If only I’d inherited her gifts. Catriona stared at the bruise along her jaw. Oh, what a curse I’d place on dear brother.
Calum wasna in poor health and his evil grew stronger every day.
Catriona placed the mirror face down on her dressing table, then pressed her hand atop it, closed her eyes, and whispered a desperate prayer, “Show me how, Mother. Show me so I dinna fail ye in the keeping of my promise.”
A light tap on the door interrupted her. Catriona rose from the small upholstered stool, pressed a hand to the taut ties of her bodice, then hurried across the room and opened the door. “Aye?”
Jenny, Sawny’s older sister and according to Cook, the best kitchen maid in the keep, stood with hands clasped in front of her narrow aproned middle, squeezing her fingers so hard that her knuckles shone white. Jenny’s pale blue eyes rounded wide and Catriona heard her faint gasp before Jenny dropped her gaze to the floor and curtsied. “Sorry to bother ye, m’lady, but Mrs. Aberfeldy sent me to fetch ye if ye be well enough to come downstairs.”
“Of course, I'm well enough. What a curious thing to say.” Catriona joined the young girl in the hall and closed the door behind her with a firm thud. She would assume her normal duties as though nothing had happened. 'Twas the only way to keep the rumors held to a manageable level.
The keep was a community all its own—a giant beehive with every individual connected to the other. When excitement occurred, frenetic whispers hummed from the highest turret down to the dirt floor of the root cellar. If the gossip remained unchecked, it would seize control of the keep.
She smoothed her apron over her wool skirts, then checked her pockets to make sure she had her essentials. Knife. Kerchief. Aye, she had them all. With a decisive nod to herself, she hurried to catch up with Jenny. “Has Mrs. Aberfeldy seen to our guests and their breakfast?”
Jenny paused mid-step and gave her a sideways glance as though pondering what should or shouldn’t be said. “All but one, m’lady.”
“What do you mean ‘all but one’?”
“The big one, Master Alexander MacCoinnich, willna eat nor allow anyone but yourself to see to his bandages and bedclothes—so he said.” Jenny scurried faster. “He’s another reason Mrs. Aberfeldy sent me to fetch ye.” Jenny lowered her voice, glancing behind them as she slowed her steps then cast a fearful glance around the curve of the stairwell. “She fears he’s gone mad with the fever again—or taken by demons. The man's ranting has grown verra loud.”
Catriona hated that Alexander had witnessed last night’s humiliating display of brutishness. His roaring battle cry and calling his brothers to arms had echoed off the walls. And afterward—she cleared her throat and hitched in a quick breath. His kindness afterward had triggered a tender fluttering beneath her breastbone she had no right to feel. Fool she was. The man would leave as soon as he healed. He was a mercenary. Mercenaries didna tarry anywhere verra long.
She couldn’t resist the faintest of smiles. Aye, but Alexander MacCoinnich was an honorable man. She almost ran down the last of the stairs, waving Jenny toward the kitchens as she headed to the center of the hall. “Thank ye, Jenny.”
Jenny responded with a curt bob of her head, then darted off to her duties.
The servants storing away the visitors’ pallets and setting up the tables for the morning meal shot startled glances her way. Their gazes lingered over-long on her face. Catriona's jaw throbbed. 'Twas as though their stares were prying fingers poking and prodding her bruise.
She lifted her head and set her teeth. Let them stare. I’m no’ afeared. She focused her attention on the cluster of individuals milling about Alexander’s sickbed. If not for the fact that Alexander's ranting sounded quite lucid, angry but lucid, Catriona would have felt concern.
She clapped her hands and raised her voice to be heard above their arguing. “Oy! Oy! What be the problem? The din ye’re making will surely cause an avalanche on the mountain. Quiet with ye now, aye?”
Alexander’s kin split as clean as the Red Sea had parted for Moses. They stepped away from his bedside, relief shining on all their faces.
Catriona shooed them away. “Go now. See to your own meals. Your food grows cold.” She drew closer to the bedside and fixed Alexander with a stern look she usually reserved for her little brothers when they misbehaved.
Such fire snapped in the man’s eyes. Catriona could understand why Jenny and Mrs. Aberfeldy feared him crazed with fever or mayhap even riddled with demons. Dark eyes just a shinin’, they are. Last night she’d thought them black or perhaps the richest brown, but that was in the shadows. This morning they were the deepest blue fringed in white—as though mimicking a night sky filled with angry lightning. “I would think ye’d want your dressings changed. Do ye not? Since your fever’s broken, ye willna have to endure any more of Elena’s poultices and if ye behave, we’ll see to sitting ye up in a chair, aye?”
“I wish them changed by you. No one else.” Alexander glared at her, then his gaze settled on her bruised jaw. “And I mean to horsewhip that bastard as soon as I’m able, ye ken?”
“So ye said last night.” And I’d pay a hefty bag of silver to watch ye, my fine warrior. Catriona turned away, half-fearing her thoughts would show in her eyes. She pulled her small sgian dubh from its sheath within her pocket and set to cutting the dressing away from Alexander’s shoulder. “I appreciate the sentiment, Master MacCoinnich, but dinna trouble yourself. My brother isna worth your efforts, aye?”
He caught her wrist and held it above the dressings she was trying to cut away. “I’ve asked that ye call me Alexander, ye ken?”
“Aye, that ye have, Alexander. I’ll do my best to remember.” The uncharacteristic heat of a blush warming her cheeks, Catriona busied herself sorting through the assortment of jars and bottles on the bench beside her. Stop being the fool, she scolded herself. Land sakes, ye’d think she was a lass mooning after a laddie. She plucked up a small jar from the bench and turned back to him, determined to stop acting so silly. “I’ve a salve for your wrists. I’m sorry the ties chafed ye so.”
Alexander gave her a dubious look. “'Tis no' that rotted dung again, is it? If so, I’d rather leave them to heal in their own good time.”
“Nay.” Catriona smiled. Alexander’s curled lip and wrinkled nose lifted her spirits. “Elena scented this one with ground rose petals. I swear it.” She pulled away the waxed cloth covering the jar and offered it to him. “Smell.” She almost laughed aloud when he tilted his head to a leery angle and gave the jar a hesitant sniff. All the while, he watched her as though she might fling the noxious mess at him at any moment.
He relaxed back into his pillows and nodded as he held out both arms. “Ye canna blame me. Would ye no' rather reek of roses than the manure that fertilized them?”
“Aye,” she agreed, unable to resist an unladylike snort of amusement. She daubed the salve on his reddened wrists then massaged it into his skin. Such strength. Even relaxed, his forearms rippled with hardened muscle, so large and bulked she'd never seen such. Catriona cleared her throat and bent to the task at hand, very much aware of Alexander’s steady gaze upon her.
“Be ye in a great deal of pain?”
Alexander’s deep, gentle tone held so much concern, she caught her breath. Catriona set her jaw and forced herself to keep her attention focused on the man’s arms. “Nay. Dinna fret yourself. I’m quite well. I assure ye.”
“I dinna believe ye, Catriona.” The way he spoke—so low and soothing—he shouldna do so. Not with a tone filled with such caring it threatened to set her to trembling.
She avoided looking him in the eye, turning away to return the jar to the bench. “Aye. I am fine, ye ken?” Her hands trembled as she wiped them in her apron and struggled to assume a calm, detached demeanor. “Do ye wish to try and sit up for a while?”
“Aye.” Alexander flinched as he rolled to his side too fast for her liking.
“Hold fast now! Let me help ye.” Catriona rushed to
snug her shoulder up beneath his, wrapped her arm across his broad back, and held on tight. “Slow now. Slow,” she crooned as she supported him.
Alexander groaned as he swung his body around and shifted to a sitting position. “Holy Mother of God,” he growled out. He wrapped his arm around Catriona’s shoulders and held her tight. He bowed his head, hissing at the pain through bared teeth.
“Whisky!” Catriona shouted to a nearby servant. “Now!” She held tight to Alexander. The heat of him. The feel of him clutched in her arms. Sweet Jesu, what would it be like if such a man chose to court me? Nay, not only court me, but claim me. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and forced away the unseemly thoughts. For shame! He needs healing. Not some moon-eyed maid.
The servant scurried back to them with a bottle and handed it to Catriona. She plucked out the cork with her teeth and hurried to put the bottle to Alexander’s mouth and tip it for a long, healthy draw.
Alexander gulped down the promise of pain relief. With a deep pulling in and huffing out of whisky-scented breath, he relaxed with a faint groan then sidled himself to a seated position atop the bed.
Catriona eased a step back but kept a tight hold of his arm, secretly wishing she still had an excuse to snug up close to him. What was it about this man that attracted her so? His strength? His honor? In the short time he’d risen from his fever, he’d shown himself to be…what? A caring man. Aye, that’s what it was. Unlike most men in her life, this man cared for others more than he cared for himself. He even behaved as though he cared for her welfare and she feared such caring 'twould be her undoing.
Blinking hard against the troubling revelation, Catriona stretched out her foot to pull a small wooden stool closer and eased Alexander’s injured leg up on it. By the amount of pain his movement had caused, she verra much doubted he wished to sit upright for verra long. They wouldna move him to a chair beside the hearth today. He’d gone too pale, and she feared he was about to retch or topple over or both at any moment. She noted the proximity of the nearest bucket and slid it closer, too.
Mrs. Aberfeldy appeared bearing a tray with a small teapot, another bottle of whisky, and a shallow bowl of a yellowish-brown liquid. “He needs to get this broth into himself then drink Elena’s tonic.” She placed the tray on a small table beside the bed and gave Catriona a knowing look as she tapped a finger on the corked bottle of spirits. “He’ll need the whisky to cut the flavor of the vile stuff. The devil himself couldna stand that concoction.”
Alexander didn’t respond. He sat with head bowed and eyes closed, hands clenching the edge of the bed and arms locked in place. A sheen of sweat covered his brow and his breathing came shallow and fast.
Catriona picked up the bowl of broth, moved in close, and pressed the edge of the shallow wooden bowl to his mouth. “Try to get down just a wee bit,” she coaxed. She brushed his hair back from his face, then wrapped an arm across his shoulders and squeezed. “Just one good sip of the broth and then I’ll give ye enough whisky to make ye sleep. I promise.”
“Sister!” The bellow came from the front of the hall, near the outer doors leading to the bailey.
“Make him come here,” Alexander said in a low, dangerous rasping tone without lifting his head or opening his eyes.
Catriona placed the cup of broth back on the tray then returned to Alexander’s side. Concern flashed through her. She noticed he trembled the barest bit. “We need to lie ye back down, Alexander. I fear we’ve done too much.”
“Nay,” Alexander said with a deep, rumbling growl. “Make…him…come here.”
She didn’t have to take any action to do as Alexander asked because Calum already stormed toward them, marching in and out between the rows of tables, his cloak billowing out behind him. He halted at the foot of Alexander’s bed.
“I demand ye make one of those useless maids tend to this man,” Calum said in a brutish tone that boomed across the hall. His scowl twitched and his eyes narrowed as his gaze settled on her bruise. “'Tis unseemly for ye to do such. I’ll no' have it, ye ken?”
“Make him come closer,” Alexander whispered, his gaze still locked on the floor.
“What did he say?” Calum snapped, his focus whipping from Catriona to Alexander and then back to Catriona.
Was that fear she saw in her brother’s eyes? Interest piqued, Catriona took a step closer to Alexander and set her hand to his shoulder to steady him. “He said, ‘come closer’.”
With an arrogant huff, Calum stomped around Alexander’s propped foot, took a stance in front of him, then shoved his face to within inches of Alexander’s nose. “Close enough for ye?”
Lightning fast, Alexander grabbed hold of Calum’s throat, curled his fingers around Calum’s windpipe and squeezed. “If ye ever strike a woman again, especially this woman standing beside me, I’ll rip off your bollocks and shove them down your throat, ye ken?”
Calum’s face flared to an alarming shade of red and his eyes rolled back. He clawed and slapped at Alexander’s arm and hand, gagging and gasping for air as he sank to his knees.
“Alexander, ye must stop.” Catriona shoved her way between them, one hand flat on the center of Alexander’s chest as she tried to make him listen before he toppled off the bed. “He’s not worth killing yourself over. Ye’re too weak for this. Please stop for your own sake. I beg ye.”
With a jerking shove, Alexander booted Calum with his uninjured leg and launched him back across a bench. A grim, satisfied look settled across his face as he sagged sideways back down to the edge of the bed.
Duncan, Sutherland, and Magnus rushed to help Catriona get Alexander straightened and settled safe in the bed's center.
“I want that bastard gone!” Calum croaked as he clambered backward and rose from the floor, one hand held to his fiery red throat. “I want all of ye gone afore I return. Ye hear me?” He made a sweeping motion with one hand, pointing at Alexander and all his men as he staggered back toward the bailey doors.
“They are my guests and I bid them stay as long they like.” With Alexander guarded by his brothers, Catriona shoved her way through the overturned furniture toward her brother. “The chieftain of Clan Neal has granted them sanctuary and ye ken as well as I that Father willna take kindly to your usurping of his orders. He willna tolerate ye making him appear a weak, indecisive chieftain.”
“Ye will pay for this, sister,” Calum sputtered as he yanked open one of the tall double doors and squinted against the icy winter wind that whooshed in around it. “I swear on Mother’s grave—ye will pay.”
“'Twas well worth it,” Catriona said as she watched the door close behind him.
Chapter 5
“Are ye in need of anything?”
“Your company if ye be of a mind to give it.”
Alexander kent verra well he was acting a stubborn, demanding arse, but he didna care. Nothing soothed him like Catriona. The woman was a balm to his soul and gave him a brief respite from the gnawing guilt of his failure to protect Clan MacDonald. He’d watched her all morning. She'd flitted in, out, and around the great hall like a wee sparrow tending her nest. 'Twas time she sat and visited with him for a while.
“I see.” Catriona motioned toward Magnus and Graham where they sat on either side of him. Her expression told him loud and clear she was privy to his self-serving antics but was willing enough to indulge him. “Ye have your brother and your friend here visiting with ye. Is that no' company enough?”
Magnus barked out a laugh and rose from his seat beside the hearth. “Come, Graham. I believe they have dismissed us good and proper.”
Graham stood and gave Catriona a polite bow. “Ye have the patience of a saint, m’lady, a true saint.” He turned to Alexander and nodded. “I’d call ye selfish, brother, but were the situation reversed, I canna say I wouldna do the same.” He nudged Magnus as they meandered away. “Would ye no' druther the company of the lass to Alexander?”
“Aye. I would at that,” Magnus said in a loud v
oice as he glanced back at Alexander and gave him a wink.
Alexander ignored them and motioned toward the chair beside him. “M’lady.” He shifted in his own seat, flinching against the pain the movement stirred. He resettled the foot of his injured leg on the pillowed stool in front him, damning the weakness for the shackle it was.
His discomfort didn’t escape Catriona. Perched on the edge of the seat, she made to rise again. “I’ll fetch your tonic. 'Tis nearly time for another cup of herbs.”
“Nay.” Alexander stayed her movement with a touch to her wrist. “Talk with me. Time with ye will ease the pain more than any herb.”
Catriona’s fair skin flushed at the compliment, twin patches of rosy red highlighted her fine cheekbones and spread to hide the light dusting of freckles across her nose. “I’m pleased to see ye’ve improved much. Grown stronger and left your bed longer each day.” Her mouth tightened, and she grew serious, glancing down as her voice fell to little above a whisper. “Ye will take leave of us soon, I expect?”
The more time spent with Catriona, the more disturbing Alexander found the thought of leaving. Each time the unpleasant subject reared its head, he’d push it to the back of his mind. He couldna face that prospect just yet. He’d deal with that when the time for leaving came. His heart lightened as the howling wintry wind chose that moment to rattle the windows in their casings. “If ye feel ye can bear our company, we would most certainly appreciate your hospitality ‘till winter eases its hold on the land.” He nodded toward the ice-encrusted windows. “‘Twould be vicious hard traveling through such as this.”
The Chieftain: A Highlander's Heart and Soul Novel Page 5