Highland Solution (4 page)

“He wanted ye to take care of the saddle before the beast?” Diarmad asked in disbelief.

“Aye, he grabbed a whip from the wall and started to beat me.”

“Ye must have gotten away, ye only have two stripes on your back,” Alan said.

“Nay, I didn’t run. He would be sure to kill me then,” Tomas said seriously, “He only hit me twice because Lady Katherine got there.”

“Lady Katherine?” Niall asked, his voice deadly calm, “She stopped him from whipping ye?”

“Not exactly,” said Tomas in almost a whisper, “Lady Katherine put herself between us and Sir Ruthven beat her, instead.”

Fingal glanced at Niall, who appeared to be barely able control himself as he got out of the water and pulled on his clothes. Waves of white hot anger practically rolled off him.

Tomas continued, “I tried to get her to move away, but she had her arms around me tight to keep the whip from hitting me. He must have hit her eight or nine times before the steward came into the stable and told Sir Ruthven his bath was ready. Sir Ruthven threw the whip down, screamed at me to tend to his saddle, and left. Lady Katherine let go of me and tried to get up, but she was shaking. Her dress was torn and her back was bleeding. The steward woke Berty, telling him to see to the horse, and I took care of Sir Ruthven’s saddle like he ordered. The steward helped Lady Katherine into the keep.”

Fingal asked Tomas one last question. “As we rode today, ye told me Lady Katherine was the healer at Cotharach. Who tended her wounds?”

“Lady Katherine tells her maid, Emma, what to do when she is hurt herself. She sent Emma out to the stable to put a balm on my back, too, ‘cept I didn’t need it as much as my lady, cuz he only hit me twice this time.”

Tomas had said
this time
. Those two words spoke volumes. Not only had Ambrose Ruthven beaten Tomas before, but the fact that Lady Katherine’s maid had experience tending her injuries suggested Ruthven had very likely beaten Lady Katherine before as well. It also explained why she had unilaterally arranged for Tomas to accompany them.

Niall strode away without speaking. Tomas looked up at Fingal and said timidly, “Is the laird mad at me?”

“Nay, Tomas.”

“Is he mad at Lady Katherine?”

“Not really. He is angry at her uncle,” and Fingal thought, judging by the other men’s expressions, Niall wasn’t alone in that. Determined to give Tomas the much needed bath and, in an attempt to break the somber mood, Fingal looked at him squarely and said, “I still have to find the lad under this talking mound of dirt.” Tomas giggled and Fingal gently scooped him up again and carried him squealing with glee into the loch.

~ * ~

Katherine looked up from where she sat on the plaid and saw her husband angrily stride into camp. The men whom he had left at the camp immediately became alert, but he waved them away, telling them to go to the loch. Stopping at the edge of the plaid, he asked, “Why did ye not tell me ye were injured?”

Wary, Katherine looked away and tried to school her expression, but as his words sunk in, she became angry. “Tell you? When exactly would I have told you? When you rode into my home with a small army and a missive from King David requiring my uncle to give me to you in marriage? Or perhaps when the priest was summoned so we could be wed immediately because you were anxious to leave?” At this she rose to her feet, no longer the image of perfect submission, her anger clearly rising. “Mayhap I should have mentioned it as my dear uncle gave me away. That would have made a lovely addition to the wedding ceremony, ‘Aye my lord, I will marry you because my doting uncle thinks less of me than he does his cursed saddle!’ Perhaps I should have said something as we were riding out of my home, which had just been handed over to my uncle in exchange for my hand and a bag of gold.” A sob escaped her lips as tears threatened for the second time that day.

She turned away, not wanting him to see, “Perhaps I should have said, ‘Oh, by the way, the beast who just bought my birthright from you laid my back open with a whip last night, that isn’t a problem for you, is it?’”

She choked on another sob and turned back to look at him again, seeing his eyes black with fury. She knew she should stop, but exhaustion and pain pushed her past the point of caution. “And what if I had told you? What would you have done then, wrought vengeance on him for doing something he had every legal right to do? I don’t think starting a war over a bit of chattel would have pleased our king, do you?” As the horrible image of her new husband’s lifeless body cut down in the courtyard at Cotharach, passed before her eyes, she could no longer hold back the tears. Her anger spent, she sobbed, sank to her knees, and said with a note of desperation in her voice, “You would have been killed.”

~ * ~

Niall had seen women cry before, usually when all other forms of manipulation had failed. His stepmother’s tears had stopped having any effect on him years ago. He realized then that he had never seen a woman cry genuine tears of sorrow and pain. His heart began to ache for her, for everything she had suffered, and for the first time in his adult life he felt completely helpless. He knelt beside her, taking her gently in his arms so as not to cause her further pain, and he pulled her onto his lap and held her while she cried. “Wheesht, lass,” he crooned, kissing her head while rocking her gently. Eventually she stopped crying, giving in to her exhaustion. She fell asleep in his arms, but for reasons he didn’t fully understand, he continued to hold her.

He thought about what had just happened. Walking away from the loch he had nursed a hot rage. As Tomas told his story, images of Katherine throughout the day flashed through Niall’s mind, her white knuckles, her tenseness in the saddle, an occasional wince, the drawn expression on her face when they had finally stopped, all things he had blamed on her weakness. He had unwittingly added to her pain throughout the day by the brutal pace he set. As he headed back to the camp to confront her, he didn’t know who angered him most, himself, her insane uncle, or Katherine, for not telling him about her injuries from the start. If she had only told him, he started to rationalize to himself, but he knew better. The signs were there and he had simply failed to heed them.

He wanted to kill Ambrose Ruthven. Only a man who was completely without honor abused women or children. Niall now understood why Ruthven suggested that they wait to consummate the marriage.
The bastard was worried about how I might react when I learned of his abuse, and wanted to make damn sure that didn’t happen until I was too far away to do anything about it
.

His guilt made him angry at himself, and his honor fueled his rage for Ruthven, but why had he been angry with Katherine as well?
Because she didn’t give me the opportunity to murder the abhorrent bastard.
Then the last words she said before collapsing into tears penetrated his thick head,
you would have been killed
. Shaking his head slightly, he realized Katherine had been worried about him
.
She sought to protect him by not revealing her injuries. When he heard the priest tell her,
you are one of the few who always considers the needs of others before your own,
he hadn’t believed it, couldn’t believe it.

Maybe Katherine is different, he thought.
The surest way to open yourself to hurt is to love and yet you love anyway,
the old man had said. Niall knew risking that kind of pain took a strength he didn’t have. Maybe the fragile lass, who clung to him in her sleep, did.

~ * ~

When her tears stopped, Katherine became aware he held her. With his arms snugly around her, she felt secure.
I’m safe
, she thought, as she drifted asleep.

~ * ~

After bathing Tomas, Fingal wrapped him in a plaid and washed his dirty tunic. Tomas looked up at him seriously and said, “I have never heard my lady yell like that.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

After a moment Tomas said “It would have made Sir Ruthven mad. Will it make the laird mad?”

Fingal knew Niall would have flattened any man who dared to speak to him that way, but he would never hurt a woman intentionally. He said, “Tomas, there is no need to worry about Lady Katherine, our laird takes care of his own.”

“Am I ‘his own’ now, too?” Tomas asked.

“Aye, Tomas, ye are,” Fingal answered. Tomas seemed relieved. He turned onto his side, curled into a ball and went to sleep.

Three

When the men returned from the lake, Niall eased the sleeping Katherine onto the ground and wrapped the plaid around her. Rising, he told Diarmad they’d have to set an easier pace. “I thought as much,” Diarmad replied.

Niall shook his head, saying, “The problem is we carry a small fortune and half of Edinburgh knows about it. I had hoped that by moving quickly, we would stay ahead of any threat, but we need a contingency plan now. I want ye to go ahead with half of the men and most of the dowry. Travel as fast as ye can. We shouldn’t be more than a day or so behind ye.”

“Do ye want your brother to ride ahead with us?”

Niall gave him a dark look and said, “Nay, he’ll stay with me. I’m beginning to question the wisdom of bringing him back from Laird Chisholm. Perhaps I should have considered making Rowan MacKenzie a guardsman instead.”

Diarmad laughed, “Prying one of his sons away from Cathal MacKenzie would have been a challenge. Besides, I thought ye wanted to keep your brother close.”

“That may not have been the best idea. I’m not sure he can be trusted.”

“All the more reason to keep him close, but I don’t understand why ye think that. For what it is worth, I think ye made the right choice.”

“I suppose ye are right, Diarmad, and what’s done is done. Nevertheless, I don’t want Fingal guarding the coin.” Looking across the camp, he watched as Fingal laid a sleeping Tomas near where the other men were bedding down. “Besides, I’m not sure I want to inflict Tomas’ endless chatter on anyone else for the moment.”

Diarmad chuckled, “Ye aren’t worried ye are punishing Fingal unfairly?”

“I’m only paying him back for years of the same treatment from him,” Niall said lightly, but the fact remained that he didn’t trust Fingal and had no intention of sending him ahead.

~ * ~

During the night Katherine woke once to find Niall sleeping beside her with an arm thrown over her protectively. It felt so very good. When she woke the next day alone, she missed him. She stretched, groaning a bit at her soreness, and rose, glancing around the camp for him. He stood with his back to her, talking with a few of his men, and she stared appreciatively at her very attractive husband.

She took in his lean, powerful build and blushed slightly as she remembered how good those strong arms felt wrapped around her. She bent to gather up the plaid on which she had been sleeping and shook it out. Yesterday, she had agreed to marry him because she didn’t want to become a nun. That was a good decision, she thought wickedly, and blushed again as she folded the plaid.

Niall walked towards her, almost cautiously. Taking the folded plaid from her, he asked, “How are ye feeling this morning?”

“I am well, thank you,” she said, blushing furiously. Suddenly she felt very shy after last night’s outburst and her bold thoughts moments ago. Looking around, she realized many of the men and horses were gone. “Where are the rest of your men?”

“I sent half of them ahead with the bulk of your dowry. I suspect ye have never been to the royal court, but ye can imagine very little remains secret there. The news of our betrothal became widely known, as did the size of your dowry. Having a large portion of it with us makes us a target for thieves. I wanted to travel fast, to stay well ahead of trouble.”

“And you are slowing down because of me?” she asked, feeling a little ashamed.

At the worried look on her face, he said, “We are only slowing down a little. I have to think of our safety as well as the dowry, but it also makes sense to divide it and transport it separately.” She nodded and he added, “Still, we need to move as fast as is reasonable, so will ye be ready to go soon?”

“I only need a few minutes to wash up.”

“Gather what ye need and we will go to the loch.”

“You don’t need to go with me, I—I really won’t be long,” she stammered.

“I would not let ye go alone, unprotected, but I have another reason as well. I need to see the extent of your injuries,” he said seriously.

“Really, Niall, it isn’t that bad and—”

He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “Don’t argue with me about this. I need to know. I don’t want to cause ye any additional pain and I can’t avoid hurting ye if I don’t know what your injuries are.”

Katherine nodded. His stern demeanor brooked no further argument, so opening her bag, she removed what she needed and they walked to the loch. She laid a towel and a jar of balm on a large rock and took the rest to the water’s edge. Niall sat on the rock and waited for her as she washed up, then combed and braided her hair. She still wore her wedding clothes and, although a bit wrinkled and dusty, they would do. She brushed herself off and smoothed out the wrinkles as best she could. When she turned around the intensity of his gaze took her breath away. His eyes were the same deep blue of the summer sky.

~ * ~

Niall enjoyed watching her and realized again how much he desired her. He wondered what those small hands would feel like caressing him. As she combed her wild curls he longed to run his fingers through them and felt more than a little disappointment when she captured them into a braid. He imagined what she would look like naked, with her beautiful hair cascading around her, and became so aroused he had to force those musings away and think of something else.

When she had completed her ablutions, she walked over to where he sat and said brightly, “Are you ready to go?”