Tender Feud

The scullion merely returned a shy smile and picked up a pail to fetch some water from the burn in back of the house.

“Would you like me to do that for you?” Katrine offered. “I wouldn’t mind a chance to leave the house for a moment.”

The only answer was another blank look and then the quiet shutting of the kitchen door.

“I know I’m a prisoner here,” Katrine muttered, “but you might at least have had the courtesy to refuse my offer.”

She gave a start when Raith spoke from behind her. “The girl wasn’t being rude. She simply didn’t understand you. She only speaks Gaelic.”

Glancing over her shoulder, Katrine flung him an irritated frown. He was dressed far more casually than the previous morning, this time without a coat or waistcoat. And instead of boots he wore steel-buckled shoes over plain cotton stockings. At present he had one shoulder propped against the doorjamb, much the way his cousin had had the day before, yet the sight of him affected her senses far more forcefully. As she met Raith’s piercing blue gaze, Katrine was conscious of a queer fluttering in the pit of her stomach, an absurd quickening of her pulse rate. Determinedly she quashed the sensations. It would be imbecilic in the extreme to develop an attraction for her lawless captor.

“If you knew she didn’t understand me,” Katrine declared, “why did you let me keep talking and making a fool of myself?”

His black eyebrows rose in mockery. “I? I had nothing to do with you acting the fool. You were succeeding quite well on your own.”

Gritting her teeth, Katrine turned back to her worktable. “When do you intend to let me go?” she ground out.

“When I no longer have need of you.”

At his noncommittal reply, she glared down at the bowl of oatmeal mixed with lard. The sight reminded her of another grievance she had with the Laird of Ardgour. Defiantly, she demolished the lump of dough she had been kneading, wishing it were Raith’s nose she was punching. “Oats!” She hit it again, sending the gooey mixture squirting out from beneath her fists in splatters. “I’m sick to death of oats! Oatcakes, oat porridge, oat stew! One would think you could afford to offer some variety to your prisoners.”

“Some Scotch children have nothing but a bannock a day, and count themselves lucky at that.”

His tone had taken on a hard edge, but Katrine ignored it, too wrapped up in her complaint to notice or even care. “You threatened to lock me away if I didn’t serve you, but I expected better than starvation rations. I think I would rather starve to death. At least then my uncle would have undisputed cause for revenge when you returned my murdered body.”

There was a short pause before Raith replied. “I wasn’t aware you were not getting proper sustenance. I gather Flora is taking her duties as your jailer too much to heart.”

“I should say so!”

“You should have told her to feed you.”

“And just how was I supposed to convince her? She was only following your orders.”

“Not my orders…and you could have come to me.”

How could she humble herself like that when she would rather kick his shins? Katrine turned to stare darkly at him, meeting his blue eyes with fire in her own. It was scant comfort to realize that Flora, not Raith, had been the one to dictate her regimen of oats. “I’m surprised you even let me near your kitchen. Aren’t you the least afraid I?

??ll poison your food?”

Raith returned her gaze evenly for a moment, before his expression relaxed into something that looked suspiciously like amusement. “No. For if you poisoned me, your murdered body would never reach your uncle.”

“I swear I would do it, given half a chance,” Katrine muttered. “Alas, I haven’t discovered any poison. No doubt I could find something lethal in the garden if I were allowed outside the house.”

“Do I detect censure, Miss Campbell?” Raith quizzed, and this time there was a definite measure of humor in the slow curve of his mouth and the glint in his eyes.

“Censure!” Katrine sputtered. “Yes, you detect censure, you…you heartless fiend! I’ve never treated any servants as poorly as you’ve treated me. I’ve never—”

“Do you know what method the good citizens of Langholm near the border use to silence talkative, ill-tempered shrews? An instrument like a bridle, called the branks. They place it over the head, and it has a sharp spike that projects into the mouth. It subdues the tongue at once.”

Katrine stared at Raith, fury and disgust vying for expression on her face. “Do you never tire of issuing your vile, inhuman threats?”

His answer was an odious grin. He was enjoying her little tantrum! Katrine clenched her fists and looked around for a weapon, propelled by one desire, to show this churl she was his equal. Her gaze lit on the sgian dhu that the scullery maid had been using to slice turnips; the all-purpose Scots dagger that was the only blade the rebellious Highlanders were lawfully allowed to have in their possession. Snatching it up, Katrine whirled to face him.

One slashing black eyebrow rose in question, as if daring her to use the dagger on him. But there was a certain gleam of anticipation in his eyes that said he would relish the challenge.

Not that she would ever carry through with her threat. Impotent fury filled Katrine as she stood there glaring at him. She hadn’t the nerve to employ such a weapon on another human being, even him—and the Laird of Ardgour very well knew it.

Raith was the first to break the tense silence. “What kind of variety would you like in your menu?” he said gently, taking the wind entirely out of her sails.