“Indeed.” Alasdair looked skeptical.
“So I said, aye.” James wasn’t inclined to say more. And all the shrewd glints in Alasdair’s eyes weren’t going to persuade him. The lout should be grateful his sister was beneath his roof, safe and sound.
That was enough.
He’d taken Catriona under his arm when she could’ve been in grave danger. It was an act of chivalry any Highlander would tender, regardless of the woman’s name. Such was the way of the hills, and that had been so since distant times. Trusting an enemy chief with suspicions he couldn’t even pinpoint was another matter entirely.
Alasdair was astute enough to now keep a firmer grip on his sister.
James’s duties were elsewhere.
And Alasdair was still looking at him, his gaze boring deep. “Then it was only your sense of honor that caused you to stay with her?”
James shoved a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “Damnation…” He strode a few paces and turned, wondering why he felt so compelled to share his concerns with a man who was more than a thorn in his side. There was clearly an odd taint in the cold, damp air hovering over Blackshore that was addling his wits.
He was sure of it when something bumped his leg and he looked down to see Alasdair’s dog leaning into him. He knew then that he couldn’t lie. The motley-coated beast was peering up at him, his scraggly tail swishing and his rheumy eyes full of trust.
James bit back a curse.
“There was another reason, aye.” He ignored the dog and glared at Alasdair. “Though the saints know why I’m telling you. It was no more than a feeling.”
A look of satisfaction flashed across Alasdair’s face. “So it is as I thought? You perceived Catriona in some kind of peril?”
James nodded. “It seemed so at the time, aye.”
He frowned at the morning sky. Thick clouds were drifting across the sun, and the darkness they brought suited his mood. The air had also turned colder, the wind more biting. Any moment he expected icy rain to pelt down, and that, too, would be fitting.
Such tidings as he was about to share shouldn’t be spoken on a bright sun-filled day.
Beside him, the old dog pressed harder against his leg, this time even thrusting his cold, wet nose into James’s hand. The trembles in the beast’s hips made James set his jaw. A soul could believe Alasdair used his aged companion as a secret weapon.
“Is your dog e’er so friendly to your foes?” James tried to sound unmoved. “Does he ne’er bark when an enemy approaches?”
“Geordie sees himself of an age where he expects everyone to treat him kindly.” Alasdair’s voice held a softness that irked James. His own heart, too, warmed when he spoke of Hector. “As for barking…” Alasdair looked at the dog. “Geordie rarely makes a sound. I sometimes think his years have stilled his voice.”
That did it.
James scowled his fiercest glower of the day.
It was beyond tolerating that he’d felt such a pang over a MacDonald dog.
Eager to be on his way, he began pacing. “Whether you believe me or nae, I would have seen your sister returned safely to you this morn. But had I no’ seen what I did just before I spotted her, I’d have escorted her only to the fringes of your territory and then gone about my business.”
“Was it Sir Walter, the King’s man?” Alasdair fell into step beside him. Geordie hobbled along at their heels, following at a slower pace. “I didn’t care for the way he looked at Catriona when he visited us.”
“It could have been him. I’m sure the man I saw was a Lowlander. But he wore a hooded cloak, and—”
“Did he approach Catriona?”
“Nae.” James glanced at Alasdair. “He had no chance because I chased him.”
Before Alasdair could question him, James recounted his morn. He started with the strange chills he’d felt in his hall, then the figure near the barricades of the fighting ground, and ending with how he’d pursued the man. He left out no detail, even mentioning his annoyance at Catriona marching so boldly through his wood.
Finished, he folded his arms. “Now you see why I brought her here.”
“I would ken who was hiding behind that cloak.” Alasdair rubbed his chin. “Something tells me he might have more evil on his mind than seizing one of our womenfolk.”
“I agree.” James was sure of it. “The man gives me shivers like a thousand ants crawling up and down my spine.”
Alasdair nodded. “I doubt Sir Walter would soil his own hands, but who knows what—”
“There are some at Castle Haven who would have done with the lot of them in the old way.” James secretly admired his cousin Colin’s fervor. Even his younger brother, Hugh, the clan’s soft-spoken bard, had raised his voice in favor of such action. “They talk of dirking the Lowlanders in their sleep and sinking the bodies in a bog or”—he glanced at the loch—“some other place where they’d ne’er be found.”
“They are men after my own heart.” Alasdair raised a balled fist. “In the old days, Clan Donald would be the first to rally with you. As is”—he sobered, watching a red-cheeked, big-boned woman hasten past, carrying a basket of herring—“the King has turned us into little more than grains caught beneath a quernstone.
“Too many innocents would suffer if we used the stratagems of our grandfathers to rid ourselves of this folly.” Alasdair’s voice was grim. “I’ll no’ see good lives ruined for a taste of triumph that would prove hollow.”
James agreed. “The King is so sure we’ll refuse to fight that he’s gathering a fleet to convey us to the Isle of Lewis.” He shuddered, certain there was no more distant or benighted place. “Sir Walter’s men have been placing bets. They wager on which one of us will break the King’s command, giving him cause to banish us.”
“Then we shall have to show them our strength, whatever the cost.”
“That is the way of it.” James nodded.
He only hoped the trial by combat would be the end of Lowland interference in their glen. Machinations that he suspected had little to do with King Robert’s wish to see peace between the clans.
It was a notion he couldn’t shake.
He could almost smell the perfidy.
But before he could say so, Alasdair stepped forward and gripped his hand and forearm. “You ken”—his voice was gruff, his gaze direct—“when next we meet, there’ll be no cordiality between us. My sword will be sharpened, and I intend to use it well.”
James grasped Alasdair’s hand with equal firmness. “I would wish nothing less. God be with us both.”
“Can I lend you a horse?” Alasdair glanced across the bailey to the stables. “A token thanks for your trouble with Catriona.”
“She was no bother.” James hoped his tone didn’t reveal the lie.
Shepherding a she-devil through the glen would have been easier.
Yet he’d relished every step of the way.
He turned on his heel, making for the gate before Alasdair guessed the truth.
“A pity you’re a Cameron!” Alasdair’s hail stopped him just as he was about to stride into the shadowed arch of the gatehouse pend.
James looked back. “How so? I wear my name with pride and would sooner grow horns than carry another.”
“Simply that”—Alasdair set his hands on his hips—“were you of any other blood I might be calling on you to offer my sister as a bride.”
“I’d have to pass.” James grinned to soften his words. “I prefer my women docile and less quick to wield a blade.” He glanced at the red slash across his hand. “Your sister might take my breath, I’ll admit, but I’m no’ the man for her.
“No’ by any name, I say you.” He gave a small bow and disappeared into the gatehouse. Regrettably, he didn’t leave fast enough to miss the bemusement that flashed across Alasdair’s face.
The bastard knew he fancied Catriona.
Even more annoying were the meaningful glances that passed between the MacDonald guards as he
strode past them and out into the brisk autumn air. God help him if they knew their mistress had bewitched him.
Their smirks said they did.
Wishing he’d stayed abed that morn, he ignored their goggling and marched across the narrow stone causeway back to the mainland. Unfortunately, the tide was rushing in and the slippery, moss-grown stones were already several inches under water. And—he really resented this—the waves sloshing across his feet didn’t help him to depart with dignity.
He looked a fool and knew it.
The soggy squish-squishing of his shoes and the way the bottom of his plaid was beginning to dampen and cling to his legs told him that much.
Furious, he set his lips in a tight, angry line and stomped on, unpleasantly aware of the stares of the guardsmen watching him go.
They were laughing at him.
And—he quickened his step—he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing that he knew.
But when he reached the end of their foul, half-useless causeway, the devil took him. His back almost burned from the scorching heat of their stares, so, unable to help himself, he set his hand on his sword and whirled to send them a parting glare.
Instead, the glower slid from his face.
It hadn’t been the guardsmen watching his progress across the causeway. The battlements were empty, and the closed gate hid whatever men might yet lurk within the stronghold’s entrance tower.
He’d felt Catriona’s stare.
She still stood on the boat strand, her gaze pinned on him, unwaveringly. Wind tugged at her skirts and whipped her hair, the sight of her taking his breath and making his heart pound hard and slow.
The same cold wind tossed his own hair and tore at his clothes, giving a strange intimacy to the moment. Almost as if they were alone, the only two people in all these great hills. They locked gazes, the air seeming to crackle between them until James was sure that if he reached out a hand, he’d be able to touch her.
Frowning, he clenched his fists and kept his arms at his sides. But he felt her all the same. The longer their stares held, the more he remembered the supple warmth of her against him as they’d crossed the glen. He recalled, too, how the light, fresh scent of her—gillyflowers?—had almost made him dizzy. And how she’d challenged him with those dazzling sapphire eyes, rendering him helpless and unable to think of aught but having her naked beneath him…
There, exactly where he wanted her now.
Until a particularly roguish wave smacked into the rocks near where he stood, dousing him head to toe with cold, briny water.
“Damn it all to hell!” He shook back his hair and knuckled his eyes.
When he looked again, Catriona was gone.
Even so, he scowled darkly at the spot where she’d stood.
He wouldn’t be surprised if she was watching him still, peeking at him through some nefarious hidey-hole in Blackstone’s curtain walling.
Such would be like her.
Sure of it, he whirled around and began the long trek back to his corner of the glen. If he hurried, he could still pay a call on the Makers of Dreams before the afternoon gloom drew in, making the steep and rocky path to their high moor too treacherous even for one well-used to the journey.
But first he had to put Catriona from his mind.
To that end, he cast one last look at the deserted strand. Hoping that she was watching him from some unseen spy hole—just so she’d see how swiftly he’d forgotten her—he quickened his step, doing his best to stride manfully despite the wet clamminess of his plaid and the annoying squish-squashing of his shoes.
He was certain he could feel her stare, and the knowledge buoyed him.
His brisk pace would annoy her.
And if she was offended, she might keep well away from him in the future.
A man could hope.
Not that he’d find it difficult to resist her. He’d ignored the charms of many women when an attraction proved ill-advised. And for all her beauty and spirit, Catriona was no different from other females.
No different at all.
He knew that beyond a doubt.
It was just a pity that his heart disagreed.
Chapter Five
Hours later, James stood near one of the corries high above Castle Haven and knew again that he shouldn’t have left his bed that morn. Cloud and mist swirled around him, biting wind chilled him, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that the soaring, rock-faced walls of the gorge were closing in on him. Frowning, he peered into the abyss. Deep, narrow, and treacherous, the boulder-strewn defile should’ve opened into the vast stretch of heathery gloom that was the almost inaccessible world of the Makers of Dreams.
Instead, the far end of the ravine tailed away into an impenetrable tumble of jagged, ageless stone.
He scrunched his eyes, hoping he’d missed something. That shadows or mist somehow hid a gap through the rocks. But there was none. Not even a crack wide enough to provide wriggle room to a half-starved mouse.
A flea wouldn’t fare better.
He stepped closer to the edge of the ravine and scowled at the spill of rocks. He’d rarely seen a more impassable barrier. If he were a fearful man, he’d suspect that ill luck was following him like a curse. Why else would he not be able to put the MacDonald she-devil from his mind? Even now, with much more serious matters plaguing him, he couldn’t stop wanting to strip off her clothes and drag his hands over every voluptuous inch of her. His desire to kiss those inches was worse. He especially ached to taste her darker, most mysterious places. It was a raging, inexorable need that heated him and made his heart pound as hard as if he’d just tossed aside every fool boulder blocking his path.
As it was, he glared at the rocks and took a deep breath of the cold, stone air.
Even so…
Disappointment cut like the sharp edge of a sword.
Not wanting to admit defeat, he braced his arm on an outcrop of quartz-shot granite and looked back over the trackless ground he’d covered to reach these heights. He’d been so sure that he’d headed in the right direction, confident that each corrie—this was the fourth to defeat him—was the one that accessed Gorm and Grizel’s high moorland.
But he’d erred.
He had yet to find the hidden pass.
And the towering outcrop beside him was just that: a jumble of broken stone and not, as he’d hoped, the monolith known as the Bowing Stone. That hoary monument where, in ancient days, pagan men had circled three times and then dropped to one knee, begging good fortune and an abundant harvest. Men no longer sought the mercy of the Old Ones for a bountiful crop, but the Bowing Stone remained the only true marker for those seeking counsel with the Makers of Dreams.
Those of Cameron blood.
If one such reached the Bowing Stone, the path to the half-mythic pair stood open.
Unfortunately, the standing stone and even the corrie could shift location, depending on Gorm and Grizel’s willingness to welcome visitors to their enchanted realm. Strange mists often appeared out of nowhere, sent by the ancients to guard their privacy when they wished to be left alone.
Such were the ways of Highland magic.
And it would seem he was presently out of favor with those who wielded such powers.
It also seemed he’d been followed.
Not trusting his eyes, he peered through the mist at the slender, dark-haired figure slipping through the sea of rock and heather below him. A beautiful maid, she stepped lightly, her raven tresses streaming behind her like a glistening river of blackest silk. She didn’t wear a cloak, and her gown floated about her like a thin gossamer cloud.
James narrowed his gaze on the girl, all thoughts of the Makers of Dreams vanishing as he watched her move past a cluster of bog myrtle and yellow-blooming whin. Mist cloaked her, making it difficult to see her face, but he still recognized her.
She was Isobel.
His sister.
Pushing away from the outcrop, he scanned the dense heather and
jumbled rocks surrounding her. She wasn’t too far from a stretch of birch and rowans where anyone could lurk in shadow. Almost as close was a steeply rising knoll covered with tall Caledonian pines, their massive girth and dark, twisted limbs offering an even better hiding place.
A prickling at his nape told him someone else agreed.
He might not see anyone, but he could feel the menace of another man’s presence. And he knew the varlet’s gaze was on Isobel.
“Damnation!” He sprinted down the hill, leaping over rocks and plunging through heather and bracken, trying all the while not to lose sight of his sister.
He saw no one else.
But he was sure someone was watching him.
Worse, he was now certain—well, almost—that the stare he felt wasn’t from anyone this side of the living. Dreagans came to mind. But he pushed the notion aside, furious he’d considered the beasties.
There was no such thing as a dreagan.
But it would seem the glen was turning into a haven for errant sisters.
Even so, dread clawed at him. And it grew with every beat of his heart. His blood was freezing, cold chills turning his skin to ice.
“Isobel!” He ran faster, his feet sliding on the slick, boggy ground. “I’m no’ fashed!” he yelled, hoping she couldn’t tell he was seething. “Wait, lass! Where are you going?”
She did stop then, turning to face him through the icy gray fog stretching between them. At a distance, her face looked pale and cold, and although he couldn’t tell for sure, he had the impression her eyes were huge and filled with sadness. Even the mist around her seemed to darken as their gazes met and held. Wind whipped the glossy black strands of her hair across her face, but rather than brush them aside, she lifted an arm to point at him.
He kept on, and then cursed when his foot slammed into a rock he hadn’t seen. He shot a glare at the offending boulder, craftily hidden in a clump of heather. When he glanced up again, Isobel was darting behind a rowan tree that glowed with berries as red as blood.
“Foolish chit!” He limped to a halt, glowering at the rowan.
Sins of a Highland Devil Page 7
