by Paula Quinn
Aye, Callum thought, he despised the blood that flowed in her veins. Her clan was responsible for killing almost every MacGregor laird for the past four generations without pause. They’d tortured the only person in his life he ever dared to love, until naught remained in him but anger, and darkness, and revenge. Aye, he hated her. But he could not find the stomach to utter it. He clenched his jaw tight instead and kicked his mount into a full gallop.
“Aye.” Jamie nodded, and then took off after him. “He hates her aright.”
Chapter Three
ENNIS STEWART did not immediately welcome the MacGregors into his home. When he did, it was not with open arms, but with muttered oaths that should any punishment come upon his family for communicating with the outlawed clan, he would never forgive them.
“Ye’re a MacGregor lest ye ferget, Ennis,” Graham reminded the old warrior. “Yer name may have been changed, but yer blood is, and always will be, MacGregor blood.”
Standing aside to allow them entry into his small bothy, Ennis mumbled a few more blasphemies, then poked his head outside after everyone entered. He looked left and right, then slammed the door shut and bolted it.
“M’ faither was a MacGregor,” Ennis acknowledged, turning to Graham. “M’ brother and his family were killed because of it. Lest ye ferget, the name MacGregor is proscribed. I can be hanged fer aidin’ ye.” He went to his wife, who stood by a small table in the center of the room, wringing her hands together. Ennis put his arm around her and pulled her close as if the door were about to burst open and they be found guilty of harboring the rebels. “Yer defiance will get ye all killed.” He turned to Callum and shook his head with the pity of it. “How long will ye continue yer war? Ye’re strong and young. Life is no’ so bad now. It willna be long before the monarchy is restored under Charles II. MacGregors have fought fer him. Surely he will remember it. Change yer name, fer the mercy of God, and live a peaceful life.”
Angus stepped forward and towered over Ennis with a scowl as cold as a Highland winter night. “Mind yer tongue. ’Tis yer laird ye address.”
Squaring his shoulders, Ennis tilted his head up to look the huge warrior straight in the eye. “M’ laird is Connor Stewart now.”
Angus regarded the old man with a look of disgust. “Ye’re a coward, Ennis MacGregor.”
“Nae! I protect m’ family!”
“So do they!” Graham shouted at him. He stormed forward and slammed his fist on the table, ignoring Mae Stewart’s startled leap back. “They protect their clan and their family name. I’m proud to say the Grants stand at their side.”
“How are they protected?” Ennis demanded. He pushed his wife behind him and faced the group of warriors boldly. “D’ye protect them by arrogantly announcing yer names to yer enemies? How does that protect yer families?”
Now Callum moved forward. When he reached the table, he swept his arm across it, clearing it of bowls and a vase full of flowers. He bent forward, laying the woman in his arms across the surface. Straightening, he closed his fingers around the hilt of his sword.
“I protect them with this. Anyone who thinks to do harm to my clan will die by my sword, and the offense will never be forgotten. If I have sons, I’ll train them to be warriors, as my faither taught me, so that when I die they’ll protect the clan in my stead. And my clan is MacGregor.” His voice grew low with firm conviction. “I will no’ hide my kin in the darkness of fear in order to protect them. If we die, then so be it. We die as MacGregors. Now, I’ve no’ come here to d’ye harm, nor to shame ye fer what ye feel is right, Ennis. This lass is in need of yer wife’s healin’. We’ll be gone before the sun sets.” He turned to Mae. “Will ye help her?”
“Aye.” She nodded up at him. “Ye look in need of some of m’ special salve yerself.” She motioned to his leg, where blood had dripped and dried in thick rivulets down to his knee.
“I’d be most grateful,” he said and watched while she began her examination of the woman on the table.
“Who did this to her?” Mae looked up from pulling the edge of the woman’s bodice and shift off her shoulder.
“One of her uncle’s guardsman,” Callum told her, unable to look away from the smooth complexion of the lass’s shoulder. She moaned, and he blinked his gaze away.
“Her uncle?” Ennis asked, his interest in her piqued. “Who is she, then?”
When Callum told him, Ennis tossed him a doubtful look. “Ye’re aidin’ a Campbell?”
“Aye, but he hates her.” Jamie hastened to stand at his laird’s defense.
“He doesna hate her, whelp.” Brodie shoved his elbow into Jamie’s gut.
“Ye’re all going to have to wait ootside,” Ennis’s wife declared, exasperated by the sudden bickering. Besides, she was going to have to undress the lass to get to the wound, and it was not proper for any man to see her. “Oot with ye now,” she ordered, shooing them away.
“Ye see what ye did, Brodie?” Jamie hissed at him. “She thinks us barbarians because of ye.”
“That’s no’ it.” Brodie pushed him along. “She doesna want us to see the lass’s breasts.”
They were already heading in the direction of the door when Callum gave both men a harsh shove that catapulted them the rest of the way. “Mind yer mouths now and move yer arses.”
Once the men left the bothy, Ennis looked over his shoulder every five breaths. Within ten, he had worked himself into a frenzy. Any moment now, someone was going to wander by to bid him a fine day, take one look at the five giant warriors, and go screaming throughout the holding that MacGregors were afoot. Then, Ennis thought, rubbing his forehead, he and his poor Mae would be cast out and left to starve to death on the moors.
Callum’s hand on his shoulder startled him. “Dinna fret so, Ennis. Should anyone happen by, I’ll put my sword to yer throat and ye can explain to yer laird that we forced ye to aid us.”
Ennis knew the MacGregor was not berating him for his fears. The chieftain was indeed willing to lay his head on the block for anyone in his clan, even one who had chosen a different name to stay alive.
“I’ve thought aboot retreating to yer holding on the isle, laird.” Ennis admitted, unable to help but respect the courage it took to stand firm against their subjugation. “But this is m’ home now.”
Callum nodded and patted his back. “Camlochlin will welcome ye if ye ever change yer mind.”
Ennis finally managed a smile, but a moment later he resumed his pacing, scowling now and then at Brodie and the others while they hurled insults at each other.
“How did ye come to possess a Campbell?” Ennis asked the chieftain, to keep his mind off the panic rising in him.
Callum explained what had taken place in Glen Orchy.
“What d’ye intend to do with her?”
“I will hold her until Argyll comes fer her, then release her to her brother in Inverary.” Callum ground his jaw, his penetrating gaze fixed on the heather-lined meadows before him. “The sooner I am away from the wench, the better.”
“And the earl?”
Callum’s eyes cooled to embers as he turned to his reluctant host. “He dies.”
Ennis arched a bushy gray brow at him. “Will ye punish him fer what Liam Campbell did to ye, then?
“Aye,” Callum nodded. “He will pay fer his faither’s crimes, just as I paid fer mine. And he will suffer fer the MacGregors he has killed and the women’s faces he has branded.”
Ennis grew quiet. He’d heard about the women put to the iron by the Earl of Argyll. Damn pity ’twas, but ’twas naught out of the ordinary. The Campbells had been trying to tame the MacGregors since the time of Robert the Bruce, but to no avail.
Aye, Ennis knew that his clan was not entirely innocent. They were a bloodthirsty lot, killing Campbells for more years than Ennis could ever count. There were dozens of acts of Parliament’s Privy Council against them, granting barons and other noblemen the right to pursue the outlaws with fire and sword. But when the MacG
regors had massacred the Colquhouns at the battle of Glen Fruin fifty years ago, King James VI decreed them into extinction. Most Highlanders knew the MacGregors did not deserve the punishment they’d received, for treachery amongst the Campbells and their allies abounded. But Callum and Margaret MacGregor had been innocent. That they had escaped Liam Campbell’s dungeon at Kildun Castle was a miracle, everyone agreed. How they had done it, and what had become of Callum after that, was another matter entirely, depending on who was asked. Some called the laird of the mist braw, while to others he was a madman. One thing was certain, though. The MacGregor was a proud man, choosing, by his own words, never to hide in darkness. But as Ennis looked down at the leather cuffs encircling Callum’s wrists, he wondered how long the young chieftain could hide behind those terrible years of his youth.
Ennis’s thoughts were interrupted when his wife opened the front door and peeped her head out at the men standing around her doorway. She smiled when she met the MacGregor’s gaze. “’Twas a clean injury. I’ve removed the arrow and dressed and bandaged her wound. She’s awake, though a bit groggy from m’ herbs. Probably why she asked fer the arrogant bas—” Mae caught herself from repeating what the Campbell lass had called him. She blushed and gave her chest a pat. “—man who raided her holding. I presume she’s meanin’ ye, laird.”
Angus immediately puffed up his chest and stepped forward. “I believe she most likely meant me.”
Brodie snorted a laugh. “If she meant ye, she woulda asked fer the fat sot with a sack o’ brew hangin’ oot o’ his mouth.”
“Well, she didna mean ye, that’s fer damned certain, Brodie MacGregor,” Angus shouted. Ennis Stewart looked up and beseeched the heavens to open and take him where he stood.
“I think she meant Graham,” Jamie offered honestly. “He’s always smilin’ at all the lasses with them devilish dimples of his.”
“Stay here,” Callum ordered his bickering kin and ducked his head under the doorframe, stepping into the bothy. When he saw her lying on the table, a strange tightness settled in his chest, causing his steps to pause. Her hair dripped over the side in long, rich locks he wanted to touch. God’s fury, she had not even cried out when Ennis’s wife removed the arrow from her flesh. When she turned her head to look at him, her eyes blazed with anger and tears.
Unprepared for the effect the sight of her had on him, he cursed himself for wanting to take her in his arms and comfort her.
Chapter Four
KATE WAS RIPPED from her dreams of being cradled in the arms of her rescuer and came awake with a choking gasp. With painful clarity, she remembered being shot. She looked around the unfamiliar bothy, with understanding dawning on her that she’d been taken from her home, as well. And not by some knight of the realm, but by a MacGregor! There was little she could do now, fighting the dizzying effect of herbs, no doubt fed to her by the woman standing over her and wiping Kate’s blood from her own hands with a small cloth. Or by that horrendous whiskey, as deadly as her rescuer . . . er . . . abductor. Good God, she’d been abducted! Where was her captor? She asked the woman, who gave her no answers, save for a reassuring pat before she hurried for the door. MacGregors! Kate’s head reeled. Was it only this morn that her uncle was warning her about them? Pity she had wounded the laird in the leg. She ought to have sliced open his spine like they had done to her father.
She turned her face toward the door when she heard someone enter. She hated this man’s clan for terrorizing her kin for so many years, but she had to have been daft to lift a meager dagger against him. Why, he was even taller than Robert, and solidly built beneath a shirt of dyed saffron and belted plaid. He moved with the confidence of a conqueror. Two wide bands of brown hide encircled his wrists. Dried blood caked his bare knee and disappeared beneath the rim of his kidskin boot. But even the slight limp from his wound did naught to thwart his dominating presence. He paused for a moment, his eyes settling on her like a tempest, turbulent and dangerous.
Kate leaped from the table and stumbled back against the wall. Let all of Scotland fear the MacGregors. She would not! Her eyes darted around the room for something with which to hit him. She picked up a stool with her uninjured arm and raised it to ward him off. She fought a moment of sheer panic when he picked up his steps again. Pain resonated though her body, but she was not about to stand here and allow him to kill her without a fight. Gritting her teeth, she squeezed her eyes shut and swung.
When her stool came to a dead halt, she opened her eyes to find the chieftain’s broad fingers closed around one wooden leg. He towered over her, so relentlessly compelling, his gaze on her so unforgiving.
“Ye will cease tryin’ to do me bodily harm,” he warned, taking a step even closer. “Or I’ll be forced to confine ye.”
“I mean to kill you.” Kate stared up at him and gave the stool another tug.
Her would-be weapon flew across the room and crashed into the trivet with a mighty clang. Kate barely had time to startle before he swooped down and caught her in his arms. He lifted her to his chest, cradling her in a stone embrace. She struggled to free herself, but to no avail.
“Where are you taking me? Unhand me!” she demanded more forcefully when he did not answer right away.
“I’m bringin’ ye to the bed.”
Kate froze. Did he mean to ravish her? Aye, he had threatened to do the like earlier, had he not? She turned to look at the small mattress in the corner and fought to quell the drum of her heart. “If you dare touch me, I will rip out your heart.”
“How might ye do that?” he asked, sounding somewhat amused. “With yer teeth?”
Kate wished she had the fortitude to do just that. She stiffened. It was true she could never overtake him with one arm. She reasoned she could not even fight him with two. She tried appealing to his sense of honor, hoping he possessed some. “I’m betrothed,” she lied.
He peered down at her and then scowled for all he was worth, his eyes darkening to a smoky blue. “To whom?”
Kate drew the corner of her lower lip between her teeth, trying to come up with a name. She remembered one Amish had mentioned a time or two when he used to speak of his youthful days fighting the English. “To Lord Mortimer of Newbury. My uncle is very close to our lord protector, Cromwell, and I have been promised to Lord Newbury as an—”
“Newbury?” His scowl deepened into a glare that would have caused the most battle hardened warrior to blanch. “Ye’re goin’ to wed an Englishman?”
Kate glared right back at him as he crossed the room. “Aye, and I’m told he has an army two hundred strong.”
The MacGregor snorted and shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t care if Lord Newbury’s army numbered over a thousand. “I have nae intention of dishonorin’ ye, woman.”
He laid her in the small bed, then sat at the edge, beside her. “’Tis bad enough ye’re a Campbell. If ye considered weddin’ an Englishman, ye’re a fool, as well.”
Kate lay there glowering at his profile. She had the mind to slap him, preferably with an ax! Still, he made no move to ravish her, which meant her lie had worked. Either that, or he hated her as much as she hated him. The latter seemed more likely, since every time he set his eyes on her, he frowned.
“Being a Campbell and a fool is better than being a MacGregor. My kinsmen never cut off a man’s head and sent it to his sister, causing her to lose her mind.”
He angled his head to look at her fully, his expression hard and unyielding. “Ye’re correct. Yer kinsmen have done far worse.”
Kate drew in a deep breath and forbade herself to tremble, though that trembling had less to do with fear and more with the rugged beauty of his visage. His dark hair swept past his shoulders. A strand on either side was braided at his temples and tied with thin leather strips. His jaw was shadowed with a few days’ worth of whiskers, but not enough to conceal the alluring hint of a dimple in his chin. His nose was straight and noble, his lips full and sensual.
“Worse than carrying
the head to a church and swearing on it to uphold the wicked deed in defiance of the king?” she demanded, pushing herself up into a sitting position. She tugged on his plaid when he began to turn away again.
He took a moment to let his gaze drift over her features, then riled her temper with a slow, slanted grin that made her feel like the biggest dimwit in Scotland. “Ye speak of the forester John Drummond, woman. The MacGregors killed him almost seventy years ago after he hung a number of them fer huntin’ deer on their own land. Have ye nothin’ more recent to remind me what ruthless bastards my kinsmen are?”
Kate blinked, and then her eyes flashed. “Aye, the worst among you killed my father and my grandfather.”
His grin faded, but his voice still mocked her. “Are ye certain?”
The door burst open, stopping her from asking him what he meant. Angling her head around his arm, she surveyed the four men filing inside the small bothy, one in front of the other. They pushed and shoved their way toward her. Then the smallest of the bunch, a pleasant-looking young man with enormous blue eyes and pale yellow hair, stopped and grinned at her.
“Jamie Grant makes yer—”
The man behind him bumped into Jamie’s back then swatted him across the back of the head. Another warrior, standing slightly to their left, took the opportunity to gracefully step around his comrades and bow to her.
“Graham Grant, of the clan Grant,” he said, sweeping his midnight blue cap off his head.
Kate watched his mop of deep golden curls catch the light of the hearthfire as he straightened. He looked like an angel compared to the rest of them. An angel, she concluded an instant later, with a wickedly seductive smile.
“How do ye fare, Katherine?”
She arched a brow at him. “How do you know my name?”
“I spent the last pair of months with yer brother, Robert, in Inverary. He told me much about ye.”
