Tender Feud

“Katrine…praise to God, you are safe.”

The relief on his face filled her with guilt, making her regret what she was about to do. But there was no help for it. Taking a deep breath, she clasped her hands together. “Why, Uncle Colin,” she replied innocently, “is there any reason I shouldn’t be safe?”

His heavy eyebrows snapped together in a bewildered frown. “Reason? Why, because you were a prisoner of the villainous MacLeans, ‘tis reason enough.”

“But I wasn’t a prisoner.”

“Ye weren’t a— If not, then where the de’il have ye been?”

“I couldn’t say for certain. Nearby, I think.”

“Ye think? Ye think! Surely ye can give me some clue as to their whereabouts.”

“Well, no…I can’t actually.”

“Well then, tell me who these blackguards are. I’ll arrest them and clap them in irons—”

“I’m sorry, Uncle. I can’t tell you who they are.”

A thundercloud gathered on Colin Campbell’s brow. “Did ye not even learn their names?”

“A few, I suppose, but I can’t seem to remember them at the

moment.”

“Not remember! Damn! I’ve had two detachments of troops scouring the countryside for ye! And the duke himself has been exercising all possible effort in your behalf. We feared for your life!”

Her uncle was sounding more Scottish by the minute. Like Raith, it seemed he became so when his emotions were aroused. And at the moment they were indeed aroused. The way his color was rising, it appeared that any minute he would succumb to a fit of apoplexy.

“I’m sorry if you were unduly concerned,” Katrine hastened to soothe him, “but there truly was no need to worry. I never was in any danger. Indeed, I was treated very well on the whole.”

Thankfully Uncle Colin paused in his blustering long enough to stare at her. “Do ye mean to claim ye were never abducted?”

Katrine took another deep breath, not wanting to lie. “What I mean to say is that I remained there of my own free will.”

“And the infernal MacLeans, they had no hand in this…this escape?” Fiercely he brandished the crumpled note he had been reading when she came in.

“I…I really couldn’t say.”

“Plague take it! Then how do you explain this?” Smoothing out the note, he marched past the red-coated officer to wave the scrap of paper under his niece’s nose.

Unable to read the moving target, Katrine gently took it from him. The message itself was brief. Simply the Gaelic words Bàs no Beatha—Death or Life—the war cry of all the MacLeans.

But below the warning was a small sketch of a battle-ax crossed by branches of what Katrine guessed were meant to be laurel and cypress. She recognized the emblem as one on Raith’s coat of arms—the ax of Gillean. One afternoon while searching through Raith’s library for suitable books for Meggie, Katrine had taken the opportunity to study the crests of the various MacLean branches. Several of the septs, including the House of Ardgour, claimed the battle-ax, although the main branch of the MacLeans—the Duarts—did not.

But scrawling the ax on a note for all to see had been a dangerous and reckless piece of work, for it came closer to identifying Raith as the malefactor.

Hoping her consternation didn’t show, Katrine shook her head. “It really doesn’t prove anything, does it?”

At her calm answer, her uncle exploded. “Now, see here missie! Ye will tell me the names of the villains who apprehended ye, or I’ll—I’ll…” He faltered, nearing spluttering in his fury.

Katrine shook her head sorrowfully, but refused to look away. “No, I won’t, uncle. If I name them, you will only try to hang those responsible. And I won’t have that on my conscience. I wasn’t injured, after all, and now I’ve returned, safe and sound. So no harm is done.”

“No harm? No harm! How can ye say that when they’ve made fools of us all? Fouling my ledgers till there’s no making the least bit of sense from them. Forging receipts for rents with the duke’s own seal. Stealing Campbell cattle—”

“Forging receipts? So that is what—” Katrine broke off, realizing she wasn’t supposed to know about the seal Raith had taken from her uncle’s study. When that elderly gentleman favored her with a glower, she hastened to cover up her slip. “If the Duke of Argyll had not unfairly raised the rents on the Duart MacLeans, none of this would ever have happened. It seems to me there is a perfectly reasonable solution to this situation.”

“And just what is that?” her uncle demanded, though she could see by his discomfited look that he might very well agree with her about where the blame lay.