything would have been.”

“Once you had laid eyes on Raith, you never noticed me.”

“I might have, if I had met you first.”

“Do you truly think it would have made any difference?” Callum shook his head with mock sadness. “Och, Katie, love, I never stood a chance. ‘Tis most lowering for a man like me, who is accustomed to females falling at his feet.”

Katrine couldn’t smile at his attempt at levity. She felt nothing now but turmoil and a frightening deathlike numbness. “I have to say goodbye to Meggie,” she mumbled, her voice a husky quaver as she turned and fled into the house.