by Blair, Willa
Catherine had only been in St. Andrews a few days, yet her cousin was already involving her in her own elopement plans. Catherine’s visit gave Abi the perfect excuse to wander around St. Andrews and the perfect cover to spend time with Colin more than she usually could. Today they were going to mass with him. Abi’s situation, so like her own, didn’t help ease the bile still burning its way up Catherine’s throat at the thought of what her father had done, again and again. Bartering her to form an alliance with another clan, with no thought given to what she wanted.
Thank God her oldest sister, Mary, had taken pity on her and sent her to a friend of hers in Inverness. But even Inverness was too close to home. Too easy for her father to send men to retrieve her. Mary’s friend had known a sailor who could bring Catherine safely here, where her aunt’s family still lived. It had all gone more smoothly than she’d expected, especially since she left her father an angry note. She thought he would have immediately forced Mary to tell him where she’d gone, and then he would have sent men to Inverness to retrieve her. Either Mary’s words had swayed him, or even in the face of their father’s ire, she had held her tongue long enough for Catherine to leave Inverness. She owed her sister her freedom.
Catherine wanted a better look at the man she’d glimpsed. But Abi was bent on dragging her toward the cathedral. Even here, everyone seemed determined to keep her and Kenneth apart. Except that man couldn’t be Kenneth. He couldn’t possibly be a beast of burden for a priest.
Catherine sighed and went with her friends. Before she left home, she’d decided she would do anything to avoid an unwanted marriage—and by coming here, she had. She couldn’t let her curiosity about what happened to Kenneth, and her daft notion that he might be here, drive her to do something foolish.
Nay, she had to put him out of her mind, or she’d be seeing his likeness everywhere she went.
* * *
“What do ye mean ye canna find anyone to marry ye?” Catherine glanced aside at her cousin and snorted. She and Abi were on their way up St. Andrews’ Market Street later that morning. Abi and Colin had argued after mass and Colin had left them. “How many clerics did we see in the cathedral? Ten?” Catherine had already observed that finding a priest was—unavoidable. She gestured at the group of priests walking a little ahead of. “Look around ye. I see a dozen right now, in the street and going in and out of the shops. Surely ye canna have asked them all?”
Unlike the residential streets running parallel to the north and south, shops at ground level lined Market Street, with craftsmen and merchants living above their businesses. This morning, people, wagons, horses and livestock filled the street, all headed toward the stone mercat cross that rose nearly as tall as the two-story buildings around it. It stood in the middle of the square where market days were held. She and Abi passed the cobbler’s shop and a potter, the scents of leather and wet clay mixing with the sudden odor of fish on the crowded street. She tugged Abi aside to keep her from walking right into a man who had to be the source of the smell—no doubt a fisherman. Once they got away from him, the faint scent of baking bread reached her nose. Finding a path through the crowd forced them closer to the mercat cross before she glimpsed the bakery, plump brown loaves of bread displayed on a shelf just inside its open front window. They had almost reached their destination.
“I have not asked enough of them, I guess,” Abi responded as they paused, their way blocked for a moment by the crowd on the street.
A stall-front, hung with colorful ribbons, caught Catherine’s eye. The ribbons fluttered in the cool breeze sneaking between the narrow divides that separated blocks of buildings. She reminded herself she was now too old to be distracted by bright colors and tugged Abi closer to the mercat cross, hoping to find an opening they could slip through. How did anyone tolerate living among so many people all the time?
“Ye canna take two steps in any direction in this town without tripping over a priest,” she told Abi. An elderly one, standing on the near side of the mercat cross, frowned at them. Likely, he’d overheard her comment. And the two lads with him, probably students, mirrored their clerical escort’s disapproval, frowns drawing down their young brows. Finding priests was easy. Finding a particular priest, less so.
There were men of all ages everywhere she looked. She, Abi, and the other women out this morning were vastly outnumbered by merchants, sailors, and students—noble lads and sons of lairds, here by order of the king to be educated in Latin and law, some of whom would continue to study for the priesthood. The priests attending the Bishop of St. Andrews or teaching at the kirk’s college were also charged with escorting their students and keeping them out of trouble.
According to Abi, who had lived in town most of her life and seen lots of students come and go, they didn’t always meet with great success. Catherine could see the proof of that before her. Two younger students were giving her and Abi speculative looks. Feeling exposed, she got her cousin’s attention, then pulled Abi away from them. “It seems a lass can get as much male attention of another sort as she wishes in this town—too much,” Catherine added.
“I ken some of those lads over there,” Abi said, tipping her head in the direction of a cluster of students visible through a brief opening in the milling crowd. They paused while Abi considered the lads, forcing people to move around them and earning them impatient frowns. “Perhaps one of them can suggest a cleric willing to marry two lovers—even though my stepfather disapproves. And Colin cannot seem to decide when we will do this.”
“Or perhaps ye’d be better served to get yer da’s agreement, aye? He may no’ be yer real da, but he does love ye. He wants ye to be well cared for. He’s doing what he thinks best—”
“Like yer da’s delays cost yer eldest sister the man she wanted? Has she found another beau, then?”
Catherine bit her lip, thinking about how her father had made all three daughters miserable, refusing their choices of whom to marry. First, he’d denied and delayed her oldest sister Mary’s betrothal until the lad gave up and married someone else. “Nay, Mary is still waiting.” Mary’s broken heart had inspired the sisters to conspire against their father to help their middle sister. They’d eventually outwitted him. “But Annie did manage to marry Iain Brodie.” Regret made her sigh. “If only Kenneth and I had been brave enough to elope,” she muttered. Though her father had always indulged Catherine, his youngest daughter, she’d never forgive him for denying Kenneth Brodie’s request for her hand. Da had thought her too young to wed at the time. Aye, Da had also been doing what he thought best.
“What?” Abi’s eyes widened. “Who is Kenneth?”
“The man I fell in love with two years ago,” Catherine answered, then pressed her lips together, wondering how much to say. Had she really seen him near the cathedral? Neither Abi nor Abi’s stepfather knew she’d fled here to avoid being forced to wed. Would Abi figure out that her story about being sent by her father to renew kin ties with her mother’s family was a lie, and conclude a broken heart had driven her here? Abi’s mother had come to Scotland as James Rose’s ward when Catherine’s mother married him. He’d arranged the younger sister’s marriage to a Duncan who eventually moved to St. Andrews for business. Abi’s stepfather, a tailor from Flanders, had married her after Catherine’s uncle died at sea. Abi and her stepfather still occupied the floor above his tailor shop, where Catherine was staying, a few blocks down the hill.
To distract Abi, Catherine told her, “In the Highlands, eloping is as easy as declaring to each other ye are married. Then consummating the vow,” she added with a shrug, trying to make light of it. At the time, neither she nor Kenneth had dared take such an audacious step. Both had been young enough to think their only course was to bow to the laird’s wishes and wait. Soon after, her father betrothed her to another man. Kenneth disappeared, and she’d never heard from him again.
He must be alive—her sister, Annie, would have told her if her husband, the Brodie laird, had received word
Kenneth had died there. The thought made her chest hurt.
Abi wrapped her arms around her middle. “If only ’twere so easy here. But look around ye. So many priests and none Colin and I have talked to will agree to marry us against my stepfather’s wishes.”
Catherine stiffened, wondering why women thought they had no say in the matter of their futures. She was no longer her father’s obedient youngest daughter. She’d run away—and taken charge of her own destiny. And if she ever truly encountered Kenneth again, the first thing she would do would be to box his ears for leaving her wondering what happened to him. Then she’d see if they still cared for each other as they once had. If not…? She straightened her spine. If not, she’d find another man to wed, perhaps right here in St. Andrews. Among all these instructors and older students, there must be someone from a clan that had never heard of Rose. Or perhaps a successful Highland merchant or sailor in port on business.
Her gaze skimmed over the young students. From their dress, most were Lowlander nobility. So if their youth displeased her, their origins were even more off-putting. Visiting her cousin was one thing, but to marry a Lowlander, never to see the Highlands again? Nay, she couldn’t imagine a future away from the lochs and the hills of home.
Ah, but some of the lads were her age or even older. Highlanders, too, from the look of them, tall and strong. If she found one she liked from a Highland clan her da wanted to ally with, she might finally be willing to agree to a match that pleased him. But if a lad was not of the right clan, she might marry him anyway. When they found a priest to suit Abi’s purposes, likely he’d do for her as well.
“Ye only need one priest to agree,” she told Abi. The rebellious fantasies running through her mind made her smile. She faced the group of students Abi pointed out, and the Highlander standing with them smiled back. Tall, brown-haired, and handsome, he looked to be a few years older than his companions and had a decidedly un-priestly wicked glint in his eye. He might do.
“Let’s go ask.” Abi grabbed her arm and tugged her away from the enticing scents of the bakery toward the lads she said she knew.
Catherine let Abi lead her and kept her gaze on the man who’d caught her eye.
“Abi, my sweet,” he greeted her cousin with a seductive grin, but without the handclasp or even kiss on the cheek that would have passed for a greeting between friends at home—such familiarity on the street here would have shocked many onlookers. “And who is this bonnie lass ye have brought us today?” He turned a provocative grin on Catherine.
Catherine liked the look of him up close even better than she had from a distance. He had to be at least four or five years older than she, which made her wonder what he was doing with students. Most young men his age would have finished their schooling by now. Unless he got a very late start, he was no student. His eyes were a cloudy blue-gray and gave away nothing. But that grin—he was a charmer, wasn’t he? She had to wonder how many lasses he’d charmed into his bed up to now.
“Cameron, behave,” Abi chided. “Meet my cousin, Mary Catherine Rose. Catherine, this is Cameron Sutherland. If the Highlands are missing a rogue, ’tis because our Cam is here.”
Cam laid a hand over his heart. “Fair Abigail, ye wound me, ye do!” Then he swept his arm in front of him and bowed over it in the French fashion, without reaching for her hand. “How lovely to meet ye, sweet Cat. And what an intriguing name ye bear.”
“I havena answered to Cat in years,” she warned, not liking the demonstration that implied he’d spent time in France. Could he have met Kenneth there? She kept a polite smile in place, though it took effort. “My friends call me Catherine,” she informed him. She’d left the childish nickname behind when she’d lost Kenneth, and didn’t welcome hearing it from this man’s lips, but she didn’t dare insult a member of one of the most powerful clans in the Highlands.
She couldn’t afford to get in trouble, not if she wanted to avoid getting sent back to her father and a marriage she didn’t want. The latest offer had come from clan Grant. Before that, he had tried to betroth her to a Campbell, and a Mackintosh before him. If Abi’s stepfather wrote to her father, she’d be on her way home before she knew what happened, then locked away until her father could get her safely married to the Grant. She shoved the thought away and turned her gaze to the other lads. “And ye are…?”
“Bound for the priesthood and of nay use to a bonnie lass such as ye,” Cam interjected.
“Cam, really. There’s no need to be rude,” Abi scolded. “Catherine, meet Robert, Patrick and Andrew.” The lads nodded a greeting. “And aye, they are bound for the priesthood, aren’t ye, lads?” Another nod. “Whereas Cam is a third son, so nay laird, nay priest, but perhaps bound to fight, or to manage one of his clan’s many estates for Laird Sutherland, aye?”
“Or both, aye. I have many talents.”
The gleam was back in his eye. Catherine realized the speculation in it made her uncomfortable. She decided to move things along. “Abi, ye thought one of these lads might be able to help ye?”
Abi nodded and took in the three with a glance. “I’m looking for a priest willing to marry Colin and me.”
“Why, any could do so,” the shortest of the lads, Patrick, spoke up in a Lowland accent. He had dark hair but a very pale complexion.
Catherine supposed he’d spent most of his life cloistered with books.
“No’ when my stepfather is opposed,” Abi admitted.
“Ah, that is unfortunate,” he acknowledged.
“Do not let them worry you,” the lad called Andrew offered with a disarming dip of his chin that made his blond curls brush his shoulders. “My Latin tutor might. He has no parish, but he’s liberal in his thinking. He could say the words and see it done.”
“Or ye could wed in the Highland way,” Cam added. “And say the words yerselves. ’Tis as binding, under Scottish law.”
“But not in the eyes of the Kirk,” Robert objected, red streaks in his pale cheeks betraying his distress. “Do you want them to be excommunicated?”
“Half the Highlands would be done so already, were yer assertion true,” Andrew scoffed.
“And how would ye ken?” Cam challenged, crossing his arms.
That seemed to silence Robert’s objections. The lad put his hands on his hips and turned his face away, then turned back and bowed politely to Catherine and Abi. “Milady,” he said to each. “Good day to ye.” With that, he moved off toward one of the many priests near the mercat cross.
With a raised eyebrow, Cam watched him go. “Awfully sanctimonious for such a young lad,” he muttered.
Catherine agreed. Despite Cam’s annoying personality, she thought he might share the same rebellious nature that brought her halfway across Scotland. It didn’t hurt that Cam had very nice arms—well muscled from working or training with weapons. They reminded her of Kenneth’s. Cam’s hands were broad and strong, as well. Very like Kenneth’s, too. So much so that looking at Cam made her chest tighten. She needed to stop comparing every man she met to Kenneth.
If she couldn’t have Kenneth, and after all this time, she might as well admit she never would; then Cam, even with his Sutherland arrogance, might just do. She wanted to choose the man she married, get to know him and at least like him before they wed. She preferred not to wed at all rather than have her father’s choice of a stranger forced on her.
“Can you arrange for us to meet?” Abi asked Andrew, pulling Catherine’s attention back to the present.
“Of course. Tomorrow at the cathedral after midmorning prayer?”
“That will serve. Thank you.”
“’Tis no bother. I hope he’ll be able to help you.”
Catherine glanced around the street. The lad who Cam had scandalized, Robert, was speaking to one of the priests and frowning in their direction.
Catherine touched Abi’s sleeve. “Come, then. We’re starting to attract attention.”
The two remaining lads bowed and excused themselves. C
am held Catherine’s gaze a beat longer, flashed his devastating grin, and tipped his head before he stepped away.
“He seems quite taken with ye,” Abi remarked as they wove through the crowd and crossed the square back to the baker’s.
“Something tells me Cameron Sutherland finds himself taken with any lass he meets,” Catherine groused as they paused at the open doorway. The mouthwatering scent of berry pies and warm bread wafted from the bakers’ shop, covering the town’s less savory smells. The scent made Catherine’s stomach growl. She put a hand over her belly. “Besides, I gave my heart to Kenneth Brodie nearly two years ago.”
“Aye? And where is this Kenneth Brodie now?”
Catherine pursed her lips, shook her head, and stepped inside. Her appetite suddenly deserted her. She could not have seen him this morning. Fate would not be so cruel. She had lost so much when she lost Kenneth—her sister, trust in her father, even her home. It hurt to say it, but if she was ever going to move on and build a new life here with someone else, she had to accept that Kenneth had ignored her for a very long time—too long. He was out of her life forever.
“I dinna ken where he is,” she answered and gestured for Abi to go ahead of her. “And it no longer matters.”
Chapter 2
Kenneth wiped sweat from his eyes with his sleeve as he looked down on the group of students practicing at arms in the castle yard. The summer solstice was approaching and summers were warmer here on the coast than in the Highlands. He’d come up onto the battlements for the breeze off the water. It helped, but he would need clothing more suited to the climate here if he was to remain in St. Andrews for long.
Father Phillippe had joined him, and Kenneth judged walking away from the priest would have been rude, perhaps dangerous. Now standing at his side, Phillippe waved a pale hand indicating the lads.
“Though hardly a fit occupation for younger sons studying to become clergy, not all will qualify. In addition to their studies, we must continue the training that could mean their lives, should they return home to your intrigues and clan wars.” His cultured French accent did little to soften the harshness of his words
