A Beautiful Lie (The Camaraes)

by Stephanie Sterling

  Muira shivered, and was then suddenly pulled back from her dismal thoughts.

  “Are you cold?” A concerned voice asked softly.

  Muira started still further when she realised that she seemed to have dozed off. She was cuddled up close against MacRae’s chest. Her head was resting on his shoulder and her arms had wound themselves around his waist. She gasped and tried push herself away, but only succeeded in unbalancing herself and almost falling from the saddle.

  “Hey, lass, it’s all right,” MacRae soothed, holding her tight so that she didn’t tumble off the horse, and apparently misjudging the reason for her panic. “You’re safe. You remember what happened?”

  Muira nodded dumbly. It was dusk now, but she recognised the road well, they weren’t more than a mile from Castle Cameron. She marvelled at the fact that members of her clan, out keeping the roads safe, hadn’t seen them. She was frankly amazed that they had gotten so far without being stopped. Although, MacRae did act like he was expected, so perhaps it wasn’t actually so surprising?

  She had thought that they might encounter someone looking for her. She supposed that she hadn’t been gone that long, twelve hours at the most, but still, Muira couldn’t help but feel a little affronted that no one had noticed. What was the point of running away, she wondered, if no one realised that you were gone?

  “What is it that you want at Cameron Castle, MacRae?” Muira asked. She was suddenly curious, and wanting a distraction from her own thoughts. He wasn’t a threat, not travelling alone as he was, unless, she gasped, he was a messenger, delivering some dreadful message of war!

  “Well now, if I tell you that, do you think you might tell me what you were doing running about the Highlands on your own?” MacRae replied. Muira thought that she could hear the grin that she sensed was plastered on his face.

  She stayed silent, wondering how ridiculous, how childish, she would sound to this man if she confessed that she had been running away. Muira sighed. Running away with a handful of money and only the clothes on her back. It had been a foolish thing to do. If MacRae hadn’t found her she would probably still be stranded miles back down the road. She shivered, that, or someone less gallant might have found her.

  Besides, he’d want to know what she’d been running away from as well if she mentioned anything.

  “Well now, I guess that means you don’t-” MacRae began after the silence had dragged on for a full minute, but he fell suddenly silent, and slowly reached for the broad sword that was tucked behind Faidhiach’s saddle.

  “What-” Muira gasped, frightened, but she was instantly shushed.

  “Put the lady down, and we’ll make this nice and easy, MacRae!”

  Muira gasped, and shrank back against the solid protection of her rescuer as a harsh voice filled the air. It was coming from somewhere amid the trees to their right.

  “Lass, I’m going to put you down,” MacRae said, his voice quiet, but firm. “They should realise who you are before-”

  “No!” Muira cried, surprising herself, and shocking MacRae, as she clung to him tightly. “If you put me down they’ll-they’ll-” kill you, she finished silently. She couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to him! Just because he’d helped her and she felt obliged to return the favour… Muira quickly convinced herself that this was the only reason.

  “Look lass-” MacRae frowned, gently prising her hands off his shoulders.

  “Hurry up, MacRae, you scum! Or your little lassie-”

  “Ewan?!” Muira choked, recognising this second voice as that of her eldest brother.

  “Ah, friends of yours?” MacRae muttered.

  There were a few indistinguishable shouts and then a small party of men emerged from the bushes, all armed, all with their weapons trained on MacRae.

  “Let her go, MacRae!” Ewan snarled. “If you’ve laid a finger on her, then God help me I’ll-”

  “Ewan, no!” Muira cried before she could stop herself.

  A terrifying hush fell over the men. In the saddle behind her, Muira could feel MacRae’s annoyance and anger at being protected by a woman, while in front of her the men of her clan were regarding her with confused suspicion. No one seemed to be prepared to be the one to break the dangerous silence. For several tense minutes eyes flickered from man to man to woman, until Ewan finally spoke.

  “You’re the one sent to speak on behalf of Laird MacRae?” he asked, scowling up at the man holding his sister.

  “I am. Lachlan MacRae.”

  Lachlan. Muria twisted, and glanced up at the man with one arm still looped around her waist. The name suited him.

  “Well, Lachlan MacRae,” Ewan continued, his voice a low growl. “You mind tell me what you’re doing with my sister?”

  “I found her stranded ten miles up the road. I was taking her back to Castle Cameron.”

  Muira squirmed uncomfortably as her brother’s frown moved from Lachlan to her. He stared at her hard, taking in her bedraggled appearance, clearly at a loss at to what she has been up to, but unwilling to question her in the presence of the other men. Muira was grateful for his restraint. She didn’t think that she could bear to explain herself just yet, and certainly not in front of Lachlan and the other men.

  She watched him mutter something to Ian, one of the other men who’d leapt out from the bushes, and then he lowered the bow and arrow he had drawn and walked up to Lachlan’s large bay mount.

  “Here, Muira,” he barked, lifting his arms to take her from the MacRae man. Muira couldn’t understand her reluctance to leave the stranger and go with her brother, but she felt a definite wrench as she was pulled from Lachlan’s arms.

  “She won’t be able to walk,” Lachlan sighed heavily as Ewan tried to set Muira on the ground.

  “I hurt my ankle,” she mumbled awkwardly. Her brother gave a slightly irritated groan and swung her up into his arms. He nodded in Ian’s direction, communicating some silent instruction and then marched off to find his own horse. “What are you doing?” Muira spluttered as she was carried away, looking over Ewan’s shoulder anxiously at Lachlan.

  “Taking you back to the castle,” Ewan informed her. “God Muria, what have you been doing?” he demanded, locating his mount, tossing his sister up into the saddle and then swinging up behind her.

  “But-MacRae,” Muira gasped. “Ian and the others, they won’t-”

  “He’ll be fine,” Ewan frowned at her obvious concern for the other man. “For now at any rate,” he added more sinisterly. “Ian’s just going to escort him to the castle.”

  “Just escort him?” Muira repeated nervously. “Then why can’t we wait?” she asked, still straining to see over Ewan’s shoulder, back to where they had left Lachlan with the men.

  “Muira!” Ewan snapped. “Don’t tell me you’re actually worried about him?” he asked.

  Muira felt her cheeks redden guiltily. “Of course not,” she blurted. “I just-that is-”

  “MacRae, he didn’t-” Ewan began awkwardly. “I mean, he didn’t touch you did he, Muira?” he demanded fiercely. “Because I swear on our mother’s grave if he-”

  “Ewan, stop it,” Muira interrupted, her cheeks so hot she was certain that they were glowing. “MacRae was a-a perfect gentleman,” she assured her brother quickly.

  Ewan grunted something unintelligible. “Well in that case-are you going to tell me what the hell you were doing ten miles from home?”

  Muira stared at her brother, considering telling him the truth for the umpteenth time, but she just couldn’t do it. She was so ashamed of having been duped by Tavish. Muira knew that she had to get married. It was just-what was done. She also knew that there was nothing that her brothers or father could do to break her engagement with her fiancé, at least not without bringing the whole family into disrepute.

  Disgrace hadn’t seemed such a very terrible cross to bear that morning, however, not given the alternative. Tavish had arrived in her room almost before dawn, before she’d even dressed. S
he wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get there, but knew better than to question him. He had announced his intention to… test his husband’s rights.

  Muira shuddered to remember the feel of his body pressing down upon hers. The cruel, unyielding hardness jutting into her soft curves… He’d warned her not to scream, to lie still and take it like the filthy whore she was, and she had been going to obey!

  Muira couldn’t believe how low Tavish had dragged her, how well he’d broken her spirit. She’d lain there, tears rolling down her cheeks, trying to find a corner of her mind in which to hide, listening to the jeer of his voice as his hands groped at her skin.

  “Maybe what I’ll do is tell daddy what a little slut you are,” he hissed. “I’ll go to him the morning after our wedding and tell him how you were already used. Get him to compensate me for having a whore as a wife by doubling your dowry.”

  “No!” Muira had shrieked. She hadn’t been able to bear the thought of her father thinking badly of her. Of being ashamed of her! The force with which she’d shoved at Tavish had evidently caught him by surprise, because the weight crushing her into the bed was released just enough to allow her to slip out from under him.

  She didn’t care that her nightdress was torn, that her skin was bruised or that her cheeks were wet with tears, she had bolted from the room, with Tavish’s vicious voice ringing loudly in her ears.

  Muira had run through the corridors of the castle until she’d reached the room of her best friend, Cait - the orphaned daughter of Muira’s aunt’s sister’s niece. A ward of the laird, who, with a pittance of a dowry, had no false hopes of marrying well and had set her sights on becoming a governess. Cait had comforted Muira as well as she was able, but even she couldn’t coax her friend into revealing exactly what had happened.

  Muira hadn’t meant to run away exactly. She hadn’t planned it. She had simply gone for her morning ride, (alone as she was fond of doing (to the fear and annoyance of everyone who knew her)), and had just… kept riding.

  “Muira!” Ewan’s voice dragged Muira back to her current predicament. “Talk to me?” he sighed. “What’s wrong?”

  “I-I just rode further than I’d realised,” Muira mumbled. “Any by the time that I had realised Maisie had gone lame, so I tried to lead her back, only then it started to rain and I twisted my ankle, and so we stopped by the roadside to get our bearings, and that’s when Mr MacRae rode by,” she explained in a rush. It all sounded so innocent when put like that.

  Well, it was innocent, she argued silently, minus the running away part, nothing untoward had gone on at all.

  Ewan made some sort of grunt, Muira couldn’t tell if it was of belief or disbelief, but they had finally reached Castle Cameron, and so Muira was granted a small reprieve.

  “Muira Cameron! There you are! And looking-Well! We’ve been so worried!”

  Muira hung her head sheepishly as her aunt and Cait rush out of the huge front doors of the castle to greet her.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt,” she mumbled, being helped out of the saddle by her brother. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

  “What-”

  “She’s had a long, trying day, Aunt, I think it would be best if we just let her rest and leave the questions until morning,” Ewan said swiftly, and Muira could have hugged him for it. “Cait-ugh- maybe you could help, Muira up to her room?” he added, a stammered, awkwardness creeping into his voice that Muira had only ever heard when he was addressing the pretty young governess. Blushing, Cait bobbed her head in silent agreement and took Muira’s arm.

  Muira hadn’t realised just how tired she was until Cait bundled her up the great stairs and off to bed. The pain in her ankle had lessened a fraction and she was able to bear a little of her weight on it as she was shepherded to her bedroom.

  “I’ll have one of the lads bring up some buckets of hot water so that I can fix you a bath,” Cait said, settling Muira in a comfortable chair and then ringing for the help.

  “I just want to sleep,” Muira yawned, ready to drop off at any moment.

  “That dirty? And in those damp clothes?” Cait snorted, and rung the bell again. “I’d dearly like to know what you’ve been up to Muira Cameron,” she sighed, her voice clearly worried.

  Muira didn’t offer an explanation though. She sat dozing in the armchair, waiting for Cait to fix the bath. It would be heaven to soak her aching limbs, she supposed, and then be able to sleep, snug and clean in her own bed… Muira’s grey eyes flew open as she choked. She glanced at the bed out of the corner of her eye - the bed where Tavish had tried to rape her just that morning. A wave of nausea rolled over Muira. Where was Tavish?

  “Cait,” she said quietly. Her friend looked up at her. She was adding a few drops of rose oil to the bath. The water had arrived without Muira noticing, and been emptied into the large tub by the fire. “Do you think you could stay in here with me tonight?” she asked quietly.

  Cait opened her mouth to question the request, but in the end she just nodded her head. “Of course,” she said. “If that’s what you want.”

  Cait didn’t press the matter any further, whether that was because of her own common sense or out of respect for Ewan’s instructions, Muira wasn’t sure, she was just hugely relieved. She undressed and sank into hot the bathwater; letting Cait help wash and then untangle the long tresses of her hair while she soaked.

  “Did you want something to eat before turning in?” Cait asked. “You can’t have eaten in hours, and your hair won’t be dry enough to sleep on for a while. I can go down to the kitchens and see what’s been left in pantry?”

  Muira found that she was nodded her head eagerly. Just as she hadn’t realised how tired she was, she hadn’t noticed how famished she was either until Cait mentioned food.

  “Would you?” she asked.

  Cait laughed and nodded, leaving her friend alone to dry.

  Muira lingered in the bath for a little while longer, waiting until the water had cooled and her skin was crinkly before finding getting out. The soak had done her ankle the world of good. She was almost able to stand properly as she dried in front of the fire, donning a long nightdress and dressing gown, before sitting down in front of the dressing table mirror to comb out her hair.

  Left alone with her thoughts, her mind began to wander. What was going to happen now? Muira knew that her brother hadn’t wholly believed her tale. Ewan had given her the night to recuperate, but in the morning he would want answers. As would her other brother and father, and her aunt and uncle, her cousins… and Tavish.

  Just thinking about her fiancé made Muira want to physically retch. When she remembered what he’d tried to do to her that morning… what he would do her when they were married, and as often as he wanted… it made her flesh crawl.

  She didn’t know a lot about what went on between a man and wife - that, more than anything, had been what had terrified her that morning. Muira thought, perhaps, if she had just knew what Tavish wanted from her, she could bear giving it to him better. And then she remembered what he had said, and decided that really hadn’t been the problem at all.

  She felt dirty when she recalled his hands groping at her body, squeezing at her breasts and fumbling between her legs. Muira shuddered, and felt like she needed to bathe all over again.

  Surely it shouldn’t have to feel like that? Muira found herself asking silently, and then, for reasons she didn’t understand, the memory of Lachlan MacRae drifted to the forefront of her mind…

  He was so large, but he had been so gentle. When Muira thought of his hands tending to her ankle, so unlike Tavish’s brutal grasp, or if she remembered his arm around her waist, tight without being crushing, then a strange heat burnt beneath her skin, and an even stranger ache settled deep in the pit of her stomach. She was glad of the distraction when the door opened and Cait returned with her supper.

  Only it wasn’t Cait.

  “Get up you, little bitch,” snarled Tavish, and then, without waiting for her to
obey, he stormed across the room and dragged Muira to her feet, pulling her after him, out into the corridor and towards his own room.

  ..ooOOoo..

  It could have been worse.

  Lachlan rubbed his jaw, bruised, from where one of the Cameron men had taken a swing at him. He hadn’t expected anything less. He had been beaten, soundly but not viciously, and only then had he been allowed to walk the rest of the way to Castle Cameron. Graem was a fool for thinking he’d be welcomed as a guest.

  But, it was still true that he had been expecting worse. He was still alive at least. Perhaps his kindness to the Cameron lass had not gone un-rewarded?

  In the darkness of very basic, almost prison-like, room Lachlan smiled. Muira Cameron. She had certainly made the journey more interesting. He found himself wondering what it was that she was running away from, quite obviously, regardless of the tale that she’d tried to spin him, that was what she had been up to. Jilted by her lover perhaps? Abandoned by her family?

  He couldn’t find a reason that explained why she had been so ready to be brought back though. Deciding that he’d spent too long letting his thoughts linger on the pretty Cameron woman, Lachlan sat up, and decided to have a quiet snoop around the castle.

  He wasn’t a prisoner. He also hadn’t been fed. He’d been told nothing more than Laird Cameron would see him when he was ready.

  No one had been ordered to guard his room, so Lachlan slipped out into the corridor easily enough, walking in the opposite direction to the one he’d been brought. He hadn’t been going for more than a couple of minutes when he hear a low sobbing, and the strange sound of someone trying to shout under their breath.

  “Shut up, you little whore! You’ll wake the whole castle!”