Sins of a Highland Devil: Highland Warriors Book 1

by Welfonder Sue-Ellen

  And she did tempt him greatly.

  Damn the woman, anyway.

  Chapter 3

  “Is this true?”

  Alasdair MacDonald hooked his thumbs in his sword belt and stared across his solar at Catriona. Not caring for his tone, she resisted the urge to move away from his regard and sweep through the door. She did aim a withering glance at James Cameron, the man responsible for her present quandary. Alasdair didn’t even look at the blackguard. Ignoring him, he kept his attention on her, his sharp-eyed gaze flicking over her tangled hair and then dipping to her wet and muddied shoes. When his perusal turned to the blood smears on her gown, she raised her chin. Alasdair’s face darkened. Worse, the fierce lowering of his brows as he surveyed her ruined skirts showed that he faulted her for her sullied appearance.

  And that was intolerable.

  He should be challenging James – the devil - Cameron for accosting her.

  No other man would’ve dared to haul her into his arms so roughly. Or seize her at all, truth be told. She bent another chilly gaze on the lout, not surprised by the hard line of his jaw or the glint of arrogance that flared in his dark eyes when he met her stare.

  She glared back, furious that the wickedly sensual curve of his mouth made her heart knock against her ribs.

  He arched a brow, his insolence chased by a flash of pure masculine triumph as if he knew exactly how much he flustered her.

  Knew, and delighted in riling her.

  Look away, her good sense warned her. Don’t let him see he affects you.

  But she still felt too raw, too unsettled by the blood thundering in her veins, to tear her gaze from him. She did narrow her eyes in challenge, hoping her own piercing regard would put him at ill ease.

  The look he gave her said that was impossible.

  Simmering inwardly, she held her ground. And – because she just couldn’t help it – she let her gaze settle once again on his sinfully tempting mouth.

  She should lift her chin higher and straighten her shoulders, showing him how deeply she reviled him. Not gawp at his lips, wondering what his kiss would taste like and recalling the rush of sensations that flooded her when he’d grabbed her with his big hands and pulled her so close to his hard-muscled body.

  Even now – and knowing him to be one of the worst scoundrels in the land – she could still feel the brace of his arm around her waist, how his strong fingers had gripped her, the edge of his thumb brushing against the sensitive lower swells of her breasts. His warmth had penetrated the thick folds of his plaid, even burning through her own cloak, to heat her skin with scalding intimacy.

  When he’d dragged her through Blackshore’s gate and into the bailey, clearly manhandling her, Alasdair should’ve greeted him with murderous rage.

  Instead, her brother had ushered the scoundrel into his great hall, led him past rows of trestle tables filled with startled, swivel-necked kinsmen and then – Catriona bristled – even escorted him inside the keep’s lovely painted solar, where a bountiful table had been laid with sumptuous victuals and libations.

  Now, having lost apparent interest in provoking her, James hovered near that well-set table. As she looked on, he helped himself to generous portions of plump, smoke-dried herring and fine, fresh-baked oat-cakes spread thickly with Cook’s special herbed cheese.

  Catriona watched him eat, noting the relish he put into each bite. Outrage swept her and she placed her hands on her hips, irritation making her pulse race. She hoped he’d swallow a fish bone. She narrowed her eyes, willing it to happen.

  Her anger smoldered and burned, cauldron hot.

  Especially when she saw that the welcome offerings included a large platter of honey cakes, each tempting treat dusted with costly sugar. It was clear her brother had taken the famed code of Highland hospitality more than a shade past the expected courtesies.

  Just now Alasdair was arching a brow at her. “Well, my sister?”

  Catriona raised her chin a fraction, matching his glare. She stepped closer to the hearth fire, secretly annoyed that it burned so brightly. Considering who shared the room with them, she would have preferred cold ash. As things stood, she hoped the dancing flames would pick out every nuance of her dishevelment.

  Her rumpled appearance was a badge of honor.

  She wore each stain, mud speck, and hair-knot with pride.

  Alasdair’s expression soured as if he’d read her thoughts. “Dinnae test my patience.” He folded his arms, waiting. “I’ll have your answer.”

  Catriona didn’t flinch. “You can see that I was out.”

  “That is no’ what I asked you.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Were you caught in the wood at Castle Haven? Did you leave this stronghold, alone and against my wishes? Or” – he flashed a look at James who stood admiring a vibrantly colored mural of the sea god, Manannan Mac Lir, flying across the foam in Wave Sweeper, the deity’s self-sailing boat - “do my own eyes and ears deceive me?

  “The Camerons may no’ be our friends.” Alasdair paused, his voice hardening. “But I have ne’er had cause to call their chief a liar.”

  “And I am?” Catriona looked him in the eye. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I say you are headstrong and” – her brother sent another glance to the Cameron – “at times, foolish. That is a sad truth and one I am loath to admit for you are my sister and should stand above such capering. What you did this morn was more than thoughtless. It was dangerous. Do you no’ have any regrets or contrition?”

  “I do.” She let her eyes snap. “I’m pained to see a Cameron whiling in our best solar and” – she flicked her own look at James – “tipping our finest MacDonald ale down his arrogant throat.”

  “Catriona!” Alasdair’s face colored.

  James nearly choked. He did set down his cup, returning it to the lavishly decked table, placed so near the painted wake of Manannan’s enchanted galley. How Catriona wished those vividly-captured waves would burst to life, sending the frothing spume into the solar to swallow the proud Cameron chieftain and carry him out to sea where he could plague her no more.

  At the very least, she wouldn’t mind seeing the magnificent flowing-bearded, blue-robed god whirl around from his place on the wall and use the pointy end of his trident to jab the Cameron’s arse.

  Sadly, Manannan chose to ignore her wishes.

  Wholly unthreatened, her nemesis merely dragged his sleeve over his mouth. But not before his lips twitched in what could have been the beginning of an amused smile.

  The bastard was laughing at her!

  Catriona opened her eyes very wide, showing scorn.

  Impervious, the lout remained where he was, standing near the table, Manannan towering behind him like a fierce and indignant ally. But unlike the sea god’s fixed stare, his gaze slid over her, settling on her face in a way that made her feel disturbingly breathless.

  “Be assured, Lady Catriona, that you” – a touch of pride entered his voice – “or anyone of your household would be met with the same deference should you ever appear at Castle Haven’s gate.

  “Although” – his lips quirked again – “I’ll no’ deny such amenities would be offered out of a sense of honor and duty and no’ because we’d be pleased to greet you.”

  “And you, sirrah, needn’t worry about expending the effort.” Catriona glared at him, her entire body flaming. “I can think of no MacDonald who’d willingly trouble themselves to seek your door.”

  “If that includes you, my sister, I shall be relieved to know you’ll no longer be beating a path across the glen, heading in just that direction.” Alasdair poured another measure of ale into James’ cup and handed it to him. “Such knowledge will save me from-”

  “Spare you what?” Catriona seethed as James accepted the ale. “Setting another keeper on my door? Perhaps two this time? Or will you forgo guardsmen and just bar my door from the outside?”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Alasdair spoke smoothly. “And yo
u will no’ be locked in your quarters. You may go wherever you wish so long as you remain within the castle walls. If you attempt to leave, you’ll be stopped.”

  Catriona went to one of the tall window arches where cold morning sun was just beginning to stream inside. The light danced on the brilliant colors of the wall murals – all fanciful Celtic beasts and pagan deities – and slanted across the sheep-and-deerskin covered floor, spreading pools of pale, shimmering gold.

  Keeping her back to the room, she gazed out at the loch and the wispy haze curling across the glassy black water.

  Alasdair was a fool.

  Even if she didn’t use the causeway to reach the shore, a wean could snatch one of the small, two-oared coracles from the castle’s narrow strand and slip silently away before anyone noticed.

  She knew how to row such a cockleshell better than most men.

  She could swim, too.

  More than once, she’d stripped bare and left her clothes on a rock by the shore, then spent afternoons cleaving the loch’s chill waters. Those were hours when she felt as one with the glen’s beauty and all that the land meant to her. Naked and with nothing separating her from the past, she liked to imagine she was swimming through the beginning of time or – a little shiver sped down her spine, remembering – perhaps even the distant future. Wherever she fancied herself, the loch always embraced her, as did the enclosing hills, looking on gently. Or so it would seem until her brother’s outraged shouts ruined her pleasure.

  Those trusted waters would help her now.

  Alasdair couldn’t hold her captive.

  “Put the notion from your head.” He appeared at her elbow, proving as so often that he had the power to peer into her thoughts. “You may walk the strand, dinnae fret. But” – his voice hardened – “you’ll refrain from taking a boat or trying to swim to land.”

  She glanced at him. “And why should I?”

  He held her gaze. “You will because you’re too fond of our kinsmen to be the cause of a single one of them seeking his bed hungry.”

  “What do you mean?” She flushed, already guessing.

  Alasdair rested a hand on the edge of the window arch, his gaze on the loch. “Only that any guard who neglects his duty, now knows that his oversight will see him spending time in the dungeon where he’ll sup on such fare as soured ale and moldy bread crusts.

  “I think you’ll find” – he paused – “that an empty stomach motivates a man even more than the promise of a tumble with a willing laundress.”

  Catriona’s eyes rounded. Her heart sank.

  Alasdair was right. She’d sooner eat dust motes and sip dew off the grass than be responsible for the hardship of a kinsman. The very thought made her stomach knot, taking away all her bluster. She loved her clan – and the glen – more than anything else. Misery was the last thing she’d wish for anyone at Blackshore.

  “Maili told you.” Catriona couldn’t believe it. She’d bought the girl’s silence with a length of finest ribbon. She also liked and trusted her.

  “The lass didn’t betray you.” Alasdair answered as if she’d spoken aloud. “She just had the misfortune of entertaining your guard in an antechamber where one of her more ardent admirers chose to spread his pallet. When the man walked in on them, a fight erupted. Their bellowing and crashing about woke the entire stronghold.”

  Catriona was silent.

  Maili was comely and known for being generous with her charms. A tussle such as Alasdair described could easily have happened without Catriona’s interference.

  “I don’t understand.” She frowned. “If Maili didn’t tell you, then how-”

  The truth hit her when she heard the clack of James setting down his ale cup. Three long strides brought him across the room and then he was looming beside Alasdair, his broad shoulders blocking out the brightly-painted solar. He stood before her, pinning her with a look that blurred everything else, making her feel as if they were alone.

  She swallowed. The room suddenly felt overly warm, much hotter than could be credited to the cheery fire, however well-burning.

  James and her brother exchanged a meaningful glance. She didn’t need to see more. Especially when the Cameron turned to her, his raven-black hair gleaming in the fire glow and one brow raised appraisingly. His dark gaze held hers, making her shiver and – she was quite sure – even setting the tops of her ears to heating.

  “It was you.” Her temper came rushing back. “You told Alasdair how I slipped away.”

  He didn’t deny it. “I did naught that he would no’ have done for me or” – his deep voice was steady, certain in the truth of his claim – “any other chief with a sister prone to placing herself in harm’s way.”

  Flames shot up Catriona’s neck, burning her cheeks.

  He hadn’t said errant sister, but the slur crackled between them, blistering the air.

  Alasdair slid a glance at her, his expression showing that he wasn’t on her side. Ignoring him, she squared her shoulders and kept her gaze on James.

  “You dare much, sir.” She used her chilliest tone.

  “I thought we’d already established that, my lady?” His words held the faintest trace of amusement. “If you require further proof….” He let the words tail off and glanced at Alasdair who was making a business of smoothing the folds of his plaid.

  “Perhaps” – James regarded her levelly – “you’ll be less grieved to know that I would have escorted any female out of that wood. My intent was to see you safely returned to your brother’s care. No more or no less, I assure you.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is.”

  “I see.” Catriona brushed at her skirts.

  His declaration, surely meant to placate, only vexed her more.

  She drew herself up, preparing to say something particularly peppered. It would cut him down a notch to see that he couldn’t get the better of her. But then she realized why his words annoyed her so much and her heart slammed to a halt in her breast.

  He didn’t remember the last time he’d caught her on Cameron land.

  She’d never forgotten.

  How she wished she could. Instead, she ignored the fury that always came with the memory. She also damned his dark good looks. Years ago when their paths had first crossed, he’d been a brawny lad, brash and swaggering. Now, as a man, every inch of him offended her. His height and the wide-set of his shoulders was an insult.

  His words made her blood boil.

  “I am pleased, sir, that you champion every hapless female who oh-so regrettably sets foot in your wood. Why” – she met his eye, hoping to make him uncomfortable – “you are all chivalry and honor.”

  Far from looking affronted, his dark eyes crinkled at the corners. “You humble me, my lady.”

  “I doubt that’s possible!” Catriona felt as if her entire body were on fire. She couldn’t believe it, but he was actually smiling at her.

  Her brother looked livid. “Cat-”

  Snatching up her skirts, she swept from the room before he could scold her. Half-certain that Alasdair and James would pursue her, she ran along the darkened corridor and raced down the tower stair, taking the tight, winding steps as quickly as she dared. She dashed through the hall, her chin raised against the stares of her kinsmen. Indignation gave her the strength to yank open the heavy hall door as if it weighed nothing. Outside, she flew across the bailey, not stopping until she’d darted past the seaward gate and stood, breathless, on the sliver of shingled strand beneath Blackshore’s walls.

  She flashed a glance at the top of those walls, not surprised to see her brother’s most trusted guardsmen already crowding the battlements. They loomed there like a row of carrion crows, ready to swoop down on her if she so much as sneezed.

  Her anger swelled again and she returned their stares, brows arched.

  In truth, she couldn’t fault them.

  They were only following her brother’s orders.

  So she went to stand at th
e water’s edge. She could still sense the guardsmen’s eyes boring into her, but she did her best to blot them from her mind. She needed to watch where she stepped as frost glittered on the stones, making them slippery. The morning was cold and a sharp wind blew along the loch. She lifted a hand to touch her amber necklace, nestled as always against her skin.

  Too bad the ambers offered no solace.

  Legend told that the necklace warned of imminent peril.

  She stilled her fingers on the stones, waiting for them to warm or quicken. If James Cameron wasn’t a danger, she was a barking trout.

  But nothing happened.

  The ambers remained cool beneath her touch, the polished rounds still as glass. Even so, she didn’t doubt that the ambers lived. Their romantic past made it impossible not to trust in their magic.

  If the tales were true, the gemstones came from a treasure presented to the clan when a long-ago chieftain returned a land-trapped Selkie ancestress to the sea. Manannan Mac Lir, god of sea and wind, is said to have ridden his great steed, Embarr of the Flowing Mane, to Blackshore’s gate, allowing no other to deliver the gift.

  Some claimed the gemstones were part of a stash of Viking plunder. Prized ambers stolen from distant Jutland in the north, where the golden stones were said to litter the coast. Those clansmen who supported this tale swore that Norse raiders buried the amber on MacDonald shores where, in the fullness of time, a lucky forebear stumbled across the hoard while gathering winkles at low tide.

  Catriona preferred the Manannan legend.

  Whatever she believed, the stones weren’t speaking to her now. Frowning, she let the beads run through her fingers, but their glide across her wrist reminded her of James’ hands on her and how her entire body had tingled with startling female awareness.

  That same prickling, steal-her-breath sensation had seized her years ago, the first time he’d grabbed her so rudely. Even if he’d forgotten, the memory was forever branded on her mind. She’d only wanted to sneak a glimpse at Grizel and Gorm, the half-mythic ancients everyone knew dwelled on the high moors above the Cameron stronghold. The pair were said to have a magical white stag, Laoigh Feigh Ban, that they called Rannoch. She’d hoped to see the creature. But James had intercepted her, thwarting her chances.