by Paula Quinn
“Taken from us by cunnin’ and devious schemes that continued until yer ancestors had gained it all,” Angus added solemnly and produced another pouch from a heavy fold in his plaid.
“The MacGregors fought back, of course,” Graham said. “Naturally, they directed their attacks against those who had wrested their land and their livestock from them. They were brutal and feared by all. They killed and slaughtered many until their oppressors were forced to obtain royal assistance in putting an end to the troublesome tribe. Given noble titles and the right to hunt their enemies with dogs, the Campbells and some others provoked the MacGregors into more acts of violence, and the formidable clan was only too happy to oblige.”
“Driven from Glen Orchy, the MacGregor chiefs lived at Stronmelochan at the foot of Glenstrae,” Brodie added. “While the Campbells expanded eastward into Breadalbane.”
“Aye,” Graham agreed. “’Twas up to the Glenstrae MacGregors to carry on the resistance, but their chiefs were hunted down and murdered, their sons along with them, and their land taken, also. When the Protestant parliament, many of whom are Campbells, declared it illegal to be a Catholic, many Highlanders joined the Gordon clan chieftain in his fight against the realm. But the chieftain was beheaded, and the clans who backed him were pursued with fire and sword.”
“To this day, we are considered papist heretics,” Jamie muttered quietly.
“After a particularly bloody battle at Glen Fruin, a half century ago, the clan was proscribed,” Graham continued. “The name MacGregor, abolished. They are forbidden to bear it.”
Kate nodded, knowing a little about their proscription and what it meant. “All lieges are prohibited from bearing them aid,” she said, repeating the creed she’d heard her uncle say many times.
“Aye,” Graham confirmed and then added, “They have been stripped of every basic human need, including the right to bear arms and the right to gather together in one place. They are hunted, men, women, and children alike, and their heads are used as pardon fer the most vicious of crimes. Care of the aged and the sick is still refused to them. Even the sacraments of baptism, marriage, and burial are denied. And yet the MacGregors remain, despite everything.”
They were to be forgotten.
Jamie tore a hunk of bread away from his loaf and offered it to Kate, breaking her thoughts. She’d known the MacGregors were forbidden to bear their name, but she’d believed they had forfeited that right by defying every decree set forth by the realm. She had no idea their proscription had stripped them of so much more. Did her kin truly have so much to do with the annihilation of an entire clan? It was difficult to believe. Why hadn’t Amish or John ever told her any of this? Mayhap they were afraid of contradicting her uncle. They never judged the MacGregors, even knowing they killed her father. She closed her eyes and inhaled, gathering the strength to ask her next query and the courage to hear the reply.
“Is this why Callum killed my grandfather? What did my father do to deserve his wrath?”
“I do not know anything about yer father, lass,” Graham answered her and untied his belt, settling more comfortably into his plaid. “But Callum did not kill yer grandfather.”
“But everyone knows the Devil—”
“They know only what yer uncle believes to be true. Mayhap yer father and yer grandfather fought. We Highlanders know Colin Campbell did not agree with his father’s tactics against the MacGregors. Mayhap he—”
Kate rose to her feet and held up her palm to stop him. She was not about to listen to such treachery against her father. “Has the Devil convinced you of this?”
“Nae,” he said, never flinching at her challenge. “Callum does not pretend to know what happened. But he did not kill Liam Campbell.”
“How do you know?” Kate demanded.
“I know because I was with Callum in Skye when he learned of yer grandfather’s death. He near went mad again.”
“Again?” Kate asked, barely able to breathe.
“Aye. The revenge was his to take. He earned it.” Graham did not give the full meaning of his words time to seep in before he spoke again. “When Callum was a lad, yer grandfather and his army rode into his village and killed everyone in it, including the laird Dougal MacGregor and his wife. The chieftain, ’twas rumored, had begun a new rebellion and had been known to declare his name openly. Yer grandfather had them all slaughtered, save fer Dougal’s young son and daughter. To them, he delivered a harsher punishment than death. Callum and his sister grew to maturity below the belly of Kildun Castle, where they paid fer their father’s crime.”
“Maggie was but five summers auld when they took her.” Jamie’s voice was low and riddled with anger Kate had not heard in it before.
She stared at him through a heavy haze of tears. She wanted to shout at them all that what they told her was false. Her grandfather would never have done such a vile thing. Her father surely knew naught of it. He had children of his own! He would have done something. My God, had he done something? Did Colin Campbell kill his own father, mayhap in the heat of an argument? Nae! Never! She refused to believe any of it. She did not come from such merciless ilk. She wanted to tell Graham, but the sob poised behind her lips stopped her from opening her mouth. She willed her feet to move. She needed to be away from them, away from the contempt she saw in their eyes when they looked at her. Now she understood it better. She turned, ready to make her way to a tree closer to the shadows. But she stopped, unwilling to run away from them as her uncle had. What could she say to them? If all this was true, what could she possibly say?
“I am sorry for what my kin have done. I know it is not enough, but I would have you know it just the same.”
Graham smiled, turning to watch her as she settled down for the night a few feet away from them. “That’s the first Campbell who has ever apologized to a MacGregor.”
“Aye.” Brodie nodded, then smiled with him. Angus chuckled, thinking the apology was even more satisfying than his brew.
“Is it aright if I like her?” Jamie asked in all seriousness, and he knew that it was when the others burst into hearty laughter.
Chapter Ten
KATE WAS AWAKE when Callum returned to them early the next morn. How could she sleep when images of women’s branded faces and children living out their lives in a dungeon invaded her every thought?
Quietly, she watched him dismount and look around, making certain they were all there, safe. His men still slept, rolled in their plaids, scattered around the dying embers of their campfire. When he saw her, he dropped his gaze to the ground, then turned to tie his reins to a nearby tree.
“Did you kill my father?” she asked him, needing to know the truth. Her grandfather may have deserved Callum’s wrath, but her father did not.
“I never knew yer faither.”
God, she needed to believe him. “Are you injured?” she asked, rising to go to him. Blood stained his plaid and smudged his jaw, but it was clearly not his own. For while his voice fell heavily on her ears, the unbending steel of his emotions remained.
“Dinna concern yerself with me, Kate,” he answered before turning to leave, this time on foot into the trees.
She watched him go, and though she knew he had been victorious in his endeavors the night before, he walked with the weariness of a man defeated. Was he simply a heartless rebel, bent on killing Campbells because he felt they’d treated his clan unfairly? Or was the Devil a man with a greater cause? Keeping our name alive and avenging the wrongs done to my kin. She recalled his words at the Cameron holding. God’s mercy, he fought to avenge too much. She picked up her steps and followed him, wanting, needing to know if her grandfather had truly kept him locked away in a dungeon when he was a child. And if so, how far would he go to right that wrong?
Coming upon him a few moments later, she studied him from between the tangle of branches that separated them. He stood naked and alone at the edge of a loch, its surface set aflame by the morning sun. His plaid and tunic, al
ong with one crumpled boot, lay in a heap at his feet. His left boot flew over his shoulder and just missed Kate’s head when she left the sanctuary of the trees, her gaze fastened on his bare back. Though every muscle that fashioned him was honed and defined by years of toil and battle, it was not the sheer beauty of him that drew her closer but the ugliness of long, jagged scars covering one end of his expansive shoulders to the other.
They were deep, angry imperfections carved into stone. The sight of them brought tears to Kate’s eyes. How old was he when he had received them? Had it been her grandfather’s hands that had produced them? In that moment, Callum MacGregor became more than an avenging warrior to her. He was a man who had lived through the merciless torture of a barbarian. His purpose was made even stronger by his pain.
Paralyzed by the poignant power before her, she watched him stalk into the sun-dappled current like Poseidon returning home from war. She had felt his body against hers, hard as granite. But never had she seen a naked man before, and never one so finely made. She did not blink as the water caressed his shapely calves, then rose upward to his thighs as he waded deeper into the loch. Mesmerized by his sheer masculine glory, her gaze continued up over the perfect roundness of his buttocks. Her mouth went dry, and her heart pounded so loud in her chest she feared he might hear it.
He tilted his face toward the sun. The splay of muscles in his upper arms rolled under his skin as he spread his arms at his sides, skimming his palms over the cool, satiny surface. It was then, while she stared almost longingly at the length of his fingers, that she noticed he had removed the leather cuffs that normally covered his wrists. She lifted her hands to her mouth to still a sob welling in her throat. Pocked skin, almost worn down to the bone, bore evidence of the irons that had held him captive.
“D’ye have somethin’ ye wanted to speak to me aboot? Or were ye plannin’ on just starin’ at me while I bathed?”
Kate thought hard about running then. But it was too late; he was already turning around to face her. She was thankful, at least, that half his body was covered in water. That is, until his eyes found hers.
How could they chill her blood and sear her flesh at the same time? They drew her in, inviting her onto a battlefield for which she had never practiced. Looking into them, she wondered what victory would gain her if she was braw enough to engage.
“Would ye care to join me?”
Her heart near beat right out of her mouth with the thought of it. She felt her face burn and almost turned away, but he seemed to be enjoying her discomposure. She suspected he was quite used to terrifying everyone around him. But she was not everyone.
Folding her arms across her chest, she forced herself to look him straight in the eye. “Nae, I would not care to join you. But I do appreciate the consideration you afford me by bathing. It would be better for us to speak when you are not covered in blood.”
He said nothing but continued to trace the curves of her body with his bemused gaze. Kate thought he might be trying to provoke her anger. She was certain he had no idea how he was making her insides tremble.
“Well?” he asked after another moment passed with her staring at him.
She blinked. “Well what?”
“What is it ye want, besides me to look more appealin’ fer ye?”
“I can assure you I care not how you look, MacGregor,” Kate argued, irritated now that he had turned her meaning into something entirely different. “Were you beaten for your pride?”
He nodded, and though the slight humor hovering around his lips was arrogant indeed, Kate was dreadfully sorry for her words the moment she spoke them.
Finally she lowered her eyes. “I did not mean—”
“Speak yer mind, Kate Campbell,” he drawled and lay back into water, exposing his sculpted chest to the sun. “If my scars please ye, then say it and let us be honest enemies.”
Kate took a step forward. Her hand came to her chest. “Please me?”
He lifted his head to squint at her. “Aye.”
“They horrify me!” She watched him paddle away from her on his back and was tempted to reach her hand out to bring him back. “Why didn’t you tell me you were the Devil MacGregor?”
“Ye didna ask,” he called back.
Oh, the man was completely insufferable. Kate looked around for a rock to fling at him while he swam farther away. “MacGregor,” she called out. “Did my grandfather truly . . .” God, she couldn’t bring herself to ask him, to even think of it. It didn’t matter. He had no intention of answering her. She moved closer to the edge of the loch.
“Did you kill him for what he did to you?” She gritted her teeth when he continued to swim away. “I am trying to talk to you!” she shouted.
Still nothing.
“If you would just . . . MacGregor!” she called out louder while he drifted. “I believe you did not kill my father. Are we to remain enemies simply because of our names?”
“’Tis the only reason we need,” he called back, sunning himself.
Kate’s blood boiled. She was tired of hating him. Or trying to. And besides, if what Graham told her was true, her reasons to hate him were completely unjustified. But Callum’s weren’t. She took another step forward. She didn’t want him to hate her, no matter what had been done to him. He was swimming farther away from her, and the more he swam, the angrier she became. She refused to fight with him ever again, and she was determined to prove it to him, even if it killed her. Before she could think clearly enough to stop herself, she unfastened her kirtle and kicked it away. She stepped into the loch and swam toward the belligerent chieftain in her shift and hose.
He heard her splashing behind him but did not bother to turn around, which infuriated Kate all the more. When she was close enough to reach out and touch him, a strange comfort washed over her. She had traveled in his embrace since the moment they met. His closeness was becoming familiar to her, enjoyable, safe.
“Why are you running away from me?” she asked, frowning at him, and at the dull pain beginning to throb in her shoulder.
He turned and opened his eyes to look at her. His long hair swept over his forehead, gleaming black down his shoulders. Droplets clung to his long lashes, giving more potency to his hard blue-green gaze. “I’m no’ runnin’, lass. I’m floatin’.”
“Do I frighten you, then?” she charged, fueled by his nonchalance. For in truth, she knew she was the one who was afraid. Not of his strength that could overpower her so easily, but of her own maddening attraction to him.
“How could a wee thing like yerself frighten me?” He turned and swam away again.
Kate swatted the surface and gritted her teeth. “You’re afraid of Campbells, then!”
It was definitely the wrong thing to say, she realized when he pivoted around and impaled her with his angry glare. He rose out of the water, looming over her and blocking out the sun. She had to fight to keep herself from withering in her spot. “Woman,” he said very slowly, the word rumbling on that bear’s voice. “I’ve crushed more Campbells than ye’ll ever know, and I’ll go to my grave with a Campbell’s heart clutched within my fingers.”
Kate tipped her head back. The intensity in his gaze held her still, but her heart roared within her chest. His face was so hard, so unforgiving. She wanted to look away, for she knew now the passion that burned within. How deeply was his hatred emblazoned on his heart? He’d had a lifetime to nurture it. He would die hating her. Nae. She did not want it to be so. She raised her eyes to the dark, damp strands of his hair falling around his shoulders, the faint trace of blood not completely washed away by the water. She should fear him, but there was more to him than anger and malevolence. She had sliced open his leg, and he had not sliced off her head in return. Even when she fired his fury, he had not put his hands to her. His eyes were sharp and hard, but sometimes, when he looked at her, his gaze grew tender, as if he could not sustain his resolve to hate her.
“Will that heart be mine, my laird?” she asked qui
etly.
“It might,” he answered, pulling her gaze back to his.
“Nae.” She shook her head. “If you hate me so much, why did you save me? I do not believe you would hurt me.”
Callum wanted to mock this trust she so freely granted him. Trust that poured from her lips, from her eyes every time she set them on him. Trust he did not deserve. But instead, he found himself enraptured by it. “Ye dinna know anything aboot me.” His voice rumbled like thunder, a low growl of warning, and something else . . .
“I know what people call you,” she said. “But mayhap they are wrong. Mayhap you are more like Sir Gawain or Percivale than Satan.”
Callum reached for her then and slid one arm around her waist. Drawing the lower half of his body flush against hers, he leaned toward her, his long, sable lashes swept downward. “Ye dinna know me, Kate.” His velvet baritone was an erotic caress as seductive as the smirk that curled his lips when she struggled to free herself. “Or what I’m capable of doin’.” Her flesh felt warm and soft beneath her wet shift, igniting a fire that blazed through his veins. He kept her still while he spread his palm over her belly, then upward, slowly, deliberately between her breasts and over her collarbone. Her lips parted on a sigh that mingled their breath even as she fought him. Hell, how easy it would be to take her. He lowered his head and covered her mouth with his. Her protests ended instantly, provoking him to taste her more fully. He swept his tongue inside her, then out again as he slanted his lips to take her at an even deeper angle. His kiss was fierce, possessive, his tongue probing, stroking her with sweet, hot, melting desire until she groaned and looped her arms around his neck.
When Callum felt her tongue flick against his, he grew hard against her. He could tear the thin barrier between them away and with one forceful surge impale her to the hilt. He wanted to show her that he was not the gentle man her eyes hoped for. He was no knight on a quest to save bonny damsels, though, by God, she was the most beautiful of them all. He could take her now, shatter her fanciful notions of him. God knew he could do it, for she tempted him beyond reason. But he knew the harsh reality of the world, and what would become of her if he took her. For her own good he had to keep her heart out of his hands.