by Amanda Scott
Knowing that she was blushing furiously, and taking care not to look toward the men again lest she see her father’s angry frown as well as Ivor’s, Catriona linked arms with Morag and urged her to some speed.
“What were you thinking to let him flirt with you so?” Morag demanded as they headed for the main stairway.
“Sakes, one does not let the heir to Scotland’s throne flirt with one, Morag. How would you suggest that I might have stopped him?”
“Why, by walking away when he takes liberties, of course, as one would with any impertinent young man.”
“Is that what you would do?” Catriona asked her.
Morag opened her mouth as if to insist that she would. Then an arrested look told Catriona that her good-sister’s thoughts had at last caught up with her tongue.
“You would not be so rude to any member of the royal family,” she said.
“But James would say—”
“I ken fine what James would say and what Ivor will say as soon as he finds opportunity. But if they are so concerned about our safety, they ought to stay closer to us when we are in the hall. Rothesay is a prince of the realm, after all.”
“Aye, he is, and I think the plain truth is that you were just flattered by his attentions. He is the sort who expects all females to swoon when he enters a room, and I have no patience with such. Thank heaven James is not like him.”
“That is certainly undeniable,” Catriona replied. Glancing over her shoulder as they reached the archway into the stairwell, she saw that while her father was talking with Ivor and James, Fin was looking at her.
He did not look angry, but nor did he smile. He looked stunned.
As Fin dwelt on a clear image of himself wringing Davy’s neck, it abruptly dawned on him that he cared much more about Catriona than he had let himself believe. That he had no right to care so strongly struck him even harder.
He had concluded that he could not kill Shaw and that it would not be fair to tell her he had ever believed that he must. But to act on his feelings and leave the fact of the bequest unspoken would be the same as living with a lie between them.
What she would call his daft sense of honor would drive him daft under such circumstances. Even if he could tell her and make her understand, and if her family would allow him to court her, he would still have to face his own family’s outrage.
That he had fallen in love with a Mackintosh might pale in minds reeling from the fact that of all the Cameron champions at Perth, he alone had survived, and only because he had fled the field. But surely, they would still forbid such a marriage.
There was also Catriona’s likely reaction. She had made it plain that she did not seek marriage and would resist one that threatened to take her from Strathspey. Although she clearly accepted him as a friend, after seeing her smile at Rothesay, he suspected unhappily that she might have been flirting with him, too.
His fertile imagination suddenly presented him with a picture of how he must look as he stood staring at the now empty archway, transfixed by his own thoughts. He had no notion how long he had stood so, but when he looked for Rothesay, he saw that he was talking with the Mackintosh and Alex Stewart.
Donald of the Isles stood some distance away near the fire, looking grim as usual, and conversing with the two nobles who had come with him to the castle.
Shaw stood with James behind the Mackintosh, and Ivor was striding toward Fin, looking grimly rueful. Recognizing the look, Fin knew that Ivor was still angry.
“I think she’s in for a warm few minutes with my father,” Ivor said with satisfaction when he was near enough.
“I’ll wager he did not spare you either,” Fin replied.
Ivor grimaced. “He reminded me that royal blood courses through Rothesay’s veins and… well, he suggested that I should cool my spleen lest I try to let some of that blood and find myself on a royal gallows. Forbye, though, I reckon Albany would save my hide and reward me for the bloodletting.”
“Perhaps,” Fin said, unamused.
“You don’t approve of such talk, I know. But royal or not, Davy Stewart is two years younger than we are, and his behavior would try the patience of Job.”
“I don’t approve of his behavior,” Fin said. “But he is not stupid. He will do nowt to offend the Mackintosh whilst he has need of him.”
“Perhaps, but I shan’t have to endure what goes on in that meeting this afternoon. Father asked me to supervise the peat cutting instead.”
Fin raised his eyebrows. “Punishment?”
“Nay.” Ivor chuckled. “The bogs are dry enough now to resist swallowing the men who cut the peat and stack it. Cart ponies can finally find good footing, too. And James wants to arrange for his journey to Inverness and his packing. Sithee, my father always likes one of us to be at hand because trouble may occur.”
“The Comyns?”
“They do help themselves to peat that someone else cuts, aye, whenever they can. But they are not alone in that habit,” Ivor added. “We’ll set a guard on our stacks when men on the road can see them. As the peat dries, we’ll cart it up here.”
“Where are these bogs?”
“Near the river,” Ivor said. “Why, do you want to come with me?”
“Just curious, and wishful. Rothesay wants me to sit in the meetings. But so far, he has not asked what I think of it all, which is just as well.”
“Aye, but that may change,” Ivor said. “My da told me that Donald is irked with the lack of progress. That he has contributed to it does not faze him, of course. In any event, I’d rather be playing in the mud with our peat cutters.”
Fin smiled. Ivor’s afternoon did sound more interesting than his would be.
Catriona had feared that she would spend the afternoon listening to Morag exchange commonplaces with the ladies Ealga and Annis. But her mood changed when Tadhg brought Lady Ealga word that Sir Ivor would be out all afternoon.
“Master James will be about though, m’lady, should ye ha’ need o’ him, and me, too. I’m tae run up and down to fetch and carry for him whilst he’s packing.”
“Where is Sir Ivor going, Tadhg?” Catriona asked.
“Only tae see tae the peat cutting, m’lady.”
“Prithee, may I go with him, Mam?” she asked Ealga.
“If you can catch him before he leaves the island and if he will allow it, aye.”
Praying that Ivor’s annoyance with her had abated and taking no time to fetch her cloak, Catriona caught up her skirts and ran down to the yard.
Ivor stood near the gateway, talking with Aodán.
Hurrying toward them, she smiled at her brother, saying, “Mam said that I might go with you, sir.”
Dismissing Aodán with a gesture, Ivor waited until the man-at-arms had walked some distance away before he spoke, thus warning her before he said, “I don’t think so, Cat. Not today.”
“I would like to go. I have not been off the island for days.”
“Then consider it a penance for your behavior earlier. Now, I must go.”
About to argue, she stopped herself, knowing that it would be useless and just as useless to try to explain that she had not purposely been flirting with Rothesay but could not just tell him to go away. Ivor might agree with the last part but would insist, as her father had, that she ought not to have stepped into Rothesay’s path in the first place. She had not thought that she had done so, but that argument would fare no better with Ivor.
Going back inside, she found the stairway empty until she passed the hall. Then, rounding a curve, she nearly bumped into Fin, coming down.
“You should clomp more on these stairs,” she said in a tone that sounded surly to her own ears. More politely, she added, “I vow, you move on cat’s paws.”
“And, for all the heed you were paying, I might have been anyone, my lady,” he said, giving her a look of such intensity that she could feel it to her core.
That look, plus the formality with which he had addressed her, made
her lift her chin higher as she said, “Are you vexed with me, too, sir?”
“Who else is vexed with you?”
She straightened, collecting herself before she said, “Ivor, of course. You were with him. You must know that Rothesay’s flirting vexed him sorely.”
“ ‘Vexed’ is not the word I’d have chosen,” he said. “But I did see, aye, and I think that Rothesay was not the only one flirting. That is, I doubt that Ivor thinks so.”
“But you did know that he is irked with me, too.”
“I have not said that I am,” he pointed out. “What makes you think that your behavior might have annoyed me?”
“I just thought you looked angry before, sir, when Ivor did. And I do think that you looked angry again just now.”
“But I have no right to be angry with you, lass. If anyone angered me, it was Ivor by letting his temper show so openly to a royal guest in his house.”
“I expect that is all that it was then. Will you let me pass?”
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Should I? You might meet someone else. You might meet an enemy on these stairs, or some other danger.”
“There is no danger here,” she said, trying to read his expression.
“Is there not, Cat?” he asked, his voice as soft now as soft could be and sending sudden tremors through her body as if he had touched her.
She swallowed hard and sought to find her voice. But it had deserted her.
He stood there for a long moment without speaking, then stepped politely aside and gestured for her to pass him. With a surge of unexpected disappointment, she knew that she had been hoping he would kiss her again.
Gathering the front of her skirt, she stepped onto the stair beside him, still hoping. Then she stepped to the one above it, still without incident. Abruptly, she turned, laced her hands through his hair, and forced him to turn his head toward her.
When he did, she kissed him hard on the lips, leaned away, and said, “You are the only danger here, Sir Fin of the Battles. And well do you know it.”
As she fled, she heard his chuckle echoing up the stairs behind her. Grinning in response, she felt much better.
His spirits lifting, Fin continued downstairs, having gone up only to exchange his shirt for a lighter one. The fire in the inner chamber burned hot, and with so many in the room, it had grown stuffy during the morning.
The afternoon meeting was no more productive than the morning one had been, however, until Donald said gruffly, “As I see it, Davy lad, the risk of what ye’re asking be far greater than any gain for me. Should we fail and Albany take up the reins of government again, we’ll all likely pay with our lives.”
Alex said with a deceptively lazy smile, “What d’ye want, Donald?”
Being a fellow Stewart, Alex spoke as to an equal, but Fin saw Donald’s lips tighten and knew why. Alex, although likewise the King’s nephew, was not only twenty years younger but bastard born.
Fin soon let his thoughts drift again to Catriona and her kiss on the stairs.
It had been all he could do not to catch her and hold her tight. Sakes, but he would have liked to take her right there against the stone wall of the stairwell.
Everything about her tempted him, and the strength of that temptation lingered. When she left after supper to go upstairs with the women, his thoughts continued to tease him, and they teased him even more in his dreams.
The next morning, he did not see her when he broke his fast with the men. But before the meeting had droned on long, the Mackintosh came to his rescue.
“Sithee, lads,” the old man said, looking from one great lord to another. “Ye waste time with all this posturing! Whilst I did agree to host this meeting and can see that ye need me, I am no growing any younger by this. Forbye, Rothesay, I would ask that ye and these cousins of yours do choose a man each and sit the six of ye down with me. Sithee, I’ll stay and keep ye from murdering each other, but only an ye take me advice. So now, what d’ye say?”
Fin held his breath. Having feared that the old man had stepped beyond what Rothesay would stand, he nearly cheered when, with a curt nod, Davy said, “ ’Tis a good notion. I’ll keep Havers with me. You other men may go.”
Fin left at once to see if Ivor had yet departed for the peat bogs, where he was again to spend the day. Passing through the hall, he looked for Catriona but did not see her and then found Ivor at the landing, watching gillies launch a boat.
Fin thus spent a tolerably amusing day watching peat cutters and learning more than he had ever wanted to know about drying peat for fuel.
He and Ivor returned near dusk, sunburned, hungry, and thirsty. Shouting for bathwater, Ivor said, “We’ve got nobbut an hour to tidy up for supper, so hurry.”
Fin obeyed, but when they gathered with the others on the dais, one look at Rothesay told him that he was in a dangerous mood and had already taken enough wine to make him reckless.
When Catriona entered with the lady Morag a few minutes later, Fin’s breath caught at the sight of her. She wore a rose-pink velvet gown that hugged her figure from its low-plunging décolletage to her enticing hips, girdled now with a long, gold linked chain. Her skirt flared in soft folds that swayed as she walked.
Although the lady Morag walked beside her, had anyone asked him what she was wearing, he could not have answered without looking at her first.
Supper was long, and Donald kept up a tense, low-voiced conversation with Alex throughout. They both sat at Rothesay’s right with Mackintosh and Shaw at his left, and the ladies beyond them.
Fin sat farther down on the men’s side by Ivor, but he knew that Donald’s conversation with Alex must be annoying Rothesay. And he could see that the lad serving Rothesay refilled his goblet more times than was usually wise.
He could not see Catriona, who sat again between Morag and Lady Ealga.
Occasionally, when Donald’s voice or Alex’s grew more intense, Ivor and Fin would glance at each other. But the third time it happened, Fin heard the Mackintosh mutter something that silenced them both.
Throughout the meal, a low rumble of conversation continued in the lower hall where servants, men-at-arms, and other guests sat at three long trestle tables.
At last, Rothesay rose, and perforce, everyone else rose as well. Nodding regally to the Mackintosh, Rothesay stepped past him and Shaw to speak to the ladies Ealga and Annis. His comments to them were brief, and when the lady Morag joined them, he turned away to speak with Catriona, offering her an arm as he did.
Fin imagined the lass turning on Davy as she had turned on him the day he’d met her, and slapping Davy silly. Sighing, he knew that she could not do such a thing without stirring everyone’s wrath save his own.
The number of people between him and the far end of the dais blocked his view now of Catriona and Davy, so he went around the other end of the table, hoping to keep a close eye on them and wondering how to intervene if it grew necessary.
Rothesay’s brittle mood was a clear harbinger of trouble, although Fin knew from experience that those not well acquainted with Rothesay would not realize that he was ape-drunk. Even if someone did, he was the acting King of Scots and thus ruler of Scotland. Moreover, he was a guest of both Shaw and the Mackintosh.
The two of them had stood between Rothesay and Catriona as everyone rose from the table, but both men had moved at once to talk with Donald and Alex.
Just when Fin got a clear view again of Rothesay and Catriona, as they stepped off the dais and joined the crowd in the lower hall, she shook her head and touched Rothesay’s arm. He grinned, put his hands on her shoulders, and drew her close.
Chapter 12
Rothesay was still grinning at his ribald jest, and although Catriona had told him he should not say such things to her, he clearly did not care what she thought.
He had come upon her so quickly, and when she had hesitated to take his arm, he had said he wanted only to walk briefly with her and not to be rude. No one else on the dais seem
ed to heed them, and she was sure that he could do nothing horrible in such a crowd of people, so she had obeyed him. He had put his free hand atop hers then and had urged her off the dais as he had told her his jest.
He’d frowned fiercely at her objection to his ribaldry, but the minute she touched his arm, hoping to show that she had not meant to offend him, he had grinned and put his hands on her shoulders. His intent now was clear, and she knew that no one nearby would dare to interfere with him.
Swiftly raising both of her own hands palm outward between them, she said, “Do not, my lord. You must not.”
“Ah, but I must, lass. You are too enticing to resist.” Stroking one velvet sleeve, he said, “I like this gown. Its softness invites a man’s touch.”
She had unexpectedly met her father after Shaw had left the meeting that morning, and had suffered a lecture on the behavior that he expected from her. Although he had readily agreed that she must not be rude to Rothesay, he had said simply that she should keep clear of him. To that end, she had managed to avoid Rothesay at the midday meal. But having worn her favorite gown to supper in hopes of impressing Fin, she had unfortunately lured Rothesay to her side instead.
Looking intently into her eyes, he said, “Be friendly, lass, unless you would dare to lay unfriendly hands on your sovereign.”
“You are not King yet, sir.”
“Ah, but as Governor, I wield the King’s powers—all of them, including the power to issue and revoke charters to land. Your grandfather and father control much land hereabouts, I believe, but only at the royal whim. Sithee, my command is as law.” He was still staring into her eyes, his grip strong on her shoulders and his desire for her radiating from every pore. “Come now, and walk with me.”
“I must not, sir,” she said, but she could scarcely get the words out and knew that she was trembling. She did not know if he spoke the truth, or if he would be able to take Clan Chattan’s vast lands even with an army. However, whether he could or not, she knew that the men in her family would take a dim view of her conversing at all with him and a much dimmer view if she angered him. And she did not want to give Shaw, in particular, any further cause for disapproval.