Seana anticipated that her husband was becoming vexed, so she made an excuse about checking the potstill and ventured that way to check on Gavin.
She found the brew nearly ready and smiled, patting the potstill’s copper belly. Her Da would have been pleased with this batch. A black cat rushed toward her, fanning its tail across her shins, and she smiled down at the creature, bending to lift it into her arms. “My Love,” she cooed. “Where is papa today?”
The cat gave her a little plaintive “mech” that made her laugh—why she had no idea. It was just a silly cat sound, but she liked to think she understood exactly what was meant.
For the moment, she relished the feel of her little feline companion, and looked about to inspect all the furry friends the cat had gathered about the potstill.
Near a particularly fat fern, another black cat rolled over on its back and she set My Love down and sauntered over to rub this one’s belly as it seemed to enjoy. And then, reluctantly, she let them all be and made her way toward Gavin’s new home at the edge of the forest.
She couldn’t wait to see how much progress he had made, and a part of her was quite pleased that he would be around to guard her potstill all the way out here.
Besides, she understood perfectly why Gavin needed to establish himself as the master of his own home. She only hoped that he…
She froze as she broke through the tree line.
Two lovers cavorted in a bed of buttercups alongside Gavin’s new house. She blinked, not believing her eyes. And then, cheeks ablaze, she suddenly turned and fled before anyone could spy here standing there in the shade of the trees.
CHAPTER 9
“I swear ’tis true!” Seana told Meghan. She had run straight to the Montgomerie clearing and stood now talking to Gavin’s sister in the courtyard.
Meghan’s brows rose. “Gavin?” she asked, aghast. She pointed to her breast. “My brother, Gavin?”
“Och!” Seana exclaimed. “I know no other Gavins! Aye, I saw him—I swear it upon my father’s uisge beatha!”
Meghan’s expression suddenly turned fearful. “Oh, no!” she said. “I heard my husband say that King David searches for a runaway prisoner. Do you think it could be her?”
Seana lifted her shoulders. “All I know is that your brother has found himself a lover!”
“And you’re absolutely certain they are lovers?”
“Oh, yes!” Seana said, and her cheeks heated at once. “As certain as I can be!”
“Well, I’ll bedamned,” Meghan said, and she began to giggle nervously. “I truly never thought I’d see the day.”
“The day for what?” her husband inquired, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms about her waist. He gave her a little peck upon the cheek.
Meghan turned to face him, looking suddenly pained. Clearly she didn’t want to lie to her husband but neither did she wish to betray her brother.
If in fact this was the same woman they were seeking, what would that mean for Gavin?
But she couldn’t lie to her husband. She told him everything Seana had just revealed. And then Seana corroborated what she had seen.
Piers made a face that clearly betrayed his thoughts. This was yet another embroilment he would have to finagle their way out of, and unfortunately, there was only one way to do that; he must find the girl before anyone else did.
Iain was hardly pleased to be leaving his wife and newborn babe in order to search for some strange wench merely to serve David’s political gain.
Fresh in his mind was his ordeal with his own son and though David claimed he had not been a party to the deceit, the fact was that he had been the one to take his son across the border without ever having spoken to Iain, and it sat like a stone in his belly.
It stank of a lie.
And yet, David had stood behind Iain when he had defied Page’s father’s demands to return his daughter. Good thing, because it would be a cold day in Hell before Iain e’er relinquished the love of his life.
Riding beside the King of Scotia this late afternoon, his heart was only halfway in the search, and so he missed it when one of David’s men spotted the lovers carousing in the meadow where Gavin Mac Brodie claimed he was building his new house. But having spotted them, a chill raced down Iain’s spine, for he knew instinctively that this could lead to yet another feud. They were not so far from recent hostilities that a single ordeal would not put the clans at odds again.
“Christ,” he said, and followed David and his men down the bluff, taking the rocky path down. At the juncture before the forest, they were met by Leith and Colin Mac Brodie emerging from the woods.
All three men eyed one another curiously, and then, without warning, Piers de Montgomerie and his band of men appeared on the narrow road coming from his clearing.
“Thank God!” David declared, and spurred his mount toward Piers, evidently pleased to find himself among new allies.
“What goes here?” Leith asked.
Broc urged his mount forward. “We seek a runaway,” he explained to Leith and to Colin, eyeing them both meaningfully.
“She’s a rebel,” David said, returning with Piers at his heels. “Potentially, a traitor to the crown!”
Iain’s mount pranced anxiously beneath him, sensing his tension. “Which crown is that?” he asked darkly. Though he had no designs on any crown, for David to announce such a thing before his face was crude, to say the least. By most Highlanders’ opinions, Iain had more right to the throne than David, for David had spent the whole of his life suckling the teat of a Sassenach maid. He had spent his youth as a ward of the English court and had brought north the seeds of English deceit.
“The rightful crown of Scotia,” David replied arrogantly. “The only crown,” he maintained.
Iain tightened his grip on the reins, a muscle ticking at his jaw, but said nothing, knowing that if he but spoke the word, his simple declaration would part the sea of Scotia’s loyalties. Luckily for David, he had no interest in politics or kinslaying.
“At any rate, we’ve tracked the girl to this hovel beneath the bluffside,” David said to Piers and the Brodie brothers. “We have no quarrel with any, save the man who abets her now.”
Leith’s expression turned menacing. “If you speak of that house over yonder, it belongs to my brother Gavin. Gavin keeps no women,” he assured David.
“Nay?” David countered, his tone belligerent.
“We saw them together,” Broc interjected solemnly. “They have gone inside.”
For a moment, the leaders of the three present clans, Leith, Piers and the MacKinnon all shared looks. David inched his mount toward Piers, a taciturn message.
If they were to do battle here, right now, David had five men at his beckon call. Piers had four. Iain had only brought Broc. Leith and Colin were alone. Nine against four… unless Piers forsook his liege.
Iain watched every small move, reading their body language, ready to draw his sword.
“Well, then,” Colin offered, looking directly at David. “Let us go and speak to Gavin, but do him injury, and I will kill you myself, king or nay.”
“Diabhul!” Catrìona cursed. She peered out between the shutters to spy the band of riders congregating where the road from the nearby farm ended, meeting woodland and heath.
“What is it?” Gavin asked.
She nibbled her fingers, stabbing her canine teeth into her cuticles with sudden fear.
They had found her.
What to do, what to do?
“Cat?” Gavin was warming water in a small kettle over the fire for a sponge bath as they were both covered from head to heels in the medicinal tincture she had made for his wound.
He left the kettle and moved to the window behind her, and she realized that time had run out to tell him the truth. Now, she must trust him to do the right thing.
Would he turn her over?
Or would he fight for her?
She cringed at the thought of the latter, for as much as
she loathed the thought of ending as some fat Sassenach’s bride, neither did she want Gavin to die trying to defend her. She feared she loved him.
Aye, but she did.
She loved him as surely as she breathed.
Gavin peered out from the window. “It looks like my brothers,” he said, his tone rife with curiosity. “…and my sister’s husband.” He gave her a confused look and Cat immediately went to snatch up the tunic he had given her to put it on before they could discover her naked again.
Gavin too gathered his clothing and he quickly donned the breacan, belting it faster than she had ever seen a man belt a breacan in her life.
He took her by the hand and made to draw her out of the door, but she held back. She shook her head fearfully, refusing. His brows drew together in confusion, but he let her go.
“What is the meaning of this?” Gavin shouted, coming out of his house.
The riders all seemed to be in the middle of a heated discussion. Leith and Gavin were the first to break away and come forward.
“You harbor a fugitive inside?” Leith asked without preamble.
Gavin screwed his face. “Fugitive?” He shook his head, not understanding. “There is a girl within, aye, but she is no fugitive… she is…” He stumbled through an explanation, being uncertain of what she was, but wanting to call her his wife. Only she wasn’t, and his brothers knew that better than any. “She’s…”
“I’ll tell you what she is! She’s my prisoner!” David exclaimed at once. He rode forward, his hand ready upon the hilt of his sword. His men drew alongside him as though prepared to protect him.
A fight was surely brewing.
Gavin noticed that Montgomerie and his men kept their distance for the moment, watching the scene unfold, their stances unrevealing.
Now, Gavin thought, came the moment of truth. Would Montgomerie defy his liege for blood? Where did his true loyalties lie? With his sister and her kin? Or with his Sassenach loving puppet king?
Iain MacKinnon’s horse sauntered forward, carrying its rider without much haste, every step assured by the body language of its master. “She was to become a ward of the English court,” he said softly, though not timidly. His deep voice commanded respect, and instead of speaking over him, all voices quieted to hear what he would say. “Have you no knowledge of this?” he asked Gavin.
Gavin shook his head. “Nay, but the woman inside is under my protection,” he told MacKinnon. “I will not give her up without a fight.”
MacKinnon eyed him curiously. “So then have you given up your faith, preacher?”
Gavin shook his head again. “On the contrary,” he argued. “I have only just found it, but that is neither here nor there. That woman inside is my bride!”
“Bride!” both Leith and Colin shouted at once.
“Bride?” Broc repeated, choking on the word.
Montgomerie’s eyes widened incredulously. “Christ bedamned,” he exclaimed, and spurred his mount, encircling the group of men, eyeing the new house as he went, particularly the roof. “Damn, this is a sturdy roof,” he added offhand, complimenting Gavin in the oddest tone.
Gavin nodded, uncertain what to say, for he’d had no part in building the damned roof. But then again he didn’t want to admit that Cat had built it either. “Thank ye,” he said belatedly, and then peered back at the door to see that Cat was peeking out through a crack, her eyes full of trepidation.
Anyway, it was a damned peculiar thing to say with the trouble that was brewing.
As though only now noticing, Leith asked him, “Why the hell are you blue?”
“Because his bride is a gaddamn savage!” David offered sourly, his words enraging Gavin.
Gavin leapt toward David, but Montgomerie maneuvered his horse between them, stopping him short.
“Enough of this banter!” David declared impatiently, and then shouted at the house. “Show yourself girl!”
Gavin moved back toward the door instinctively, ready to fight for the woman he loved.
Catrìona had known she could not hide forever.
The time had come to reveal herself.
She spied the men with King David—the ones who had stripped her and bound her, knowing that, if given the chance, they would do Gavin harm and she would not see him suffer for her sake.
Och, he had called her his bride.
She wanted to smile, but her throat thickened. She wished with all her heart that it were true.
A little timidly, she ventured out of the house, moving toward Gavin, clinging to his back. He moved to shield her from the men’s view, but she could still see beneath his arm pit.
Several of the men—all strangers to her—simply peered at one another curiously. One by one they all shared some silent message, their body language revealing something she knew instinctively.
Their wordless gestures bespoke a loyalty as old as time.
“Is it true?” one man asked. “Do you love her, brother?”
Gavin straightened his back, his arm snaking behind him to reach for her. “I do,” he said without hesitation.
The man who had spoken conferred with another—a man who looked very much like Gavin, with his blond hair and wide-shouldered stance, save that his eyes were blue. The eldest of the two had called him brother.
Catrìona swallowed convulsively, knowing that these were the moments that would determine her fate.
Another man—the one who had complimented her roof—looked directly down at Cat, “Do you love him?” he demanded.
Catrìona nodded jerkily. Her legs trembled beneath her. Never had she been surrounded by so many strangers but she would not disgrace her brother or her kinfolk by cowering now before them. She squared her shoulders, realizing Gavin had not seen her gesture, and answered loudly for all to hear. “Aye, this man holds my heart!”
King David had yet to speak—not a word from the moment she had shown herself.
All at once, the crowd shifted, moving away from David. Horses surrounded her, entrapping her.
All she heard now were disembodied voices.
The deepest of them all—the one who had called Gavin a preacher—now asked David, “Is this the girl you seek, David? Surely you have mistaken her?” he suggested with an undertone to his voice that held a certain menace. “After spending so much time in the English court, perhaps we savages all look alike?”
David said nothing.
And then Catrìona heard a voice that stopped her heart.
With twenty horsemen at his back, Aidan rode boldly into their midst. He had watched until Catrìona appeared outside the door of the little hovel. He could never mistake his sister’s brilliant mane of hair. It shone like copper under the glinting sun, even hidden as she was now behind so much horseflesh.
“Catrìona!” he shouted again.
He could see her on tippy toes, trying to peer over the barrier they had set between her and David’s men.
David’s mount pranced nervously beneath him, but Aidan only gave him a cursory glance, recognizing the man he needed to speak with. He had not known what the MacKinnon would look like, but he recognized a true leader when he spied one.
“Iain MacKinnon, descendant of the sons of MacAlpin, I seek only thy council!”
The MacKinnon’s horse spun to face him, and David stepped back, his face mottling, but despite his pack of soldiers on mules, he said nothing, and Aidan knew instinctively that he had been correct in his assumptions.
“I am Aidan,” he revealed, looking away from David, meeting Iain’s gaze, “last of the blood of Giric, grandson of Duncan MacAlpin, brother to Kenneth and the last of the Kings of Dal Riata.”
The MacKinnon spurred his mount forward, his black horse prancing with a confidence that its master shared.
“I have no quarrel with you,” Aidan was quick to say. “But the woman you hold is my sister. If you but return her to me now, we will take our leave and return to the Mounth.”
The ensuing silence was deafening
as both men assessed each other. After a moment, the MacKinnon peered behind him. “Is this true?” he asked at large.
It was Catrìona who stepped forward, weaving her way out of the protective horseflesh mantle they had cast about her. “Aye, she affirmed to the MacKinnon. “This man is my brother.”
“How is it you come to be so far from home?” the MacKinnon asked her.
Cat peered up at King David, who now suddenly seemed reluctant to speak a word. She weighed her own words wisely, sensing that she was surrounded by far too much male pride for anyone to leave unscathed if she but said the wrong word.
She held her head high, and lied through her teeth. “I went for a walk,” she said and peered at her brother. She lifted a shoulder, a bit of a shrug.
Aidan lifted a single dark brow. Her brother was darker skinned than she, with hair that flowed down his back as black as sin.
He knew she sought to avoid bloodshed and he graciously allowed it.
MacKinnon looked toward King David then. “What say you, David? You have yet to speak a word… is this the same woman you seek?”
David looked at her again, blinking, thwarted he realized.
She glanced at the one called Dùghall, the one she had smacked on the forehead in order to escape. The man glared at her, but said nothing, and in fact, looked away.
It took David a long moment to finally reply. He inched his horse forward and pretended to look her over—a ruse, because he had been the one to order his men to strip her bare so that she would be less inclined to escape. And then he had ogled every inch of her though to his credit he had forbade his men to abuse her. His horse pranced beneath him impatiently as he pretended to inspect her, and all the while the men formed a tighter band behind the MacKinnon laird—a move that was not lost to David.
It was clear to Cat in that moment where loyalties lay.
David’s men stood completely apart from the rest, a handful of riders who looked as though they would piss their britches if the wrong word were spoken.
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