“Dammit, man!” Iain looked around at the gathering crowd in the hallway and opened the nearest door before shoving his brother through it.
“If ye lay one more hand on me, Iain, I swear to God that I will cut them off!”
“Liam, ye must get ahold of yourself man! I know what ye think you saw, but I'll tell ye now that ye are terribly mistaken.”
“Oh, mistaken am I?” Liam snorted. “Do ye take me for some kind of fool? A blind man could see what the two of ye were doing back there. And have ye so little care for me, that not only must ye woo my wife, but ye must do it out in the open for God and all to see?”
“I was not wooing yer wife!”
“Yer hands were all over her and ye were talking about love! I saw the way she touched ye. The way ye held her close. Do ye hate me so much? Do ye think me such of a fool that ye could make up any story ye pleased, and ye think that I would believe it?”
Liam rand a hand through his hair, agitated as he stormed back and forth, his thoughts swirling.
“Ye must think that I'm a born cuckold, the way that Alana played me for a fool. Ye could have any woman ye want, Iain ye always have. Why must it be MY WIFE! Could ye not see that I loved her? You who know me best? And ye would woo her anyway?”
“Liam, ye are not listening! Ye're seeing it all wrong!”
“I knew she preferred ye! She as much as said it from the start, but stupidly I believed her when she said she cared for me. That she wanted to start over and have a true marriage with me. And I allowed myself to believe it. But the truth is finally out she is just the same as Alana!”
“No, I am not!”
Liam had not even noticed that Catriona had entered the room. She had not said a word as he raged at his brother, but now that he saw her standing there, her eyes full of false tears and fear, fear at having being discovered for her falseness at last, he wanted to strangle her.
“And you! Ye wee whore! Ye might think that ye had me fooled, but I see ye for who and what ye really are now.”
Blinded by pain and betrayal, his words lashed out at her.
Catriona's eyes went wide with shock at his words.
“Ye will not speak to her that way!” Iain shouted.
“Aye, yes, come to yer trollop’s defense. Well if ye want my whore of a wife so badly, then you're more than welcome to her! And don't worry brother, she's only been used but the once.”
Liam's face exploded with white-hot pain as Catriona's palm connected with it.
“You, Liam MacDonell, are a cruel, heartless bastard! You are the most stubbornly blind man I have ever met in my entire life. How DARE you say such absolutely horrid things about me! I regret the day I ever allowed myself to fall in love with you!”
Sobbing, Catriona turned on her heels and fled from the room.
“Right, then,” said Iain. “Obviously ye aren't seeing sense so maybe this will help.” Iain took two steps forward and then dived at his brother.
The two of them crashed into a small table and sent it flying as they crashed into the ground.
Though Liam outweighed him, Iain had always had the advantage of speed over his brother when catching Liam by surprise. His fists shot out fast while he had the upper hand, hitting his brother in the ribs and the jaw.
“Get the hell off of me!” Liam said, landing blow after blow of his own as he began to rapidly gain the upper hand.
“Not until you listen, you stupid, stubborn bastard.”
“I'll not listen to more of yer lies,” Liam shouted.
“Yes,” Iain said, his voice low as he rolled, landing atop of Liam and pressing a sharp blade to his throat. “You will.”
Liam eyed his brother coolly as the sharp steel bit into his skin. “You would kill me for her then?”
“Listen to me Liam, and listen to me well. I am not in love with Catriona, nor she with me. What ye saw between us in that alcove was the two of us discussing her love for you. I was asking her if she loved ye. And she told me yes. I hugged her because I was happy for the two of ye. Happy that ye had a chance for peace at last. I've been worried about ye since the death of Alana, and in that moment I believed that I needn't worry about ye any longer, now that the two of ye had found each other.”
Iain removed the blade from Liam's neck and slid it back into his sheath.
“But I cannot be sure if the damage ye've just done can ever be repaired.” Iain got up off of his brother and walked out of the room, leaving Liam bruised and sore on the floor by himself to consider in horror the magnitude of the mistake he had just made.
Liam stared after his brother as Iain's words sunk in, and as the truth of his admission registered, Liam's blood ran cold at the fear of the irreparable damage he may have just done. There was no way that Catriona could possibly forgive him now, and whatever love she felt for him had probably just been destroyed forever.
Chapter 27
Catriona rushed out into the darkness, unable to see even a few short feet in front of her, blinded by the tears that flooded her eyes. How could Liam accuse her of such things after all that they had been through? She had tried to show him how much she cared for him. That she had grown to love him. Yet his faith in her was still not strong enough to quell the suspicion voice in his heart.
Catriona tripped on a rock and let out a yelp as she fell forward onto her knees in the dirt. Her hands stung as they scraped across the dirt and rocks, and she clutched her torn, bleeding hands to her chest.
“Damn that Alana!” she shouted into the night. Curse her for the damage that she had done. The damage that she continued to do. Why must Catriona be the one to pay for the selfish woman's sins? She had never met her, and yet it was as though Alana had vowed to plague Catriona's life and destroy any hope she may have for happiness from beyond the grave.
If Liam himself could not move past the pain that his first wife had brought upon him, how could Catriona ever hope to hold a place in his heart? With all of the sorrow and suspicion that it had been filled with, she was losing hope that there was any room within it for him to love her.
She took a deep hiccupping breath and raised a hand to her face to wipe away the hot trail of tears when she heard light footsteps coming from behind her.
“Just leave me be,” she sobbed. But as she turned to face whoever had approached her, an arm wrapped around her and a large hand was clasped over her mouth.
Terror flooded Catriona's body as the memory of being taken by the reavers came rushing back.
“How very nice to see ye again, Lady MacDonell,” a voice hissed into her ear. “I've missed ye very much.”
Catriona struggled furiously to break out of the man's grip. She would have known that voice anywhere, there was no chance of her forgetting it until the day she died. Gavin.
“Now, now,” he said wrapping his other hand around her throat and squeezing it tightly. “Calm yourself. If ye make too much noise and alert anyone to my presence, well, I would be forced to kill them. And you wouldn't want to have their deaths on your conscience, now, would ye?”
Spots were starting to form in front of her eyes, and her head began to spin, but Catriona was able to nod her head ever so slightly.
“Good, that's very good. Very smart.” Gavin released the grip on her throat and Catriona slumped in his grip, sucking in deep gasps of air.
“Now then, the two of us are going to go for a little walk.”
“I'm not going anywhere with you!” Catriona hissed.
“Yes,” he said, spinning her around to face him. Catriona stared deep into the black pits of his eyes. Eyes she had prayed to never have to be face-to-face with again and cringed. “Ye are.” He moved quickly, too quickly for her to move out of his way. Grabbing her by a handful of hair he slammed her head into the stone wall of the keep. A loud crack echoed in her ears and then the world around her faded to black.
* * *
The floor was cold and hard beneath Catriona's bruised aching body. She groaned lightly
and slowly cracked her eyes open. The light was dim in the small room but as she strained to look around she saw Gavin sitting on a stool in a corner staring at her with disgust in his eyes.
“So ye're awake then. I was starting to get impatient.”
Catriona tried to sit up but found her hands and feet bound. “Where...” she tried to speak but her throat was sore and raw and her head throbbed from where it had hit the wall with enough force to knock her unconscious. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and tried to speak once more. “Where am I?” She asked him.
“I've brought you someplace very special. Someplace that was just for me and the woman I loved.”
Catriona's eyes opened wide. It was impossible to believe that this man, this horrible human being had ever been capable of loving another person. She found it highly doubtful that he would know what love was.
“Loved?” Catriona asked, wondering what had happened to the woman.
“Yes, ‘loved,’ and love. I still love her even though I can no longer be with her. She is now forever out of my reach.”
Catriona felt nothing but relief for whoever the poor woman was that had somehow been saved by Gavin's affections. She could not imagine how horrifying it must have been to know that you were the object of Gavin's love.
“What happened to her?” She asked him.
Gavin's eyes had a faraway look, and he was no longer looking at Catriona, but through her, past her, as though her were seeing something completely different from the dingy little room.
“She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen,” he said, his voice wistful as he remembered back to the day he first laid eyes on the woman he loved.
“I was with my father. We had ridden down to the village together and he knocked on the door of a hut and a beautiful woman answered the door. She had long black hair all the way down her back and large, striking green eyes. I remember being shocked when we stepped inside her home, and my father kissed her on the lips. I had no clue who the woman was, my father had never mentioned her before.
“She led him upstairs, and I sat in the small parlor waiting for him to come back down when the front door opened again, and a gorgeous young woman walked in. She was the spitting image of her mother. Long black hair and the same large emerald-green eyes. She was surprised to see me sitting there all alone but when she heard the noises from upstairs all she did was cock her head and ask, ‘He's here again isn't he?’ It was then I realized that whoever the woman was, my father had been visiting her for some time. She led me outside, away from the noise of our parents upstairs, and we sat together on the low stone wall that encircled her house. What we talked about, I can barely remember, I just remember being so entranced by her. By the way she looked, and moved, the way she laughed. She was so full of life. I wanted her.
“My father took me with him to the village many times after that, giving the girl and me plenty of time to get to know each other. I don't know how it happened. I don't know if it was just because she was as lonely as I. But in time, she came to love me. We only had each other. Our trysts coincided with those of our parents, taking the time we found alone to spend with one another. I promised her that I would marry her one day. But then the worst happened.
“One day I went to visit her and when I arrived at the door, she would not see me. It was clear to see that she had been crying. After much begging, she finally admitted to me that she was to be wed. Her mother had made her an advantageous match, and there was nothing that could be done to change it.
“I told her that I would go to her mother and tell her that I wanted to marry her daughter. I could ask my father to intercede on my behalf. But she said that it would do no good. That her mother would never allow her to marry the unacknowledged bastard of her lover.
“But I told her that we could not go without a fight. So I went to her mother and proclaimed my love for her daughter, and I swore that I would take care of her for the rest of her life. Her face. I cannot explain to you the expression of sorrow that passed over her mother’s face with every word I said.
“‘Is what he says true?’ she demanded of her daughter. And when my love confirmed my words she lashed out and slapped her with such force that she was knocked into the table and fell to the ground. She hit the edge of the table with such force that she miscarried and lost the baby that I did not know she was carrying.
“Her mother wept, but not at the loss of her unborn grandchild. She declared our baby an abomination. Created out of an unnatural love. An evil love. It was then we learned that we were half-brother and -sister. In all the years that my father had been visiting her mother, neither of us had known that he was her father as well. She had known a father growing up. He was a baker in the village, and a wonderful father from the stories she had told me. But it turned out that she, like me, was another of my fathers unclaimed bastards.
“There was no way for us to be wed. Her condition was hidden from her intended until she could recover, and then, not long after, she was wed to her loathsome husband, the damnable Laird MacDonell.”
Catriona listened to his story, her eyes wide with horror, and even as he described the unspeakable love that he and his half-sister shared, she could not say that she was completely surprised to discover that the woman he first loved was Alana.
“Even as my love and Liam were married, we continued to see one another. She refused to bed him, you see,” a self-satisfied smirk ghosted across Gavin's face. “She kept herself only for me, for she was disgusted by the very thought of his touch. It was me she loved, and no other. And then one night, when she was on her way to see me, her horse threw her and she broke her neck.” Gavin turned to Catriona, his face twisted in a mask of rage. “If only she had been free to marry me. We could have gone away together. Started a new life where no one knew who we were. Her parentage was already a secret, we could have lived a happy life if it wasn't for her selfish whore of a mother!”
He lurched out of the chair and swept an arm across the table, sending the items upon it flying across the room. “It's MacDonell's fault she is dead! And I will not allow him happiness with another. I will not allow him to forget what he did to my Alana!”
Catriona shrank back as Gavin stormed across the room and grabbed her roughly by the hair on the top of her head. “Maybe I will send you back to him with her name carved across that pretty face of yours,” he hissed. “Let you be a constant reminder of her whenever he looks at you? Would you like that? Would you like to be my messenger?”
The violent blow landed on her cheek, and her face exploded in pain where his fist landed. She raised her hands to fend him off but he reared back and struck her once more.
Catriona went sprawling and tried in vain to crawl away but he was soon atop her.
“Get off me!” she screamed as he roughly flipped her over onto her back. “Get off!”
“That’s right, scream for me, ye wee bitch!” Gavin straddled her and wrapped his hands around her neck. Catriona clawed at him, raking her nails across the back of his hands as she tried to pry them off of her throat, but she was not strong enough. His gripped tightened and she kicked out, her legs flailing, her body desperate for air.
Gavin’s face loomed close as he continued to choke her, a manic smile spread across his face, his black eyes shining as they bore into her.
Her eyes watered and the edges of her vision began to blur and disappear.
“Let’s see how that MacDonell bastard handles having two dead wives on his hands.”
Catriona’s arms fell to her sides, the last of her strength gone, and her eyes fluttered shut on Gavin’s twisted face.
Chapter 28
Liam had searched the keep from top to bottom and there was still no sign of Catriona anywhere. A kernel of fear settled in the pit of Liam's stomach. What if he couldn't find Catriona in the keep because she was no longer there? What if he had finally succeeded in driving her off? She could be somewhere hiding from him, or even worse, on her way
back to her father's house already. And could he blame her? Once again he had failed her. At the first opportunity to show her that he had changed, that she could trust him, he instead turned on her yet again.
It pained him to look back and remember the hurt he saw in her eyes when he had accused her of desiring his brother. Her shock when he had called her a whore. His words had been inexcusable. He wanted to vomit from the shame of his actions. He didn’t deserve her. She was too kind, too open, too loving, and too precious. Just being near her filled him with hope and light. He could no longer deny that that was why he had pulled away from her for so long. He had been too afraid of the things she made him feel. He would give anything, anything, for the chance to tell her that he loved her and have her know it to be true.
“Liam.” He turned at the sound of Iain’s voice.
“Have ye found her?” he asked.
“I’ve seen no sign of her.”
“Do ye think she would have… Do ye think she may have…?”
“What?” Iain asked.
“Left me.” Liam forced out through clenched teeth.
Iain could not meet his eye and that was all the answer Liam needed.
There was a shouting coming from downstairs that drew Liam's attention from his thoughts. He exchanged a look with his brother.
“What on earth is that?”
“I dinna know,” said Iain, a worried expression on his face.
“You dinna think that something could have happened to Catriona? Maybe someone has found her injured somewhere?”
Liam took off down the hallway, leaving his brother to follow behind. When he reached the main floor in front of the great hall he saw his brother Alex standing with Laird Macnaghten trying to hold him back. Macnaghten struggled against the two men that held him, and shouted for Liam, a piece of paper clenched in his fist.
“I must see Laird MacDonell, there is no time to waste. I demand that ye unhand me man!” Macnaghten cursed them.
Highland Promise: The Daughters of Clan Drummond Page 18