Tender Feud

“You damned…interfering…daft…Sassenach!” Each word was punctuated by his thwacks and her shrieks. He hadn’t bothered to raise her nightshift, but the flat of his hand still stung enough to bring tears to her eyes. Yet that was nothing compared to the blow to her pride. Yelping in humiliation, Katrine flailed at Raith with her fists, calling him a string of names, every vicious word she could think of.

Suddenly though, as abruptly as he’d begun, Raith ceased his paddling and clamped her arms again. Whether he meant to lift her up or shove her away, even he wasn’t sure, but when she continued to struggle, he lost his grip. Katrine spilled from his lap and tumbled to the ground in an undignified heap.

Furious, she leaped to her feet and faced him with fists clenched, her breasts heaving in outrage. They had stopped being lovers and were mortal enemies again. The fact that Raith wore only breeches and was displaying the bare muscular chest and beautifully sculpted shoulders that had so awed and delighted her only a short while ago meant less than nothing to her now. She wanted only vengeance. Oh, how she longed for it! If she hadn’t thrown his claymore in the loch, she would have run him through with it.

Raith wasn’t even looking at her, though. He had dropped his head into his hands, as if he could no longer bear the sight of her.

Yet it was his own actions Raith didn’t want to face. He shook his head in disbelief, assailed by disgust and self-reproach. “I’ve never,” he murmured, his voice low and ragged, “taken my hand to a woman. Never even thought of it. It won’t happen again, I swear it.”

Her anger arrested, Katrine stared at him in the moonlight. He deserved to feel guilty for beating her, certainly, but she was willing to make excuses for him. He hadn’t acted without provocation. She had driven him to the end of his patience. And while she would doubtless be sore in the morning, he hadn’t truly hurt anything but her pride. She was prepared to be magnanimous and forgive him, since he seemed so contrite.

Yet his words hadn’t actually been an apology, Katrine realized with sudden wariness. After the recent events, they even seemed ominous. It won’t happen again, I swear it, could just as easily have been a renewal of his vow never to touch her again, never to make love to her again.

“Raith?” she asked hesitantly, wishing he would explain.

He didn’t answer. He simply sat there, his fingers clutching his hair. Unaccountably, his stillness disquieted her more than his rage had done.

“Raith?” she repeated more anxiously, her whole body tensing.

When his voice came softly, stealing through the silence, it sliced into her heart like a rusty knife. “It won’t happen again.... Tomorrow I’ll send you home.”

“What?” Her voice was suddenly hoarse, desperate.

He raised his head, finally meeting her eyes; in the silver light, his own were agonized. “Tomorrow I’m returning you to your uncle.”

Chapter Fifteen

Swirls of mist curled in ghostly streamers about Katrine’s head as she made her way to the glen. Shivering, she drew her woolen shawl more closely about her. The gray dawn was as heavy and chill as her spirit, the fog frequently obscuring the path and more than once making her lose the way. But seeking out Morag was something she was driven to do.

After Raith’s abrupt announcement last night, Katrine had argued, even pleaded with him to reconsider, but he’d remained adamant. Despite her objections, he meant to return her to her uncle.

During the remainder of the sleepless night—which she spent in her own bedchamber—Katrine had racked her brain for ways to persuade Raith to change his mind. She even considered trying to hide from him until he could be brought to see reason. But that, she’d concluded, would have been pointless. Where would she hide? And who would convince him that she belonged at his side if she weren’t there to do it? No, she thought with despair, remembering Raith’s grim, intractable expression when he’d escorted her back to her bedroom. All she could do was delay the moment of departure as long as possible.

And so at first light she had left the house. She couldn’t explain her need to find Morag, except that she felt an affinity for the old woman she had never actually met. Morag, too, had been rejected by Raith. Even if the Scotswoman couldn’t provide answers, she at least might be willing to commiserate.

In the fog, the neat stone cottage was hard to see. Katrine found it more by smell than sight, following the odor of peat smoke. She almost stumbled over the woman, who was kneeling in the herb bed at one side of the trim path, clipping twigs. Yet it seemed almost as if her visit was expected, for the woman rose at once, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Ye’re the Campbell,” she pronounced with scarcely a glance at Katrine’s red hair. “‘Tis I ye’ve coom to find.”

“You are Morag?”

“Aye. Morag MacLean.”

Clearly Morag recognized her, but the woman was not at all what Katrine expected. Morag was quite old, true, but she was also short and stout, with round, rosy cheeks and silver-white hair. She looked a cheerful sort, rather than the dour Scot character that populated the Highlands.

“Coom in and bide awhi’. I’ll make tea.”

“Thank you,” Katrine murmured, relieved at her kind reception.

She followed Morag into the cottage, but had to pause a moment to adjust her vision and her breathing. The interior was dark and gloomy, for the single window was shuttered, while peat smoke filled every cranny. Her eyes watering, Katrine could just make out the furnishings of the neat but and ben.

At one end of the oblong structure the steep roof rose in a conical shape and ended in a smoke hole, beneath which burned peats surrounded by stones. The floor was of well-swept earth, but the stone sides of the cottage were blackened by years of peat fires, as were the slender poles that supported the thatched roof. In the far corner, closest to the fire, a bed lay upon the floor, covered by a thick rug.

Katrine had difficulty breathing in the smoky atmosphere, but she was determined not to show it by coughing or even covering her mouth. Still she was relieved when she was invited to “Sit doon, if ye will,” for the smoke was thinnest near the ground. Ducking to avoid the dried herbs that hung from every square inch of ceiling, she made her way past two wide tables laden with iron pots and earthenware jars, to a smaller table complemented by two straight-backed chairs. Seating herself in one of the chairs, Katrine watched as Morag bent over the fire and prepared the tea.

She wanted to initiate a conversation, but didn’t know quite how to begin. When her hostess remained silent, Katrine found her thoughts as well as her gaze wandering. Morag was wealthy by Highland standards, she realized. With the byre that was attached to the cottage, she would have no need to bring livestock into the house as so many crofters did. No, the accommodations might be simple, but they would be highly practical for Morag’s vocation of midwifery.

Remembering why she had come, Katrine focused her gaze again on the bustling old woman, who was garbed in red and green MacLean tartan. Instinctively she knew Morag would be skilled at her work. Instinctively, also, she liked the woman.