Jennifer Roberson (37 page)

Cat, transfixed, stared at her.

Lady Glencoe smiled, and was suddenly young again. “He told me only what he felt, and why, when he spoke of a broken mirror . . . he could not tell me what
you
felt, and was afraid of the truth lest it be other than he desired. But now I ken it, when I see what you have carried so close to your heart. No word is required.”

Cat swallowed tightly. “I am afraid. Of you. Of MacIain. Even of Dair.”

His mother squeezed her hand a final time and released it. “It takes us all the same: loving a man so much it frightens you near to death, and wondering what his people think of you. And
you
have more to fash yourself over than most, aye?”

Cat nodded mutely.

“Have you a temper?”

“Och, a muckle
great
temper—” she blurted, and blushed instantly.

There was noise outside the door. MacIain had arrived.

“Good,” his wife declared. “You’ll need it with MacIain—and I daresay with my son! For all his fine looks and bonnie words, he’s as much MacIain’s son as my own. They are none of them peaceable men, when pushed to it.” The skin by her eyes crinkled as the door was yanked open. “Though John and Alasdair Og are less noisy about it!”

“Less noisy, is it?” MacIain inquired. “Am I to fret about the noise I make in my own house, woman?” But he did not wait for an answer. He came through the door, ducking his snowy head, and crossed to Cat in two paces. “Rise,” he said. “Show yourself to me.”

Her skin prickled; were she deerhound, she would hackle. It was beyond discourtesy; was everything she expected, everything she had seen and heard ten years before.

But she was no longer ten. And there was nothing in her now, any more than existed then, that would permit in silence such pawkie, high-handed treatment.

Cat pressed a palm against the table and rose with deliberate and painstaking care to her feet. “Like a bluidy cow?”

John, in the doorway, shut the door swiftly and took his son off straightaway to sit in a corner.

MacIain’s eyes glittered in deep sockets. “Like a bluidy cow, a bluidy ewe, a bluidy
chick
if I ask it!” But a slight frown furrowed his brow. “You’re no wee lass, aye? Tall as half the men in Glencoe!”

“I am,” she agreed coolly. “ ‘Twould be gey difficult
now
to pick me up from the floor and dangle me in the air!”

It baffled him. “What gab is this? Pick you up? Why?”

“You did so ten years ago.”

“I did?” White brows knitted. “Where did I do such a thing?”

“In my father’s own house.”

“I did no such thing, ye glaikit girl!”

“You did,” put in John from the corner. “Glenlyon’s lass, aye?” His smile was crooked. “I recall it myself, now I am reminded.”

She was tall as half the men in Glencoe, perhaps, but MacIain still towered over her. She had never known any man so huge. “I thought you meant to drop me.”

He thrust out a bearded chin in challenge. “And why would I drop a wee lass?”

Cat grinned. “Because I said you had no manners, and had come to steal our cows.”

“You did!”

“I did. And indeed you had no manners—but you had not after all come to steal our cows.” She paused.
“Then.
”

“Then?”

“You came later.”

MacIain grunted. “You’ve likely got Glencoe cattle out on Glen Lyon braes.”

“And will you serve me meat tonight from a Campbell cow?”

“Och, and are you expecting a meal of me?”

“Lady Glencoe did offer.”

His eyes narrowed as he studied her. “And did she mean to serve you supper? Or serve you to me as
my
supper?”

“Och, I am too tough,” Cat retorted, enjoying herself immensely. “No softness in me, ye ken. No meek-mouthed lass to cower in the corner because MacIain roars.”

Blue eyes glinted. “Such as Jean Stewart might, are you thinking?”

Humor was extinguished. She stared back at him with shocked silence in her mouth.

“Hah.” MacIain glanced at his wife. Mildly, he said, “He’s got himself thrown into Fort William, he and Robbie Stewart. And naught to show for it; the Sassenachs took back their supplies. And the boat.”

She nodded. “I had the news of Cat.”

Cat scowled at him. “Is that all you care about? Supplies and a boat, when your son is imprisoned?”

The giant grunted and hooked out a chair with his heel. As he sat down, Cat could not but wonder if the chair would break. “Sit.” He waved a massive hand. “Dinna greet for him, lass—they’ll no’ hang him for this.”

She sat. “How do you ken that?”

“Because the pawkie governor there has wanted me to speak with for more than a year.” He smiled, though it was barely discernible in the depths of his beard. “I’ll offer to sign his bluidy treaty.”

“Offer,” she echoed, reading the implication.

“Offer,
aye. And he will give me my son.”

“What about Stewart?”

MacIain shrugged. “He’s his own father, aye?”

Cat’s smile was quick, but faded as quickly. “Do you believe they’ll release him for your promise, when you’ve no intention of signing this treaty?” She paused, struck by his expression. “You willna sign, aye? Dair says not.”

The glitter died from his eyes. “What I will or willna do is for me to say. And I’ll mind my own house, I thank you.”

She had transgressed, but there was more in her mind than such things. Conviction. “I have the right to ask what you mean to do about him.”

“And what right is that, in my house?”

His arrogance was apalling. “In your house or out of it, I will ask of his welfare! ’Tis my right, MacIain. Were it not for
me your
son would have hanged.” She snatched up the rope and tossed it at him. “Ask
that,
MacIain! It has a tale to tell.”

Treacherous ground. She had abrogated her responsibility to repay the hospitality in kind; defying convention, trampling tradition, would not sit well with this man.

His mouth worked briefly, then relaxed. “You go too far, lass.”

She dared the truth again. “With you, one must. Else you wouldna hear me.”

“There is that,” John agreed, forgotten in his corner. “He is a thick-skulled old king bull, aye? Forgets to listen, forbye.”

“She has more right,” Lady Glencoe said quietly, “and you ken that, MacIain. You beat him bluidy for it . . . for that, and Breadalbane. Alasdair . . .” She flicked a glance at Cat. “You’re a stubborn old fool, but no’ a blind one, aye?”

MacIain fingered the rope’s weave, examined its ends. Then put it back on the table. His gaze was steady as he looked at Cat. “Has he asked you to his house?”

“He has.”

“To his bed?”

“He’s already been in mine.”

A flicker in blue eyes acknowledged that. “And would you leave Glen Lyon—leave the laird’s house—to live in Glencoe?”

“I
have.
”

He waited, poised as a wolfhound set to bring down the game. He knew there was more. He was not a patient man, MacIain of Glencoe, but in this he would be. In this he had to be.

For his son. For his house. For the honor of his name, that she had cursed so often.

Cat laughed at him then, cognizant of commitment with but a handful of words. “I’ll leave a laird’s house to live with a laird’s son. Seems a fair trade, aye?”

MacIain leaned back in his chair. Wood and leather creaked. “The better end of it, lass, is living in my glen.”

“Hah,” Cat retorted.

MacIain bared his teeth. “Pour usquabae, Margaret. I’ll share a dram wi’ the lass.”

Cat recalled the result of the first and last time she had drunk usquabae. She blushed hideously.

MacIain saw it. And smiled.

 

Presented with water, soap, and cloth, Dair washed, ridding his face of grime and crusted blood, his hands of rust and dirt. The bruises remained, and the stubble, but he felt somewhat clean again. Carefully he soaked some of the dried blood out of his hair, inspecting by fingertips the scabbing cut within the lump, but it was nothing that would not heal. His jaw still ached, but improved.

He tongued a molar, testing its seating.
I may keep all of my teeth after all, wi’ no thanks to Robbie. . . .
But he had been wholly, if painfully, honest, despite the ache of head and jaw. He did deserve it, from Jean’s brother. And he, in Robbie’s place, would have done the same.

Dair set aside the damp cloth. They had left him alone to wash; as well, he knew, to think. Robbie, who had disdained such amenities—and who needed no time to think, save how to frame vulgarities—had been taken off sometime before. Dair was alone in the cell, sitting mutely with his shoulders and spine against the wall. He was aware of a greater sense of self-possession, a renewal of hope; food, drink, the means to wash himself, provided him with a scrap of dignity, a chance to recover confidence.

Dair wondered cynically if the treatment had to do with Governor Hill’s personal desires to treat his prisoners well, or that he was MacIain’s son, and Robbie heir to Appin.

With care he let his head settle against the wall. He drew up knees beneath his kilt and rested forearms upon them, chain dangling, then released a sigh of resignation. There was no profit in debating the intent of a Sassenach, even within his own head; John Hill was governor of Fort William, a king’s man, a soldier, and wholly dedicated to the subjugation of the clans.

Instead, he would think of Cat. Cat, who had tried to skelp Robbie; Cat, who had tried to lie for him; Cat who had, despite her innocence, taught his body new things about a woman. To know the companionship of spirit as well as flesh.

Dair shut his eyes.
Christ, what if they mean to hang—

The latch rattled. He sat upright, swore to deflect the darting lance of pain in his head, and saw the door swing open to admit Robbie Stewart. And also two soldiers, who gestured for him to come out.

Robbie still clattered with shackles. The set of his mouth and the tilt of his head was arrogance personified, as was his swagger; Dair could not help a crooked smile.

“Well,” Stewart said grandly, seating himself on his thin pallet, “ ’tis worth letting him mewl if only for the whisky.”

Dair rose with infinite care. The soldiers made no effort to hurry him, but let him gather himself and exit without haste. The door as he stepped out was closed, bolted, locked.

From behind the heavy wood came the sound of a wandering whistle. Robbie had never been able to make behave the notes required to follow a proper tune.

Then he ceased whistling. Instead he began to bellow out in broad Scots his tuneless version of a song attributed to a Stewart who was once a king:

His legs were pillars, Cat decided, holding up MacIain as Atlas held up the world. And more to the point, she thought, perhaps he
was
Atlas, for on his massive shoulders rested the weight of a clan.

He waded out into the shallows of the river, bare feet finding purchase. He did not go far, but far enough; another man might have sought a rock on which to climb from the water, but MacIain did not. He planted himself in the current, then turned and stared at her.

“Well?” He pitched his challenge over the sound of the river. “D’ye think you should be carried?”

She did not. She glared back at him and traded shore for water, picking her way with care.

They were not in the deeps. They did not truly risk themselves. But it was harsh going all the same, and only undertaken because he wanted her to fail.

Or wanted her to succeed, so he might know her worthy.

“Worthy,” Cat muttered. “Like a cow, or a horse . . .”

She wore the trews she had come in two days before, and now the bottoms were soaked. Water crept up the wool toward her knees.

“Aye, test the mare’s mettle—test the bitch’s temperament . . .” Arms outflung, she maintained a precarious balance. “—escort her to the brink, then step back a pace or two to let her decide if she’s man enough to take it. . . .”

A rock rolled. Cat hissed a curse as her foot banged against another, then clamped her mouth shut and recovered her balance. She flicked a glance at MacIain, who waited impassively. But she spied the glint in his eye. “D’ye mean to be a dam?” she called. “Or a rock to change the river?”

His teeth showed briefly. “I am a rock,” he said, “and on me will the Sassenachs be broken.”

She wobbled, then kept moving. “D’ye think they mind you, MacIain ? One lone laird in a forgotten glen—?”

“Forgotten?—no, not Glencoe. Look around you, lass—could you forget this place?”

She did not need to look. If she never saw it again, she would remember it.

“A rock, aye,” he declared. “Though some say the rocks reside between my ears.”

He extended a hand. She felt it close around her own: huge, callused hand, hard as horn; a grasp that could break a man, if MacIain desired it. It closed, gripped, brought her across to stand beside him. The rush of the river, albeit quieter in the shallows, purled against her shins. Tugged at her trews, wool now sagging from the weight.

MacIain flung wide his other hand: elaborate presentation. “Glencoe,” he announced, with infinite satisfaction.

She stood in the waters of the River Coe with a man bred of warriors, of the hostility of the land. And knew she was safe. That MacIain, unlike her father, would never permit harm to come to her, or dishonor, or vulgar treatment.
Unless MacIain himself metes it out.
Cat assessed him even as he assessed her. He had not broken the clasp. Neither had she.