“Sons of the hounds, come here and get flesh!”
The cries shook the walls and filled the air. Sir Walter and his men strode from the hall, their noses high. Glad to see their backs, James gathered the banner as the clan rallied. He smoothed his hand down over the ancient, rippling silk, using the ruckus to drape the precious relic over his laird’s chair. He took care to ensure that the banner’s snarling dog was prominently displayed, the exquisitely stitched beast making his heart pound and inflaming his blood. As he hoped the sight would do for his warriors.
Certain it would, he crossed his arms and waited for the commotion to settle. When it did, he hoped his words wouldn’t dampen his men’s enthusiasm.
He also risked a look at Alasdair.
The fate of them all might depend on the other chieftain’s reaction.
* * *
“Cameron is a man after my own heart.” Alasdair’s voice held a mix of admiration and annoyance. “He has a good tongue in his head, for all his tainted blood. A pity he’s no’ a MacDonald.”
“Shhh!” Catriona almost choked on a sugared almond. “We’re at his high table, if you’ve forgotten. Even in this din, words carry.” She reached out, pinching his arm. “Someone might hear you.”
She glanced at Isobel, hoping she especially hadn’t heard. Thankfully, her back was turned. Catriona felt a catch in her breast, looking at her. Were their clans not feuding, she wouldn’t mind being Isobel’s friend. It hadn’t taken long to discover they were very much alike. She’d come here expecting to admire James’ sister, but she’d been surprised to find she also liked her.
And she’d find ways to make Alasdair sorry if he offended her.
“Have a care, please.” She released his arm. “This isn’t Blackshore.”
“I know fine where we are.” Alasdair leaned close, a dangerous glint in his eye. “Be glad I was speaking of Himself and no’ you. Were I to say what I think of your trickery with Beadle, Birkie, or whichever dog you claimed went missing, you’d have more cause to flush than hearing me say I wish Cameron were of our own noble stock.
“You’d best hope Birkie is at Blackshore when we return.” He gave her a hard look. “Otherwise-”
“He’s in my bedchamber.” Catriona brushed a bit of sugar off her sleeve. “Maili’s seeing to him.”
Alasdair snorted. “I thought as much.”
Ignoring him, Catriona peered past him at James. He stood beside his laird’s chair and looked so tall and proud, so perilously tempting that her heart hurt. If it weren’t for her wicked streak, she’d push back from his table and flee the hall. No good could come of hanging her heart on the chief of a rival clan. Worse things would result from indulging her longing for him.
But she’d endured those yearnings for too many years and now that’d she’d been in his arms – even if he hadn’t held her in passion – she couldn’t help but want more, regardless of the consequences.
She’d rather be wicked than good.
How could she resist when firelight danced across the wall behind James, so that he looked as if he towered at the rim of hell? His standard gleamed brightly, its silken length almost seeming alive, as if the banner preened beneath the clan’s adulation.
The fierce-looking dog at the standard’s center appeared even more real. Glistening black threads spun his fur, embroidered hackles that seemed to rise as the stitched beast turned glowing, accusatory eyes on her. Almost as if the banner-mascot were chiding her for hoping to steal a kiss from his master.
She sat up straighter, refusing to feel guilty.
She did feel brazen. But it was a delicious kind of daring. And one that wasn’t going to go away until James arms went around her and she could revel in the searing-hot brand of his kiss. He’d sworn they’d be savage and the thought ignited tingling awareness inside her. Sensations she’d enjoy if Alasdair weren’t being such an ox, purposely leaning forward to block her view of James.
“How did you plan to explain Birkie’s presence in your room?” Alasdair’s gaze was implacable.
Catriona popped a sugared almond into her mouth, chewing deliberately.
When she reached for another, he shot out a hand to seize her wrist. “Well?”
“Bog mist.”
Alasdair’s eyes rounded. “You’ve run mad.”
“Pah.” She jerked her arm from his grasp. “There was a thick mist when James left Blackshore. I could’ve mistaken a swirl of fog for a small, wayward dog.”
She rubbed her sleeve, smoothing the crease he’d made. “When James headed into the hills, I thought I saw an animal trailing him. Laoigh Feigh Ban. The magical white stag his clan calls Rannoch. But when I looked again, it was only a patch of blowing mist that seemed to be chasing after him.”
“As you doing are now.”
“So you say.”
“So I know. And I’d hear why you went to such lengths to see him again?”
“I wanted to come to Castle Haven.” Catriona sat up straighter. She refused to discuss the seductive attraction James held for her. “Everyone knows the King’s arrival is imminent. I thought to catch a glimpse of him.”
Alasdair snorted. “You’d sooner scatter stinging nettles in the King’s bed than swoon in adulation when he and his entourage clatter past.”
Catriona said nothing. She had hoped to see the King. But she’d intended to glare at the royal party, not fall into a flutter.
The look in Alasdair’s eye said he knew.
But before he could say so, a burst of foot stomping and whoops swept the hall.
“Camerons!” James voice rose above the chaos. “Hear me, you who carry the blood of Ottar. And you, men of the glen, but of your own proud lineage.” He threw a glance at Alasdair, then the MacDonald guards, crowding a long table near the dais. “I know of your bellyaching, how some of you burn to have done with our woes. And I challenge you to think well before you yield to the glories of the old ways.”
A low rumbling of dissent rolled through the hall.
James gave his men a stiff nod. “Hear me now and I’ll show you the foolery of such notions.”
“How so?” A large-bellied, bearded man jumped to his feet. “Would you see us turn from snarling dogs to whipped curs, howling in the wilderness?”
James met the man’s angry stare. “Since when would any Cameron even consider being mistaken for a whipped cur? The men I know and respect as fellow kinsmen would ne’er make such an error.”
“Hah!” Alasdair reached for his wine cup. “Did I no’ say he has a fine tongue?”
Catriona glanced at her brother and wasn’t surprised to see a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he sipped his wine. It pained her to know his sympathy would turn to scowls if he knew her feelings.
James’ voice boomed on. “Fire and sword might’ve served Ottar the Fire-worshipper, but his day is gone. Such flourishes now, and against the King’s own men, will bring none of the splendor of yore.”
Someone slapped a table. “He speaks true!”
“Any such actions” – James fisted his hands on his hips and raked the hall, his dark eyes glittering – “would make our days here as fleeting as moonlight on water.”
“Hear him!” The cry whipped around the hall, growing louder as more men joined in.
“Armies of Lowland knights and fighters would pour north from their burghs and towns.” James was shouting now, his words echoing in the smoke-hazed hall. “They’d come in droves to avenge the men you’d like to dirk and pitch over cliffs or into bogs. They’d flood the glen, more men than if all the Highland clans banded together. As one, they’d scourge our hills, giving no quarter until even the last suckling bairn lies dead in the heather!
“If any of you think we’d meet a kinder fate on the Isle of Lewis” – his voice chilled – “be assured there isn’t a poet living who could do justice to the trials we’d suffer there. And it wouldn’t be the cold darkness of a Hebridean winter that would freeze our heart
s.”
A chorus of ayes surged through the throng.
When James spoke again, the air rang with his words. “Lewis and its black nights can have nothing on us. Few men are more winter-hardy than we of this lonely and windswept glen. We thrive in ice-rain and beneath cold, stone-gray skies. Shrieking gales are music to our souls and ne’er do our hearts sing louder than on the stormiest days!”
The men in the hall went wild. The ruckus swelled to a great roar, the clamor reaching deafening proportions. Castle Haven’s dogs raced everywhere, streaking through the aisles and around the crowded tables, their shrill barks lending to the confusion.
James folded his arms, waiting.
From the corner of her eye, Catriona saw Alasdair clench his hand and pound the table, keeping rhythm with their fist-banging table-mates.
“Nor” – James lifted his voice – “would our souls be ripped by the men we’d lose when we’d take arms against any Lewismen of rank and wealth, seizing their goods and lands, in the name of our King!
“To be sure, we’d grieve the loss of braw kinsmen. But warriors ne’er draw steel without knowing they might no’ live to greet the morrow.”
He pulled a small leather pouch from beneath his plaid, carefully untying the drawstring before he raised his arm, displaying the little bag. “This, my friends” – he dangled the pouch from his fingers – “would be the greater tragedy. Placing such valiant souls to rest in strange, unloved soil, not their own.”
Upending the bag, he let the rich peat-black earth pour onto his palm. As the hall fell silent, he closed his fingers around the peat and thrust his fist in the air.
“Men will soon die so that those of us remaining must ne’er set our feet on distant soil. On that day our swords will spare no one. Our foes will wield their blades with equal purpose, and rightly.” He glanced at Catriona, his face dark and unreadable. “For we’ll all be fighting so that none of us must e’er turn our backs on the only sustenance that nurtures us, heart, body, and soul.”
“Ottar! Ottar!” Men cheered, many jumping to their feet.
James clutched his fist to his chest, thumping his heart, roughly. “We are this glen we’ve called our own since before time counting. We’re hewn from the rock of these hills, taking our strength from the land. Just as we breathe life into the very wind here, each blade of grass and sprig of heather. The glen would be a different place without us, empty and desolate and weeping.”
Catriona’s heart swelled. A fierce heat burned at the back of her throat, but she kept her chin lifted and swallowed against the discomfort. She doubted James would glance at her again, but if he did, she didn’t want him to see how much his fervor moved her.
He was still speaking, his voice rising on each word. “…as we would weep inconsolably if we were to be torn from this place we belong.”
Then he lowered his arm, letting the soil spill from his hand. “So I challenge you, men of my race. In the name of Ottar and before the Banner of the Wind, live by the honor that was breathed into you at birth.
“If you cannot” – he whipped out his sword, offering it hilt-first to any takers – “run me through now because I have failed as a chieftain.”
Silence descended, not a single man moving.
“Here is the way of it, by God!” The big-bellied kinsman who’d argued earlier shouldered his way through the hall to clamber onto the dais. “We have honor!” He grabbed the sword and flipped it, pressing the hilt into James’ hands. “I’ll be the first to break the head of any who dares to sully our good name.”
James nodded and sheathed his steel. Then he clapped the man on the shoulder, turned, and strode from the dais. He moved through the throng, clearly intending to have a word with every man.
“Magnificent, isn’t he?” Isobel put a light hand on Catriona’s arm, her soft voice clear despite the tumult in the hall.
Catriona glanced at her, certain she hadn’t noticed her slipping into the seat beside her. But she was there now, smiling as she watched James wind through the cheering crowd. His dog, Hector, was at his side. The aging beast trailed along with his stiff-legged gait, stopping now and again to raise his head, importantly. The dog looked proud – and so dear, with one ear tucked inside out – that Catriona’s heart tumbled in her chest.
She liked the dog.
He’d spent much of the evening beneath the table, his great bulk resting on her feet. She’d welcomed his warmth. And she would’ve appreciated that comfort now. Shivering, for a cold draught stirred out of nowhere, she turned to see if someone had opened a shutter.
No one had.
But her jaw slipped when she spied Isobel sitting at the other end of the high table, speaking with her brother Hugh. Catriona’s blood chilled for the raven-haired beauty appeared quite settled. As if she hadn’t left her accustomed place in hours.
Yet a moment ago, she’d rested her hand on Catriona’s arm.
And she’d spoken….
Catriona’s heart began a wild, hard knocking as she spun around to see if the seat next to her was occupied.
It wasn’t.
Indeed, it wasn’t there at all.
Hers was the last chair at the table. And nothing stirred beside her except a breath of icy air.
Chapter 9
“You’re heading in the wrong direction, my lady.”
Catriona froze near the arched door to a darkened antechamber. But instead of peering into the room’s shadowed depths, she looked up to find Colin stepping before her, blocking her path.
“Am I?” She held his gaze, refusing to squirm. The amusement in his eyes made it clear that he knew she was aware that this corner of Castle Haven’s great hall wasn’t anywhere near the necessary she’d used as her excuse to leave the high table.
“The place you seek is yon, inside the main stair tower.” He tipped his head toward the other side of the hall. Or” – he smiled, dimples flashing – “were you searching for something else?”
“I must’ve gone the wrong way.” Catriona itched to whisk past him, continuing on her business. Nor did she wish to respond to his question.
His words were too smooth, his deep voice richly timbred and teasing.
He looked down at her, his silky blue-black hair – so like James’ – skimming his shoulders, his mouth still curved in a wicked smile. Which wasn’t surprising as Colin Cameron was known as a rogue of supposedly insatiable sensual appetite, rumored so skilled at seduction that he could charm the blush from autumn leaves.
But his dark good looks and dashing airs only struck her as a pale reflection of James.
And thinking of him brought a fresh rush of hot color to her face.
Never had a man affected her so strongly.
She slid a quick glance at the hall, her gaze immediately drawn to him. His long, confident strides were taking him toward the massive double-arched hearth as he made his way through the throng. Men crowded him, talking and laughing, their bearded faces shining with pride. James’ power and strength glowed like a flame inside him as he accepted the back-slaps and good words of his clan.
Catriona shivered beneath her shawl, but not from the cold. Her attraction to him flared like a fever in her veins and made her heart trip, beating much too light and fast than was good for her.
She took a deep, calming breath and turned back to his cousin. “There’s quite a stir in your hall this night. The ruckus must’ve caused me to take a wrong turn.”
Colin looked bemused. “A simple enough mistake, to be sure.”
“Ummm.” She gave a noncommittal half-shrug. She’d known exactly where she was going. Or, better said, what she’d been doing.
Her error had been leaving her seat.
She should’ve known she wouldn’t find a comely, raven-haired woman who bore a striking resemblance to Isobel. No such soul existed. And she’d felt foolish for attempting to spot one even before she’d started her surreptitious, peek-into-every-corner circuit of the great hall.
> But she’d had to try.
The alternative – that she’d been visited by a bogle – was something she didn’t want to consider. Not that she had anything against ghosts. She didn’t. Nor would she be surprised if the soft-voiced lovely had been one. Everyone born and bred in these hills knew better than to doubt the existence of spirits, haints, and their like.
She just didn’t care to meet a Cameron ghost.
Along with believing in the old gods, monsters, and other magical creatures, Highlanders held grudges.
It wasn’t that she feared tangling with an angry, long-dead Cameron. She just didn’t want to attract the attentions of one and have her night rest disrupted if such a being sought to pester her.
She did enjoy her sleep.
What she didn’t like was the way Colin’s eyes glinted as he watched her.
Something told her he was as perceptive as her all-seeing brother.
Worse, she saw now that he held the Banner of the Wind looped over one arm. The silky folds dipped halfway down his side, revealing the head and shoulders of the standard’s magnificent black dog centerpiece. In the flickering glow of the brazier - and so close before her - the embroidered beast’s snarl appeared more ferocious than when James unfurled the banner on the dais.
She drew herself up, trying not to notice.
She did feel a spurt of annoyance that a few cleverly-plied wisps of thread could breathe such vivid life into a beast-of-cloth.
I mended the rip beneath his eye…
Catriona gasped. The softly spoken words hushed past her ear, so close. She glanced behind her, but saw nothing except a faint luminance near a shuttered window set deep into the hall’s smoke-darkened wall. Cold, silvery light that was surely moon glow slipping in through the shutter slats.
When she looked again, it was gone.
Colin hadn’t budged.
“The beast looks real, eh?” He grinned, stroking the dog’s silken withers. “There are some who believe he is. They say that, at times, he can be seen prowling through the keep or….
“Visitors awake to find him standing at the foot of their bed. See you” – he leaned close, his eyes glittering - “Skald, for that is his name, doesn’t care for strangers.”
Sins of a Highland Devil: Highland Warriors Book 1 Page 13
