Chapter Fourteen
“I suppose this confirms that I am Lady Catherine Montgomery,” she said, working hard to recover her composure as she turned to face Angus and Gwendolen in the solar. “But how is it possible that I have a twin who is widely regarded as a witch? My family never mentioned such a thing.”
“What did they tell you?” Angus asked.
“That my mother died in childbirth and my father never remarried. As far as I knew, I was his sole heir and he left his entire unentailed fortune to me.”
Gwendolen approached and touched her arm. “You should sit down, Lady Catherine. You’ve lost all your color.”
She realized suddenly that the room was spinning. She feared she was going to be ill.
Angus went to pour her a drink from the sideboard while Gwendolen led her to a chair.
“Permit me to apologize to you,” her hostess said. “I will never forgive myself for how I treated you earlier. I was wrong not to believe you.”
“It was a misunderstanding, that is all.”
Catherine sat down, but declined the drink Angus offered while all the sounds in the room grew muffled, as if she had just dunked her head underwater.
It was one thing to learn she was not a deranged witch when she had spent the past five days preparing herself to accept such a fate. It was quite another to learn that she had a sister. A sister who, evidently, was separated from her at birth and had turned out to be a mystic.
If that was true, no one at Drumloch seemed to know of it. Or if they did, they were all keeping it a well-guarded secret.
“A room has been prepared,” Gwendolen said. “I will take you there now.”
“But I must decide how to proceed,” Catherine argued.
On top of everything else, there still existed the question of where she had been for the past five years and why she could not remember any of it.
And what of her strange behavior at the standing stone? Did she have the same gifts as her sister, and if so, had she had them all her life?
Gwendolen laid a hand on her shoulder. “We can decide that later. For now, let me show you to your chamber. You must be terribly distraught, Lady Catherine. I hope you will take some time to rest and absorb this news.”
Catherine finally agreed, and Angus accompanied them to the door.
“You will dine with us this evening,” he said, “and we will discuss what must be done. Rest assured, Lady Catherine, that as chief of the MacDonalds of Kinloch, I am at your service. No harm will come to you.”
“Thank you.” She was indeed reassured, knowing that she was in the care of the great Scottish Lion, and that he no longer considered her his enemy. It was something, at least, to be thankful for.
She and Gwendolen exited the solar together and headed toward the tower stairs.
“Will Lachlan dine with us as well?” Catherine asked as they began their spiraling descent.
She imagined him, at this moment, preparing to leave Kinloch again, to continue his quest to find the woman who had cursed him.
She might never see him again.
“I cannot say,” Gwendolen replied. “Angus is not pleased with him. Aside from the fact that he cut him with a sword a year ago, then left without a word, he has just committed a crime by bringing you here.”
“How so?”
“You are worth a great fortune, Lady Catherine, and I am sure your family did not sanction your removal from Drumloch. In their eyes, he kidnapped you, which implicates my husband as well. I expect there will be some angry words exchanged between the two of them in the next little while.”
Catherine followed her hostess down the curved staircase and into a wide stone passageway, lit by a number of torches.
“I do not wish for him to be punished,” Catherine said. “You must inform your husband that there was no abduction. Lachlan did not plan it that way. I asked to be taken.”
Gwendolen regarded her with an arched brow as they walked side by side down the long corridor. “I am surprised you are defending him, considering how he treated you just now.”
Catherine, too, was surprised, for he had wounded her deeply. But it did not change the fact that he had delivered her to Kinloch Castle without incident, and he had kept his promise to her—that he would not endanger her life by slaking his lust on her.
“I cannot help myself,” she replied. “He did all that I asked of him.”
“Perhaps.” Gwendolen was quiet for a moment. “May I be frank with you, Lady Catherine?”
Catherine regarded her warily. “I wish you would be.”
The Lioness sighed. “You’ve been through a terrible ordeal, and Lachlan is…” She paused and glanced both ways, up and down the corridor. “He has a certain way about him. He is handsome, and women are drawn to him.”
“What are you trying to say?”
Gwendolen took a moment to better articulate herself. “His path is littered with broken hearts, and not just because of the curse. Even before that, he was not the kind of man a woman should ever fall in love with.” She hesitated. “I would not wish to see you hurt more than you have been already. It would be best if you returned to your home, and did not think of him again.”
Catherine’s stomach clenched tight with distress, for she feared it might be too late for such warnings. She might not be in love with Lachlan, but she was somehow swept away.
“Do not worry for me,” she said nonetheless. “I am not a fool.”
Yet she did not want him to leave the castle. She wanted—she needed—to see him again, though she did not want to explore too deeply the reasons why.
Gwendolen took hold of her hand. “I am pleased to hear it. Now let us deliver you to your bedchamber. You will need time to rest before dinner.”
* * *
After summoning Lachlan back to the solar, Angus spoke harshly. “So it appears you kidnapped the wrong woman. An heiress worth ten thousand English pounds. Bloody hell, Lachlan, I hope you covered your tracks.”
“I did,” he replied. “We spent the first night at a coaching inn to the south of Drumloch, then doubled back to the north and kept to the hills. And I did not kidnap her.”
Angus palmed the hilt of his sword. The air between them sizzled with tension. “I still want to thrash you senseless. For more than just what occurred here today.”
It was time, evidently, for Lachlan to pay the piper for what he did on that fateful morning a year ago.
At least he was ready. He had replayed, in his mind, the details of their contest a hundred times over.
“I won that fight fair and square,” he said. “You can call me a drunkard if you like, but the fact remains, you weren’t quick enough to block my maneuver, unsteady as it was. On the battlefield, you would be dead. And drunk or sober, I would be the victor.”
Lachlan and Angus had been cousins and friends since they were young lads, racing around the castle with wooden dirks in their belts, pretending to be warriors. As men they had continued their competitive games, using each other to practice and hone their skills for battle. They had always been equally matched, until that fateful day.
“Is that your way of apologizing?” Angus asked, eyes narrowing. “Or are you looking for another fight? Because I will gladly meet you in the Hall to even the score. Simply name the day and the hour.”
Lachlan regarded his cousin in the bright afternoon light shining through the windows, and felt a deep regret for all the days since his departure, knowing how he must have disappointed his chief, whom he respected more than any other Scotsman alive.
“I don’t want to fight you,” Lachlan replied. “I only want to tell you that I regret the day I rode away from here. It might have been a fair fight, but I should not have left, and you would be well within your rights to thrash me senseless. God knows I deserve it.”
“Aye, you do. You were my Laird of War, Lachlan.”
He lowered his gaze to the floor. “Not a very good one in those last few months. You were
fortunate there were no unexpected attacks. I might have lost you your castle.”
Angus moved to a chair and sat down. He was quiet for a long time.
“What was your plan, coming back here?” He regarded Lachlan coolly. “Did you expect me to confirm that the heiress was actually Raonaid? Did you think I would force her to lift the curse, so that you could go back to your old life? Shagging lassies you barely knew?”
Lachlan looked toward the windows. “That would have been a simpler outcome.” He ran a hand through his hair. “But nothing seems simple now.”
Again he thought of Catherine, and wished he had been less cruel, from the first moment he found her in the stone circle.
“By coming here,” Angus continued, “you have dragged me into a very complicated hole. What I ought to do is turn your sorry arse over to the Lowland authorities and save myself from being implicated as your accomplice.”
“Is that your intention?” Lachlan asked, half-expecting his cousin to answer in the affirmative—in which case he would be forced to ride out of Kinloch as quickly as possible, leaving Catherine behind, of course.
She would be better off, without a doubt.
Angus approached him. “No, I will not turn you over. You are my cousin, and despite a few recent errors in judgment, you have, for most of your life, been a loyal member of this clan. God knows I have made my own share of mistakes in the past, but I have been blessed with forgiving friends. For that reason, I cannot hold a grudge against you. I owe you that.”
In the long pause that followed, Lachlan counted his own blessings—and felt quite undeserving. “In that case, I will say what I’ve wanted to say to you for the past year.”
Angus waited patiently while Lachlan labored to collect his thoughts and find the right words to convey his true feelings.
“I’m glad I didn’t kill you,” he said at last.
Angus’s eyes narrowed coolly. “As am I.”
The great Lion did not often smile, and today was no different from any other. He acknowledged Lachlan’s apology with a mere nod, then headed for the door.
“Go and get some rest,” he commanded, “and for pity’s sake, Lachlan, take a bath. You reek like the arse end of a bull. We’ll dine at eight.”
Lachlan followed him out, but when they were about to part ways in opposite directions, he stopped. “Angus…”
His cousin halted in the torchlit passageway, waiting for him to speak.
“What chamber is she in?”
“The heiress?” By the knowing look in Angus’s eye, it was more than apparent that he recognized Lachlan’s burning need to see her.
“Green one,” he said. “South Tower. You owe her an apology, Lachlan, but you’d better not try anything else with her. You’ve done enough damage as it is. I’ve forgiven you once, but I will not clean up any more of your messes.” He turned and disappeared down the twisting staircase.
Lachlan did not go to Catherine’s chamber straightaway, however, for Angus was right, about one thing at least.
Lachlan needed to bathe. And he hoped—somewhere beneath all this dirt and grime—there might exist a small kernel of the charmer he had once been. For that was the man he wanted to be, when he asked for the lady’s forgiveness.
Chapter Fifteen
An army of chambermaids arrived at Catherine’s door within minutes to fill her bath, followed by an experienced lady’s maid who brought her a clean white shift to sleep in and a gown to wear for dinner. The woman was a MacEwen, and after the bath she explained to Catherine, while she brushed out her long curling hair, that the MacEwens had once ruled at Kinloch. Angus MacDonald had stormed the gates, however, and taken command, which was how he and Gwendolen became husband and wife. Gwendolen was the daughter of the former MacEwen chief.
“So they were enemies once?” Catherine asked with some surprise. “I would never have known. They seem very well suited.”
“Aye, Lady Catherine. That’s because they fell in love.”
“Well,” she cynically replied, “I suppose that means there is hope for anyone.” Though she did not truly believe it, not when she thought of Lachlan and how coldheartedly he had behaved when he learned she was not Raonaid.
Later she slipped into the bed, fluffed up the feather pillows, and dismissed the maid, who indicated that she would return in time to assist her in dressing for dinner.
The door closed with a gentle click, and the room fell silent. Catherine gazed up at the green canopy above and thought of her twin.
Over the past six months, since Catherine’s return to Drumloch Manor, she had assumed that the emptiness she felt stemmed from the fact that she had no memories of her loved ones and was therefore—in her own mind at least—alone in the world.
Now it seemed that in infancy she had suffered a terrible loss—that of a sister who had shared the womb with her. A sibling who was severed from Catherine’s life the same day they lost their mother. It was a double tragedy, an inconceivable loss. How grief-stricken she must have been. And though Raonaid was a stranger to her, and quite likely a villain, she felt a deep and agonizing grief for her as well.
Her sadness quickly turned to anger.
Who had done it? Who had cast out her infant sister? Was it her father? Or her grandmother? Or someone else Catherine had yet to meet?
A light knock sounded at the door just then. She rose up on her elbows, but it opened before she had a chance to respond.
In walked Lachlan.
He wore a fresh kilt and a clean, loose-fitting white linen shirt. The brooch at his shoulder was polished to a fine sheen, and he was without his usual weaponry. His hair was wet, sticking damply to his muscular shoulders in shiny disarray.
He circled around the bottom of the bed and stood at the foot of it, one hand on the corner post, his gaze dark and troubled as he observed the length of her body beneath the covers.
Something prompted her to raise her knee, and his eyes lifted keenly to meet hers.
“Why are you here?” she asked, still angry with him for what had occurred in the solar, while at the same time her insides were careening with both trepidation and desire. She hated herself for feeling that way, after all that had happened.
“Lady Catherine…” His tone was quiet and seductive, and the sound of it matched perfectly with the erotic spectacle of his muscular warrior’s body. His big hand opened and closed around the bedpost. “Do you really want to know why I’m here?”
Catherine inched upward on the pillows. “Yes.…”
The word spilled past her lips in a breathless sigh, and she wanted to strangle herself with her own stockings, for she was not some smitten young barmaid in a village inn. She was a lady of noble breeding, and she would not be so easily seduced by his charms.
“But I don’t care what you have to say to me,” she quickly amended. “I will never forgive you for your reprehensible behavior in the solar. You were a selfish brute.”
“Indeed I was,” he agreed, surprising her by lifting a knee and climbing onto the bed.
Her belly swarmed with nervous butterflies, but she fought the urge to blush or stammer. “And that’s all you have to say to me?”
“No, that is not all.” He stretched out on his side beside her, propped up on one elbow, and cupped her cheek in his hand. “I owe you an apology, lass. I should have listened to you in the stone circle when you denied my accusations. I should never have taken you from your home. And while we were traveling, I suspected something was wrong, that you were not the woman I despised, and yet I pushed on. I should have listened to my instincts—and to you—and for that I am deeply sorry.”
Catherine regarded him with shock in the pale afternoon light, and tried to ascertain if he was sincere, or simply trying to charm her into forgetting that he’d treated her like a witch and deserved to have his head soaked in brine.
All her instincts told her that he was genuine, but she wasn’t sure she could trust those instincts—not when her
foolish body was melting into a puddle of infatuation at the wonderful nearness of him.
“What about your beastly behavior in the solar just now?” she added, working hard to sound impervious to his apology when she knew how difficult it must have been for him to come here and essentially get down on his knees to grovel. But after everything that had happened between them, she wanted to see him grovel. It was only right. “Do you have anything to say about that?”
He looked into her eyes, then down at her lips. His thumb brushed across her cheek, and she felt a passionate fluttering in her belly.
“That, too, was wrong,” he softly said. “I was selfish and harsh, when I should have been sympathetic. None of this was your fault, yet I have been a scoundrel with you since the beginning, never more so than today. My only excuse is that I desired you, and when I learned that you were not the woman I hated, I could not confront those desires. You have to understand, lass, that I’ve spent the past three years pushing such feelings away. But today, it was cowardly of me, and you deserved better. So I will make my apologies to you, Lady Catherine, and beg for your forgiveness.”
Her heart began to hammer against her ribs as she pondered the fact that he’d just confessed desire, when she’d presumed he felt nothing for her but malice and loathing.
Despite everything, she desired him, too; there could be no denying it. He had lit a fire in her body that first day, kissing her senseless in the stone circle, and she had not been able to quench it since.
Now, here he lay, touching her cheek, begging for forgiveness, and confessing mutual desire.…
Catherine rested her hand on his chest and felt the beat of his heart. He allowed it only for a moment, then took hold of her hand and set it between them, back on the bed.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve let a woman touch me,” he said.
“What about the night I woke from the dream?” she replied. “I touched you then, and you touched me, too.”
“Aye, but I could not stay long beside you.”
A swarm of butterflies fluttered in her belly as she looked at his soft mouth and dreamed of how it would feel to be kissed by him again.
Seduced by the Highlander Page 11
