Tender Feud

The sudden realization of where she was and whom she was with startled her. Flushing to find herself held in his arms that way, Katrine abruptly sat up. She was grateful when Raith didn’t say a word.

But she hadn’t counted on how the immediate cessation of warmth would affect her. A brisk breeze was blowing from the west, kicking up tiny whitecaps on the surface of the loch. Finding herself shivering, she drew Raith’s plaid more tightly about her as she focused her gaze on the steel-blue loch.

When they reached the water’s edge, Katrine nervously eyed the wide expanse of the loch. “Do you mean for us to cross?”

“Yes, but the horse is tired. I’ll not make him carry us both.”

“But I can’t swim.”

The look Raith gave her was one of derision, but he silently turned his mount to ride along the rocky shore. After a time they spied a fisherman who was running his small, flat-bottomed skiff aground. He was dressed in breeches—the hated “breeks” as they were called in the Highlands—with a long leather vest over his saffron-colored shirt.

“I advise you to keep your Southron tongue quiet,” Raith said in her ear. “This fellow would just as soon weight a Sassenach like you with a rock and heave you in the loch. I admit,” he added wryly under his breath, just loud enough for Katrine to hear, “I’ve entertained thoughts along those lines myself.”

Her hackles rose in response but, as she did not want to be drowned in the loch, she held her tongue as Raith negotiated in Gaelic for the fisherman’s service. When the rough fellow glanced at her suspiciously, Katrine huddled in her plaid, hoping her English origins didn’t show.

Within minutes she and Raith were being ferried across the loch, with the black horse swimming behind. On their right were the Corran Narrows, where Loch Linnhe tapered into a thin channel.

Trying to ignore the pungent smell of salmon trout, Katrine stole a glance at Raith and found him impatiently watching the distant shore. She wondered what he had said to explain her peculiar state of undress, but then decided Raith MacLean was too arrogant to bother with explanations.

He was also too unchivalrous to put her needs over his mount’s, for as soon as the skiff reached the far side, Raith leaped onto the shore and led the weary, dripping horse out of the water, leaving Katrine to manage on her own.

She clenched her teeth as the icy water lapped around her ankles, glaring at Raith as he spoke softly to the animal and stroked the dark muzzle.

He met her darkling look, as she hobbled up to him, with an impatient one of his own. “Come on,” Raith said tersely. “We’ve still miles to go.”

Katrine came to an abrupt halt. She was in no hurry to accede to the demands of a boorish tyrant. “My blisters are paining me, or have you forgotten how badly I am injured?”

Raith’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t voice the oath that he obviously wanted to. Instead he scooped Katrine up and set her none too gently on the horse’s back, then mounted behind her and urged the animal forward.

The broad plain they rode across, Katrine saw shortly, was dotted with prosperous crofts. In the distance, beyond the stretch of fertile fields sown with barley, oats and peas, loomed a range of mountains.

“I don’t suppose you feel like telling me where you are taking me,” Katrine said a moment later. She had already decided that if Glencoe was behind her, then those must be the mountains of Ardgour in front, but she was feeling a perverse urge to make him talk.

When he didn’t answer, she pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I expect you’re afraid to tell me. You don’t want me to know who you are so I won’t be able to inform on you.” Disingenuously, Katrine peered over her shoulder to see the effect of her challenge.

She didn’t care for the sardonic gleam in his eyes as, with a nod of his head, he gave her a mocking bow. “You want a formal introduction? Very well, Miss Campbell. Raith Alasdair Hugh MacLean, twelfth MacLean of Ardgour, at your service.”

Katrine stared at him as his revelation sunk in. Twelfth MacLean of Ardgour. “You’re a laird?” she said in shock. “You’re the Laird of Ardgour?”

“Why do you find that so hard to believe?”

“Because you’re a cattle thief!”

Raith’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “I’ve taken nothing that wasn’t stolen from the MacLeans in the first place, either by Argyll or his grasping factor.”

She stiffened at the slur. “Raith isn’t even a MacLean name,” she muttered.

“My grandmother was a MacRaith, if you must know.”

Staring at him, Katrine fell silent, trying to absorb this new revelation. He was Raith MacLean, Laird of Ardgour. That explained in part his fierce pride and his haughty air of command. He was accustomed to rule, accustomed to getting his own way. She should have known he was no common villain, Katrine reflected.

Refusing to be intimidated by his fierce stare, she examined his dark face curiously. Th

e name Raith suited him, she decided. It sounded lawless and arrogant, like its owner.

The fierceness of his gaze finally daunting her, Katrine faced forward again. She lapsed into sober silence as they drew nearer the imposing mountains, despondently contemplating her fate as the dirt road that had led between planted fields began a rising, tortuous path through the Highlands.

Eventually the road threaded through a narrow pass, and Katrine’s hopes sank entirely. Here the passage was barely wide enough to accommodate a carriage and was flanked on either side by steep rock cliffs. It was obvious even to her untrained eye that the pass could easily be defended against an enemy clan…or English soldiers. The road could just as easily be guarded to prevent a lone Campbell captive from escaping.