Jennifer Roberson (23 page)

“Tell me,” Duncan asked as he came into her line of vision, “do you like him better? Everyone else does.”

It so astonished her that Cat forgot all about newborn nervousness and stared at him. “I have barely met him!”

Duncan hitched a shoulder. It made the negligible length of his neck shorter yet. “Doesna take anyone long. He’s a bonnie lad, my brother, warm of smiles and heart. ’Tis why my father favors him; I am difficult.”

Nervousness dissipated.
This is what John meant by clouds being on the march. Not the weather, his brother!
“Are you difficult?” Cat assessed him rapidly and gave him tone for tone. “Is it a natural state, or do you work at it?”

Duncan Campbell, who stood before her now, linked his hands behind his back. He was nothing like his younger brother, who was taller, darker, kinder, and unquestionably handsomer. “I work at it,” he said, “because ’tis the only thing I am good at. My father will tell you that.”

“That you work at it? Or that you
are?”

“I am. ’Tis natural, aye?—but I will admit I practice to make my nature more annoying to him specifically; he sired me, after all, and helped make me what I am. He has only himself to blame. My mother died too young. ’Tis his crop to reap.”

“It could be a sweeter crop.”

“Not at his table.”

She eyed him askance; this kind of combat she understood very well, growing up with four brothers. “You’re no’ so young anymore. ’Tis time to set your own table.”

“I intend to,” he agreed. “Indeed, I have every intention of it—or did, until he saw fit to interfere.”

“Ah.” Instinctively Cat knew, and rejoiced. “You dinna want to marry.” She grinned. “Well, ’tis no’ so uncommon, is it? Neither do I.”

“You
dinna matter.” Infinite derision.

“
I
dinna?”
You pawkie, ill-mannered lad
—

“No. I am
his
son, the Earl of Breadalbane—and a host of other titles. . . .” He waved his hand dismissively. “You should ken it already, if you’ve been sent to marry me.”

“Oh aye, I ken your heritage. I’ve my own as well; I am a Campbell,
too.
”

The emphasis was deliberate and served to give him pause. He reassessed her. “But your father is not an earl.”

Cheerfully she said, “Naught but a wee laird, is he? Glenlyon of Glen Lyon.” It was a desperate dignity which she knew very well he could easily disparage if he were familiar with her father’s tattered reputation, but she would not yet surrender the battle.

“Aye,” he agreed less curtly, “but you must ken ’tisn’t so much as an earldom.”

Cat smiled kindly, then set an edge to it. “Not everyone wants an earldom.”

He sighed, surrendering. “I dinna.”

That was unexpected. She reconsidered his demeanor.
“You
dinna want it? Most heirs would.”

“Oh, I dinna mind the wealth. I dinna mind the power. But I do mind
him.
”

Somewhat dryly she reminded him, “He willna be here when you inherit.”

“But meanwhile he is.”

She began to understand Duncan Campbell better than he did himself; they were not unalike. “So, ’tis your way of fighting back by being rude to his guest?”

“One way.” He grinned; though he never would be a handsome man, not as his brother was, with a genuine smile lighting his sallow face he was no longer so unattractive. “ ’Tisn’t your fault. But if I give you courtesy, you’ll tell him so. I’d rather have you tell him I was rude.”

“You are.”

“Then I am content.”

Cat picked up the flask. She felt immensely better than a matter of moments before. “Your brother left ale, and bannocks. D’ye want any?”

“I ate less than an hour ago. In the kitchens.” The slight smile was smug. “And it fair set him back to find me there.”

“He doesna want you in the kitchens?”

“Eating with turnspits and cooks? Och, no! I’m his
heir,
dinna ye ken? I’m to behave myself in acceptable ways.” He moved abruptly and sat down beside her. He did not encroach upon her skirts, but kept such distance between them as could be managed. “Have I been rude enough? Will you carry him tales?”

Cat grinned. “If you ask it, I willna.”

“Why not?”

“Because if you want me to, I’ll no’ do it.”

His brows came down and locked. “Why not?”

“Because
you ask it.”

“You’re a contentious bizzem!”

“In your company, I acquire your habits.” She took back the flask from him. “ ’Tis in no wise surprising why he favors John.
He
is courteous.”

“You canna have him. He’s wed.”

“So he told me.”

“I daresay you
could
have him—as mistress.”

Cat laughed because he meant her not to, and because she was truly amused by his blatant pettiness. “I would not.”

“ ’Twould be easier than being wed to me.”

“I daresay.”

“And which willna be done anyway, have I a word to say.” Color splotched his face. “That isna meant as rudeness, but the truth.”

“Truth wears many coats. Some are fairer than others.”

“So it does, and so they are. But this time I dinna
mean
to hurt you. ’Tis the truth, and wearing no coat at all.”

“You meant to hurt me before?”

“I did.” Duncan smiled. “He said you were not fair.”

She was unprepared for that. It was wholly unexpected and left her without clever reply.

He gave her no time to conjure one. “And because you
are
fair, I have naught but rudeness for you.”

It shocked her utterly; this kind of battle was unfamiliar.
“Why?”

The high color ebbed slowly, leaving him sickly and sallow. “Because I am not,” he said tightly. “Because I am
not
fair, and I ken it, and you ken it, and everyone else kens it; and because he has taken such pains to explain in all the ways that matter that I canna be the man he is, nor what John is.”

Something from deep inside bubbled up inanely. Cat pressed a hand to her mouth to keep it from escaping the confines of her chest.

“Christ!” he cried. “Are you laughing—?” He leaped to his feet and stood before her, outraged, like a ruffled heron save its neck was short. “You are! You are! You’re no better than he is, then . . . I should take you back in there myself and put you before my father and congratulate him on finding a woman so unco’ much like he is!”

“Stop!”
Cat cried, and when at last he held his tongue she was able to speak. “I am no’ laughing at you.”

“You
were
laughing—”

“Not at
you!
God in Heaven, Duncan Campbell, did he tell you naught of me?”

“He told me—”

“—that I wasna fair. Did lie no’?
Did he no’?”

His mouth was clamped together in a repressive line. “He did.”

“Aye, well, he had reason.” She paused. “Sit down.”

After a moment he did as told.

“I dinna ken what he said, but likely ’twas true,” Cat told him. “I have had names attached to me before.” The pain was distant; he of all people understood what it was to be so disparaged. “But for most of my life—and certainly when last he saw me—none of the names were kind.”

“In the name of Christ, woman—”

“I do ken, Duncan. I ken it gey well. You dinna need to explain. I have worn your shoes.” She set the crumbled bannock remains on the napkin beside others. “But explain something else. You said it a moment ago. You said we wouldna be wed had you a word to say about it.”

His profile was stark. “We would not.”

“Because of the earl? D’ye say so to fash him?”

“I’ll fash him whenever I may, but I say so now because I dinna want to marry you. I want to marry Marjorie.”

It stunned her; she had not considered there might be another woman. “Marjorie?”

“Campbell, of course; is there another name fit for a Campbell?”

Cat thought there might be, that indeed there was, but she forbore to say it; he would not understand. His brother would not understand. His father would not understand. Neither would hers.

Neither do I.
She drew in a deep breath and stared hard at the wall opposite the bench, deliberately studying the tangled vines. “I think you owe me courtesy now.”

“Do I?”

Because of Marjorie he owed it, whom he wanted to wed in her place; because she was cast out before being properly wed; because she didn’t want to come anyway, but came—
—and all for naught!
But none of those things would she admit. “I’ve come a long way; the verra least you owe me is courtesy.”

“I didna invite you.”

“I
didna invite me.”

After a moment, he smiled crookedly in rueful acknowledgment. “You didna.”

“And they didna ask either one of us.”

“They didna.”

“And we are left here in the garden to sort out what we will do, while everyone else kens there is no help for it.” Cat inhaled deeply. “D’ye love her?”

“I do.”

“Does she ken it?”

“I’ve told her so.”

“Ah. Then she kens there is a difficulty.”

“Difficulty. Aye, a ‘
difficulty.
’ ”He was disgusted. “I’m of no mind to wed you. I want to marry Marjorie.”

“Then do it, aye?”

Duncan did not answer at once. He stared blindly at the grass cropping up between cobbles worn smooth. “He is the earl.”

It was a simple four-word statement, and yet in its stark simplicity lay the weight of power and truth: that no matter what they believed, no matter what they preferred, the man who put the game into play had control over its pieces.

“God in Heaven,” Cat murmured. And then the irony of it struck her. “You ken, it might be worse.”

Duncan, bemused, frowned at her. “How could it be worse?”

“It could be that you wanted me, while I didna want you; or it could be that I wanted you, while you didna want me.” She smiled at him in an amusement no less honest for all its poignancy. “At least this way, whatever becomes of us, we both are unco’ certain neither of us wants the other.”

After a moment his mouth jerked in reluctant concession. “Fitting, is it no’?”

Cat frowned down at her skirts, tending the folds with every bit of attention.
‘He is the earl.
’Duncan’s declaration said all that was necessary. And she comprehended gey well.

She sighed and looked at him. “I suppose there are marriages built on worse things than mutual disaffection.”

For the first time she witnessed the real Duncan Campbell. The mask of resentment was put aside to reveal the clean face beneath, young and impassioned and wholly honest as he struggled to say the truth without hurting her. “But I dinna
want
to marry you.”

It hurt. Not because he did not want to marry her, but because he would be made to and would regret it all his life. She had spent so many years with people regretting certain aspects of her presence in the world . . . and now that two men had told her, unsolicited, that she was fair, that she was bonnie, after all the years when she was not and others told her
that,
she found it did not matter.

Neither wanted her: one could not because to do so abbrogated everything he believed in; the other loved someone else.

Cat stared hard at the wall. “Good,” she said. “I dinna want to marry
you.”

And knew as she declared them the words were wholly true, including their emphasis.

I
n his house, Dair gathered together the things he would need for the meeting at Achallader, most of them weaponry. His father was the MacIain; it would not do to offer the laird anything but the finest tail of men, fully equipped with such implements of war as they had borne at Killiecrankie and other victories, accompanying him into Campbell lands with all the pipes ranting.

Many of the men of Glencoe would go, though some could not; it was summer and the cattle were out by the shielings. MacIain’s tail would be reduced accordingly, though Dair knew there was also another reason. Killiecrankie, and the loss at Dunkeld.

Glencoe-men had been killed in both battles. It was somewhat easier to think of those dead at Killiecrankie because the battle was clean and the victory glorious—save for Dundee’s death—but Dunkeld had been little better than a disaster. Too many MacDonalds had been left lying dead in burning streets——
too many of them of Glencoe.

But those who did accompany MacIain would see to it no one doubted their zeal and loyalty. The laird would require a full complement of personal servants: the henchman who would stand behind him at meals; the
bladair,
his spokesman; the bard; the piper, Big Henderson, and his gillie; the
gillie-mhor
who would bear the laird’s clay more; the
gillie-cosfluich,
who would carry him across rivers; the baggage gillie; the gillie who led his horse through treacherous terrain; and assorted
gillie-nuithes,
who would run alongside his garron.

Dair gathered up a clean shirt, freshly brushed bonnet with eagle feather and heather sprig attached, the most ornate plaid brooch he possessed, his claymore, Spanish musket, Lochaber ax, dirk, targe, sporran,
sgian dhu,
and set them out where he could dress quickly in the morning.

It was the gloaming, passing quickly into evening. He was alone—Jean was yet up the glen at his brother’s house—with a peat-fire in the hearth and a single candle burning.

Illumination sparked off pewter, off copper; the detritus of his life, his two visits to France. He was neither a rich man nor a poor one, and able to set himself up with such ease of living as any woman would desire. He would never be chief, but was nonetheless a chiefs son, and would be remembered for it all of his life.

The laying out of his things ordinarily took little thought, save he would be aware of the need for additional dignity at Achallader. But now he did think as he set out each item, because he could not touch brooch or bonnet without thinking of Jean Stewart, who had tended his things for weeks. She had made his house hers as well with spring flowers set out in horn cups throughout, and in the scent she wore: French perfume, brought by him from Paris, which she did not stint.

Dair frowned at the assortment set on a bench near the fire. By ignoring the issue he dishonored Jean, who deserved better, and so he stopped ignoring it and let it come into his mind unhindered, snooving like a
sgian dhu
into what he did not know to call save cowardice, an abject reluctance to address with Jean the truth of his feelings, the truth of his desire to end what they had shared, if in markedly intermittent fashion, for six years.

It would be best to tell her before he left. Then she would have time to gather up her things and go back to Castle Stalker without doing it under his eye, or where everyone in Glencoe knew the truth. There was some dignity to be preserved, and he wanted to deny her none of it; she could go home with no one the wiser until she did not return. By then there would be Breadalbane and Achallader to discuss, whatever came of it, and King James in France, whatever came of
that,
and King William in Flanders with the Master of Stair, Queen Mary in London with the Privy Council, John Hill and his garrison at Inverlochy, Thomas Livingstone and his army in the foothills . . .
And pawkie naval cannon at Fort William with gun-weighted patrol boats on Loch Linnhe—

He was abruptly and quite unexpectedly assailed with the feeling of smallness, of insignificance; of a conviction that what he knew of his people and what he knew of Scotland was on the verge of dislocation, if not destruction. The old ways were changing, in fact had already altered; it was possible Breadalbane merely paid lip service to tradition by calling the clans to a meeting to discuss their loyalty to James, but the old ways were all Dair knew. He was a Highlander; the French in Paris had told him repeatedly he was too wild at heart for them despite his quiet manners, and that if he joined Louis’s service, or even James’s shoddy court, he would require taming.

Dair looked at his weaponry glinting on the bench. He thought again of Killiecrankie and Mackay’s Lowland and English troops, supposedly civilized while the Highlanders were called barbarians. He heard the pipes again, heard Dundee’s speech, heard his father’s shout and the bard’s oratory, and felt the hairs on his flesh stir, the groin-deep tingle of anticipation.

He was what he
was:
a Gael committed to Scotland, and to her Highland ways.

There were many more things of which Dair MacDonald might think while he sorted out his life, but it was Jean in his mind. He dreaded telling her the truth as he had dreaded nothing save the need to kill a man the first time he had done so.

“Christ—” he began, and then the latch rattled and the door swung open and Jean came into the house.

And he knew, as he looked at her against the gloaming beyond the door, that he would tell her nothing, nothing at all; that he
could
tell her nothing, nothing at all, because it was none of it her fault that he had fallen out of love, if indeed he had ever been in anything save her bed, and her body.

After,
he promised himself.
When the Highlands are settled, I’ll settle this with her.

If he could.

If she would let him.

And Robbie, who would be no more pleased than his sister.

Kilchurn Castle sat on a low, stony promontory that swelled into Loch Awe. It boasted a sharp-edged, five-story keep verging on the water, while at its rear bulked a lower, rounded tower house. It was at times cut off from the land, becoming an island; at others was reached by a marshy peninsula. Behind it the time-rumpled slopes of Ben Cruachan were ruddy umber and heather-brilliant, and a frieze of green trees crowded the land between the lower braes and gray-gilt castle.

The Earl of Breadalbane was not a man for soft words, even in his mind, and did not waste time admiring scenery. To him the most beautiful of all things was the accomplishment of a task that added luster to his name, holdings to his legacy, coin to his coffers, and status to his house. But at this moment he was caught unwary and unaware, and when he glanced out of a keep window to look upon the glassy surface of Loch Awe, well satisfied by his plans for the Achallader meeting a matter of days away, he saw the woman at water’s edge and stopped thinking altogether about the clans, about the king, and his own part in Scotland’s future.

Scotland’s past and her present walked the water’s edge. He saw the crimson of her sleeves, the glint of buttons and brooch, the brilliance of braided hair. She was not so distant that he could not mark her height, nor the way she carried herself, and he knew it was Glenlyon’s daughter who, quite alone, paused and raised a hand to stare across the loch with eyes shielded against the setting sun.

In a moment she lowered her hand. Breadalbane watched her bend and strip off her shoes, setting them aside, then kilt up her skirts around her knees. She was not wearing stockings; a flash of pale leg showed, and then she waded out into the reed-spiked shallows, sending ripples across the surface.

He might otherwise be offended by her informality, by the mud and damp hem such enterprise would incur, but he was not. He smiled. In that moment she was everything that was and everything that could be: a proud, unyielding Campbell born of an ancient heritage that he hoped would bring spirit back into his own line, much as he bred a specific deerhound bitch to a specific dog to fix a temperament.

Duncan has need of such a woman to strengthen his seed..
.. And the earl was convinced Catriona Campbell might do it. She was everything her father was not in all the ways a man might count; bred to Duncan who was, despite his demeanor, a direct descendant of Black Duncan of the Cowl and might yet possess some modicum of ambition and competence, she could well produce the kind of grandsons of whom the earl could be proud. He desired to die knowing his lands were left to heirs who could properly administer them.

Behind him a deerhound stirred. The earl glanced back briefly, watching the bitch stretch, sneeze, then resettle herself near the bigger dog. He could not help but smile; she was a lovely red fawn with black ears and muzzle, very keen of intelligence. The big storm-colored dog was the finest hunter he had ever bred, and he had high hopes for their get.

He turned to the window again and saw Glenlyon’s daughter was no longer entirely alone; a single figure made its way out of the castle toward the woman on the shore. Duncan himself, walking out to speak with her.

At his call she turned, holding up her skirts. She did not leave the water, nor make any indication she would, merely stood quietly in the shallows, straight as a spear or claymore with hair glowing red in the sunset, and waited for him to join her.

It was a subtle tableau few would mark, but Breadalbane was not a man who let such things pass; they might be important if one knew how to read them.

They had met. They were not strangers, nor enemies. They accepted one another’s company without expectations of prescribed behavior, nor made any indication of enmity or false modesty.

Breadalbane smiled. He had seen her earlier, had spoken with her. She was in many ways the young woman he remembered, and in the most important of ways nothing at all as she had been. And she was ideal for his heir, who would surely see her worth as only a man could, even unprepossessing Duncan.

—’Twill do, aye?
She would accompany them to Achallader and see Duncan’s promise as heir, and by the time they left there would be nothing left to do save escort them to a kirk.

 

With care Cat waded out through spiky reeds, tending her hem, then stopped as the water lapped above her ankles. It felt inexpressibly good just to stand still, to let the setting sun warm her face, its light glowing red-gold through closed eyelids.

An old tune came into her head, a snatch of childhood song.
—so bonnie, so bonnie was he . . . with white teeth a’gleaming and silver in his hair
—Cat’s eyes opened wide as she stopped, shaken. She recalled the tune, recalled the words, recalled the progenitor of them—

“Catriona!”

Peace was broken, but it was respite from unexpected memories. Cat turned, saw him; smiled as he approached, content within herself. The pain of his rejection had lost its small sting; she had never expected a man to be won by her features, despite Dair MacDonald’s words, any more than by her tongue, and was not disappointed that Duncan Campbell should prefer someone else to her. It simply meant she would go back home to Glen Lyon rather sooner than expected, where she would tend her father’s house while he was away at Stirling—or wherever else the army might care to send him—and indulge herself in unfettered freedom, which was all she had ever wanted for as long as she could remember.

Duncan Campbell at last arrived at the water’s edge. He eyed her askance, but did not reprove her.

“Come in,” Cat invited, knowing he would refuse. “ ’Tis cool, but no’ like winter.”

“I dinna think so.”

She smiled to herself. “Would Marjorie come in?”

He scowled faintly. “She would think to ask me.”

“How tedious. And would you give her your permission?”

“I dinna ken.”

It did not surprise her. She provoked purposely. “A man who prefers the company of turnspits and cooks to those his father believes more acceptable isna put off by the thought of shedding shoes and stockings . . . aye?”

He scowled. It did not improve his features. “I didna come to argue, Catriona.”

Cat grinned. “Am I being difficult? As difficult as you?”

After a moment he relaxed, offering a smile and a resolute expression less severe than he had been wont to wear. “Gey difficult; but ’tis
me,
if you’ll recall, and I am master at it . . . can we speak of something else?”

She studied the reeds breaking water near her feet. “Of what, then?”

“Marjorie Campbell.”

“Ah. Marjorie.” Cat sloshed along the shoreline, squishing her toes into the bed of the loch. “What is there left to say?”

“I want you to meet her at Achallader.”

There was an undertone of desperate declaration mixed with uncertain hope. Cat stopped sloshing and held her place, intrigued by his suggestion. “Why, Duncan? D’ye want us to be friends? D’ye expect her to like me, when I’m the woman the earl wants you to marry in her place?”