Seduced by the Highlander (32 page)

I will not lose her.

But something from above caught Lachlan’s eye.

Raonaid moved out from behind a stone. She knelt down on one knee and threw her dirk. It spun through the air, end-over-end, and lodged itself deep in Murdoch’s back. His eyes glazed over with shock. His pistol dropped loosely from his grasp, and he fell forward onto the ground at Lachlan’s feet, twitched and moaned, then went still.

Lachlan glanced with surprise at Raonaid, then hurried back to Catherine. He dropped his sword and shield.

She was unconscious now, bleeding from the stomach. He rolled her over and saw the blood-soaked puncture wound at her back.

John came galloping toward them and skidded to a halt. “I shall send for the surgeon! May I leave her in your capable hands, sir?”

“Aye,” Lachlan replied as he gathered her limp form into his arms and whistled to Goliath. “I will bring her to the house. Fetch the surgeon,
quickly.
There is no time to spare. Tell him she has been shot in the back.”

John kicked in his heels and galloped furiously down the hill while Lachlan shifted Catherine in his arms. Carefully, he mounted Goliath. Once in the saddle, Lachlan cradled Catherine across his lap and clicked his tongue.

“Wait!” Raonaid came dashing down the hill. “Is she alive?”

“Aye,” he said. “Are you hurt, lass?”

“No, I’m fine. Murdoch is dead.”

Lachlan took note of the fact that she had a bloody lip and a cut eye. She must have fought Murdoch before he fired the shot.

“You did well with your dirk,” Lachlan said. “Your aim was true. Meet us back at the manor?”

“I will. Please get her home safely, Lachlan. I will bring your weapons back to you.”

He urged Goliath into a gentle canter and held Catherine close to his heart as they descended the hill.

*   *   *

Three hours after the shooting, Catherine still had not regained consciousness. The doctor arrived not long after Lachlan laid her in her bed, and later informed them that the pistol ball had passed through her abdomen without puncturing any organs, and he had been able to successfully stop the bleeding, but it was difficult to say whether or not she would survive. There was a dangerous risk of infection, and these things were impossible to predict.

“What about her arm?” Lachlan asked.

The doctor explained that he had set the bone in place and that it was fortunate that Lady Catherine had not been conscious during the procedure, or they would have heard her screams in the farthest reaches of the house.

Lachlan thought of his wife suddenly. How clearly he could recall the sound of her cries, the horror and the pain. He almost doubled over in agony at the thought of Catherine enduring such an ordeal.

There was nothing to do now but wait, the doctor told him, so Lachlan went to her bedside, got down on his knees, and cupped his hands together. Bowing his head, he prayed that she would wake up and that the fever would never take hold.

For the next hour, he held her uninjured hand in his. He wept quietly, his tears dripping onto her arm, and told her that he loved her. He pleaded with her, in shuddering, painful sobs, to wake up, but she offered no response.

Day turned to night, and he was devastated. Would he have to see her buried in the ground? He could not bear to think of it.

Darkness enveloped the room. A maid crept in to light candles and change the water in the basin, but Lachlan was barely conscious of her presence, for he was weary with grief and a terrible, harrowing anguish.

Why had he not loved Catherine the way he should have? he asked himself, over and over. Last night he had let her go. He had let her leave his bed because he could not love her the way she deserved and wanted to be loved.

It was all a sad, pointless waste. He had spent every day trying to protect her from a curse that was never real—and even when he learned it was a hoax, he
still
could not love her. He could not commit to her. Why? Because he feared he would lose her in childbirth? That she might die?

What was
this
then?

Had he spared himself this pain? No, he had not. She was dying, regardless of all his careful measures and precautions.

What had he been thinking? He was not God. He was just a man, and he could not control when, and how, someone he loved would be taken from this world. All he could do was treasure each day, spend each precious moment with her, and worship her in every possible way.

He bowed his head and kissed her hand. “Please wake up, Catherine.
Please…”

A knock sounded at the door, and it quietly opened before he had a chance to wipe the tears from his face.

Raonaid walked in and moved to the other side of the bed. “How is she?”

“No change,” he replied in a husky, shaky voice. “I cannot bear it, Raonaid. I cannot lose her.” He met the oracle’s deep blue gaze. “I
love
her.”

She regarded him intently for a long moment. “I suppose we have something in common, then.”

He paused. “Who would ever have imagined it?”

She nodded with a profound measure of understanding, then pushed Catherine’s hair away from her forehead and laid two tender kisses upon her eyelids. “I always knew you were with me,” she whispered to her sister, “and now that I’ve met you, I feel very different. Nothing is the same as it was. Please come back to us.”

There was still no sign of recovery, however, so Raonaid sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the bed.

“Where have you been?” Lachlan asked, for it was hours since Catherine was shot, and Raonaid had not returned until now.

“I remained there, in the circle,” she told him. “I wanted to see more.”

“What happened this morning?” he asked. “Did Catherine have a vision? Did she see her life? Did she remember anything?”

Raonaid shook her head. “We shared a vision, and we saw pieces of things, but nothing as a whole. When it was over she still did not remember. She was frustrated.”

Lachlan looked down at Catherine’s face, so peaceful now, and wished he could have helped her, but her lost memory was something mysterious, something beyond his control.

“What did you see?” he asked.

“There was a man,” Raonaid replied. “He was handsome, with flaxen-colored hair, and they were on a ship together, traveling abroad. They were together for quite some time. I could see it in her face, in the way she aged and matured. I would guess she was barely twenty on the ship, but later, they were in a carriage together, riding through city streets of stone. It might have been Rome.”

“She was found in Italy,” he told Raonaid.

“I know. I am also aware that King James has been living in exile in Rome, and that is where his son Charles was born, last Christmas.”

Lachlan watched Raonaid carefully in the candlelight, studying her expression, wondering if she had seen anything in her visions about the infant in the cradle. Did she know Catherine had dreamed of killing a child?

Raonaid gave no indication, however, of any such suspicion. She merely regarded him with challenge, as if to suggest it was
her
job now, too, to protect Catherine. Not his alone.

He supposed, if she survived, he and Raonaid would have to share that responsibility in the future, because he was not about to give it up.

“Put your worries to rest,” she said at last. “She did not try to kill the prince.”

His eyes lifted as a welcome wave of relief washed over him. “How can you be sure?”

“I saw it in a vision,” she explained. “A full year ago, though I believed I was seeing myself. I was often confused by my visions, and believed they were false. I did not always trust them, for I saw myself walking in her shoes, wealthy beyond my imaginings. But now I realize it was always Catherine I saw. She
saved
the prince, Lachlan. It was the flaxen-haired man who wanted to kill him. Catherine tried to stop him, and when she fought him, he tried to kill her, too.”

The deepest realm of Lachlan’s gut heaved with rage and aggression. He spoke in a low, quiet voice laced with a dark undertone of fury. “Who is this man? I will find him.”

Raonaid shook her head. “You cannot.”

“Don’t tell me what I cannot do,” he warned.

Her eyes flashed with confidence and satisfaction. “He is dead.”

The news came as a surprise, and Lachlan had to work hard to calm his temper and his breathing. “How? Who was he? I must know.”

Raonaid leaned forward and laid a hand on Catherine’s forehead, gazing down at her with sorrow and compassion. “He was her husband, Lachlan. That is all I know. And I am glad he is dead, for he was not kind to her.”

*   *   *

Am I dead?
Catherine wondered, struggling relentlessly to lift her heavy eyelids.

No, I cannot be dead, for in heaven there could not exist this pain.

Her entire left side was throbbing. She felt like she’d been stabbed, yet all she could think of was the blinding light that had warmed her soul when the world stopped spinning.

But
oh,
there was also an excruciating pain in her left arm. She couldn’t move it. It was wrapped in some sort of splint.

At last, she opened her eyes and lifted her arm, curious to look at it. Confused and groggy, she gazed up at a frescoed ceiling. There were gods, angels, and clouds.… The sky was a lovely shade of gray blue.…

“Sweet God in heaven.”

His mouth covered hers, and Catherine lifted her good hand off the bed. She slid her fingers through his hair to hold him close, to kiss him lovingly in return.

Lachlan.
Her beautiful Highlander. The man who had come from far away to rescue her from the strange empty black oblivion of her existence.

“I remember,” she said as he drew back and sobbed over her shoulder, weeping endless tears of joy. “I remember everything.” She ran her hand over his hair and stroked the long dark locks away from his tearstained face. “Am I going to live?”

“Aye,” he replied, laughing and kissing her on the mouth again. “You’re going to live, lass. You’re awake now, and the doctor says you are strong.”

“Well, I would have to be, wouldn’t I?”

He laughed joyously, and his dark eyes gleamed with gorgeous flecks of gold. “I always said you were a survivor, and here you are, so lovely. So alive. Do you remember what happened to you?”

Yes, she remembered running with her sister, away from the circle of standing stones. There was a gunshot, and an explosion of pain in her back.

“Murdoch shot me.”

“Aye, but your sister stopped him before he could finish what he started. He came after you again, but she saved your life.”

“How?”

“She dirked him, from a very great distance, and hit her mark. It was an impressive strike. She’s quite a woman, that sister of yours.”

Catherine touched his cheek. “But you hate her.”

“Aye, I did. Maybe I still do, for many things, but I think I may be able to forgive. After what she did for you … For both of us.”

Catherine closed her eyes for a moment as all the events of her life over the past five years shifted the foundation of her existence. There was so much she had not known, but she could see it now. She understood. She remembered.

“Can there ever be an
us
?” she tentatively asked. “I am not sure you will think so, after I tell you everything.” She regarded him in the dancing light from all the candles in the room. “I know where I was before. I know what happened to me, where I went, and what I did. I am afraid to tell you.”

He kissed her hand. “Nothing will ever change what I feel for you, lass. You can tell me anything.”

“Are you certain? Because there are things … I was very young, Lachlan. Very foolish.” She paused and swallowed hard. Her throat was painfully dry.

He seemed to read every thought that materialized in her head and crossed to the washstand to pour a glass of water.

“Drink this.” He returned to the bed and helped her sit up. He held the glass to her lips.

Catherine devoured it greedily, then lay back down on the soft feather pillows.

“The doctor has prescribed laudanum for the pain,” Lachlan said. “You must tell me if you need it.”

“Later perhaps, but not now.”

He climbed onto the bed beside her and gathered her close in his arms. His warmth was like a blanket from heaven, and she did not want to let go.

“Tell me everything,” he said. “I’m listening.”

She buried her face in the soft wool of his tartan. “You know that my father died six years ago?”

“Aye.”

“Well, nothing was the same after that. He hadn’t even been dead a year when my grandmother pushed me to marry someone. Someone I did not love. He was too old.”

“Love is important,” Lachlan said.

She nodded wearily. “I always thought so. So I ran off. I ran away with a handsome young English officer I met at a political assembly, hosted here at Drumloch. All the guests were Hanoverians, because of John’s political opinions, which differed from mine. But there was one young man who had Jacobite sympathies. His name was Jack. We snuck off and talked all night, and I believed him to be a great hero for the cause.”

“Was he not what you believed?”

Catherine shook her head. “No, but I didn’t know that until it was too late. He was good to me at first, you see. We ran away together to France and were married in secret.”

She glanced up at Lachlan carefully, not sure what he was thinking, but he gave almost no reaction, so she continued.

“I didn’t tell anyone where I was going,” she explained. “I hated my grandmother, and I barely knew John. All I knew was that he had taken my father’s title and possession of this house, which was my home. I felt he had no right to be here.”

“He was your father’s heir,” Lachlan gently said.

“I understand that now,” she confessed. “I knew it then, I suppose, but I was so grief stricken over the loss of my father. I resented John. I wanted my old life back.”