TENDER FEUD

by Nicole Jordan

  But there was no denying Raith’s caresses made her blood race. And part of the reason, she was convinced, was precisely because he was a lawless Highland laird, an enemy of her clan. From the first she had been attracted to Raith because he had an aura of danger and excitement about him, something that had always been lacking in her hitherto tame existence.

  During the past few weeks, though, her attraction had grown into something far more powerful, a yearning that was like a physical ache. This morning it had been so strong that she’d forgotten all the ladylike notions that had been drummed into her head since childhood; she had surrendered to him without a word of protest. She’d wanted Raith to make her a woman, his woman.

  Why he had stopped was the gnawing question that wouldn’t leave her alone now. Was it because he couldn’t bring himself to make love to a Campbell? Or simply because he didn’t find her appealing enough, with her shrewish tongue and waspish temper?

  After dinner, Katrine found herself standing in the small parlor, in front of Ellen MacLean’s portrait. Jealousy, bright, hot and absurd flooded through her as she stared at Raith’s beautiful young wife. She couldn’t help wondering what their physical relationship had been like. Would Raith have kissed Ellen the way he had her, with his hot mouth on her breast, his caressing hand stroking her body?

  But of course. Ellen had been his wife…while she was only his prisoner. The sooner she came to terms with that, the sooner she could get hold of her battered feelings.

  By that afternoon, Katrine was no closer to achieving her goal than before. While Meggie practiced the stitches she’d been taught, Katrine found herself jabbing her own needle fiercely in and out of the embroidery she held. How could she have been so blinded to propriety? she wondered furiously. How could she have been so daft as to respond to that brigand’s kisses? And how dare Raith reject her! Yet she knew she was nourishing her anger simply to keep her other, more dangerous feelings at bay. That evening, when she retired to her private bower, thoughts of the morning’s encounter returned in full force to haunt her. She lay alone and lonely on her pallet, her whirling reflections keeping her awake long into the night.

  It must have been well after midnight that she heard the screaming. Meggie, Katrine thought, her heart leaping.

  Scrambling out of bed, she flung open the door. The tortured sounds were definitely coming from the floor below, she realized. Without pausing to strike a light, Katrine raced down the dark corridor and then the dimly lit servants’ stairs, nearly falling in her haste. A wall sconce was burning in the hallway, revealing that the door to Meggie’s bedchamber was open. Katrine ran the last few paces, coming to a halt in the doorway.

  The screams had died down to a quiet wailing, and she could see why. Raith was there before her, holding Meggie in his arms as he stood beside the child’s bed, pressing her face into his shoulder and murmuring soothing sounds over and over. He was fully dressed, Katrine noted absently, realizing that he hadn’t retired yet. The room was lit by a single candle.

  Flora arrived just then, breathing hard. The housekeeper appeared to have been roused from sleep, for she was still adjusting the sash of her woolen dressing gown, and her nightcap was askew.

  Raith glanced over his shoulder to find both women in the doorway. “Fetch the laudanum,” he said softly.

  Flora hastened away to do his bidding, while Katrine looked at Raith quizzically, wishing she could help. “Light the lamp, will you?” he replied to her unspoken question.

  She found the flint box beside the oil lamp on a small corner table, and when the room was bathed in a golden glow, Katrine went to Meggie. The child was sobbing now, a soft keening sound that tore at Katrine’s heart. It was the first time she had ever heard Meggie make even the slightest noise.

  Hesitantly she laid a gentle hand on the small shoulder. She thought Meggie must have recognized her touch for she didn’t flinch. “What is troubling her?” Katrine asked in a whisper.

  “Nightmares,” Raith answered briefly. “She has them sometimes, though it’s been more than a month since her last.” Turning away as Flora bustled into the room with a mug of warm milk, he carried Meggie to the wing chair by the corner table. When he had settled himself with the young girl on his lap, he administered the sleeping draft Flora had brought.

  The housekeeper hovered anxiously over the two of them, clucking her tongue and muttering about the “poor wee lassie,” until Raith called a halt to it. “Thank you, Flora. You can go now.”

  “Aye, m’lord, if ye’ll no’ be needing me.”

  When Flora had curtsied and retired from the room, he shot Katrine a pointed glance. “You, too, Miss Campbell. Meggie will be all right now. There’s no need for you to stay.”

  Katrine knew she was being dismissed, but she didn’t want to go. Nor was she required to do so. Just then Meggie raised her tearstained face from Raith’s shoulder and stretched out her small hand. Katrine’s heart turned over when she realized the child wanted her to stay.

  A muscle tightened in Raith’s jaw, but he apparently wasn’t willing to deny his ward the comfort of Katrine’s presence, for he gave a brief nod. Gratefully she moved across the room, closing her hand over the small fingers.

  “Go to sleep now, my love,” she murmured. “Nothing will hurt you now.”

  When Meggie obediently closed her eyes, Katrine settled herself on the floor beside Raith’s chair, still holding the child’s hand. The room grew still. Katrine worried about the cause of Meggie’s nightmares and what to do about them, but at length her thoughts began to wander. She couldn’t help thinking about the man so near to her, and what had happened between them that morning. She wondered if he was remembering, too.

  Against her will, her gaze shifted to Raith, and she noticed for the first time that he looked more disheveled than usual. He wore no cravat or coat, and a faint shadow of bristle darkened his jaw.

  He was looking at her, too, she saw. The dark glitter in his eyes made her suddenly quite sure that he’d been drinking. He hadn’t slurred his words, nor did he show any other signs of inebriation, only that glazed, fiercely intense stare that was as menacing as it was somehow exciting. Katrine was trying to break off contact with that fierce gaze when Raith spoke.

  “Must you traipse about half-naked all the time?”

  Startled by his savage tone, Katrine glanced down at her nightshift. The white batiste was filmy and delicate, but the high-necked, long-sleeved gown covered her completely—except for her bare feet, which were showing at the moment. But she hadn’t had time to put on slippers when she’d heard Meggie screaming.

  Then she realized the incongruity of Raith’s question, and her head came up. Who was he to make such accusations? On more than one occasion she’d seen him wearing his kilt—and nothing else.

  “I don’t own a dressing gown,” Katrine retorted in a whisper, mindful of the child. “You spirited me away from my uncle’s house before my trunks had arrived.”

  “Well, get Flora to unearth one for you, so you can try disporting yourself with decorum for a change. I’m fast coming to the opinion that you enjoy flaunting yourself before my clan.”

  His sarcasm was more reminiscent of his first encounters with her than his manner of late, and it made Katrine’s mouth drop open. Was he going to resume their usual battles, now, of all times?

  But Meggie stirred restlessly in his arms just then, and Raith immediately let off baiting Katrine and brought his hand up to stroke the child’s dark hair. Katrine tucked her feet more firmly beneath her and wrapped one arm around her knees, wondering what had brought on his sudden attack. She finally decided that he didn’t like her interfering with Meggie.

  The silence stretched out again as they listened for the telltale sound of Meggie’s even breathing. Shortly Katrine felt the small fingers go slack in hers and knew the child was asleep. When Raith didn’t stir, though, she realized he meant to wait awhile, till he could be certain his movements wouldn’t waken Meggie again
when he put her to bed.

  He must have done this frequently, Katrine thought, feeling a painful surge of anguish for Meggie and a more nebulous stab of sympathy for Raith himself. As laird he was called upon to do so much. His responsibilities were vast, the burdens he carried heavy.

  She gazed at him, trying to understand his complexities. He was a leader, a fighter, the guardian of a young child who was not even his own. He protected what was his own with iron resolve, Katrine could see that. And she had no doubt of the sacrifices he would make to keep his clan safe.

  His gentleness with Meggie was not so much of a dichotomy, she thought, watching as he softly stroked the child’s dark hair.

  “If I could get my hands on the jackals who hurt her…” she heard him murmur. His tone was quiet and deadly, and though he didn’t finish the threat, Katrine understood. He’d said the men who had perpetrated the heinous crimes against Meggie and her mother were dead. And seeing the look in Raith’s eyes now, Katrine suspected those men were fortunate.

  Highly uncomfortable with the turn of subject, she changed it abruptly. “What do you intend to do about Meggie? About her nightmares, I mean.”

  His hard gaze found hers. “What do you suggest I do, Miss Campbell? Play God? If I could banish her nightmares, I would, but the last time I checked, I wasn’t possessed of His powers.”

  “No…I just meant…it seems to me that she must be lonely here, surrounded only by adults. It might help her adjust if she had the companionship of friends her age…other children.”

  His mouth curled at the corner. “That isn’t likely to happen. There’ll be no more children at Cair House, not while I’m laird.”

  Katrine regarded him with puzzlement, wondering at the conviction in his statement. Did he never intend to marry again? Had he been so in love with the beautiful Ellen that he couldn’t contemplate taking another woman to wife?

  “Still,” she said after a pause, “Meggie needs something to love. Perhaps a pet of some kind…” Her voice trailed away as Raith’s eyes narrowed at her.

  “You think that will make her forget?” he asked softly. “You believe the past can be disregarded so easily? Wiped from memory as if it never happened? You think we can cease to remember how the English violated our women and children and scorched our Highlands?”

  Katrine felt her fingers tightening into fists. She could understand Raith’s bitterness over the fate of the Highlanders at the hands of the English after the Forty-five. But he wasn’t the only one who had grieved over the destruction, over the loss of friends and loved ones. “No, I don’t believe the past can be forgotten,” she replied shakily. “My father died at Culloden, and I shall never forget that. But neither do I let the past rule my life.”

  “Ah, Culloden.” Raith let his head fall back against the chair, closing his eyes. “The day Scotland was brought to her knees…the pride of her manhood mowed down by the English cannon like grain before a scythe. But we MacLeans gave a good account of ourselves, by God.”

  “You were there?” Katrine stared at him. “But you couldn’t have been more than a boy.”

  A mirthless smile spread across his lips. “I was seventeen, old enough to wield a claymore.” He fell silent, his expression growing distant, as if he were lost in memory. His voice, when he spoke, sounded far away.

  “It was MacLean of Drimnin who led us into battle against the English. But we had no chance against their superior artillery. Such a great victory it was for the Sassenachs over the exhausted, starving Highlanders. A grand triumph for the Butcher Cumberland afterward. He took no prisoners except for the few he wanted to save for public execution, ‘to set an example,’ he said. The slaughter beggared all description…the butchery of unarmed, defenseless, wounded men. He hunted down the survivors and burned them alive in their huts—those he didn’t torture before shooting. Then the real atrocities began…the burning and raping and killing of the innocent.”

  Katrine sat unmoving as he spoke, her mind’s eye picturing in vivid detail the events Raith described—the clashing clans, the sickening, senseless massacre after the battle, the brutal pillage later. She watched Raith, unable to look away, the pain etched in his features drawing out all the tender, comforting instincts she possessed. He had known so much death, so much hatred. He had been molded by the past, by the hellfires of Culloden and all the other tragedies that had beset the Highlands, the lost causes and violent retributions. A moment before she had wondered what kind of man he was, but she knew that just now, in this quiet room, she was seeing the true man…driven, lonely, proud…bitter.

  He gave a heavy sigh. “The rising was futile, first and last. But what true Highlander could have refused to take up arms for Bonnie Prince Charles…fat, drunken lecher that he is now.”

  Raith had forgotten her presence, Katrine knew, or he would never have spoken so about the disenfranchised prince the Scots had wanted to put on the throne of Britain. Charles Edward Stuart had eventually become a profligate whose imperious temper and drunken debauchery had alienated his friends and crushed the hopes of his followers. She hadn’t known Raith could see it. But he could and did, she realized. Yet he was true to the House of Stuart, even now. He would be loyal because his life, his clan’s existence, were founded on loyalty.

  He must have felt her watching him then, for he opened his eyes, fixing her with his harsh blue gaze. “Ah, yes, Culloden was a sight to see. The Judas Campbells slaughtering their own countrymen.” Raith paused, before adding with pointed emphasis, “You said your father was one of their numbers.”

  Katrine stared at Raith with dawning horror; he could have fought her own father.

  “Yes, mine could have been the blade that took your father’s life,” Raith said dispassionately. “Does that fash you, bonny Katie?”

  But his hadn’t been the blade, Katrine thought with a sense of desperate relief. All the reports of her father’s death had credited a Murray man with striking the fatal blow that had ended James Campbell’s life. Even so, the jarring reminder that the MacLeans and the Campbells had fought on opposite sides had again brought home to her just how wide the gulf was between her and Raith. That remembrance brought Katrine no relief, only pain.

  She looked away, knowing the misery she felt was reflected in her eyes.

  “What, you don’t care to think about it? You’d like to forget that, too, wouldn’t you, Miss Campbell?” He gave her name a hateful twist, and though his tone was low, so as not to waken the sleeping child in his arms, the very air vibrated with the echo of past emotions, with the memory of the longstanding, bitter feud between their two clans.

  Katrine made no reply. Wearily she let her head fall forward, resting her forehead on her knees. They wouldn’t settle this tonight or any night. For in truth, Raith’s hatred toward the English and the Campbells ran too deeply ever to be tempered. He despised everything she was, everything she came from.

  With a feeling of helpless despair, Katrine closed her eyes. For there was another truth she could no longer avoid facing.

  She was falling in love with this hard, bitter man. This Highland laird who was her blood enemy.

  Chapter Eleven

  Katrine spent the remainder of the night tossing and turning on her pallet, hoping her wits had simply deserted her and that she would discover them in the morning. No doubt the strain of being kept prisoner for nearly three weeks had affected her reasoning, her perspective, her very mind.

  But by light of day, even without the forceful presence of her Highland captor to reckon with, without his dark blue gaze smoldering at her so fiercely, her predicament was still the same. She was in love with Raith MacLean.

  It was daft, it was terrifying, it was wonderful. She had found the man who could match her spirit and fire her blood. And she had no earthly notion what to do about it.

  Katrine lay in bed long after the sun rose, her head buried under the covers, the memory of those blue eyes burning into her. Her cowardice, when she considered
it, nearly made her squirm. She was afraid to face Raith. She was actually afraid—she who had always been able to hold her own with any man. But she couldn’t contemplate encountering him in the glen or coming across him by chance somewhere in the house, not until she had her feelings under better control, not until she at least could expect herself to respond to him with equanimity, without saying or doing something foolish.

  Eventually, though, Katrine dragged herself out of bed to wash and dress, the urge to check on Meggie overcoming her desire to avoid Raith. The child was still sleeping, but by midmorning, after the lingering effects of the laudanum had worn off, Meggie was showing the remarkable resilience that children sometimes possessed. Her usual somberness was perhaps a bit more pronounced, but she seemed to have recovered from her tormented nightmares.

  Even so, Katrine made a determined effort to keep the drawing lesson entertaining and cheerful. She was surprised and puzzled when the upstairs chambermaid interrupted the lesson to deliver a message.

  “The laird wants ye to bring the lass to the stables,” the girl said with a disdainful sniff, her contemptuous glance making it very clear she didn’t approve of a Campbell being trusted with the MacLean’s ward.

  Katrine scarcely noticed, however, for her pulse had begun an erratic hammering in her veins at the thought of having to face Raith. She straightened the ribbon in Meggie’s hair and nervously smoothed her own errant curls that were trying to escape from the coil at her nape, then took Meggie’s hand and made her way downstairs to the stable yard.

  But it wasn’t Raith who was waiting for them, she discovered. Rather it was Lachlan.