Men could be such fools.
But women desired only peace.
And a few other pleasantries that every female with blood in her veins desired. She certainly wouldn’t be denying hers. Not after James had shown her how delicious carnal delights could be. She’d had only a brief taste, and she hungered for so much more.
How exciting if his kisses, and what she now knew followed them, might settle the glen feuding in ways a man’s sword or ax never could.
If Isobel and Kendrew’s sister, Lady Norn agreed, perhaps they could persuade the men of the glen to see things their way.
It was worth a try.
“An alliance?”
Isobel didn’t hide her skepticism as she, Catriona, and Marjory stood in the shelter of an abandoned cook stall set in the trees behind the infirmary tent. “The three of us banding together to conspire against our men? I swear to you, the effort would only turn our hair gray and put worry-bags beneath our eyes. Cameron men wed only daughters of allied chieftains, friends. Not since Lady Edina—”
“Lady Edina was the last woman of a feuding clan to marry into the Mackintoshes, too.” Marjory couldn’t hold back a shiver of distaste. “Every chieftain since her long-suffering husband has vowed to never again wed a shrewish, unwilling wife. Kendrew would sooner—”
“I don’t see it as conspiring.” Catriona wasn’t sure that was true, but she kept her doubt to herself. “And”—she turned to Marjory—“you’re both overlooking one crucial key to the plan’s success.”
Lifting her chin—and wishing she’d just bathed and donned her finest raiments—Catriona held out her arms and turned in a slow circle. She forced herself to forget her mussed hair and rumpled, stained clothes and recall that she was a high-born daughter of a great and noble house, the sister of one of the most respected chieftains in all the Highlands and the Isles. As, she knew, were Isobel Cameron and Marjory—Lady Norn—Mackintosh.
When she’d turned full circle, she stopped, setting her hands on her hips. “Tell me true, ladies.” She couldn’t keep her lips from twitching. “Do I look like a shrew who’d go unwilling to her husband’s bed?”
Isobel’s face pinkened. “Nae…”
Lady Norn arched a golden brow, a spark of amusement in her eyes. “Anything but, by all the Valkyries.”
“Exactly.” Catriona nodded, smiling. “And”—her excitement was beginning to grow—“neither of you look like angry, shriveled-up stick women, either.”
“But…” Isobel threw a glance over her shoulder, back toward the infirmary. “I’m still not sure it would work. Look what happened after the alliances with Lady Edina. The feuding only worsened, and Camerons have an even longer history with arranged marriages going wrong.”
“I know.” Catriona reached to squeeze Isobel’s arm, knowing the other woman would understand that she meant Scandia’s fatal match with Donar Strong-Sword. “But we are not those women of the past. We are our own selves and”—she glanced at Marjory, including her—“our marriages wouldn’t be true arranged unions. We will make our future husbands want us.
“We’ll seduce and beguile them until”—her heart sang with the brilliance of it—“they are so besotted that they think wedding us is their idea.”
Silence greeted her.
Then Marjory’s lips began curving in a smile. “I wouldn’t mind considering such a plan.”
“Then we shall!” Catriona could have hugged her.
Isobel still looked dubious. “They might become suspicious if we all—”
“We must start with just one of us.” Marjory looked at Catriona as she spoke. “This was your idea, so perhaps you should be the first bride?”
Catriona swallowed. Ice floes came to mind. “I—”
“It might work if you plied your charms on Hugh.” Isobel finally came around. “He would take you in a heartbeat and thank all the gods.”
“Hugh?” Marjory looked from Isobel to Catriona, then back at Isobel. “I was thinking James might suit her better. He’s chieftain, after all.”
“James would never wed a woman from a feuding clan.” Isobel shook her head. “He’s too certain such unions bring nothing but doom.”
Catriona felt her delight dimming.
“I will be the first, agreed. Though I have no wish to wed Hugh.” She took a deep breath, knowing her happiness depended on being courageous. “I will persuade James to wed me.”
There.
She’d said it.
“James?” Isobel’s rounded eyes didn’t inspire confidence.
But the sudden laughter in Marjory’s did. “Odin’s blessings on you, then!”
“Odin’s blessings.” Catriona repeated the wish, her heart thumping.
Then she held out the heather she’d picked earlier. “We must swear on it, vowing on these heather blooms, that we’ll each seek to win forever peace in the glen by winning the heart of one of our enemy’s men.”
“I vow it.” Marjory placed her hand over Catriona’s, closing her fingers around Catriona’s fist so that they both held the heather.
“And I.” Isobel did the same.
“Then we are agreed.” Catriona stepped back, kissing the blooms and them tossing the sprig high in the air, letting the wind carry it away. “It is done.”
The words spoken, she reached up to remove her amber necklace and placed it in Isobel’s hands.
“Take this”—she closed Isobel’s fingers around the precious stones—“back to Castle Haven tonight and show it to James. Tell him you found the necklace on the field and you know it is mine.
“He knows I always wear it, so he will believe you.” Catriona raised her hands, palms outward, and backed away when Isobel tried to return the necklace. “Nae—you must keep it, for now.”
“But how will a necklace help our plan?” Isobel frowned.
Catriona smiled, the idea seeming more perfect by the moment. “You must insist that James return the ambers to me at Blackshore. He will, I’m sure. And then—”
“You will seduce him.” That was Marjory.
“Nae.” Catriona shook her head, her whole body tingling with anticipation. “I will allow him to seduce me.”
And this time she’d make sure nothing went wrong.
Chapter Nineteen
Later that night, James entered his great hall and stopped almost as soon as he’d stepped from the entry arch into the vast room’s smoke-hazed reaches. Something prickled his nape and breathed gooseflesh along his arms. But aside from fewer men lining the long tables—the slain had been washed and awaited burial in the chapel, and the injured rested in the solar and elsewhere, under Beathag’s care—he couldn’t see anything that would stir his warrior’s instincts, warning him that something was afoot.
Beside him, Hector growled low in his throat, the dog’s hackles rising.
Yet nothing appeared different than any other night.
Almost every torch blazed, and a well-doing fire chased the worst of the evening’s chill. The tantalizing smell of roasting meats filled the air. Men crowded the trestle benches, eating and talking, and some had gathered in a corner, arguing loudly over a game of dice. And, as so often in autumn, windblown rain lashed at the walls, rattling shutters, lifting the edges of tapestries, and guttering candles on the tables near the embrasures.
Colin stood in one of the darker alcoves, his back to the hall and his hands braced on the window splay. He’d unlatched the shutters and appeared to be staring out at the cold, wet night. He was grimacing, for James could see the white of Colin’s teeth in the dimness. Or so he thought until he looked deeper into the shadows and saw the plump kitchen lass on her knees before Colin.
“Damn fool!” James quickly turned away and started down the broad aisle between the long tables, the prickles at the back of his neck worsening the closer he came to the raised dais end of the hall.
Something was amiss there.
He could taste it on the back of his tongue.
Tr
ickery or an ambush—he knew the feeling well. And the awareness-chills raced along his skin, wariness tightening his chest, humming in his veins. He saw why the instant he mounted the dais steps.
Catriona’s amber necklace lay on the high table before his sister.
James froze on the top step, staring at the gleaming stones. The humming in his veins became a great roar. Narrowing his eyes, he started forward again, recognizing the serene look on Isobel’s face. She always appeared most poised when she was up to something. And just now her calm signaled that she was as battle-ready as any warrior.
“Isobel.” He stalked toward her, glaring.
“James. We wondered when you’d join us.” She set down her eating knife and reached for a linen napkin, calmly dabbing at her lips as he came closer.
“Where did you get that?” He stopped before his laird’s chair, gripping its high carved back. He didn’t bother to say what he meant.
Everyone at the high table knew. The flurry of coughs, cleared throats, and reaching for bannocks or ale cups proved it. As did the averted gazes and, in some cases, the sudden attention to the castle dogs scrounging for scraps beneath the table.
Rarely had the beasts received so many prime bits of good meat.
“Isobel…” James ignored dogs and men, focusing on the soul he knew responsible. “That bit of frippery belongs to Catriona MacDonald.”
“So it does, I do believe.” Isobel gave him a sweet smile.
She set down her napkin, carefully folding it before she touched a finger to the necklace. The stones glowed like a living thing, gleaming brightly in the light cast by a wall sconce. For two pins, James would believe the hell-blasted ambers were heating, pulsing wickedly, catching fire beneath his eyes.
He tore his gaze away to glare at his sister. “Answer me. Where did you get the necklace? The last time I saw Lady Catriona it was around her neck.”
“Then she must’ve lost it, mustn’t she?” Isobel curled her fingers around the stones, all innocence. “I found the necklace outside the infirmary tent, long after the MacDonalds left for Blackshore.”
“Far as I know, Catriona ne’er removes the necklace.” James could almost see the word liar blazing on his sister’s forehead. “She wouldn’t have left without setting up a hue and cry to search for it.”
Isobel dismissed his objection with an airy wave of one hand. “She would if she didn’t realize she’d lost it. You know how fraugt things were for us all.” Her gaze met his, almost reproachful. “I dare say she had more on her mind than a necklace.”
James scowled at her, not believing a word. “Where was it, then?”
Isobel, master mischief-maker that she was, didn’t miss a beat. “It was caught in the heather near the spring. I spotted it when I went there to wash after we’d finished at the infirmary.”
“I see.” James took his seat, reaching immediately for his ale cup. He saw, indeed, though he wasn’t sure where the two women’s trickery was meant to lead him.
Nowhere good, he was certain.
“Looks to me, someone will have to return the necklace to her.” Colin appeared then, claiming his seat with all the jaunty satisfaction of a man recently sated. “I’ve no’ been down Blackshore way in ages.” He plucked his eating knife from his belt and began piling his trencher with thick slabs of roasted meat. “I can ride there at first light—”
“We’ve men to bury on the morrow.” James wasn’t allowing his womanizing cousin anywhere near Catriona. He’d damaged her enough on his own. “If Catriona is distressed by the necklace’s loss”—James almost choked on the words, for he doubted she’d truly lost the damty bauble—“she’ll have to suffer her worry for a few days until—”
“I can go.” At the far end of the table, Hugh put down his ale cup and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I can compose my lays about the battle on the ride there. The journey will inspire me—”
“Nae.” James was firm.
Just because, as clan storyteller, Hugh’s work kept him from other duties didn’t mean he was the right man to go riding off to Blackshore to return a necklace that—James was sure—was at the heart of some perfidious scheme.
Sure of it, James looked down the table at Hugh, not liking how his brows had drawn together in a stubborn frown. “You do your best tale spinning locked away in your turret. I’ll vow a stroll across the battlefield will do more to inspire you than a trek across the glen, eh?”
He lifted his ale cup, waving it in Hugh’s direction. “Aye, that is much better for your muse.”
Hugh’s face reddened, sourly. “You just want to deliver the necklace yourself.”
“I—” James clamped his mouth shut, furious. The cold prickles that had danced up and down his nape earlier now felt like a white-hot iron band clamped tight around his neck, suffocating him.
“He’s right, you know.” Isobel sipped her wine delicately. “Who better than you to show our goodwill by returning what is surely an heirloom piece? The King did press us to maintain rapport with the MacDonalds and Mackintoshes. This is an excellent opportunity to prove we will abide by King Robert’s wishes.”
Colin grinned and slapped the table. “A splendid idea!”
James glared at them both.
He didn’t bother to argue. It was true. And he’d known the moment he’d seen the necklace that this—him sallying off with the ambers tucked in his belt pouch, like a knight on a white charger—was Isobel’s plan.
No doubt Catriona’s, too.
For some nefarious reason, the two women were plotting against him. A shame they’d overlooked that, as a battle-hardened warrior and chieftain, he knew a bit about tactical strategies himself.
Indeed, he was a master.
“You will go?” Isobel was eyeing him over the rim of her wine cup.
Colin made a business of spearing more slices of roasted meat onto his trencher, selecting the largest and most succulent-looking pieces. He slid a glance at James, his dark eyes glinting knowingly. “The maid will surely be overcome with gratitude.”
James pretended not to hear him. His cousin knew him too well.
“So be it, then.” James kept his face as expressionless as possible. “I will ride to Blackshore in a sennight, no’ a day before.”
“Seven days!” Isobel lost her calm. “Catriona will be beside herself by then.”
James shrugged, pleased by the notion.
Then he applied himself to his trencher, plans of his own forming in his mind. And none of them had much to do with an amber necklace. Though they all revolved around the bauble’s owner.
She’d pushed him too far this time.
And when they met again at Blackshore, he’d teach her at last that maids who didn’t wish to get burned shouldn’t tempt the devil.
“He’s not coming.”
Catriona cast a look over her shoulder at Maili, who sat on the edge of her bed. “I know it sure as you’re perched on my bed.” Wishing she felt otherwise, she turned back to her bedchamber window. Small flurries of rain splattered the stone ledge, but she didn’t mind. The rain’s light patter soothed her, and if she had to wait much longer for James’s arrival, she was sure she’d turn raging mad.
She glanced again at her friend. “It’s been nearly seven days.”
Maili tucked her legs beneath the coverlets, yawning. “I thought you weren’t counting?”
“I’m not.” She wasn’t minding the days. She’d been keeping the hours.
Now she leaned against the cold stone edge of the window arch, something close to fury simmering inside her. She’d been so sure her plan would work. In truth, she’d been henwitted to put such faith in James.
She blew a curl off her brow, all her annoyances bubbling up in her mind, demanding a voice. “Don’t you see, Maili?” She could feel her face burning, the frustration making her heart pound. “If he intended to return my ambers, he would’ve done so by now.”
“He’ll come.” Maili leaned ba
ck against the cushions. “I’ve seen how he looks at you when he thinks no one sees him.” She stifled another yawn. “Such glances are always more telling than any direct looks.”
Catriona wanted to believe it.
But…
“That may be.” Catriona drew her night wrap closer against the cold. “But deeds count for something, too. His absence can’t be good.”
Maili didn’t answer her.
Catriona turned back to the window, peering out into the chill, wet night. A half-moon sailed in and out of the clouds, spilling a narrow band of silver across the loch’s black-glistening waters. And even at this late hour, she hoped to catch a glimpse of James riding over the crest of a hill. Or to see him suddenly come into view, torch in hand, on the far shore of the loch.
She’d counted on it until a short while ago.
As she’d been so sure he’d arrive on every other night that had passed since the trial by combat.
But he hadn’t come.
And now her confidence was flagging.
She knew Isobel hadn’t broken their pact. She felt that in her bones. James had her ambers, and he was deliberately keeping them, ignoring her. And that could mean only that he truly did think of her as a plague.
Frowning, she stepped closer to the window. The night wind helped her stay awake, and she did love the view. Her bedchamber was one of the highest in the tower, and the vista was sweeping, taking in much of Loch Moidart, the cliffs rising at the loch’s edge, and even a bit of Blackshore’s bailey. Just now, the moon cast a blue and silver sheen over the hills, and the night was silent save for the slap of wavelets on the rocks and the creaking of moored galleys.
Closer by, glimmers of red showed where guardsmen had lit braziers along the battlement’s wall-walk, and now and then she caught flickers of light in the bailey. Wedges of yellow that spilled across the cobbles each time someone entered or left the gatehouse. And if she leaned out a bit and craned her neck, she could see that one or two of the other tower windows glowed from within, proving that she and Maili weren’t the only ones yet awake.
Sins of a Highland Devil Page 28