Highland Master

by Amanda Scott

  Standing close to him as she was now, she realized that the top of her head barely reached his chin. And as she continued to meet his steady gaze, she felt a prickling in her skin that radiated warmly inward.

  As she struggled to collect her wits, she sensed new hesitation in him, a stronger reluctance. She felt as if he might say that he had changed his mind and would go on without stopping at Rothiemurchus.

  But then he said firmly, “Lead on, my lady. I am eager to speak with your grandfather if he will receive me.”

  “He will,” she said as she gestured for Boreas to precede them.

  Following the dog, she became more conscious than ever of the man behind her and tinglingly aware of each firm footstep he took.

  Fin wondered if the Mackintosh customarily let his granddaughter roam the woods at will, or if she might face rebuke for bringing a stranger home with her. He hoped not, because it would complicate a matter that was complex enough already.

  Considering the dilemma that he faced with regard to the lass’s father, Shaw MacGillivray, he wondered next at his own motives. The Clan Chattan war leader’s name had haunted him for nearly four and a half years. That he was about to enter the man’s stronghold produced a host of conflicting thoughts and emotions.

  He would be accepting Shaw’s hospitality, so the voice in Fin’s head shouted that he should seek shelter from anyone but the man he had sworn to kill. Highland law forbade harm to anyone who sought hospitality or provided it.

  His original plan had been to pass through Strathspey into the mountains to the west and reach Castle Moigh quietly. To that end, he had traveled cautiously, and after parting from his squire and his equerry, he had traveled alone.

  The fact was that he was in enemy territory. To be sure, a truce had existed since the great clan battle. But truces could evaporate overnight, especially in conflicts over land. And when a feud had gone on for decades, as the Cameron-Mackintosh feud had… Had whoever shot him known he was a Cameron?

  Fin knew that he had kept up his guard. Although he had seen crofts and cottages along the way, he had not wandered near enough to draw undue notice.

  After entering the woods where the lass found him, he had felt safer. But although the forest provided more cover for a traveler than open glens and hillsides did, the unseen archer had shot him. And no man shot without seeing his target.

  Without the lady Catriona’s timely arrival, the villain might have killed him. In return, he was about to accept her hospitality despite his fell intent toward her father.

  She led him downhill at an angle, past the islet, to a granite slope on which a flat-bottomed boat lay beached. As she dragged its oars from nearby shrubbery, Fin said, “Do you expect that wee coble to carry us and the dog all the way to yon islet?”

  Turning to face him—chin raised, eyes flashing—she stood her oars on the ground with their blade ends against one shoulder. “I do expect that, aye. Art so cowardly, sir, that you fear I shall not get you safely across?”

  Disliking both the word and her tone but determined not to rise to such obvious bait, Fin noted absently that her eyes were not light brown but golden-hazel. When she glared at him again, he said, “I do wonder, Lady Imperious, if you habitually speak so to men. But, frankly, I’d not trust anyone except myself to row such a craft, overladen as it will be. But the dog and I can swim, and a ducking will do you no harm.”

  When her hand shot up in response, he caught her wrist and held it.

  What, Catriona wondered, had come over her to dare such a thing?

  His grip would leave bruises, she knew. She also knew that had she dared to taunt either of her brothers so, let alone tried to slap him, he would have flung her into the icy loch if not right over his knee. Worse, Fin was injured, albeit evidently recovering quickly, and he was about to become a guest of her father’s household.

  Still annoyed that he had doubted her skill but tingling now in a different, more unusual, and intriguing way in response to the stern look in his eyes, she did not fight his grip or answer his question. Nor would she look away until he released her.

  When he did, she put her oars in the boat and began to tug it toward the water. She had not got far before he grabbed the other side to help her.

  If he still suffered from dizziness, the speed at which he had caught her hand belied it, as did the ease with which they dragged the boat to the water. Still silent, she gestured to Boreas, and while she and Fin steadied the boat, the dog stepped gingerly into it, then over the oars and the midthwart to curl up in the stern.

  Fin continued to eye the boat askance. “Mayhap I should row,” he said.

  “With you in the middle and Boreas at the stern, the pair of you would likely weigh it under whilst I was still trying to launch it and climb into the bow,” she retorted. “However, you have clearly recovered enough to launch us, and I expect you are agile enough to jump in without getting your feet wet if that concerns you.”

  This time when his gaze met hers, something in the look he gave her shot a sense of warning through her. But he said only, “Get in, lass.”

  Wondering what demon had possessed her to tease him again, she obeyed at once and took her seat. Facing the stern and Boreas, she freed her kilted-up skirts for propriety’s sake and adjusted the arrow at her girdle more comfortably. Then, taking up her oars, she steadied the coble while Fin of the Battles launched it.

  When he swung himself into the bow, water sloshed over the port side, but it was not enough to endanger them. The boat had less freeboard than she liked, but the loch was calm, and she was skilled with the oars.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she had to lean and look past her large passenger to be sure she would not hit a rock as she backed away, then turned the bow toward the island. She noted that he watched her narrowly as she wielded the oars. By the time she had executed her turn, he had visibly relaxed. But he did not apologize.

  When she was facing away from him again, he said, “You never answered my question about how your people usually treat strangers. However—”

  “We treat them civilly, of course, unless they prove uncivil.”

  “Then we treat people alike, lass. Moreover, before we met, I had talked with no one since this morning, so I can scarcely have offended anyone.”

  “Mayhap whoever you were with this morning took offense at something.”

  “Nay, for I was with my own lads, riding from Glen Garry northward.”

  She glanced over her shoulder again. “You rode with a tail of men?”

  “Two lads only,” he said with a shrug slight enough to show that he still distrusted the coble’s stability.

  “Where are they now?” she asked.

  “Knowing that the mountains west of here are easier penetrated on foot than on horseback, as we were, I chose to walk on ahead of them.”

  “But why did they not just come with you? And where are your horses?”

  “I sent the men on an errand, and they were to stable the horses until our return from the mountains. They expect to meet me at Castle Moigh, though.”

  “Mayhap they attracted attention. Or mayhap you did without knowing that you had. I did ask you earlier if you had enemies hereabouts,” she added. “You said only that you had not passed this way before.”

  He was silent long enough for her to take two strokes with the oars and for that odd prickling awareness of him to stir again before he said, “By my troth, lass, I have not passed this way before. I have heard, though, that rather than enjoying a repute for civility, the men of Clan Chattan are a fractious lot. Also, you did mention trouble brewing. It seems logical that my mishap may have resulted from that.”

  Noting that he still had not said whether he had enemies in the area, Catriona nibbled her lower lip, thinking. She could not refute his logic, for it was excellent. But she was reluctant to discuss the irritating Comyns with a stranger.

  “I see,” he murmured provocatively.

  “What do you see?”
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  “That I may be right,” he said. “Just who is stirring this trouble of yours?”

  Grimacing, she said, “ ’Tis only the plaguey Comyns. I cannot think why they would trouble you, though.”

  “Comyns? I thought that clan had nearly died out.”

  “Aye, but they were once lords of Lochindorb Castle, which lies near here and is now home to the Lord of the North. The Comyns seek to grow strong again.”

  “Do they hold a grievance against your confederation, then?”

  “Nay, they act in response to imagined complaints and their own arrogance,” she said. “Much of their sense of ill-usage arises, as most such conflicts do, from land that they think should be theirs but which is and always has been Mackintosh land. Except for Lochindorb and all of its estates,” she added conscientiously.

  He was silent. Glancing back again, she saw him frowning. When she rested her oars and gave him a quizzical look, the frown eased and he said, “How quickly did you come upon me? Do you recall?”

  “Not exactly,” she said, returning to her rowing. “Does it matter?”

  “It might,” he said. “The trees in those woods were too far apart for me to miss seeing an archer who stood near enough to shoot me from point-blank range. But I could have missed seeing one who shot from a greater distance.”

  “Mayhap something distracted you, kept you from seeing him.”

  “I doubt it. I don’t recall what I was thinking when the arrow struck. But being alone in unknown woods as I was, I was not careless. Nor was that shot an accident. Might a Comyn have had cause to shoot a stranger here on any other account?”

  Resting her oars again, she shifted enough on her seat this time to look at him without getting a crick in her neck. “We have not agreed that the archer was a Comyn,” she said. Her tone, she hoped, had been matter-of-fact, but his eyes had narrowed. Hastily, she added, “He could as easily have been a poacher who missed his shot as an archer performing some great feat of archery.”

  She could feel her cheeks burning and turned back to her rowing, fearing that he had noticed her increased color and hoping he would not quiz her about it.

  He said evenly, “Such a bowshot in the open may be easy for most archers. But one from the distance and with the concealment necessary to prevent my seeing the archer is not. And whilst we have not determined that the shooter was a Comyn, you have not yet said whether some Comyn or other might think that he had cause.”

  “One cannot know what such a man may think,” she replied. “Earlier, you mentioned the noisy jay. I thought he’d got noisy because of your mishap, but—”

  “Jays are noisy by habit,” he interjected.

  “They are, aye,” she agreed. “But they are also noisy when predators invade their territory. The squirrels were noisy, too. Also, the ravens.”

  “Ravens?”

  She nodded. “They must have scented fresh blood, just as Boreas did, and hoped to feast on whatever they found.”

  “We can forget the ravens, since there was no blood before the arrow struck me. But someone else was in those woods. If you did not see anyone…”

  “I did not see or hear anyone,” she said when he paused. “We were upwind of you, sir, and thus, too, of whoever shot you. Boreas scented naught until the breeze dropped, and we found you shortly after that.”

  “Wolf dogs do catch scent on the air,” he said thoughtfully. “Surely, though, if a stranger had been nearby, he’d have caught wind of him then, too.”

  “One would think so,” she agreed. “But it did take some time to reach you. And the ravens had got louder. Mayhap the man who shot you took advantage of their racket to run away, or mayhap the stronger scent of blood hid his scent from Boreas. In any event, we do not know who it was.”

  “Nay,” he said. “Nor do we know why he shot me.”

  Catriona glanced over her shoulder and saw with relief that they were nearing the island. The castle’s stone curtain wall rose from just above the high-water mark on the gentle slope. The heavy gate stood ajar.

  Everyone would know by now that she was bringing a stranger home. Had her father and brothers been there, they would be waiting at the landing. As it was, their welcoming committee consisted of two stalwart men-at-arms and one grinning boy.

  Eyeing the two men-at-arms who approached from the gateway, Fin wondered if he had been foolhardy to accept the lass’s invitation. Belated memory of Clan Chattan’s motto, “Touch not the cat but with a glove,” suggested that he was a fool.

  But he had had no other choice.

  His orders had been to persuade the Mackintosh to accept a role that the man might be reluctant to play. And the Mackintosh was on the island.

  However, accepting hospitality at Rothiemurchus still presented sufficient difficulty to give Fin’s conscience another twinge.

  In truth, no actual law forbade dispatching one’s erstwhile host after having accepted his hospitality… as long as one waited until one was no longer under the man’s roof. Moreover, if he were to decide now against staying, he would stir the lady Catriona’s curiosity if not her outright distrust. As to his honor…

  That half-thought had only to enter his mind to produce a mental image of his powerful, exceedingly volatile master that made him speedily collect his wits. Whatever his personal dilemma was, he had a duty to execute, and simply put, the Mackintosh was here. All other concerns must surrender to that one.

  The coble’s bow scraped bottom, diverting his attention. When the boy who had accompanied the two men-at-arms splashed into the shallows and tried to pull the craft ashore, Fin jumped out to help him.

  His rawhide boots got wet, but he did not mind. He’d worn them to protect feet that had lost their Highland toughness after years of riding in the Borders and lowlands, instead of walking barefoot everywhere, as most Highlanders did.

  “The Mackintosh would see ye straightaway, m’lady,” one man-at-arms said when Fin and the lad had beached the boat. “He’ll be in his chamber, but Lady Annis and your lady mother be in the great hall. They want tae see ye, too.”

  Fin extended a hand toward Catriona, but she stepped ashore on her own and with a grace that surprised him. Few could emerge unaided from such an unstable craft with anything but awkwardness.

  He had seen from the hilltop that the fortress covered most of the island, except for its wooded northern end. When they reached the gateway and passed through it into the yard, he saw that a four-story keep formed the southwest angle of the curtain wall. The fortress boasted two other, smaller towers, one at the north end near the gateway, the other at the southeast corner. One man stayed by the gate.

  “Tadhg,” the lady Catriona said, addressing the small gillie, “prithee, run ahead and tell the cook that Boreas will soon want his supper.”

  “Aye, sure,” the lad said cheerfully. Raising a hand to pat the big dog’s withers as if to reassure it that it would not starve, he dashed off toward the keep.

  Boreas continued to trot alongside Catriona and the remaining man-at-arms.

  As they hurried across the rocky, hard-packed-dirt yard toward timber stairs leading to the main entrance, they passed an alcove between the keep and the row of wooden outbuildings against the curtain wall. Fin saw a path leading to a lower entrance, and when Tadhg pulled open the door there and disappeared inside, he decided that it likely opened into the scullery and kitchen.

  He followed the others up the timber stairs and inside, then up more stone steps and through an archway into the great hall. It felt chilly despite a roaring fire in the huge hooded fireplace that occupied much of the long wall to his right.

  He saw three women standing halfway between the fire and the dais at the other end of the hall. One was thin and elderly, the second a young matron, and the third fell between them in age. She was more attractive than the other two and a couple of stones plumper. Their veils and gowns proclaimed them all noblewomen.

  “There ye be, Granddaughter,” the oldest of the thre
e said in a high-pitched voice that carried easily, although she did not seem to have raised it. “Ye’ve been gone an age, lass. I hope ye did not roam too far afield.”

  The young matron looked disapprovingly at Catriona but kept silent.

  The plump, attractive lady smiled warmly.

  “I did not go far, madam,” Catriona said to the eldest as she went to them and made her curtsy. “Nor must I linger here now, because my lord grandfather has sent for me. Before I go to him, though, pray let me present to you this gentleman whom Boreas and I found injured in our woods.”

  “Mercy, dearling, I wish ye would no ramble with only that great dog to guard ye,” the plump lady said. “A body might meet anyone these days.”

  “In troth, you might,” the younger matron said. “Why, you ken fine that—”

  “Never mind that now, ye two,” the old woman said, holding Fin’s interested gaze. “Do present your new acquaintance to us, Catriona.”

  “He is called Fin of the Battles, madam,” the lass said as Fin made his bow. “This is my grandmother, Annis, Lady Mackintosh, sir.” Gesturing to the others, she said, “This is my mother, the lady Ealga, and my brother James’s wife, Morag. Fin of the Battles came into Clan Chattan country to speak to the Mackintosh,” she added.

  “Then, ye must take him to your grandfather straightway,” Lady Annis said. “But I would ken more about ye, Fin of the Battles. Ye’ll join us for supper.”

  “With the Mackintosh’s leave, I will be pleased to do so, your ladyship,” Fin said. He saw that the “great dog” had flopped near the fire and closed its eyes.

  When Catriona turned toward the dais end of the hall, her grandmother said with a gesture to the man-at-arms who had come with them from the shore, “Take Aodán in with ye, lassie. The Mackintosh may have orders for him.”

  Fin’s lips twitched in a near smile. Lady Annis was too polite to insult him by demanding that he leave his weapons behind. But she evidently believed that one guard could protect the Captain of Clan Chattan if the need arose.