by Blair, Willa
Kenneth ignored Sutherland’s pallor. “So ye two plotted…”
“Nay. I merely stood aside to give the two of ye the time ye needed—alone—together. Time Cat was certain ye would never have once ye got her home.”
Kenneth frowned. “I dinna ken whether I owe ye my thanks or should gut ye where ye stand.” And how ironic—now they were out of danger from the army they'd sought to avoid, he suddenly found comfort having Sutherland at his back.
“I’ll be content with yer thanks. Now we’d best go inside, aye? Laird Rose is waiting.”
Kenneth heaved a breath and turned to the doorway with a nod. Sutherland’s wound needed attention. And the next few minutes would decide Kenneth’s future, one way or another. Honor demanded he admit ruining Rose’s daughter and accepting whatever punishment Rose cared to inflict. Honor be damned. She wasn’t ruined to him. He’d marry Cat because she wanted it, even if her father tried to exile the both of them as a result. They’d make their home in France if that was what it took to make Cat happy—and to keep Iain from skewering him for destroying his alliance with Rose. He didn’t care where they lived. But he’d prefer to stay at Brodie. Cat would prefer to be near her sisters, no doubt. He hoped Iain would agree, even if it strained his relations with James Rose.
Inside, the entryway was empty. Kenneth had expected a crowd of Roses to gather near the door at the news of Cat’s return. Then he heard the rumble of voices from the great hall. Quick footsteps betrayed the arrival of a latecomer hurrying their way, then a swirl of skirts preceded a lass through an archway into the hall where they waited.
“Mary!” he greeted the late arrival—Cat’s eldest sister.
“Kenneth Brodie!” Mary came to him with her hands out. “I heard someone brought Catherine back to us—it was ye?”
Kenneth took her hands, then turned her to regard Sutherland. “We did. Mary Elizabeth Rose, this is Cameron Sutherland.”
For once, Sutherland’s usual charm with the lasses seemed to fail him. He stood, silent, his gaze fixed on Mary Rose. When she smiled quizzically, he shook himself and bowed slightly, then winced. “At yer service, milady.”
“Where did Cat and yer da go?” Kenneth asked, attempting to cover Sutherland’s sudden awkwardness.
“His solar, I imagine,” Mary replied, her gaze shifting from Sutherland back to him. She cocked her head. “But based on the noise coming from the great hall, perhaps not until after she greets everyone gathered in there. Let’s go there first.”
Mary led the way and paused just inside the door, allowing Kenneth and Sutherland to arrange themselves beside her. No one paid them any attention. All the focus in the room was on Cat, who was being passed from hug to hug as she greeted everyone. Kenneth had no doubt she was also delaying the confrontation with her father for as long as she could.
Finally, when Cat seemed to run out of clan members to greet, Mary stepped forward. Cat saw her and ran to her eldest sister. “Ach, Mary, thank ye. I wish I’d been able to write to ye…” she apologized as she fell into Mary’s arms.
“Now, now,” Mary soothed, patting Cat on the back as Cat’s tears finally spilled. “All will be well. Ye will see.” Over Cat’s shoulder, Mary frowned at Kenneth.
He shrugged and turned his gaze back to Cat, wishing she felt she could run to him for comfort the way she did old Fergus and her sister. Instead, she’d unburdened herself to Sutherland? What was he doing wrong?
Cat nodded and pulled back to meet Mary’s gaze, wiping tears from her cheeks. After a sniffle, she glanced at Kenneth, then added, “We may need to gang up on Da again.”
Mary nodded and gave Kenneth a knowing smile before turning back to her sister. “Dinna fash.”
“Did ye meet Cam?” Cat asked, sniffed again, and reached for Sutherland’s hand.
Kenneth tensed at the familiarity. One more sign she had bonded with Sutherland when he wasn’t looking. He didn’t like it.
Mary blushed and nodded. “I did.”
Sutherland bowed again. “My very great pleasure, milady.”
Kenneth wasn’t certain which sister he addressed, but he was certain only he saw Sutherland grimace as he straightened up. His wound had worsened while riding here. Cat had not been able to give it the care it needed. But with their father approaching, the sisters had turned to face him. Everything else would have to wait.
“My solar, if ye please,” Rose said and waved a hand in that direction.
His tone of command told Kenneth he had spoken as Laird Rose rather than simply as Cat’s father. His daughters traded an undecipherable look, then obeyed. Kenneth stiffened his shoulders, nodded and followed the lasses. A glance aside revealed Sutherland at his back.
* * *
Needing her sister’s support to face her father, Catherine chose a chair next to Mary. The round table in the laird’s solar was a recent addition, one she was certain Kenneth had never seen. Instead of being seated with the others, he would be expecting to stand before her father’s desk. She hid a grin as Kenneth entered and took in the new arrangement. He hesitated, then stepped aside to allow Cam and Da to enter. Contrary to what she expected, her father didn’t join her and Mary at the round table, but took his accustomed seat behind his desk, leaving Kenneth and Cam standing. “Da, Cam needs the healer. He was wounded…”
“I’m well enough,” Cam interrupted.
Her father waved their comments away. “Explain yerself, daughter. Where have ye been and why are ye in a lad’s breeks instead of dressed as a lady?”
“’Tis no’ Cat’s fault…” Kenneth said, but her father waved him to silence as well.
“I’ll no’ hear from ye until I wish to,” he warned. “Until then, dinna interrupt.”
Catherine bristled but Mary’s hand on her arm kept her in her seat. “Tell us,” Mary prompted softly.
Catherine wondered where she should start. Since confronting her father over his attempts to wed her to someone other than Kenneth seemed sure to bring a hasty end to any hope of reconciliation, she chose a different beginning. “I’ve been staying with maman’s Duncan cousins in St. Andrews. Abi and her stepfather were kind to me. But when word came about Domnhall’s army and his threats against Aberdeen, Kenneth and Cam, separately, decided it was no longer safe for Highlanders in St. Andrews. Kenneth helped me leave, and we met Cam on the road. He’s a friend of cousin Abi’s.”
Her father’s face had reddened with each word she uttered. Catherine couldn’t see how this was going to turn out in any way good for her and Kenneth. But before the explosion she expected took place, help came from an unexpected source.
“Catherine is right,” Cam said. “I received information that a Highland-sympathizer priest had been captured. Soon after meeting up with Kenneth and Lady Catherine at a mutual friend’s outside St. Andrews, we were told the priest had been hanged.”
Mary covered a cry with one hand and gripped Catherine’s arm with the other. Catherine laid her hand over Mary’s. “We left just in time.”
“Remaining in town would have been dangerous for all of us,” Kenneth added. “We travelled mostly at night and avoided settlements.”
“Ye couldha sailed and arrived sooner without dragging my daughter all over the Highlands…” her father objected. crossing his arms.
“Harbors were full of royalist troops, so we were forced across country,” Cam explained.
“We met up with a group of Brodies—Iain included—two days after the battle at Harlaw,” Kenneth added. “We spent a night and a day with them. Iain had sent the worst wounded ahead. Cat…Catherine’s nursing the rest may have saved Brodie lives.”
Relief at her father’s approving nod made Cat’s muscles weaken. She hadn’t realized how she’d tensed until then.
“But Domnhall’s army, gallowglass men included, was breaking up and spreading out over the countryside,” Kenneth added. “It was nay safe place for a lass. In borrowed clothes, Cat appeared as a lad, but her disguise wouldna stand
up to close scrutiny. We resumed traveling as we had been, avoiding settlements. Yesterday, we ran afoul of three gallowglass men. That’s when Cam was wounded.”
When her father rose to his feet, Catherine tensed again.
“It seems a miracle ye arrived safe and whole, daughter.”
All the blood seemed to drain from Catherine’s body to her belly, then rise in a heated torrent to her face. Aye, she was safe, but far from whole. She fought to keep her gaze from Kenneth as she nodded. “I had excellent protectors in Cameron Sutherland and Kenneth Brodie.”
“Indeed.” Her father’s flat tone left no doubt he’d seen her blush and suspected the reason for it. When he cut his gaze to Kenneth, she rose.
“Ye have no’ asked why I left,” she bit out.
“I ken why ye left. I read yer note. What I dinna ken is how ye have come back. Are ye wed? And if so, to which of these…” he inclined his head at Kenneth and Cam, “…protectors?”
Mary gasped, but Catherine stiffened her spine and faced her father. “Kenneth is the only man I have ever wanted as my husband.” She turned to him and nearly swooned when he moved around the table, stood at her side and took her hand.
“We are…married in the old way,” he admitted, smiling at her, then turned back to her father, his expression grim. “With yer blessing, we’d like to be married in the kirk.”
“Ye expect me to condone yer disobedience?”
Her father hadn’t shouted, which frightened her more than if he had.
“I can only assume ye planned this…this tryst…and arranged to meet in St. Andrews,” he growled.
She and Kenneth cried, “Nay!” at the same moment.
Kenneth squeezed her hand. “Iain sent me as hostage for Brodie to Sterling. From there, I was moved to St. Andrews, probably at Albany’s orders to move all the Highland hostages from where their clans might expect to find them after Domnhall took Dingle. I didna ken Catherine was also there until I saw her walking with some friends.”
“He avoided me for days…weeks,” Catherine added. “Even then, he sought to keep me safe. I pursued him, Da.” She couldn’t help the small smile curving her lips. “And I caught him.” Then she risked showing her father the anger that had driven her to run away and glared at him. “It just took more than two years longer than I’d hoped.”
“So ye have dishonored yerself and this clan, and ye come before yer laird boasting of yer actions?”
Mary stood at the rising cadence and volume of their father’s words. “Da, ye ken fine she is no’—”
“Silence, daughter. Ye and yer sisters worked yer…will…on me once before. Ye willna do so again. Mary Catherine, ye are confined to yer chamber. Kenneth Brodie and Cameron Sutherland, I will grant ye hospitality only so far as to spend the night in the stable. Ye will be gone at first light.”
“Da! Cameron Sutherland needs a healer’s care,” Mary objected before Catherine could refuse. She pointed at the red staining the side of his shirt.
“He can be tended in the stable. Now all of ye get out. I have much to think upon, no’ the least of which is the future of the alliance between Rose and Brodie.”
Kenneth’s eyes widened at the implied threat, but he took Catherine’s elbow and helped her from her father’s solar.
She welcomed his assistance, unsure she could stay on her feet without his strong arm supporting her. Her father had just compounded the misery they shared by threatening the alliance with Kenneth’s clan. Even though Annie was married to its laird. She could only imagine what Kenneth must be thinking, and how furious Iain would be if her father made good on his threat.
Cam followed them, his expression grim.
She stopped in the hallway and put a hand on his arm. “Ye willna go to the stable. Ye need care.” When Kenneth frowned at her hand on Cam’s arm, she withdrew it and turned to her sister. “Mary, please. Ye ken I am right. Will ye take charge of Cam and see him cared for?”
“Of course.” Mary took Cam’s arm, ignoring his raised eyebrow. “’Tis a shame ye could no’ stop at Brodie. Yer wound would have received care sooner and be better than it is now.” She paused and tugged on his arm to get him moving toward the stairs. “Come with me. I’ll see ye settled in a chamber where the healer can attend ye.”
“Yer father—”
“Need no’ be told. Now come.”
Catherine grinned at Cam’s bemused expression as they ascended the stairs. He might not be accustomed to being ordered around by a woman, but Mary was impossible to ignore when she was in this mood. Besides, Cam was hurt, and probably too weak to resist.
“What about me?” Kenneth asked.
Catherine grimaced. “’Tis best ye keep out of his sight for a while.”
“I think the same applies to ye.”
Catherine nodded and pointed up the stairs. “Let’s find ye a place, then.”
“Yer chamber, perhaps?”
“Only if ye want Da to throw ye in the dungeon when he finds out. The stables would seem sumptuous from there.”
Chapter 15
Catherine flung herself across Mary’s bed. Mary’s chamber was not where her father had ordered her to go, but she would defy him at least this far—if she could not be with the man she loved, she would be with the sister who loved her. She needed the comfort being here provided. The same comfort she’d sought here since their maman's passing all those years ago. How many times had she lain like this while Mary stroked her hair from her face or dried her tears or just talked, then crooned a lullaby, Mary’s soothing tones lulling her to sleep? As a child, she’d loved waking with Mary’s body curled protectively around her, telling her without words everything would be all right.
Not this time.
This time, Da was on guard against all the ways they might manipulate him. Over two years ago, they’d made it impossible for him to refuse Annie’s wishes when she’d decided to marry Iain Brodie. He knew their tricks.
Catherine feared her love for Kenneth was hopeless—doomed never to result in the marriage and family with him she longed for.
“Dinna fash, Catherine,” Mary told her for the hundredth time since they left the laird’s solar. “Kenneth will think of something. Or we will.”
“Da kens us too well. We willna succeed again.”
“Do ye have so little faith in Kenneth? After ye found him again, after ye traveled all this way with him, have ye no’ seen how he cares for ye? How he looks at ye? Like he did when he first saw ye. ’Tis as if the last two years never happened at all.”
“What good does that do if he willna ask for me, or steal me away to Brodie.” Catherine paused and swallowed a sob. “We became so…close…on the way here.” She looked up and met Mary’s concerned gaze. “We slept together.” She gave a choked laugh. “We did more than sleep.” Then she wrapped her arms around her middle. “I could be carrying his babe, even now.”
Mary pulled her arms away from her middle and took her hands in a warm, sure grip. “If ye are, Da will have to agree to let ye wed. But even if ye are no’, he can be persuaded.”
Catherine shook her head. “We’ve tried. I fled to St. Andrews to keep him from marrying me off to someone else. I didna wish to return—ever. I missed ye. And Annie. But I couldna risk what Da might do.” She pulled her hands from Mary’s and dropped her head into them. “Then the troubles started and Kenneth feared I would be taken prisoner or worse. He made me go with him. I hoped we’d stop at Brodie, wed there, before ever having to confront Da. But the gallowglass men…”
“So ye came here because Kenneth was determined to see ye safe before aught else.”
Catherine nodded. “I ken he cares about me. But bringing me home might also be a way for him to get rid of me.”
“Nay, Catherine, I dinna believe that. He will do what is right, especially if ye are with child.”
“I dinna want him to wed me because of a babe! I want him to love me. To be unable to live his life without me. I want him to
long for me as I long for him. On the way here, I thought he might feel all of that…but if he obeys Da, he’ll leave at sunup and leave me behind. Maybe forever!”
“After all he has shared with ye since St. Andrews?”
“I dinna care where he’s been or what he’s done. I love him still.”
“Has he said he loves ye?”
Suddenly Catherine wasn’t sure. Had he ever actually said the words? Cat shook her head. “Ye would think I’d recall something so important. But I dinna ken if I recall my own longing to hear the words, or if he really said them.”
“Then chances are, he has no’ admitted his love for ye yet—no’ in words.”
“Yet we talked about handfasting, about betrothal. Would he even say those words if he did no’ love me?”
Mary nodded sadly. “Even the best men will sometimes say whatever will get them what they want at the moment…”
“Nay! Kenneth wouldna!”
“Ye told me he spent two years in France. What do ye think he did there?”
Catherine slumped. She knew what he’d done. Fallen in love. Then out of it again. “He nearly married.”
Mary covered a gasp with her hand. “Why nearly?”
“I dinna ken. He told me he thought he was in love, but he was wrong. He didna tell me the rest. Ach, Mary, I dinna ken what to do!”
* * *
The next morning, Kenneth prepared to leave for Brodie, donning his travel clothes, perhaps for the last time. He should reach Brodie tonight.
He didn’t want to go, to leave Cat, but counted on obeying the Rose gaining him some favor he—to all appearances—still lacked.
Traveling alone, he’d be vulnerable to any band of marauders he had the bad luck to encounter. But he’d take the risk.
He couldn’t ask Sutherland to make the trip. His home lay in a different direction. And he was wounded. He should stay at Rose for a few days to heal, then find a ship headed north. And that would be that—likely he’d never see the man again.
Despite their initial animosity, Kenneth had come to respect the northerner, at least when he wasn’t flirting with Cat. It had taken most of the trip for Kenneth to understand the teasing talk was just Sutherland’s way. Cat had been correct—he really meant nothing by it. Unless he was prodding Kenneth every now and again, to make him jealous—or at least to make him pay attention to the lass right in front of him. Not once—that Kenneth knew about—had Sutherland tried to poach Catherine away from him. Instead, he’d given them time and space and privacy, though Kenneth now regretted the latter.