by Blair, Willa
The Rose met them as they rode through the gates, but Kenneth stood with Cat, off to the side. It was not his keep and not his place to welcome guests, even Iain. He was happy to see them, but Cat appeared worried.
Iain dismounted and went straight to Cat. “Greetings, sister. Thank the saints ye are here and well. Annie would have my head if ye were no’.” Then he turned to her father. “Annie would give me nay peace until I made certain Kenneth got Catherine home safely. I hope ye will forgive me greeting her first. Given the number of ruffians roaming the countryside, I am much relieved to see her.”
Kenneth cleared his throat.
Iain grinned. “Aye, and Kenneth, too.”
“Understandable,” the Rose agreed. “Come inside. We have much to discuss.”
He cut an unmistakable look at Kenneth. In his opinion, Cat was home, yes. He looked as if he intended to extract a penalty from Iain for Kenneth taking her, son-in-law be damned. Kenneth bristled at the implication he’d ruined Cat.
Iain must have seen Kenneth tense. “Brodie men are honorable,” he stated as he joined Cat’s father in crossing the bailey to the keep. “Yer daughter has been well cared for.”
“I’m aware of how she’s been cared for,” her father answered dryly.
Iain having to defend him made Kenneth squirm. Iain had suspected where things had gone between him and Cat, but as Kenneth’s friend, had not made an issue of it when they met on the way from St. Andrews. Now he would have to negotiate with a lass’s father as Kenneth’s laird. Kenneth hoped he was up to the challenge.
Cat was glaring at her father’s back hard enough, he was relieved for her father’s sake she no longer had a blade in her hand. If the situation weren’t so serious, Kenneth would be amused. Though it was not her fight, her fierce determination made him proud.
“Easy, lass,” he whispered as the Rose and the Brodie went through the door into the keep. “Iain has learned a lot from Annie in the past two years about dealing with yer father.”
“He’d better, or Mary and I will take him on.”
“I dinna think that will be necessary,” he soothed. “We’ve only to wait a wee to see what Iain can do.”
Iain leaned out of the doorway and beckoned. “Kenneth, with me, please.”
Surprise at being included sent a chill of anticipation racing through Kenneth’s chest. He might have a lot to answer for but he might also be able to help Iain persuade the Rose, even though he had been unable to on his own. He squeezed Cat’s hand. “Dinna fash, lass.” If only someone would tell him the same thing.
Chapter 19
Kenneth could barely contain his anger at the Rose laird, but he stayed silent as Iain told Rose what happened at Harlaw. Neither Albany’s general, the Earl of Mar, nor the Lord of the Isles could claim victory, though Domnhall might have, had he pressed the advantage he’d gained in the first day’s fighting and finished off Mar and the remains of his vastly outnumbered caterans the next day. But he’d chosen to withdraw. No one knew why.
“My men are not back yet,” Rose said, his expression bleak.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of such news, then,” Iain added quietly. “But they may only be slowed by traveling with wounded.”
The Rose did not look reassured.
“We were lucky enough to find a wagon and sent ours straight to Brodie with an escort,” Iain continued.
“So the tug of war between Albany and the Isles will continue,” Rose said, turning his cup in both hands, a thoughtful expression on his face. Then he looked at Kenneth. “Good reason to make alliances as broadly as possible.”
It was a challenge. Kenneth grimaced but kept his mouth shut. This was Iain’s negotiation.
“Alliances don’t have to be made through marriage,” Iain commented, his gaze on the whisky in his glass. Then he looked up at Rose. “But in any event, ye could make yer own marriage. What about the Grant woman ye spent time with at our wedding? Or a younger lass. Ye’re no’ too old to sire a son.”
Rose colored and for a moment, Kenneth feared he’d reach for his dirk. But Iain’s words were spoken lightly, without rancor.
“That is my business, and none of yers,” Rose finally said, with a great deal less heat than Kenneth first expected. “As for him,” he added with a lift of his chin toward Kenneth, “and my youngest daughter, I had good reasons to turn him down once before.”
“Things were different then,” Iain said, speaking aloud what was on the tip of Kenneth’s tongue. “And ye canna deny the bond between the two of them.”
“It seems they’ve denied themselves little, that’s what I can say. I didna like it then, and I like it even less now.”
“Yet ye wish to see Catherine happy, do ye no’? Certainly, her sisters do.” Iain let the comment hang in the silence while the Rose stared at him with narrowed gaze.
The Rose didn’t rise to Iain’s bait. “Ye’ll stay the night, and in the morning, ye will take that one back to Brodie with ye.”
Iain stood. “As ye wish.” He gathered Kenneth to his side with a tilt of his head. “We’ll see ye at supper, then?”
“Nay.”
“We’ll leave ye with Brodie’s formal offer in the morning,” Iain responded calmly to Rose’s churlish rudeness.
Kenneth moved toward the door. The man had to be seething. He’d just seen his daughter attacked within his own walls. Save by her actions and the actions of the one man he did not want to have her.
The Rose waved a disinterested hand. Kenneth sent a dismayed glance to Iain, who frowned and left the laird’s solar. Kenneth took one last glance at James Rose, his head bent over some document and seemingly unaware that Kenneth was still there. Kenneth followed Iain.
* * *
“Yer da hates me,” Kenneth told Cat later. They joined Iain and the other Brodies at table, where Mary presided in their father’s absence.
“Ye are just now figuring that out?” Iain replied with a grin.
Kenneth shrugged. “I dinna ken why, but it seems he always has and always will.”
“Ye once thought he hated ye, too,” Cat told Iain.
“I’m still no’ sure he doesna.” Iain took a drink and set his cup aside. “Though now Annie is about to make him a grandfather again, ye think he’d warm to me a little. Do ye ken, he’s yet to ask me how she is, or how soon the bairn is due.” He elbowed Kenneth. “Which is another reason, beside yer da’s animosity, for me to haste back to Brodie,” he added with a nod to Cat. “She’s getting close to her time, we think. We’re no entirely certain…” Pink tinged his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.
Cat laughed. “Whenever it happens, I canna believe I’ll soon be an auntie for the second time,” Cat told him, grinning.
“Me, too,” Mary added. “As soon as the bairn comes, ye must let us know, so we can come help Annie.”
“Have nay doubt—ye’ll be the first to hear. I’ll send my fastest ghillie.”
“I’m a ghillie now, am I?” Kenneth complained.
“Nay, and I wouldna send ye in any case. No’ with the Rose still out of sorts with ye.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I feared I was about to be demoted for angering another laird.”
“Ye have angered another one?” Iain’s expression was all innocence at the quip.
Mary laughed. “We still have a Sutherland here. He’s no’ entirely fond of Kenneth, either, though they do seem to respect one another.”
Kenneth rolled his eyes at her. “Dinna remind me.”
“The same Sutherland?”
“Aye, the one traveling with us. Cameron, a younger son of the laird’s,” Kenneth supplied. “He was wounded by a gallowglass after we left ye.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him you appreciate him saving our lives,” Cat promised.
“We saved his, too.”
“Aye, if his fever breaks and his wound heals.”
“He’s better,” Mary reminded her, “Else I wouldna be sitting here with ye.�
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Cat nodded. “Ye are good to him,” she told her sister. Then grinned and added, “And for him?”
Mary held up hand. “Dinna say such things.”
“Ye could help take the heat off of me if ye and Cam…”
Mary shook her head. “Dinna get your hopes up, little sister.”
Cat turned her gaze to Kenneth. “Why no’? It seems to work.”
Happy warmth bloomed in Kenneth’s chest. “It appears so.”
Mary snorted and stood. “Since ye have reminded me I’m neglecting my patient, I’ll take my leave. Iain, give my love to Annie. I look forward to seeing her and the new babe.”
Iain stood, too. “Why no’ come with us, to help her through the birth?”
Mary froze, then shook her head. “I canna. No’ until I’m sure Cameron—Sutherland—is out of danger.”
“May that be soon, then,” Iain told her.
Iain and the other Brodies left for their beds soon thereafter.
Cat watched them go, then turned back to Kenneth. “Ye have no’ said much about the meeting with my father.”
“The Rose has as much as said he will not agree to our marriage, though he did no’ outright forbid it. He did order all Brodies, including me, to leave at first light.”
“Ach, no’ happy then, was he?”
“Ye could say that. In fairness, I think he’s still worried about the Rose warriors who have no’ yet returned from Harlaw.”
“It may be, or it may be when he looks at ye and Iain, he sees a time when he is no longer laird. When ye, or a man Mary weds, becomes the Rose. He sees his own mortality.”
“No wonder he hates me.”
“Annie’s babe, when it comes, should improve his mood. If it’s a lad, he’ll have a legacy, even if it’s a Brodie legacy, too.”
“Iain did suggest he could wed again and sire sons of his own.”
Cat gasped. “He didna!”
“Yer da didna take it well.”
“I expect no’.” She drummed her fingertips on the oak table. “Clearly, he will decide naught before ye and Iain leave. ’Tis time to take matters into our own hands. If we handfast, he’ll no’ be able to betroth me again—at least for a year and a day.”
“I—aye. I thought about that on the road here, but then we met the gallowglasses and…”
She jumped up. “I’ll go talk to Mary. Should Cam do it?”
“What will happen to him if yer father finds out he did?”
“Likely he’ll toss him out. And he’s still too ill to travel.”
“Even to Brodie, aye. So, nay, Sutherland canna do it.”
“Mary can. Da willna do anything to her. He needs her too much. She can do it like she did for Iain and Annie. Unless ye’d rather Iain?”
Kenneth pondered long enough Cat started to look nervous. “I think ’tis better for the alliance if Iain does no’ ken,” he finally said. “I dinna want yer da to blame him.”
“He will, anyway.” Cat’s shoulders came down from around her ears. “Ye took so long to answer, I thought ye were going to refuse.”
“Refuse ye? How could I?”
* * *
After Catherine told Mary what she and Kenneth wanted to do, and that they needed Mary’s help, Mary surprised her.
“Are ye daft? Ye already married Kenneth in the old way.”
Catherine’s stomach sank and she shook her head. “Which Da refuses to recognize. He canna refuse to accept Kenneth if we handfast. We thought about having Cam…”
Mary crossed her arms over her chest. “He canna do it. He’s too ill for Da to toss him out of the keep into the barn, or out of Rose altogether.”
Catherine could see her sister’s concern for her patient written in her eyes, and the tension in her shoulders. “We ken that. So ye must do it.”
Mary straightened. “I must, eh?”
“Mary, please. As ye did for Annie. Da will do nothing to harm ye. He never has.”
“Save keep me here.” Her fists clenched in her lap.
“Ach, Mary, I’m sorry.” Catherine put an arm around her sister. How many times had Mary soothed her hurts? And she’d just ripped away a very old scab.
Then Mary straightened her shoulders. “What’s one more transgression among my many? Very well. I’ll do it.”
Chapter 20
Catherine, with Kenneth by her side, followed Mary to Cam’s chamber. “Should ye be sitting up?” she asked, surprised to see him dressed and in a chair by the hearth.
He nodded. “I’m none too steady on my feet as yet, but I couldna give yer ceremony the proper respect from the bed. This seemed the best compromise.”
Mary shook her finger at him. “I told ye nay, Cameron Sutherland. Ye have to be the most stubborn man alive.”
Catherine laughed at that. “Kenneth and he are in a tie for that honor.”
Mary sniffed and cut a glance to her patient, who grinned at her, looking anything but repentant. Then she turned to her youngest sister and Kenneth. “I am the Rose heir.” She held up the length of Brodie plaid Kenneth had supplied, gripping it in both hands. “’Tis my right and my responsibility to do this.” She glanced at Catherine and softened her tone. “And my honor.” She turned the strip of Brodie plaid over in her hands before she turned back to Cam. “Yer job is to be the witness.” Then she grinned. “And perhaps to kiss the bride, if her new husband will allow it.”
Kenneth gave Cam a sardonic shrug. “I shouldna, but ’tis said to be good luck for all concerned, so I must. All of us could use some good luck.”
Cam nodded. “Aye, me especially. I seem to have used more than my fair share of late, to still be here and breathing. But Mary, when yer da hears of this, he’ll be furious with ye. He’ll no’ molest a wounded and sick man, will he?”
Catherine and Mary shook their heads. Catherine hoped not. Cam was merely an observer. Nothing more.
“Well, then, ’tis better for the lovely Mary if I do the deed, ye must agree.”
Mary held up the plaid and let it dangle from her fingers. “’Tis no’ better for ye. I dinna wish to have to tend ye in the barn. Or on the ground outside Rose’s gates. So, nay, I dinna agree.” She turned to her youngest sister and Kenneth. “Are ye ready?”
“Aye,” Catherine answered.
“More than ye ken,” Kenneth added, with a wink at Catherine.
“Very well, then. Hold out yer hands.”
As she watched Mary wrap first Kenneth’s wrist, then hers, in a strip of Brodie plaid, all softly focused as though she looked through Highland mist, Catherine’s heart swelled. Mary did this for her and Kenneth gladly, though she shed tears the entire time.
Her support meant everything to Catherine, who could not stop shedding tears of her own. This simple ceremony made it official—Mary would be the last to marry—if she ever did. Their da had lost two disobedient daughters to weddings he didn’t approve, or approved only reluctantly, in Annie’s case, into clan Brodie. Catherine feared he’d keep Mary even closer at hand, but held out hope for Cameron Sutherland to change that. Mary did seem interested in him. If anyone could wrest Mary away from Rose, it would be a powerful Sutherland. But then again, Cam was a practiced charmer. A romance between them might come to nothing.
Still, she should not be thinking about them on this night of all nights.
Kenneth looked a little pale, but he repeated his vows in the strong, clear voice Catherine so loved.
Then it was her turn.
“I loved ye when we met, I love ye still—and I always will,” she told him. “I would do anything, give anything, to be by yer side for the rest of our lives. I pray we have the chance.”
“As do I,” Kenneth responded. “I love ye more than I have words to say. And I marry ye gladly.”
“’Tis done,” Mary announced and leaned in to kiss her sister on the cheek, then do the same to Kenneth. “Ye need to untie that, and leave Cameron alone now to rest. Ach, and ye may be past bloody sheets, but
if so, I’d suggest a wee prick of the knife—on a finger will do. That proof will give Da some measure of comfort.”
Catherine nodded, understanding. If he could believe she went to her marriage bed untouched, he might accept they were truly wed all the sooner.
“I dinna wish to lie to yer da,” Kenneth told the sisters, frowning. “He kens we wed in the old way. Will he believe we never consummated our union?”
“He might because he’ll wish to. ’Twill no’ be a lie—exactly,” Catherine told him. I still have the plaid we traveled with, if ye think we must use it, but seeing it will anger him more than seeing this. Either way, ’tis done.”
“Catherine is right,” Mary told him. “Ye willna besmirch yer honor with this small kindness.”
Kenneth studied them both for a moment, then glanced at Cam, who nodded. Kenneth sighed and nodded his agreement.
Catherine breathed out a sigh of relief.
Mary smiled. “I’ll leave ye now,” she said and slipped out the door. Kenneth closed it softly behind her.
“Iain willna seek ye out during the night?” Cam asked as he forced himself to his feet and claimed the kiss the bride owed him. Kenneth went to him, took his arm and escorted him back to the bed. The man had lost a stone of muscle since they’d gotten him here, perhaps two. He settled on the mattress with a relieved sigh, more pale than when they’d entered his chamber.
“Nay,” Kenneth told him while he settled. “I told him I might be restless, so he might no’ find me in my cot.”
“But will he think to find ye in mine?” Cat teased as she wrapped the length of Brodie plaid around her shoulders.
Cam waved them out and closed his eyes. “Be gone. Ye have worn me out.”
Out in the hallway, Kenneth laughed and pulled Cat to him. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
* * *
Kenneth took Cat’s hand and led her back to her chamber, the enormity of what they’d done leaving him warm and contented—and a little worried. He’d feel better when they left Rose tomorrow for Brodie. He opened the door, then scooped his bride up into his arms. She stifled her giggles against his chest as he carried her across the threshold and set her down inside. She reached behind him and pushed the door closed. Kenneth grabbed the handle at the last second to keep it from slamming, then locked it, earning another giggle from Cat. “Let’s no’ wake the keep, lass. Yer da may have no compunction about throwing me out into the night but I dinna want that for ye.”
