Charming the Shrew

by Laurin Wittig

  Sweet Saint Jude! What was he thinking? His duty was to his clan, never mind that to be forever saddled with that cat-a-mountain would be worse than being wed to dull Dolag of Fionn…or the supposedly bonny daughter of Duchally’s chief.

  He looked about him, searching for both Cat and the daughter. He should at least meet the other lass…just in case. He watched as people began streaming into the hall interspersed with gangly lads carrying trays laden with food.

  “Where is she?” he muttered under his breath, not sure which lass he most wanted to see first.

  “Who?” came a quick, quiet reply near his left ear.

  He whipped his head around to look at the woman next to him. “Cat?”

  “Do you like my disguise?” she asked, winking at him.

  She stepped back just far enough for him to take in the plain gray-green gown and the veil and wimple that covered her hair, neck, and much of her beautiful face.

  “’Tis very…fetching…for an auld woman.”

  She frowned at him, but then a smile peeked through. “Then I have done well. Isobel wanted me to leave my hair down with just a ribbon woven through it, but I thought ’twould draw too much attention.” Her expression turned more uncertain. “I did well, did I not?”

  “Aye, lass. You did very well. I did not even see you enter the hall, though I was looking for you.”

  The smile was there again, and he had to take a deep breath to slow his heartbeat. He had to stop this foolishness. “How many people did you insult while you were away?”

  That did it, extinguishing the spark of pride he had seen in her eyes and replacing it with the more familiar temper.

  “I insulted no one, bard. I was a model of well-tempered behavior. Indeed, I have made a…friend.”

  Shock and jealousy coursed through him in equal parts. “Who?” he asked before he could remind himself he did not care.

  “Isobel,” she said lightly, though the spark of anger still flashed in her eyes, “the chief’s daughter.”

  “Ah, good then,” Tayg said, affecting an air of interest he did not feel. “You shall introduce me to your friend. I should like to make her acquaintance, see if she will suit the king’s needs for wives for his loyal followers, or perhaps for me,” he added before he could stop himself.

  “You will not like her,” she said, her teeth gritted together now. “Isobel is a sweet lass but talkative, a gossip even. Her favorite three words are ‘I have heard.’ You would not want to spend time with such a talkative one as she, though the king might find her suitable.”

  Tayg was watching her with amusement now. “And how is it that you know what I admire in a lass?”

  “I…I…” She glared at him and changed the subject. “She says my betrothed, Rory of Munro, is known to her. I was able to avoid her questions, but do you not think ’twould be wise to tell me something of the man so I may answer next time? I was able to keep her chattering about castle gossip and news of the king—”

  “The king?”

  “Aye. He is touring the Earl of Ross’s allies before he attends his sister’s wedding at Dingwall Castle. Perhaps we can meet up with him sooner than we thought?”

  Tayg was impressed in spite of himself. She had listened to him. He took her hand and raised it to his lips.

  “You have done well, Cat,” Tayg said, looking her in the eye. “I am proud of you.” The shock on her face was priceless, and Tayg grinned. “Has no one ever told you that before?”

  “Nay. Never. Are you sure?”

  This time Tayg laughed out loud. “Aye, I am sure. You have done very well to make a friend and disguise yourself so. You should be proud of yourself.”

  The perplexed tilt of her eyebrows had him reaching out to smooth her brow when a melodious voice stopped him.

  “Will you not introduce me to your brother?”

  Tayg whipped around. Before him stood a woman near to Cat’s age with a perfectly formed face, waves of golden hair, and sparkling brown eyes. Here was a woman a man could fall for. He glanced back at Cat, whose expression had gone carefully neutral.

  “Are you not going to introduce us, sister?”

  “Aye,” she said, moving around him to stand next to the golden lass. “This is Isobel, daughter of Hamish, chief of the Beatons of Duchally. Isobel, this is Tayg the Bard.”

  Isobel batted long lashes at him and smiled. Her teeth were not perfect, but teeth seldom were. Tayg smiled back at her, then glanced at Cat, who sent him a smile framed with dewy lips, straight white teeth, and laced with sarcasm that only he would recognize. The urge to lean forward and kiss her grabbed him and he fought against it. He did not need to encourage this attraction he felt, and it would not do to kiss one’s sister as he wished to kiss Cat. He flashed Cat a quick grin, desperate to separate himself from this woman he was coming to admire as much for her spirit as for her bonny form.

  “’Twould be an honor to escort you to your table,” he said to Isobel with a small bow and a cheeky grin. Isobel smiled at him and took his offered arm. Quickly he led her to the table at the head of the hall, leaving Cat standing there watching them go.

  CATRIONA WATCHED THE two weave their way through the crowded hall, heard the low rumble of Tayg’s voice as his mouth dipped near Isobel’s ear and her answering tinkle of laughter at whatever remark he had made.

  She quickly moved to the last table in the hall, in the darkest corner, but she took a seat where she could see the table on the dais where Tayg had obviously been invited to sit next to the vivacious Isobel. Her stomach felt hollow and her chest ached. One moment she had felt like singing to the rafters, basking in the glow of Tayg’s unfamiliar praise, the next she wished the stone floor would open up and drop her into the depths of the earth as he turned his charm upon Isobel. Her first thought was to pitch a goblet at the lass’s retreating backside, but the memory of the hour they had spent becoming friends stopped her. If this was what it felt like to have a friend—wanting to strike out but unwilling to hurt her—she wanted nothing to do with it.

  She picked at the food on her trencher and drank her watered wine sparingly. After a while Tayg rose from his seat, gave a small bow to Isobel and the chief, and sauntered back toward her. He stopped at a table midway down the hall and picked up his drum sack, which she had not noticed there. He looked about, his eyes quickly honing in on her in her dark corner. He quirked an eyebrow, as if to ask what she thought she was doing hiding in the shadows, then shrugged and pulled a stool into the aisle that ran between the long rows of tables.

  Catriona found her appetite had picked up a bit as he’d moved away from the main table. She turned her attention to finishing the fine meal before her and poured herself another goblet of wine from the ewer that stood nearby.

  She listened as Tayg sang a simple ballad, one so old everyone knew it well enough to sing along. He was good at that, getting the others to cover his mistakes, even sing the songs for him. He could tell a tale better than any seanachaidh she’d ever heard, but music was not his strength. How had he ever thought to become a bard?

  A funny question formed in her head: how had he come to be a bard? He was poorly trained, if trained at all. He knew only the bare rudiments of drumming. His voice, so rich and animated when he told his stories, was rather thin and unsure when he sang.

  Catriona pushed her trencher away, nearly toppling her empty goblet. She tried to think back to when they were at Fionn. His performance tonight was better than that one had been, but only a little.

  She rose from her seat and moved toward the crowd. She watched as Tayg sang a line, then listened as the weans belted out the answering line. He laughed, rich and deep and full of simple joy.

  He was enjoying himself.

  She circled around the gathering, watching Tayg’s face until she was behind him. She focused on the faces, young and old, surrounding him. Smiling, friendly, open faces. How did he do that, put people at ease with a quick joke, a simple tune played haltingly on his dr
um, a pat on a shoulder, a grin you couldn’t help but answer with one of your own?

  He paused in his drumming and looked over his shoulder at her, catching her eye. She quickly looked away, too caught up in her musings to answer the challenge she saw there.

  The unruly song was followed by stories, different from the ones she’d heard before, and all the more entertaining for their novelty. This was the point where she had goaded him into the song for Dolag, but she would not do such tonight. Nay, he could do as he wished and she would sit and listen, wait, for what she wasn’t sure, but there was something to wait for.

  Loud laughter met the end of his second story. He beat the drum again and started whistling a familiar tune, but not one the Beaton clan knew. They could not, as it was the tune he had made up for Dolag. Catriona glared at the back of his head just as he changed the tune to a popular love ballad.

  Isobel beamed at Tayg, who smiled as broadly as he could and still sing. He glanced at Catriona, but she refused to acknowledge him. She continued slowly circling the people, watching the faces, though mostly she watched first Isobel, then Tayg, then Isobel again. Their attention was entirely on each other. What did he think he was doing? Isobel was no lass to spend her virtue on such as he. If he dared so much as to kiss her friend, Catriona would rip his eyes out…or maybe just his tongue.

  But that thought was a mistake, for thoughts of his tongue reminded her of the kisses they had shared, and the one they almost shared lying at the bottom of the ravine, near the snowy burn. She remembered the snowball fight and the way he had grinned at her, laughed with her. Something in her gut twisted. He was a fickle beast. But then again, he was just like all the other men in her life.

  But he wasn’t really like all the other men in her life. He wasn’t using her to his own end. In fact, it was just the opposite—she was using him to her own end. To take her to the king, to keep her from her family’s plans for her future. She did not deserve the fate they would have her accept. Which was exactly why she must make her own.

  She stopped her circling at a point directly across from the bard and slid onto the end of a bench. The man next to her smiled, drawing her attention to him. Something seemed familiar about his long, misshapen nose and the hooded appearance of his dark eyes. She could not place him, but then, clans intermarried so often, perhaps he was a cousin of someone she knew and thus shared a passing resemblance that tickled her memory but had no true memory to attach itself to. Catriona did not return the smile but rather turned her attention back to Tayg. He had launched into another one of his stories, and the group was captured in his spell.

  “He tells a good yarn, that one does.”

  Startled from her reverie, she looked up into the face of the man seated next to her. Lank, oily hair hung in his face, partially hiding his sallow, pockmarked skin. His thin lips were compressed into nothing more than a line across his face as he waited for her to respond. She nodded, not wishing for any company that would require her to watch her words and her manner. But the man was not as perceptive as Tayg would have been. Instead of seeing her desire to be alone with her thoughts, he continued.

  “He passed through my castle less than a sennight ago. Though he did not have the poise he carries now,” he said quietly, as if to himself.

  “No one has more poise than that one,” Catriona said.

  “Aye, though his seems to have grown quickly since he was at Dun Donell.”

  “Dun Don—” Catriona locked eyes with the stranger sitting next to her, and fear skittered over her skin. She ducked her face, praying the wimple would cast a deep shadow over it. “He has traveled far, then,” she said, keeping her voice as light as she could.

  “Aye, and ’tis not easy traveling this time of year.” He’d turned his attention back to Tayg.

  “Most bards are seeking their winter’s refuge by now, but this one…”

  “So you have traveled from MacDonell lands too?” Catriona ventured to ask, fearing the answer almost as much as the not knowing.

  “By way of Assynt.” He glanced back at her. “I was to meet my bride there, but she has disappeared.” He studied her profile a moment, then seemed to dismiss her, turning his attention back to the gathering. “I sent a message with yon bard for my bride, but it never arrived. I would know why he did not finish what he set out to do.” The man’s voice was a deep and angry rumble.

  Sweat dampened Catriona’s skin, but she could not make herself move. Her gorge rose, and she placed a hand on her stomach, willing it to behave. Her mind raced, but she could not fix it on any thought save that of escape. Yet she dared not leave in any way that would draw the attention of the man sitting beside her.

  For though she had not seen him in six or seven years, there was no doubt that man was Dogface MacDonell.

  TAYG KNEW SOMETHING was wrong just by looking at Cat. The way she held her head, her face cast downward, deep in shadow, wasn’t right. Catriona usually thrust her chin out as if daring anyone to thwart her. Now, though, she sat with her shoulders hunched and that damned veil and wimple covering her perfect skin and ebony hair.

  He caught the beat on his drum quickly just as his distraction threatened the rhythm. He began a bawdy song, a bit too bawdy for so early a gathering, but the folk joined in with glee, singing loudly and banging their tankards and goblets on the trestle tables, drowning out his less-than-rich voice.

  Tayg would be glad when this bit of mummery was over. It was one thing to skulk around letting folk believe he was a bard when—he winced at his own poor ability to carry the tune—it was so clear he was not. It was something else to maintain the facade with Cat, who was finally beginning to listen to him, soften toward him.

  He glanced back at Cat, but she had disappeared from her place at the edge of the circle. He looked about, sure she would be moving closer, ready to take a jab at his singing or put him on the spot again to compose a song to some poor unsuspecting lass. Of course, if ’twas a song about Isobel…his eyes flitted over the crowd until they came to rest on the beautiful, flaxen-haired lass.

  Wherever Cat had got to, she could not cause too much trouble with most of the castle folk gathered about him. Perhaps he should take the opportunity and see what he could learn of the chief’s daughter, beyond her penchant for gossip. After all, so far on this misbegotten journey Isobel seemed the most likely candidate if he wished to choose his own bride.

  Aye, he would take this opportunity to speak with the lass while Cat-of-the-sharp-tongue was not about. He needed to see if she would make a suitable wife for him. There was plenty of time later to find out what ailed Cat. He drew the bawdy song to a close and smiled at Isobel.

  “I would sing a song for Isobel, fairest daughter of your clan,” he said to the gathering.

  “Aye, that she is,” Kester, the lad who had shown him around earlier, agreed.

  “Tell me about her, then, so that I may choose a fitting song.” He inclined his head in the lass’s direction and graced her with his cockiest grin. She returned the grin, then scooted forward a bit on her bench to look at Kester.

  The lad’s face had gone rather pale when he realized that Tayg was serious, and he had to clear his throat several times before he was able to speak.

  “Uh, well, she is bonny.”

  “Aye, that she is,” Tayg agreed as he watched the boy’s pale face turn a faint pink.

  “And her hair is like silk.”

  “And how would you know that, lad?” came a booming voice from across the crowd.

  Kester seemed to take courage from the teasing tone. He straightened his shoulders.

  “Anyone can see ’tis true,” he said, beaming now. “And her skin, ’tis white as new snow.”

  “Ah, I can see that for a certainty,” Tayg said, winking at the grinning Isobel. “But what of her disposition? Is she shy and coy? Is she sharp of tongue? Does she mind her da?”

  “You ask a lot of questions, bard,” a new voice said quite near to him.

&
nbsp; “’Tis necessary if I am to sing her a song in praise of her virtues.” Tayg turned to find the man staring at him—Duff MacDonell—and he wasn’t happy to see Tayg from the stony look in his eyes.

  “I have heard you sing before, bard. Any lass with an ounce of pride would not wish for you to sing her praises.”

  A hush fell over the gathering.

  “My singing troubles you?”

  “Aye. You sang at my hall not so long ago, though in truth you have improved since then.”

  “What about my song?” Isobel broke through the tension before Tayg could think what story to tell the MacDonell about the undelivered missive. Slowly he turned his attention back to Isobel and grinned.

  “You shall have it,” he said, eyeing the MacDonell as he moved around the circle to sit on the bench Cat had vacated. Of course. Cat had noticed Dogface and had left before he realized who she was. At least now he understood why Cat was nowhere in sight. She would be collecting her belongings and getting ready to leave the castle. He cast a glance up at the high windows, but it was too dark to tell if the snow still fell. Would she wait for him or strike out on her own? She’d be daft to leave without food, without someone to watch over her.

  Without him.

  “Bard?”

  Tayg’s attention was quickly pulled back to the moment, and he shoved the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach away. He had to finish up this farce first, escape Dogface, and then find Catriona and see what she planned.

  “I think I have it,” he said, as if he had been deep in thought over which song to sing. In truth, he only knew a few well enough to play, so the decision was quick. He launched into a well-known song about a beautiful lass and her ardent lover as Dogface glowered at him.