“Will you show me about Glengask? I’ve heard so much about it. I’m looking forward to seeing it. And to sleeping in a soft, warm bed.”
Something in the undergrowth moved, catching his attention. Catriona? “Aye. I reckon I can do that,” he said belatedly. A pair of rabbits bolted away from the trail, and he relaxed again. He wasn’t looking for rabbits; he was after a wildcat. Ranulf had changed the rules, but the game remained. And he played to win.
Chapter Nine
“I knew Lady MacColl,” Charlotte said in a low voice, sliding her arms around Ranulf’s ribs and resting her cheek against his shoulder blade. “I never met her daughter, though. And I always thought the viscountess was a widow.”
“The lass is just nineteen,” Ranulf returned, his hands on the balcony railing as he watched Bear showing Elizabeth the foyer and morning room, below. “She would be a year behind Rowena and yer sister, aye?”
“Aye.” She remained behind him, watching around his shoulder for a moment as the lass crossed the doorway and out of sight again. “And this Elizabeth is the reason Bear’s been spending so much time away from here?”
He shrugged against her cheek. “I reckon so. I wouldnae have thought such a … dainty, proper lass would catch his eye, but he was ready to take on the lot of us if we so much as looked at her sideways. It nearly came to a tussle.”
“I’ve seen how you tussle.” She released his ribs, edging up beside him so he could put an arm across her shoulders. Her warm hand slipped beneath his jacket and around his waist. “She did make it well into the Highlands on her own. That takes some courage.”
“I’ll agree with that. What concerns me is why she would settle into the middle of MacLawry territory when the MacDonalds would be more likely to step in and protect her from a Sassannach marriage she didnae want.”
“She told you that she lost her way, you said. I can believe that. Especially if she’s practically a stranger to the Highlands.”
“Aye.” It did make sense, and it explained some of Bear’s actions as well as Lady Elizabeth’s presence. “But why did he keep her a secret?”
“That’s simple, my love. She’s a MacDonald. Bear knows what nearly happened when Arran fell for Mary.”
“Mayhap. This is exactly the sort of thing, though, that I need to know. Fer God’s sake, I welcomed Mary Campbell into our clan. Into our family.”
“Yes, you did. After you nearly banished Arran and then chased the two of them across the length of England.”
Everyone remembered that bit. No one, though, seemed to recall that he’d gone against his own better judgment to make peace with the Campbells just so Arran could keep his bride—and live with her in safety. He had no love for the MacDonalds, but this Elizabeth MacColl seemed barely to qualify as Scottish. As a matter of courtesy he would have to inform the MacDonald that the lass had appeared on his doorstep. And aye, the Earl of Gorrie would likely make enough of a fuss to gain some money or territory or a share in MacLawry business dealings, but if she was who Bear wanted, he would arrange for it to happen.
As the pair emerged again from the morning room, Lachlan came through the front door with Rowena on his heels. Lord Gray must have galloped all the way home to be back so quickly with his wife, but of course the youngest MacLawry would want to meet the lass for whom her brother had fallen. Ranulf imagined Arran would be back with Mary within the hour as well, the two of them only slowed by Mary’s pregnancy.
“Does Mrs. Forrest know we’ll be a full house for dinner?” Charlotte whispered, taking his hand to tug him toward the stairs.
“Aye. I sent Owen to inform her the moment we returned. She’s been cooking extra every night because of Bear’s thievery, anyway.”
“So ye were living at Haldane Abbey?” Rowena asked Elizabeth, giving the younger lass a sound hug.
“Yes, I was. I got caught in the rain, and there it was.”
“I havenae been there for years,” the only lass among the MacLawry siblings went on with a warm smile. “Bear and Lachlan always told me it was haunted.”
“Oh, goodness,” Elizabeth exclaimed, shuddering. “I’m glad I didn’t know that when I found it. Bear mentioned it several days ago, and I barely slept after that. I never saw or heard anything—except for the creaks and groans of the house, but, well, I was very glad to see Bear every morning.”
“Just the thought of it would’ve been enough to frighten me away.”
Lachlan pulled his wife away from the lass to kiss her on the temple. “Ye hid in the dark in a Campbell escape tunnel, lass. I dunnae ken a ghostie could stand against ye.”
“That sounds like quite the tale! You must tell me what happened, Lady Gray.”
“Oh, pish. Ye must call me Winnie.”
It seemed Elizabeth MacColl was practically part of the family already. Ranulf gazed at her again. She looked … perfect, her golden-blond hair coiled beneath clips with tendrils escaping to frame her face, the merest touch of color on her cheeks and lips. Her green-and-pink-flowered gown wouldn’t be amiss in any London drawing room, and he glimpsed the toes of shoes that Charlotte and Rowena would say were meant for sedately walking through a tame London park.
That was what … not troubled him, precisely, but left him unsatisfied. Young Elizabeth looked like she’d just stepped out the door of a proper house in Mayfair. What she did not look like was someone who’d escaped in a hurry from London and had spent the last weeks making her way through some of the wildest parts of the Highlands only to settle into a ruined kitchen of a ruined house.
He supposed it was possible; Bear had been acting strangely for a fortnight and had been spending most days away from Glengask for weeks before that. The Haldane Abbey kitchen had been tidy—or as tidy as a room with one corner fallen in could be—and either she’d learned to hunt and cook somewhere, which wasn’t likely in those shoes, or Bear had been providing everything for her. That did explain why he never returned from fishing with any fish.
Ranulf shook himself. Whether something about her felt amiss or not, Bear clearly wouldn’t allow anyone to question her about it. Not yet, anyway. Before things progressed much further, though, he needed to know. If she was playing on Bear’s tendency to protect the weak and delicate, if she was simply a lass after the power and wealth of the MacLawrys, he would have to put a stop to it. Even if that meant a knock-down, drag-out fight with Munro.
For the moment, though, they were all friends. And for all their sakes he would take his time observing Bear and this lass, and trying to decipher whether his very experienced, ramshackle brother had fallen for a very unexpected lass.
* * *
Catriona crouched on the remains of Haldane’s first floor just above the hole in the kitchen ceiling. Whatever Bear had ordered her to do, she wasn’t about to cower in some corner and wait to be found. Wait to have all her plans ruined. Especially when her sister was alone with seven large clan MacLawry males.
What she heard down below, though, surprised her. The marquis clearly had a healthy respect for his brother, and Bear seemed to be pushing to protect Elizabeth well past what she’d expected of him—which admittedly hadn’t been much more than a few loaves of bread and some attractively flexing muscles. But they—he—someone—managed to leave her out of the tale entirely. Neither Elizabeth nor Bear could possibly know why she was so … skittish, but they’d decided to keep her presence a secret, anyway. Bear had lied to his own brother, to his clan chief, to keep her safe. Just the idea of that stunned her. No one had ever risked anything for her sake. To hear him do so sent her chest thudding warmly—which annoyed her greatly, considering the circumstances.
When the MacLawry suggested Elizabeth join them at Glengask she’d nearly panicked. Elizabeth, though, hadn’t seemed troubled at all. Of course, a warm bed and a lady’s maid probably sounded like paradise to her Society-raised half sister. And then both Munro and Lord Glengask had discussed just how much comfort and protection clan MacLawry could offer.
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She’d never set eyes on the Duke of Visford, but she couldn’t imagine an old man who preyed on young lasses whose family needed money would dare risk himself or his pride by going up against the MacLawry. It was a shame, really, that the Marquis of Glengask was already wed. If Elizabeth married him, the nineteen-year-old would never have to worry about Visford, or about having to live anything less than a comfortable life with a handsome, strong, and brave husband.
Once they’d bundled up Elizabeth’s and her things, Catriona shifted to one of the broken-out windows at the front of the abbey. Munro looked toward the wall where she’d been hiding before, then frowned. Well, of course she wasn’t going to be where anyone expected. That happened to be the point of hiding. Nor did she feel the least bit appeased at the brief look of concern that crossed his handsome face. Intentionally or not, he’d been the one to bring Glengask here.
Peter Gilling lifted Elizabeth to sit daintily in front of Bear, and her sister promptly put an arm around the big man’s shoulder. For balance, presumably. Catriona glared at the back of Munro’s shaggy head, willing him to look back for her again, but he never did. Instead the men rode away from Haldane, all convinced they’d left with everything of importance. Perhaps, though, they had. The party rounded the overgrown curve in the road, and a moment later they were gone even from earshot.
For a long time Catriona remained crouched in the shadows, listening, waiting for any sign that the men might return. Nothing but scattered birdsong and leaves rustling in the breeze drifted up to her. She straightened, stretching the tight muscles across her shoulders, then made her way back to the abbey’s ground floor.
The kitchen door still leaned against the wall in the hallway, useless and too late to protect anyone from anything. An odd, creeping uneasiness she couldn’t explain crawled up her spine as she stepped into the room where she’d been living for the past month.
It stood dark and cold now, the fire quenched and the low clouds outside keeping the sunlight from the open corner. The cheap mugs and a pot of cooling rabbit stew remained, but not much else. Neither Elizabeth nor Bear could likely have come up with a reason to leave half the blankets and clothing behind, but the loss abruptly struck her. She had nothing.
When she’d left Islay she’d brought very little with her, but the hairbrush, clean shirt, and floppy hat, for instance, had all been necessary. Now, other than the heavy coat she wore—the one Bear had apparently stolen from the marquis’s wardrobe—and the musket with a small number of lead balls and a pouch of powder, she might as well have been naked.
For the first time she realized how much … life her sister’s presence, her singing and chitchatting as they went about their daily routine, had brought to the kitchen. Without Elizabeth there, everything looked old and dull and lonely. It looked like her entire past, actually. And the keen loss she felt was because of Elizabeth, of course. The abbey’s sudden emptiness had nothing to do with the absence of the man who’d filled her days and her thoughts over the past fortnight. The man who’d just ridden off with her sister.
Catriona sat in the chair. Alone. It wasn’t as if the word was foreign to her, for heaven’s sake. She’d been alone before. After her eccentric, strong-willed father had died, she’d felt alone even with clan and family all around her. In some ways, their presence had left her feeling worse than alone—their scorn at her attire, her directness, her complete inability to be the lass they expected her to be, had only added salt to the wound. She’d loved Randall MacColl, and she’d lived her life to please him. And then all of his decisions, all of hers, had become something to be ridiculed.
Warmth spilled down her cheeks. “Stop it,” she muttered at herself, swiping at her cheeks with one sleeve. Those people couldn’t hurt her or judge her any longer, because she’d left them all behind.
She could sit there and wallow in her solitude, tell herself she deserved to be left behind. Self-pity wouldn’t accomplish anything, however, and it wouldn’t keep her warm tonight. It did, however, feel much easier than doing anything to keep herself alive here, or to resume worrying whether Elizabeth’s good fortune would remain precisely that.
With a deep breath she stood again, then sank onto her knees on the hearth to pull the damp wood and ashes out of the fireplace. That done, she set in the dry wood the men had thankfully left untouched, shredded Bear’s list of necessities to use for tinder, and pulled the flint from her musket. A dusting of gunpowder and a few strikes of the flint later, and with a flash the tinder ignited. Once the wood caught fire, she sat back. “There. That’s better.”
The list of her own necessities hadn’t changed, even if it differed greatly from her sister’s: shelter, warmth, water, and food. Now she had them back, though without a blanket she would be going through the small supply of firewood more quickly. That meant she needed to collect more before the rain began.
No sense waiting about, then. Catriona buttoned up her coat and made her way outside to find enough deadfall to at least keep her through the night. It felt odd that her own safety was now her only concern. Lord Glengask had promised to protect Elizabeth, mostly at Bear’s insistence. And however annoyed she was that Munro and then the MacLawry had stepped in, as if she’d been … insufficient where caring for her sister was concerned, for the moment at least, the solution seemed almost ideal.
Someone else would now look after her sister, make certain she had food and a dry place to sleep. And someone else would keep watch over her, and see to it that His Grace the Duke of Visford got nowhere near the lass. Providing for one person was so much easier than looking after two, especially when one of them had no idea how to live roughly.
At the same time, though, and however gallant Lord Glengask had sounded making his proclamation, he’d made it without considering the longer road ahead. In a week or a month or when spring arrived, when Sassannach dukes and solicitors and army officers came calling to threaten the clan or Glengask’s family or his many businesses with fines and sanctions, he might not be so eager to protect an English-raised lass he’d taken in out of charity. Especially one from a rival clan.
She wouldn’t be able to blame him for it, either. The MacLawrys had no connection to Elizabeth, no reason to continue to protect her. Unless they did. And since Lord Glengask was married, that left Bear.
Catriona flung a rock against the trunk of a tree, the solid thunk satisfying. Of course it had to be Bear. The giant, muscular man that no one in his right mind would cross. The man who’d tracked her here and then refused to be frightened away even at the point of her musket. The man who’d insisted not only on returning, but on bringing food and silly things like hair clips. The man who seemed to think being direct was refreshing rather than gauche. The man who’d kissed her, but had ridden off with Elizabeth.
She closed her eyes, then forced herself to open them again to finish gathering up the firewood. Whether she liked the idea or not didn’t matter. It didn’t even matter that she’d had the same idea earlier and then rejected it for … reasons on which she didn’t care to dwell. The solution made sense. Elizabeth needed aid more than she did, and not just for a week or a month. Her sister needed someone to look after her. And once Elizabeth married, Visford would never be able to touch her, literally or figuratively. In addition, the MacLawrys stayed in the Highlands. That alone would keep Elizabeth’s mother away from her daughter; Anne Derby-MacColl detested the Highlands.
Even better for her, the MacLawrys had no dealings with the MacDonalds, so perhaps after a time she could even visit. Yes. Munro needed to marry Elizabeth. She would merely have to find a way to make that happen.
Crouching, she picked up another branch and added it to the pile in her arms. Elizabeth would be safe, and that would leave her free to travel or hide away as she saw fit until the MacDonalds completely gave up on locating her. Yes, she would be alone, but she didn’t need any help. It was Elizabeth who would never survive on her own.
Bear and Elizabeth might not ev
en need much convincing; she’d ridden away on his lap, after all. And he’d stepped between her and his own brother. Why didn’t she feel more hopeful, then? Why wasn’t she relieved at the prospect of finally seeing her sister safe? Why did the idea of Bear kissing Elizabeth and telling her sister she was a bonny lass make her feel ill? For heaven’s sake, she didn’t even like Munro MacLawry. Yes, he had eyes the color of spring grass, and yes, his smile did shivery things to her insides, as did just looking at him. But he annoyed her, and aggravated her, and he’d interfered where he wasn’t wanted.
Oh, it didn’t make any sense. Why was he the one she’d been watching when her unwanted guests—and her own sister—had left? “Ye’re a fool, Cat,” she stated, turning back for the abbey. It wasn’t fate or the stars or Cupid that had brought them together. Because whichever other circumstances might change, one thing never would; if she felt unfit to wed one man because of his status and position, she was just as unfit to marry another whose very presence caught peoples’ attention.
Aside from that, marrying her had to be the furthest thing from his mind. And from her mind, of course. For Saint Beatrice’s sake, he’d only kissed her a few times. Very well, twice. Not that she was counting. No doubt he kissed any number of lasses. With his looks and his family connections, females likely stood in a queue to kiss him and share his bed.
She had merely been convenient, and more than likely amusing. Bear had his rough edges, certainly, but that meant he needed a lass who could civilize him, or at least provide a civilizing influence for him. And that, however she might occasionally daydream otherwise, perfectly described Elizabeth.
The rain began a good ten minutes before she reached the relative shelter of the abbey, and she wrapped her coat around the armful of wood. Soaking wet by the time she reached the kitchen, she tossed another branch into the large fireplace and set the remains of the rabbit stew back onto the fire. It was going to be a long day, and an even longer night, because the first step in saving Elizabeth was going to be convincing herself that Bear MacLawry wasn’t hers. No matter what she might, for a moment or two, wish.
Some Like it Scot Page 15
