For the next hour, he held her uninjured hand in his. He wept quietly, his tears dripping onto her arm, and told her that he loved her. He pleaded with her, in shuddering, painful sobs, to wake up, but she offered no response.
Day turned to night, and he was devastated. Would he have to see her buried in the ground? He could not bear to think of it.
Darkness enveloped the room. A maid crept in to light candles and change the water in the basin, but Lachlan was barely conscious of her presence, for he was weary with grief and a terrible, harrowing anguish.
Why had he not loved Catherine the way he should have? he asked himself, over and over. Last night he had let her go. He had let her leave his bed because he could not love her the way she deserved and wanted to be loved.
It was all a sad, pointless waste. He had spent every day trying to protect her from a curse that was never real—and even when he learned it was a hoax, he still could not love her. He could not commit to her. Why? Because he feared he would lose her in childbirth? That she might die?
What was this then?
Had he spared himself this pain? No, he had not. She was dying, regardless of all his careful measures and precautions.
What had he been thinking? He was not God. He was just a man, and he could not control when, and how, someone he loved would be taken from this world. All he could do was treasure each day, spend each precious moment with her, and worship her in every possible way.
He bowed his head and kissed her hand. “Please wake up, Catherine. Please…”
A knock sounded at the door, and it quietly opened before he had a chance to wipe the tears from his face.
Raonaid walked in and moved to the other side of the bed. “How is she?”
“No change,” he replied in a husky, shaky voice. “I cannot bear it, Raonaid. I cannot lose her.” He met the oracle’s deep blue gaze. “I love her.”
She regarded him intently for a long moment. “I suppose we have something in common, then.”
He paused. “Who would ever have imagined it?”
She nodded with a profound measure of understanding, then pushed Catherine’s hair away from her forehead and laid two tender kisses upon her eyelids. “I always knew you were with me,” she whispered to her sister, “and now that I’ve met you, I feel very different. Nothing is the same as it was. Please come back to us.”
There was still no sign of recovery, however, so Raonaid sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the bed.
“Where have you been?” Lachlan asked, for it was hours since Catherine was shot, and Raonaid had not returned until now.
“I remained there, in the circle,” she told him. “I wanted to see more.”
“What happened this morning?” he asked. “Did Catherine have a vision? Did she see her life? Did she remember anything?”
Raonaid shook her head. “We shared a vision, and we saw pieces of things, but nothing as a whole. When it was over she still did not remember. She was frustrated.”
Lachlan looked down at Catherine’s face, so peaceful now, and wished he could have helped her, but her lost memory was something mysterious, something beyond his control.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“There was a man,” Raonaid replied. “He was handsome, with flaxen-colored hair, and they were on a ship together, traveling abroad. They were together for quite some time. I could see it in her face, in the way she aged and matured. I would guess she was barely twenty on the ship, but later, they were in a carriage together, riding through city streets of stone. It might have been Rome.”
“She was found in Italy,” he told Raonaid.
“I know. I am also aware that King James has been living in exile in Rome, and that is where his son Charles was born, last Christmas.”
Lachlan watched Raonaid carefully in the candlelight, studying her expression, wondering if she had seen anything in her visions about the infant in the cradle. Did she know Catherine had dreamed of killing a child?
Raonaid gave no indication, however, of any such suspicion. She merely regarded him with challenge, as if to suggest it was her job now, too, to protect Catherine. Not his alone.
He supposed, if she survived, he and Raonaid would have to share that responsibility in the future, because he was not about to give it up.
“Put your worries to rest,” she said at last. “She did not try to kill the prince.”
His eyes lifted as a welcome wave of relief washed over him. “How can you be sure?”
“I saw it in a vision,” she explained. “A full year ago, though I believed I was seeing myself. I was often confused by my visions, and believed they were false. I did not always trust them, for I saw myself walking in her shoes, wealthy beyond my imaginings. But now I realize it was always Catherine I saw. She saved the prince, Lachlan. It was the flaxen-haired man who wanted to kill him. Catherine tried to stop him, and when she fought him, he tried to kill her, too.”
The deepest realm of Lachlan’s gut heaved with rage and aggression. He spoke in a low, quiet voice laced with a dark undertone of fury. “Who is this man? I will find him.”
Raonaid shook her head. “You cannot.”
“Don’t tell me what I cannot do,” he warned.
Her eyes flashed with confidence and satisfaction. “He is dead.”
The news came as a surprise, and Lachlan had to work hard to calm his temper and his breathing. “How? Who was he? I must know.”
Raonaid leaned forward and laid a hand on Catherine’s forehead, gazing down at her with sorrow and compassion. “He was her husband, Lachlan. That is all I know. And I am glad he is dead, for he was not kind to her.”
* * *
Am I dead? Catherine wondered, struggling relentlessly to lift her heavy eyelids.
No, I cannot be dead, for in heaven there could not exist this pain.
Her entire left side was throbbing. She felt like she’d been stabbed, yet all she could think of was the blinding light that had warmed her soul when the world stopped spinning.
But oh, there was also an excruciating pain in her left arm. She couldn’t move it. It was wrapped in some sort of splint.
At last, she opened her eyes and lifted her arm, curious to look at it. Confused and groggy, she gazed up at a frescoed ceiling. There were gods, angels, and clouds.… The sky was a lovely shade of gray blue.…
“Sweet God in heaven.”
His mouth covered hers, and Catherine lifted her good hand off the bed. She slid her fingers through his hair to hold him close, to kiss him lovingly in return.
Lachlan. Her beautiful Highlander. The man who had come from far away to rescue her from the strange empty black oblivion of her existence.
“I remember,” she said as he drew back and sobbed over her shoulder, weeping endless tears of joy. “I remember everything.” She ran her hand over his hair and stroked the long dark locks away from his tearstained face. “Am I going to live?”
“Aye,” he replied, laughing and kissing her on the mouth again. “You’re going to live, lass. You’re awake now, and the doctor says you are strong.”
“Well, I would have to be, wouldn’t I?”
He laughed joyously, and his dark eyes gleamed with gorgeous flecks of gold. “I always said you were a survivor, and here you are, so lovely. So alive. Do you remember what happened to you?”
Yes, she remembered running with her sister, away from the circle of standing stones. There was a gunshot, and an explosion of pain in her back.
“Murdoch shot me.”
“Aye, but your sister stopped him before he could finish what he started. He came after you again, but she saved your life.”
“How?”
“She dirked him, from a very great distance, and hit her mark. It was an impressive strike. She’s quite a woman, that sister of yours.”
Catherine touched his cheek. “But you hate her.”
“Aye, I did. Maybe I still do, for many things, but I think I may be able
to forgive. After what she did for you … For both of us.”
Catherine closed her eyes for a moment as all the events of her life over the past five years shifted the foundation of her existence. There was so much she had not known, but she could see it now. She understood. She remembered.
“Can there ever be an us?” she tentatively asked. “I am not sure you will think so, after I tell you everything.” She regarded him in the dancing light from all the candles in the room. “I know where I was before. I know what happened to me, where I went, and what I did. I am afraid to tell you.”
He kissed her hand. “Nothing will ever change what I feel for you, lass. You can tell me anything.”
“Are you certain? Because there are things … I was very young, Lachlan. Very foolish.” She paused and swallowed hard. Her throat was painfully dry.
He seemed to read every thought that materialized in her head and crossed to the washstand to pour a glass of water.
“Drink this.” He returned to the bed and helped her sit up. He held the glass to her lips.
Catherine devoured it greedily, then lay back down on the soft feather pillows.
“The doctor has prescribed laudanum for the pain,” Lachlan said. “You must tell me if you need it.”
“Later perhaps, but not now.”
He climbed onto the bed beside her and gathered her close in his arms. His warmth was like a blanket from heaven, and she did not want to let go.
“Tell me everything,” he said. “I’m listening.”
She buried her face in the soft wool of his tartan. “You know that my father died six years ago?”
“Aye.”
“Well, nothing was the same after that. He hadn’t even been dead a year when my grandmother pushed me to marry someone. Someone I did not love. He was too old.”
“Love is important,” Lachlan said.
She nodded wearily. “I always thought so. So I ran off. I ran away with a handsome young English officer I met at a political assembly, hosted here at Drumloch. All the guests were Hanoverians, because of John’s political opinions, which differed from mine. But there was one young man who had Jacobite sympathies. His name was Jack. We snuck off and talked all night, and I believed him to be a great hero for the cause.”
“Was he not what you believed?”
Catherine shook her head. “No, but I didn’t know that until it was too late. He was good to me at first, you see. We ran away together to France and were married in secret.”
She glanced up at Lachlan carefully, not sure what he was thinking, but he gave almost no reaction, so she continued.
“I didn’t tell anyone where I was going,” she explained. “I hated my grandmother, and I barely knew John. All I knew was that he had taken my father’s title and possession of this house, which was my home. I felt he had no right to be here.”
“He was your father’s heir,” Lachlan gently said.
“I understand that now,” she confessed. “I knew it then, I suppose, but I was so grief stricken over the loss of my father. I resented John. I wanted my old life back.”
“What happened after that?” Lachlan asked. “After you married this Englishman?”
She lifted her gaze. “He used me and my father’s friendship with King James to gain entry to the Stuart court in Rome. That was his intention all along, I believe. He made the acquaintance of many powerful people, but he was a spy for the Hanoverians, and when the prince was born he tried to convince me to…”
Lachlan’s face became a glowering mask of fury. “He wanted you to do his heinous work for him? To kill the prince?”
“Yes,” she replied. “But I refused. I told him I would expose his plot, and that’s when he tried to kill me. He wrapped his hands around my neck and he choked me.” Tears spilled from her eyes, and she took a moment to gather her composure. “I lost consciousness, and when I woke, he was burying me in the yard.”
Catherine couldn’t describe any more of the hellish nightmare. She turned her face into Lachlan’s tartan and wept openly.
“Don’t cry, lass,” he whispered, stroking her hair away from her face and kissing her forehead. “I’m here now, and you’re safe. It’s all in the past. No one will ever hurt you again.”
“He was my husband, and he tried to bury me alive.”
“I know.”
She wiped the tears from her eyes and needed to tell Lachlan everything. To describe exactly what happened. “When I woke up, I remember sucking dirt into my mouth. It was cold and damp, but thank God, it was a shallow grave. I was able to crawl out of it. I found the shovel and I struck Jack over the head. I killed him, Lachlan, and then I ran.”
“You did the right thing.”
She nodded, though it was not an easy thing to accept. Jack was her husband, and she had loved him once. Or at least she had thought she did.
“That’s when I lost my memories,” she said. “I was found shortly after that, huddled in the farmer’s stable, and taken to the convent.”
For a long time she and Lachlan lay together on the soft feather bed, holding each other close, stroking each other with gentle hands, kissing each other tenderly.
“What will be done about Murdoch?” she carefully asked.
“Your cousin is taking care of that. He called for the magistrate. There will be a report sent to the King about Murdoch’s attempts to raise another rebellion. He tried once before, you know. He was arrested, but later released. Raonaid has agreed to provide any information that will help to keep the peace in our country. I believe the King will reward her for her efforts on his behalf, for she brought down the leader of a new rebellion.”
Catherine snuggled into the corded muscles of Lachlan’s chest and breathed in the intoxicating scent of his clothes and hair and skin. All she wanted was to lie with him forever.
“But Raonaid and Murdoch were lovers,” she said after a time. “She must be grieving, in some ways.”
“Aye, but she’s a survivor, like you are.”
Catherine pondered that. “I suppose we have more in common now than ever before. We will have much to talk about.”
Lachlan nodded and rubbed a hand over her shoulder. She was grateful for the warmth of his arms as he cradled her.
“I am sorry for everything,” he said. “For all the pain I caused you. I never meant to hurt you.”
She tried to rise up on her arm to look into his eyes, but the pain in her side would not permit it. She had no choice but to lie very still against the softness of his tartan. “I can forgive you for anything, Lachlan. All I need to know is that you care for me.”
“Ah, lassie. If you only knew the half of it.”
“Well, I don’t know,” she told him, sounding more irate than she intended. But she loved him. She needed to know what he felt. “Please Lachlan, you must tell me.”
He cupped her face in his hand and kissed the top of her head, then sighed heavily. “You have no idea how I suffered when I saw you tumbling down that hill. I knew you were hurt, and when I saw the blood on your gown, a part of me didn’t think I could do this again. But the alternative—to deny my love for you—was worse than anything. In that moment, I knew that a single day spent loving you was worth any price—even the future loss of you. What is the point in living, if I cannot enjoy the passion that exists between us?”
She held back a cry of relief. “What are you saying, Lachlan?”
“That I want to be with you forever. I want to make love to you, make babies with you, give you everything that you could ever desire. I never want to leave your side again. I want all the things you said you wanted, when you walked out on me yesterday. You were right to do it. I needed a good kick in the arse.”
He leaned up on an arm and pressed his mouth to hers. It was a warm and tender kiss, filled with affection and desire.
“I’m not doing this right,” he whispered, drawing back. Slipping out of the bed, he dropped down to one knee. “I love you, Catherine Montgomery, an
d I want you as my wife. I will live anywhere with you, be anything you want me to be. I will give up my sword if you ask me to. I’ve had enough of this wandering warrior’s life. I want to be your lover now. Just yours. No one else’s. You are my angel and my love. Will you have me?”
Tears pooled in her eyes, and she laughed out loud with joy. “Of course I will have you.”
He was beside her again in a heartbeat, holding her close, but gently, so as not to hurt her. His mouth covered hers in a sweet, heady kiss that made her forget all the pain in her heart and body. He belonged to her now, and she would never have to say good-bye to him. He had pulled her from the bleak abyss of her life and shown her who she truly was.
She had a sister now, too.
“Where will we live?” Catherine asked as his soft lips grazed her earlobe and his hand cupped the side of her face.
“Anywhere you want, lass. I’ll go anywhere to be with you.”
“What about John? Do you think he will object?”
Lachlan looked at her. “Will it matter?”
“No,” she replied with a chuckle, ignoring the pain in her arm and her side, so that she could touch him all over. “I am of age. I can do what I want.”
“So you always said.”
He was smiling when his lips met hers, and she felt their shared joy within the magic of the kiss; then at last he took her mouth with a savage intensity that sent her reeling.
It was divine ecstasy, every moment in his arms, and she clung to all of it, embracing the promise of a new life.
“I hope you will heal quickly, lass,” he said, “because I owe you a proper shagging. I’ll want to do everything for you next time we make love. I’ll not hold anything back from you, not ever again.”
“Well then,” she replied with a playful grin of seductive allure. “Your words have given me great reason to recover as quickly as possible.”
He brushed the hair away from her face, and when she expected him to say something seductive in return—because he was a man of astounding sexual prowess—his expression grew serious and he spoke the only words that really mattered.
Seduced by the Highlander Page 25