by Amanda Scott
That he did disapprove must have been plain to Rothesay after Shaw had twice sent her away when he’d seen them together. However, Rothesay just as plainly would dismiss any father’s censure. But she could not dismiss Shaw’s.
Rothesay had only smiled at her weak refusal.
She said more firmly, “Truly, my lord, I must not.”
He continued to smile, his hands tightening on her shoulders. The thought flitted through her mind that even if she had had her dirk, she could not draw it on Rothesay. To do so would surely be committing treason.
When, slowly, hypnotically, he began to draw her closer, his purpose clear to anyone watching them, she knew that she had to stop him any way that she could.
His lips pursed expectantly, and she could smell the wine on his breath.
“God-a-mercy, sir, do you mean to kiss me here in front of everyone?”
“If you walk with me, we can be private,” he murmured. His lips relaxed to allow the comment, but his gaze still burned into hers.
“Yon archway leads to the garderobe,” she said with an edge to her voice.
“Aye, sure, but also upward to the ramparts and a fine view, I’m told. ’Tis your own choice. Obey me, or pay a pleasant and public forfeit.”
Gritting her teeth and sending consequences to the devil, she pushed harder against his chest, letting more of her anger show as she said, “Now, see here, my lord, you are truly beginning to irk—”
Before she could finish or his lips could touch hers, a guttural clearing of a throat made her jump and snap her head around to see Fin quite close to them.
She was glad to see him, but the stern look on his face and her own embarrassment strengthened her irritation with Rothesay. She tried to wrench away, but Rothesay’s hands tightened on her shoulders, and he held her so easily that anyone standing any distance away might easily fail to note her aversion.
“Let me go,” she snapped, wondering if she dared stomp on his foot.
“In a moment, lass,” he replied. He was looking at Fin but lazily, having neither jumped nor shown any other hint of the guilt that he ought to feel.
However, as he continued to gaze at the silent Fin, a frown clouded the royal countenance. “What the devil did you make that damned noise for?” he demanded.
“With respect, my lord,” Fin said. “I would have a word with you.”
Realizing that she was holding her breath, she let it out.
“Go away,” Rothesay said, grinning but easing his grip on her shoulders. “You intrude, Fin, as you can plainly see.”
“If I intrude, sir, ’tis better that I do so than that her ladyship’s father or one of her brothers should more angrily protest the liberties you take with her.”
“The devil fly away with you,” Rothesay snapped. “You’re a damnable nuisance, Fin. The lady is going to walk with me, and no father or brother would be such a dafty as to protest my attentions to her, whatever they may be. I find her beauty soothing to nerves overwrought by our discussions today. But you can say nowt about it in any event after so ruthlessly abandoning me earlier to my fate.”
When Fin’s lips tightened much as Ivor’s did when that gentleman was about to explode, Catriona felt a thrill of anticipation at the base of her spine.
However, he said only, “If I abandoned you, my liege, I did so at your command and that of the Mackintosh, as well you know.”
“God’s blood, man, such talk! Would you defy me then? Do you dare?”
Catriona was watching Fin, but at these words, the thrill of anticipation turned to a frisson of fear. She frowned at him.
If Fin noticed, he gave no hint of it. In fact, he displayed more temerity by looking with disapproval from one of Rothesay’s hands to the other.
Again, she tried to step away from Rothesay. Again, he prevented it. She glanced up at his face, then at Fin’s.
“Prithee, sir,” she said to the latter. “There can be no good cause to—”
“Hush, lass,” Fin said quietly but nonetheless firmly.
She swallowed a burst of anger but wished she could smack them both. It was as if two dogs circled a tasty bone.
Fin said, “By my troth, my lord, I do not want to fratch with you, only to preserve the benefits of your welcome here and the Mackintosh’s goodwill toward your cause. We may forfeit that goodwill if he takes offense at such royal interest in his maiden granddaughter.”
Rothesay looked long and searchingly at him, while Catriona fairly quaked with increasing unease. Then Rothesay’s eyes began to twinkle.
Seeing it, she began to relax until he said, “By heaven, Fin, I see what it is. You’ve taken an interest in the lass yourself!”
Fin stared at Rothesay, stunned, while his imagination sought urgently for something sensible to say that would not be an outright lie.
Catriona was silent, but he had not missed her warning frown earlier. And he doubted that she would welcome a declaration from him even if he had the right to make one. However, if he said that he had no interest in her, he would be lying and Rothesay would try to walk off with her.
Just then Ivor appeared beside them as if a magician had conjured him there and said grimly, “Speak up, Fin. What are your intentions toward her? If you mean to offer for her, I’d have expected you to ask our father’s leave to court her first.”
“Aye, that is true,” James said from Fin’s other side. “I must say, I had no notion of this. Nor did my lady Morag ken aught of it, for she would have told me.”
Fin, having looked from one to the other, now saw that Shaw had noted their gathering and was eyeing them sternly. Certain that he would be upon him next, he turned back to Rothesay, who returned his gaze with a mischievous one of his own.
“Sakes, Fin,” he said. “Have you been keeping this attachment of yours a secret? Because, if you have, I’m thinking that the devil must be in it now.”
Catriona, having kept silent throughout, suddenly sighed, looked right at Rothesay, and smiled ruefully, saying, “You are quite right about that, my lord. As you can plainly see, you have created an unfortunate situation by revealing our secret. But ’tis true, I’m afraid, that Sir Finlagh and I are in love.”
Lowering her lashes next in a way that made Fin want to shake her until they fluttered off her to the ground, she added, “How could I have had enough strength to resist your so-flattering advances, sir, had I not fallen deeply in love with him?”
“How, indeed?” Rothesay said with a merry laugh. “But this is extraordinary! Here, Shaw,” he added when Catriona’s father strode up to them, “I have uncovered a secret for you. Your beautiful daughter and my man Sir Fin of the Battles here want to marry. I think it is a grand idea. Now, what do you say to it?”
Fin held his breath as Shaw looked from one person to another, letting his gaze settle at last on Catriona.
“I was just coming to suggest that it is time ye were in your chamber, lass,” he said in his usual stern way. “We can talk more of this in the morning.”
“With respect, my lord,” she said, meeting that piercing gaze. “This concerns me as well as Sir Finlagh, because I am the one who told Rothesay. I think you will agree that it would be unfair of me to make Fin answer to you alone for that.”
“Mayhap it would,” Shaw agreed. “Nevertheless, he is going to talk with me alone. If ye do insist, ye may join us afterward to hear then what I will say to ye.”
That was not what she had wanted, as Fin could plainly see from her look of frustration. But when Shaw nodded to Ivor and Ivor put a hand on her arm, she turned obediently if reluctantly away with him.
“Don’t take her to the ladies’ solar, Ivor, but to the wee room opposite the muniments chamber above it,” Shaw said. “I will talk with her before she need tell your mam or grandame about this, so leave the gist to me. Ye’re to go with them, James,” he added. “Take your time, though. I’d liefer that nae one think aught of it or follow any of us upstairs. Do not speak to Morag, either, unt
il I give ye leave.”
“As you wish, sir,” James said with a nod as he turned away.
Fin waited to hear his own orders while keeping an eye on Rothesay, who was still enjoying himself and clearly expected to hear what Shaw would say to Fin.
However, Shaw spoke to Rothesay first, saying, “One of your lads told my good-father that you can doubtless beat him at chess, my lord. He would welcome a match, if you would so honor him, and awaits you now in the inner chamber.”
Rothesay grinned, saying, “I will, aye, and gladly, because I must tell you that I have been seeking a way to amuse myself tonight. But sithee, Shaw, I think that this secretive pair should marry at once. Forbye, it would amuse me more than a good game of chess and may lighten the mood betwixt my cousins and make them easier to bend to my will.”
“As to that, my lord, we shall see.”
“I could make this marriage a royal command,” Rothesay said provocatively. “Mayhap I have not made it clear that the match has my blessing.”
“An honor, to be sure,” Shaw said in the same stern tone. “We can speak more of this if you wish, after I talk with Sir Finlagh and my daughter.”
Seeing Rothesay’s quick frown, Fin wanted to warn him to recall his need for Clan Chattan support. But Rothesay, glancing at him, clearly did remember, because his brow cleared, and he said, “I would like that, aye, Shaw.”
“Good then,” Shaw said. Turning to Fin, he added, “You come with me.”
Hearing those words and Shaw’s ominous tone, Fin’s mind played him an unexpected trick with the sudden thought that had he known a month before that he would find himself alone in a room with the war leader of Clan Chattan, he would never have guessed that it would be for such a purpose or that he would be hoping only to soothe the man’s rightful fury.
Appalled at what she had wrought and angry with herself for putting Fin in such a fix, Catriona kept her emotions in check until Ivor ushered her into the tiny room across from the much larger one where the clan’s important documents were stored. The larger chamber was also where her father closeted himself when he had private business to attend or a daughter to scold.
But when Ivor turned to shut the smaller room’s door, she said evenly to his back, “I don’t want to talk to you about any of this, or to James either. Not yet.”
Ivor turned then to face her, and in place of the anger she had expected to see, she saw compassion and a glint of humor. “Do you not, Wildcat?” he asked. “I can well understand that. But what devil possessed you to declare such a thing?”
“I cannot tell you,” she muttered.
“Cannot or will not?”
She did not know how to reply to that.
“I see,” he said, “or mayhap I do not. But I suspect that Fin will ask the same question, so you had better think of an answer before he does. Have you any idea how much trouble you have created for him?”
“I know,” she said miserably. “I did not mean to do that. When Rothesay urged me to walk with him, everyone else had moved away, and even Father had said I could not be rude to him. But when I said that Father disapproved of my showing favor in such a way, Rothesay said I was being rude. I think he must be ape-drunk.”
“Very likely. He often does drink too much.”
“I did think that I could take care of myself here in our own hall, but—”
“Nay, lassie, and never with Rothesay.”
She drew a long breath and let it go, knowing that he was right. “How much did you hear of what we said?”
“Not much until Rothesay said what he did about Fin’s taking an interest in you himself. Sithee, I was still on the dais talking to James when you left it, so—”
He broke off when the door opened and James entered as if the mention of his name had brought him. He stood there, looking at them, clearly deciding what to say.
Ivor said, “Shut the door, James. It won’t do for Cat to see Father leading Fin into that room as he used to lead us when we were in for a raging or worse. I was just telling her what you and I saw and heard.”
James gave Catriona a searching look as he reached back and shut the door. Then he said, “You should never have let Rothesay walk off with you like that, lass, but, by my troth, I do not know how you could have stopped him. The man believes that his position and the blood royal running through his veins grant him the right always to get his own way. We have all seen that.”
Catriona looked from one man to the other and fixed her gaze on Ivor. “I expected you, especially, to be furious about what happened down there,” she said. “Instead, you looked almost amused… and… and something else. Art worried, sir?”
Ivor looked at James, who shrugged. “Your emotions hardly count as the gist of the matter, I’d think,” he said.
“Sithee, Cat,” Ivor said, “by the time anyone but Fin noticed that you had left the dais with Rothesay, you were too far away and too much mixed in with our people in the lower hall for us to do aught save shout. We could only depend on Fin’s ability to intervene diplomatically.”
“He doubtless would have succeeded in diverting Rothesay,” James said solemnly, “had you not interfered with him.”
Catriona disagreed, since Rothesay had been in no mood for anyone to divert him, but she knew better than to say so.
However, Ivor said, “By the time you and I were near enough to hear what the three of them were saying, James, I warrant the matter had already gone too far.”
“I did try to stop Rothesay,” she said, hating the defensive note in her voice but unwilling for them to think that she had simply complied with his wishes. “He reminded me then of his great power as Governor. He… he made threats.”
“Aye,” James said, nodding. “The man does wield much power, lass, and often threatens to use it. But it did look at first as if you went willingly with him.”
“You said yourself that you don’t know how I might have stopped him, James. So how could I have known how? Just tell me what—”
“Enough, Cat,” Ivor interjected, clearly impatient with James’s need to explore details ponderously and at length or with her own reaction, or both. Ivor added, “Although Rothesay is but three-and-twenty, he does stand in the place of our King, so it is true that you cannot slap his face or order him to take his hands off you as you would with any other lad. Even so, many who saw you will believe that you found his attentions flattering and that you responded to them.”
She nodded. “Morag said as much the first time I walked with him.”
“Then we’ll say no more about that,” Ivor said. “We did soon see that you were unwilling and tried to get to you quickly but without stirring undue curiosity.”
“Aye,” James agreed, adding earnestly, “I did not mean to make ye think otherwise, Cat. Rothesay would be a difficult man for any lass to manage.”
“I heard nothing clearly until Rothesay raised his voice to ask if Fin intended to defy him,” Ivor said. “I saw you frown, and the next thing I heard was Rothesay declaring that Fin had an interest in you himself. And Fin did not deny that, Cat.”
“Nay, he did not,” she agreed, remembering. “He did not say anything, Ivor. That was when you demanded to know what his intentions were toward me.”
“I did, lass, aye,” he said. “Sithee, you or, more accurately, Rothesay had put Fin in an untenable position. He could not honestly say that he had no interest if he does. But I’ll admit I just said the first thing that came into my head, hoping to give Fin more time to think. It was, however, not the wisest thing I might have said.”
“That,” James said, “is perfectly true. It may even be what put the notion into Catriona’s head to say what she did.”
Giving him a quelling look, Ivor went on, “When I said that Fin should have sought permission from Father, I expected Fin to reply that he would discuss any such intent with him. But before he could, you blurted your declaration of love and did it within earshot of God knows how many people, each of whom
has doubtless told others. Sithee, lass, you tossed Fin into the devil’s own fire with those words.”
“But how?”
“Do you imagine that Fin is across the way now, declaring to our father that you are a liar, Catriona?”
“Mercy, sir, Fin makes such a thing of his honor that I assumed he would tell Father the truth. He must know that I spoke up when I did to stop Rothesay and get away from him without causing more of a disturbance than we had already caused.”
“Whatever he tells Father, you’ve put Fin in a damnable position.”
She had known when Shaw had forbidden her to be present while he and Fin talked that she had put Fin in an unfair position, but she had hoped that by declaring as much to her father, she had at least done something to help. Clearly, she had not.
“Sakes,” she said, “I’ll tell Father the whole truth, myself.”
“Much good that will do either of you now,” James said, shaking his head.
“I don’t understand you, James. Prithee, say what you mean.”
“He must not, Cat, for we’ve come to the gist of it,” Ivor said gently. “In troth, Father would think that we had already said more than we should.”
Looking from one to the other, she wondered what on earth she had done.
Following Shaw into a comfortable-looking chamber of a size that nearly matched the ladies’ solar below them, Fin shut the door without waiting to be asked. The chamber’s warmth was welcome, even soothing, because in the long minutes that it had taken to cross the great hall and follow Shaw up the main stairway to the muniments room, his thoughts had whirled like waterspouts on a windy loch.
Inhaling deeply and letting it out, just as he would before taking on an opponent in a tiltyard, he watched Shaw kneel to stir embers to life on the hearth.
Then Shaw stood and looked at him for a long moment before he said, “Ye should know, lad, afore we start this conversation, that my good-father thinks ye’d make a good husband for our Catriona. I’m not so sure I agree with him. Not yet.”