Seduced by the Highlander (15 page)

“Aye, Lady Catherine. That’s because they fell in love.”

“Well,” she cynically replied, “I suppose that means there is hope for anyone.” Though she did not truly believe it, not when she thought of Lachlan and how coldheartedly he had behaved when he learned she was not Raonaid.

Later she slipped into the bed, fluffed up the feather pillows, and dismissed the maid, who indicated that she would return in time to assist her in dressing for dinner.

The door closed with a gentle click, and the room fell silent. Catherine gazed up at the green canopy above and thought of her twin.

Over the past six months, since Catherine’s return to Drumloch Manor, she had assumed that the emptiness she felt stemmed from the fact that she had no memories of her loved ones and was therefore—in her own mind at least—alone in the world.

Now it seemed that in infancy she had suffered a terrible loss—that of a sister who had shared the womb with her. A sibling who was severed from Catherine’s life the same day they lost their mother. It was a double tragedy, an inconceivable loss. How grief-stricken she must have been. And though Raonaid was a stranger to her, and quite likely a villain, she felt a deep and agonizing grief for her as well.

Her sadness quickly turned to anger.

Who had done it? Who had cast out her infant sister? Was it her father? Or her grandmother? Or someone else Catherine had yet to meet?

A light knock sounded at the door just then. She rose up on her elbows, but it opened before she had a chance to respond.

In walked Lachlan.

He wore a fresh kilt and a clean, loose-fitting white linen shirt. The brooch at his shoulder was polished to a fine sheen, and he was without his usual weaponry. His hair was wet, sticking damply to his muscular shoulders in shiny disarray.

He circled around the bottom of the bed and stood at the foot of it, one hand on the corner post, his gaze dark and troubled as he observed the length of her body beneath the covers.

Something prompted her to raise her knee, and his eyes lifted keenly to meet hers.

“Why are you here?” she asked, still angry with him for what had occurred in the solar, while at the same time her insides were careening with both trepidation and desire. She hated herself for feeling that way, after all that had happened.

“Lady Catherine…”
His tone was quiet and seductive, and the sound of it matched perfectly with the erotic spectacle of his muscular warrior’s body. His big hand opened and closed around the bedpost. “Do you
really
want to know why I’m here?”

Catherine inched upward on the pillows.
“Yes.…”

The word spilled past her lips in a breathless sigh, and she wanted to strangle herself with her own stockings, for she was not some smitten young barmaid in a village inn. She was a lady of noble breeding, and she would not be so easily seduced by his charms.

“But I don’t care what you have to say to me,” she quickly amended. “I will never forgive you for your reprehensible behavior in the solar. You were a selfish brute.”

“Indeed I was,” he agreed, surprising her by lifting a knee and climbing onto the bed.

Her belly swarmed with nervous butterflies, but she fought the urge to blush or stammer. “And that’s all you have to say to me?”

“No, that is not all.” He stretched out on his side beside her, propped up on one elbow, and cupped her cheek in his hand. “I owe you an apology, lass. I should have listened to you in the stone circle when you denied my accusations. I should never have taken you from your home. And while we were traveling, I suspected something was wrong, that you were not the woman I despised, and yet I pushed on. I should have listened to my instincts—and to you—and for that I am deeply sorry.”

Catherine regarded him with shock in the pale afternoon light, and tried to ascertain if he was sincere, or simply trying to charm her into forgetting that he’d treated her like a witch and deserved to have his head soaked in brine.

All her instincts told her that he was genuine, but she wasn’t sure she could trust those instincts—not when her foolish body was melting into a puddle of infatuation at the wonderful nearness of him.

“What about your beastly behavior in the solar just now?” she added, working hard to sound impervious to his apology when she knew how difficult it must have been for him to come here and essentially get down on his knees to grovel. But after everything that had happened between them, she
wanted
to see him grovel. It was only right. “Do you have anything to say about that?”

He looked into her eyes, then down at her lips. His thumb brushed across her cheek, and she felt a passionate fluttering in her belly.

“That, too, was wrong,” he softly said. “I was selfish and harsh, when I should have been sympathetic. None of this was your fault, yet I have been a scoundrel with you since the beginning, never more so than today. My only excuse is that I desired you, and when I learned that you were not the woman I hated, I could not confront those desires. You have to understand, lass, that I’ve spent the past three years pushing such feelings away. But today, it was cowardly of me, and you deserved better. So I will make my apologies to you, Lady Catherine, and beg for your forgiveness.”

Her heart began to hammer against her ribs as she pondered the fact that he’d just confessed desire, when she’d presumed he felt nothing for her but malice and loathing.

Despite everything, she desired him, too; there could be no denying it. He had lit a fire in her body that first day, kissing her senseless in the stone circle, and she had not been able to quench it since.

Now, here he lay, touching her cheek, begging for forgiveness, and confessing mutual desire.…

Catherine rested her hand on his chest and felt the beat of his heart. He allowed it only for a moment, then took hold of her hand and set it between them, back on the bed.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve let a woman touch me,” he said.

“What about the night I woke from the dream?” she replied. “I touched you then, and you touched me, too.”

“Aye, but I could not stay long beside you.”

A swarm of butterflies fluttered in her belly as she looked at his soft mouth and dreamed of how it would feel to be kissed by him again.

Lachlan gazed languorously into her eyes, and she wet her throbbing lips. A hot ache pulsed in her belly. How was it possible that the mere power of his gaze could fill her with such feverish desire? She wanted overwhelmingly to touch him.

“There is another reason why I am here,” he explained as if he sensed her yearnings and knew he had to interrupt them. “I have information about your twin. Angus told me that Raonaid has been living in Edinburgh.”

Catherine leaned up on her elbow. “He’s certain?”

“Aye. Do you want to meet her?”

“Yes, of course,” she replied.

He reflected upon that for a moment. “As you know, I have my own reasons to see her again,” he said, “so I will be leaving very soon. If you wish to accompany me, I will deliver you to Edinburgh safely, and do whatever it takes to protect you, and help you regain your memories. Perhaps Raonaid can be of some assistance to you. She is a mystic, after all.”

“But if she truly has such powers and sees things in visions, why has she never known that she has a twin? Angus was her lover for a year and she did not reveal it to him. Do you think she knows about me?”

“I wish I could answer that,” he replied; then he laid his head down on the pillow.

Exhaustion soon washed over Catherine, and her eyes began to flutter closed.

“I should go,” he whispered.

“Please don’t,” she blurted out. “It brings me comfort to know you are here. Please stay until I fall asleep.”

She was surprised when he nodded and brushed the hair away from her face.

The sound of his breathing soon lulled her into a deep slumber, filled with colorful dreams of the Highlands. She flew over valleys and mountains, then swooped down into a glen, over the rooftops of a stone cottage with a stable. There was a vegetable garden, and hens clucking nearby. She flew through the stable door, as if riding a fast gust of wind.

Hours later, she woke groggily, and Lachlan was gone. She sat up in a daze as the reality of her life settled into her consciousness.

It was safe to assume now that she was indeed Lady Catherine Montgomery, but she still did not have her memories back, nor did she know where she had been for the past five years, or why she was not a virgin.

Who had she been with, if not Angus?

Part of her did not want to know the answer to that question. She wished it would stay buried in the past.

When it came to her twin sister, however, she felt the opposite.

Of Raonaid, she wished to know everything.

Chapter Sixteen

Blue Waters Manor, south of Edinburgh

Same day

Raonaid was just finishing the afternoon milking when the stable door blew open and a strong wind stirred up the loose hay that was strewn across the floor. The hogs squealed and the chickens outside squawked and flapped their wings.

Heart suddenly racing, she stood up and knocked over the milking stool. “Who’s there?” Her gaze darted all around. “I know you’re in here!”

It was a presence she had felt all her life, even as a child, alone and frightened in bed. The spirit had never caused her harm, however, so Raonaid had learned to push the fear away. Over the past six months, however, the spirit had come more frequently and Raonaid sensed its agitation.

It blew around her in rapid circles, lifting strands of hay off the floor.

“Speak to me, ghost!” Raonaid said. “Why do you haunt me?”

I’m not a ghost
.

Raonaid dashed forward with surprise, for it had never spoken to her before. She turned in circles and looked up at the rafters. “What are you, then?”

I’ll come for you
.

Another fierce gust blew out the stable door, knocking it back on its hinges; then the air went still. The animals calmed and grew quiet.

A second later, the cow lifted her head and let out a raucous, shrieking,
Mooo!

Panic like Raonaid had never known before welled up in her heart. She grabbed the bucket of milk and ran outside, slamming the door shut and lowering the bar. She ran past the vegetable garden to the house and burst through the back door. Setting the bucket down on the worktable, she hurried through the parlor to the stairs.

Murdoch was seated at his desk. He looked up from his papers. He was dressed in his kilt today, which was unusual. His dark hair was tied back in a leather cord.

“Raonaid!” he shouted.

She halted at the bottom of the stairs.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“It wasn’t a ghost,” she replied. “I don’t know
what
it was.”

His eyes narrowed with curiosity as he rose and stalked toward her. “Was it some kind of vision?”

“I am not certain.”

He grasped her arm and hauled her around to face him. “Well, you best figure it out, lass. Scotland needs a king, and I must know when to act and who to trust. You promised me another vision by now, and if this opportunity passes, there may not be another.”

“Why does it matter so much to you?”

His cheeks flushed with passion and vigor. “We cannot allow the English to continue to subjugate us. If they had their way, they would banish us all to the north, then eventually push us into the sea. You don’t understand anything, do you?”

She wrenched her arm away from him. “Don’t tell me what I do, and do not, understand. I know how it feels to be banished. I’ve been branded a witch all my life, and now I am rejected by
you—
who will not even be seen in public with me.”

“People fear you, Raonaid. Your gifts make them uneasy.”

She arched a brow and spoke to him with dangerous accusation. “Do my gifts make
you
uneasy, Murdoch? Does my wickedness make you nervous?”

He took a moment to consider how best to answer the question; then at last, he cleared his throat and stepped back. “You’re my woman. I’ll not cast you out, like others have done.”

She scoffed bitterly. “You only keep me as your woman because you think I can change your future. You want to triumph over the Hanoverians, and you think that if I see it in the stones, it will make it so.”

“You saw a great triumph for Angus the Lion,” he argued. “You predicted his invasion at Kinloch Castle.” When she gave no reply, Murdoch’s voice softened and he laid a hand on her shoulder. “But that’s not the only reason I want you, Raonaid. You know that. You’re a beautiful woman.”

She glanced down at his hand, thought of the mysterious spirit that haunted her, then gave him a spiteful glare. “I don’t know why you think so. I am spiteful and malicious.”

It’s why she had been alone all her life. Everyone feared her. Some believed she was the devil.

Murdoch carefully removed his hand from her shoulder and let it fall to his side.

“There, now,” she said mockingly. “That’s more like it, for I cannot abide lies.” She turned away from him and climbed the stairs to her chamber.

Chapter Seventeen

Kinloch Castle

With her young maid as an escort, Catherine entered the twisting tower staircase. They climbed up one level, then made their way down another long, torchlit passageway.

“Is this the right direction?” Catherine asked, uncomfortably aware of the distance they had traveled through the castle. “I thought we were to dine in the East Tower?”

“Aye, milady, but I was given instructions to bring you here first.”

They reached another staircase and climbed all the way to the top. The maid gestured with a hand. “He’s waiting for you here, milady. He’ll take you to supper himself.”