Belonging to a Highlander

by K. M. Patterson

  He fairly snarled when he met her.

  "Did you ken of this?" he asked, tersely. He turned away, agitatedly running his fingers over his beard and then through his hair. He wasn’t sure if he intended to pull out those strands he gripped so tight in frustration, or if he held on to prevent himself from wrapping his fingers around her dainty neck to strangle the lass who had now cost him quite a bit more than she had bargained for—his freedom.

  The lass's web of troubles had now entangled him more than it had her.

  She had the good sense to lower her eyes quickly, but Hugh corrected that, stalking the rest of the way to her and taking her stubborn little chin in his hand and with one quick, harsh jerk, brought her eyes up to his.

  Flames danced there between them in their locked gazes.

  Hugh accusing, Catriona condemning.

  "I did'na ken until the day after our arrival," she said, her voice was soft and honest.

  She looked frightened under his fury.

  "Damn you." Hugh let go of her before he dragged her across the hall to one of the trestle tables and turned her over his knee for a sound thrashing. If he thought for one moment Jamie wouldn’t stop him, he would have. At that moment, he wanted Catriona to know how very much her whims had altered his life.

  She took hastened steps back before he caught her again and rubbed at her wrists where he had gripped her. Her surprise at his anger and trepidation quickly turned into seething fury.

  "Och, I'll be bruised come tomorrow."

  "You'll most like be much more than that," he snapped.

  She stiffened. "What do you mean?"

  He stalked close once more, so close his breath fanned her hair as he glowered down on her.

  "McCross!" Jamie's shout laced with warning from across the hall was all that stopped him from grabbing her up again.

  Hugh turned only his head to the other laird, briefly, before looking back to Catriona. They stood like that a long moment, their bodies only a hairsbreadth from touching. Hugh's chest rose and fell with swift breaths, and Catriona fairly trembled with fear of him.

  "You'll become my wife."

  Her eyes rounded, and she snapped her head toward her brother, already turning her body from Hugh's and stalking purposfully toward Jamie.

  "Nay!"

  "Catriona," Jamie said calmly, starting for her.

  Hugh merely stood back to watch, crossing his arms over his chest.

  "You can'na marry me off to that … that … barbarian."

  "And I would'na if doing so was no necessary."

  "How is my being wed necessary now? I am no simpleton. I ken the Saxons have found oot that I left the abbey, and I am sure they have made some ludicrous claim aboot purity. It does'na take a great intellectual to figure that oot. But why him? Find someone else." She panted, her hands on her hips, her fury quickly deflated until she was more helpless than anything. She glanced back at Hugh in fright. "Anyone but him. Please, Jamie."

  Jamie turned his black look from his sister to Hugh. "I'm afraid I actually do'na ken another mon who would take you, and certainly no any other with the number of men Hugh has to protect you. The Saxons are no a light threat to be simply ignored, Catriona. It shouldn’t take a great intellectual to figure that oot."

  Her indignant gasp carried all the way to Hugh.

  "Now," Hugh started, taking a few steps closer. "If you'd like to throttle her, I'd be obliged to help."

  This gained him a glare from both siblings.

  "In many regards Catriona has needed a sound beating to get some sense into her thick head, but I'll have your words again, for her ears, that you'll no ever do such a thing."

  Hugh grunted, mildly ignoring the sudden satisfaction Catriona turned on him. For a brief flash, he saw the nefarious imp he had started his journey with—the troublesome lass who caused no small amount of trouble in his camp—not the shrew he had seen since arriving here.

  "I'll no hurt her, you have my word."

  "Good."

  The look he turned on Catriona said everything else. He would not lay a hand on her, no, never. He'd not lay a hand on any woman except in a gentle caress. But if he ignored her or neglected to give her any of those caresses, well then, he wasn’t marrying her for love. He was marrying her because she now needed his protection. Protection he felt damned obligated to offer, considering her connection to the king, and the ill feelings that had haunted him since this ordeal began.

  She needed him.

  And there was nothing she could do to change that.

  She had done this to herself.

  Those understandings visibly rolled over Catriona then. He watched the change in her expression as the tides of hurt, stung pride, and charred regret slammed into her thin frame like waves against a shore in the throes of a mighty storm.

  She started a stiff walk across the hall, not meeting Hugh's gaze as she passed him, giving him a wide berth.

  So, this was how it was to be then?

  He had never imagined himself with a wife, and it seemed he would get one, albeit a wife he could not bring himself to want.

  Chapter Eight

  The cool stone of the dark stairwell stung Catriona's toes through her thin slippers as she descended quietly into the hall. She clutched the bottom of her gown up so she wouldn’t trip in the dark.

  The soft sound of her slippers against rock bounced off the narrow, curved passageway along with her quick breaths.

  She had to escape, before it was too late.

  Her eyes stung from the tears she had shed in the last few hours. She had managed to keep her dignity until she reached the stairs, leaving Jamie and Hugh behind before her loud sobs escaped. She had raced to her bedchamber and buried her face in her pillow to silence the sounds of her misery.

  And then, her decision came to her.

  She had never thought, given her birth, that she would marry. Never thought she would have to face marrying a man she didn't know. Yet, here she was and at her own doing.

  They had acted as though she had no choice in the matter, damn them. Well, it wasn’t fair. She did have a choice, and she chose to run away rather than bind herself to that odious man for the rest of her life! The Saxon king could hunt her down if he was of a mind to. She would take that fate any day over spending even an hour more with Hugh McCross.

  Her heart thudded in her throat as she continued without much of a plan. She didn’t know where she was to go, not only to escape the threat the Saxons wielded, but to escape Hugh, matrimony, and most of all the marriage bed.

  She nearly stopped breathing entirely at that thought and came to a halt, catching a sting of cold under her fingertips as she reached out to the wall and then sank against the cool stones.

  What a fool she had been for interrupting his dalliance earlier. And for what reason? What did she care what he did and with whom? She'd made the mistake of venturing into waters she didn't know how to navigate. One moment she thought she had the upper hand with him, and the next he stole it away. When would she learn that with Hugh McCross she would never win?

  She dropped her face into her palms.

  He had upset her so from the very moment she'd laid eyes on him. What he had intended to do to her friend had provoked her ire so much so that she had acted in ways only to vex him, sometimes finding herself in disbelief that she had done or said such. Yet, finding out the man had been more or less forced into what he had done should have softened some of that anger, shouldn’t it?

  Yet it hadn’t.

  He could have stopped McAlison, and he still could, but Hugh would only do what was best for him.

  Jamie had come to her chambers some time ago and reinforced his decision, after receiving word from the king, too. Their initial squabble over her former betrothal had reignited.

  "Wed Ethelstan? Me?" she had exclaimed a few days past. Tonight that had escalated to, "Marry Hugh! Never!"

  Their heated conversation began to play out in her mind once again, riling
the hot blood pumping in her Scot's veins.

  She could hardly blame Jamie for the betrothal though. And indeed, it gave her great pleasure and honor that her—she never knew exactly what to call Kenneth MacAlpin, her somewhat half-uncle, the King of Scotland—that he would even consider her to make this alliance.

  Had she only known.

  Her cheeks heated a degree at thoughts of her foolishness.

  She had thought she had nothing to lose, and she had thought wrong.

  Her actions now yielded serious consequences for herself and her clan.

  Jamie had had men en route to collect her from the abbey on the very night she’d left with Hugh.

  Yet it didn’t take a man to understand the repercussions—as Jamie pointed out most keenly, even a simpleton knew what she had incited with her brief romp across Scotland as the prisoner of a highland mercenary. Even pretending to be someone she wasn’t was insult enough to a nobleman.

  Och, what King Ethelwulf and his son must surely think she had done. What would they do to her clan for her making a cuckold out of Ethelstan? Though, she'd not known she was betrothed and never would have dared do what she had done if she had known. She couldn’t change the past however, and she dearly hoped the Prince of Wessex would forgive her.

  She grimaced, knowing full well the likelihood of that desire.

  It took a stretch of the imagination to believe that this king would've accepted the likes of her, a bastard daughter of a bastard father, as his son's bride in the first place. Jamie had explained to her the bargain struck between the MacAlpin and the Saxons. What Kenneth had done for her. What it did not take was any stretch of the imagination to conjure the fury the Prince of Wessex must be feeling.

  But her, marry Hugh McCross?

  Now that did take a fair stretch.

  A stretch she would avoid at all costs.

  Her, wed that mad highlander?

  Ha!

  Catriona rolled herself off the wall and bounded down the last few steps to the bottom of the stairwell where a rush of warmth hit her from the hall. The large stone hearth held a dwindling blaze, but nonetheless filled the large room with heat. In the dark, behind the wall at the foot of the stair, she took a steadying breath before poking her head out into the open hall.

  Dim firelight cast the walls in amber glow, and the dais on which Jamie's massive chair cloaked in regal furs perched atop of sat in dark loneliness. No one was about, not that she could see anyway. None save the few servants stretched out on pallets before the great hearth, each likely dead to the world, exhausted after their day's toil.

  Catriona gathered herself, and as her feet touched the slightly warmer floor of the bottom level of her brother's keep, she dropped the hem of her gown and started for the passage leading out the backside of the keep, near the stables.

  She was almost there when the warmth of a large hand clasped around her arm, catching her up, and long fingers bit into her flesh.

  To her mortification, she let out a squeak of surprise. A rattle of shock speared through her, and she whirled to look up. Hugh.

  An immediate growl stirred in her throat, and she jerked her arm from his grasp.

  It was only then she realized he was half clad in only trews, his long dark hair spilling over his shoulders as though he had come straight from bed to catch her.

  Which he had an uncanny knack for doing.

  She issued a helpless little sound of aggravation before sighing in defeat and then pursed her lips.

  "What are you aboot at this hour, lass?" he asked, his brogue filled with sleepiness.

  Even she, opposed to the man as she was, could not deny finding the slightest stir of attraction to his deep voice when he spoke to her so. But Catriona gave him a sharp look, her eyes hovering over the receding swell of his jaw. The bluish tint she had delighted at seeing before had softened in color. Her lips quirked up. Jamie had always been a fighter. It would seem he had not lost his touch with the effect of his fist still lingering on Hugh.

  Jamie had taken as much exception to Hugh's intents for Tamsin as she had.

  "Escaping," she said, her own brogue matching his, though she didn’t usually speak so thickly. She cleared her throat. "And you, laddie?" she asked, her eyes trailing down to study the expanse of bronzed skin left visible. The man truly had no shame. He looked savage in the dim light with his hair disheveled from slumber. He rubbed at his beard around his mouth, bringing her attention to his lips.

  Catriona became very aware of just how close she was to him then, how he held her so, pressed against his hard, naked torso. He felt like a stone wall against her, so large and unmovable.

  She shivered, and her dislike for him flooded away. She had a moment's urge to soak it all back up before her will deserted her completely.

  Catriona swallowed the lump in her throat. Her breaths came in feathery little gasps until he relented and backed a step away, though he did not release her. The leisurely stare he raked down her body was unmistakably filled with wicked love-starved curiosity that sent tingles shooting to her toes yet made her instantly aware and somewhat curious since he had previously never looked at her in such a way.

  Hugh narrowed his eyes at her for taunting him, making her quite sure no one had called him laddie since he was a child. He only continued to stare at her, to the point she started to regret having said anything at all.

  When the sight of his heavy lidded eyes and sleep-swollen lips began to irritate her, she sighed. "I do'na wish to marry you."

  She might as well be honest with him.

  One dark brow rose above the other. "Nay?"

  "Nay," she said.

  Hugh moved a little closer to her, the light of a torch on the opposite wall danced in his dark eyes as he looked down on her. "You wish to go back to the sisters and take your vows, then?"

  He let the question linger between them a moment, and Catriona's eyes fell to his chest where dark hair lightly dusted over a hard breast all the way down to the dip of his sternum. A scattering of thick scars marred the tight skin stretched over hard ridges of muscle. She supposed a man did not get to his position and age without acquiring a few of those. What was it Jamie called them? Highland badges of honor.

  "Because, lass, that’s the only other option for you."

  Catriona shook her head, realizing her eyes had traveled so low as the line of his trews. She jerked her stare back to his.

  "The only other option," she repeated slowly.

  "You need me, you need my protection. Your brother did'na say so, but we are both grown men. We understand the implications of what happens when one cuckolds a prince."

  She gave him a little snort. "Your protection? Ha! I need protection from you." And for reasons she had previously not realized until now.

  "You think you could do better then, do you?"

  "Aye," she said in a fluctuating tone, unsure of that, though she'd not admit as much to him. She narrowed her eyes on him in suspicion, wary of him now more than ever with the smell of ale, his gentle touch, and seductive eyes combining in an alarming concoction.

  He had been ready to throttle her earlier, not very far from the spot they stood at now, and she doubted very much the slim amount of sleep he might have gotten would have tempered such desires. The look entering his eyes said otherwise, and the glittering amusement there said he now intended to toy with her as a cat might a mouse.

  Hugh reached out and pulled her against him, and a little gasp escaped her lips. She hadn’t expected him to do it, but he did. This time, he didn’t hold her to him in any anger, his touch was … different.

  The rock-hard feel of his body against hers made her shiver again, and Hugh chuckled at the indication. He ran his warm hand over the telltale gooseflesh spreading over her bare arms. She tried in earnest to jerk herself away, to pry at his fingers, but he didn’t loosen his hold, nor reinforce it.

  The man was, surprisingly, utterly dangerous to her senses. Had that been why she couldn’t s
tand him all along? That she somehow possessed a premonition that she would have such a strong aversion to him?

  An unpleasant sound rattled from her throat at his continued, unwanted embrace. And it was unwanted, she reminded herself.

  "What is it you're afraid of?" he asked. "Are you afraid I'll no treat you weel?"

  Catriona squirmed against his hold on her, but to no avail. She glanced up at him shyly. "Mayhap I simply do'na like you."

  "You do'na even ken me. No yet. I give you my word, wee hellcat, I'll treat you every way a wife, wanted or no, should be treated. You’ve given me my fair taste of hell this past month, and thus the only thing you should expect is your fair due in return."

  She paled a little at the idea and stilled against him, the promise of retribution fairly leaking from Hugh. But not in any threatening way.

  True, she had lived in an abbey most her life, but she was not thoroughly inept at discerning the lethally sexual hunger Hugh looked at her with. Her lips fell open at the sharp stab his look incited in her lower belly. She drew in a breath at the tightening of her breasts against her gown.

  "Lass, I've over one-hundred of my own highland warriors at my disposal. Countless treaties with other lairds who would stand up and fight with me. As I said, you’ve a need for my protection, and when you find reason, as I have, I shall be here. Waiting."

  He let her go, and Catriona jerked back with a heated glare pinned to Hugh and ran her fingers over the spot of her arm where he had held her, as if to brush away his touch. He might have taken this as an insult, but she needed to be rid of the feelings he caused her, needed to regain her composure. She continued to glare at him, but after a moment, her features softened and she sighed.

  "Och, reason found you sooner than expected." Hugh rocked back on his heels, enjoying her displeasure. "Mayhap you're no as soft-headed a lass as I first thought."

  Catriona gave his chest a quick whack of her fist and a tiny growl.

  "Now, why did you no tell me aboot your betrothal?" he asked. "Or was your little game with me played to serve a double purpose?"

  She gasped at his suggestion. "I did'na tell you because I did'na ken. I told you so, and I told you true."