She refused to be cowed by that man after all he had done.
Hugh had not even come to a complete stop when he dismounted and stalked the remaining three feet to her, lifted her over his shoulder in one sweep of his arm. A shriek stirred the courtyard, and a moment later Catriona realized it was her own.
She pounded tiny fists on Hugh's back, kicking her legs as he marched her inside without a word. As they entered the hall and her back passed under the heavy beams that formed the doorway—her hair falling into her face—Catriona lifted herself to see the guards she had only momentarily overcome snort and laugh at her disgrace now.
This infuriated her.
"Put me down," she growled through her teeth so only Hugh could hear.
"Absolutely not."
No matter her flailing or grumbling, Hugh did not respond until he set her on her feet in his chamber.
Catriona looked around them uneasily, wondering why he had deposited her here instead of her own rooms.
She made a show of brushing her hair from her eyes and straightening her clothing in an effort to avoid the argument to come. When she ran out of articles to straighten and hair to smooth back, she folded her arms over her chest and locked her stare with his.
It was only then she realized how angry she had made him with her defiance.
He stared at her intently, patiently waiting. Darkness filled his eyes, an unfathomable depth of anger radiating there. "Do you have no a care for your life?" he asked quietly, crossing thick arms over his chest.
"I—"
"Weel, I do. Especially since you may now be carrying my child."
Catriona blanched, and her stare fell to the wooden floor beneath her slippers. She clasped her hands behind her back and continued to stare at the floor until warm fingers cupped under her chin, lifting until she again met Hugh's eyes.
His look was much more forgiving now. "Do'na ever do anything so foolish again, wife."
His caring stirred something in her heart, but at the same time stung. "Is that the only reason you care for me? Because I may be carrying your heir?"
He was taken aback by her cold tone. His eyes narrowed. "Nay." He studied her a moment. "I did'na wish to wake you for you were sleeping so soundly, if that is why you are angry."
"Och, already making up excuses and I've no yet to accuse you."
Hugh's brow furrowed. "What are you talking aboot?"
She smoldered.
Catriona started past him, but paused shoulder-to-shoulder with her husband and, looking askance at him, tsk'd. "Rowena, or need I remind you of their names since you could no possibly remember them all." Not that she actually knew them all, but how was he to know she didn't? The situation warranted one small bluff.
Hugh turned to her. "Rowena? What has she to do with you slipping oot of the keep when you were told no to go oot of doors?"
The remark stiffened her spine and caused a moment's trepidation. "I am talking aboot your stay in the village last eve!"
It was Hugh's turn to stiffen, but he quickly became mottled with rage. He threw an arm toward the bed. "I slept here, lass! Alone. Your accusations must stop, for I can'na take any more of your distrust when I've done naught to deserve any."
"Spare me! I heard all aboot your escapades. After spending all night waiting on you I woke to the news of more of your philandering." Catriona turned and ran then, before tears spilled from her eyes.
She did not want him to see her hurt.
The devil would surely only delight in her pain.
She thought she heard him call her name, but she wasn’t sure. She slammed her chamber door and threw herself on her bed for a good, long cry.
Chapter Twenty-One
Alaric's blade knocked Hugh off-kilter and sent his weapon slamming into a post at the side of the training yard.
"What in all the hell was that?" Alaric crowed, receiving a glower in return.
Hugh spit onto the ground and gathered himself, bringing his blade back into position.
Alaric laughed heartily, circling, ready for more. They had been at this for hours, but it had been infinitely longer since he had seen the source of his aggravations.
Two days had passed since Catriona stormed off from him after their argument, after she left the keep and then had the audacity to accuse him of lying with another woman. Or women, rather, since she had implied he couldn’t remember all their names. He half thought she believed he had caroused with a village full of only lasses.
The very idea was laughable.
The lass had taken to her chamber then and did not come out.
She had outright refused him.
His emotions hadn't fared well in her absence.
In his anger, he had ordered she be kept there to learn a lesson, but when he went to remove the guard from outside her door the next morn, he found that his wife had barricaded herself in.
Her stand infuriated him even further.
How she could believe he would bed Rowena, or any other woman for that matter, he couldn’t understand.
Hugh circled Alaric, saw an opening, and took a swing.
Their blades clashed.
"That's better, laddie," Alaric called, thrusting, forcing Hugh to jump back or be sliced. He chuckled when Hugh avoided the potential wound.
Catriona's distrust of him stung his pride far more than her disobedience had, even when her carelessness was serious in their situation. He had more enemies than any man he knew and all vying to harm his wife somehow.
Hugh swung and knocked Alaric back a step, and his friend tripped and rolled. He agilely came into a crouch and then back up on both feet. Alaric shook the blow off and grinned.
"'Tis the lass bothering you so badly, no?"
Hugh growled and struck.
Alaric laughed and struck back. "I told you never to wed. The fairer sex is no worth the mental anguish."
"I did'na have the choice, did I?" Hugh frowned as soon as the words rolled off his tongue.
Being without Catriona, well, it seemed damned unnatural now. Even the idea of it.
These last two days had nigh killed him. Both nights he had spent in the hall, deep in his cups, and each day he spent exactly like this. Training.
Hugh arched his next blow and caught Alaric off guard again. This time the other man whirled to avoid having his ribs sliced open.
"Good follow-through," Alaric called.
He had demanded to know why she couldn't trust him, bellowed his anger over being accused again through her door, but he received not one rise out of her.
He may not like the impasse they’d left off at, but it kept her alive for the nonce. That brought a smile to his lips.
At least this gave him a sound excuse to lock her away.
She had made him so angry when he had come to her door, forcing him to yell through the blasted thing to speak to her, that he had reinstated the guard before the man had a chance to take a full three steps.
His words came back to him. "You can stay in there a se'nnight now, since you so cherish being in your chamber. You can sleep alone with your damned false allegations, Catriona."
Before the last word was out, he heard her pulling at whatever she had blocked the door with, but he quickly took a spear from the wall and stuck the long shaft through the handle.
In his mind's eye, he could see her scurrying to be free when he well knew she hated being cooped up in the first place. Of course, he would not keep her locked away a se'nnight, though he damned well felt like it at present.
She had pulled furiously on the door, and the spear clacking against the frame could likely be heard in the hall below as she shrieked at him—and that was the last he had heard from her since then.
But damned if he didn’t miss her. Particularly her touch. Her smell. Her soft skin. He missed simply speaking with her.
Mayhap tonight he would set her free and she would reward him for his kindness with gentle kisses and wild loving.
The blade slicin
g through his side brought him to keen awareness, banished thoughts of Catriona, and Hugh bared his teeth on a growl of pain.
"Laird!"
The sparring stopped immediately, and Alaric rushed to him. Hugh lifted his hand from the wound. Though crimson smeared his fingers, he would be all right.
"'Tis no deep," Hugh said.
"Dia, you fool! Pay attention."
"Methinks I've had my fill of sparring today." Hugh straightened and sheathed his sword with a wince.
"Here, mon," Alaric said, lifting Hugh's arm and placing it around his neck.
"I let her get into my head."
Alaric snorted and shook his head. "Fool."
Hugh grunted under his breath to stave off the pain in his side. "They say ale heals all things."
Alaric laughed now. "First to see the healer, and then to fetch ale for your wounded heart since the wee lass has locked you oot of her bedchambers." He was laughing heartily now.
"I locked her in, to be clear." Hugh scowled. "And I was speaking of the pain in my side. But aye to the ale first, and then you can summon the healer to the hall." Hugh smiled, though Alaric did not notice. And later he would see to his sweet Catriona.
****
This time she would be smarter about it.
And after all, no harm had come from the outside four days past, and none would come now. She was of a mind that if any harm came to her, it would be from the inside of these damned walls.
Catriona smiled, taking in the gleaming twilight touching the Highlands as stars faded into a purple sky and with it the moon. The silvery globe waned before it disappeared altogether while a melody of waking creatures, large and small, softly stirred in the forest.
Four days she had remained in her chambers, though doing so pained her now that the weather was warming nicely, the snows receding to uncover new growth.
A day ago she had had the opportunity to gain her freedom.
She scoffed aloud.
The devil had thought she would honestly praise him for her release.
Bah!
Hugh was drunk when he came to her. She wasn’t sure what else he thought might happen, but if the man had any sense he would realize cooping her up to the point she had thoroughly memorized each stone in the four walls trapping her, then he was sadly an idiot.
The moment she realized he not only expected her to lavish him with affection for freeing her from his own prison, but to issue an apology as well, she had marched back into her chamber and plopped herself down on the bed without another word.
And there she stayed.
Her confinement had done nothing to heal her broken heart.
The heat under her skin that arose every time she thought about him being with Rowena, lying with that harlot in his arms, oh it had not cooled any either. Her blood was boiling to the point she was liable to scratch his eyes out next they met.
And if he dared tell her the rumors were all a lie…
She shook her head.
Nothing was that simple.
She was so angry she was half a mind to take Jamie's men and demand they return her to McBruiey Keep.
She fumed a moment more, watching said harlot leave the gates in the direction of the village. The other half of her mind suggested she follow Rowena, but the now buzzing and angry half quieted down once the raven hair diminished from sight and Rowena was gone.
And on that note, she snorted.
Rowena was free to go as she pleased, but not her.
He banned you from going ootside for your safety, remember?
Yes, she remembered. And then the blackguard set a guard outside the chamber and barricaded the door for four days! And for no other reason than spite. "Och!"
You got under his skin. You shouldn’t have defied him.
Maybe. But there was an equal “maybe” that he only wanted his freedom to be with Rowena.
Catriona dropped her face into her hands. "Lord, but I've taken to talking to myself now," she muttered against her palms.
One way or another, today she would be leaving her chambers.
And going for a walk. A long walk.
Last night she’d listened as the barricade was removed from the door sometime after Hugh's drunken visit. The sound prompted her to jump from the bed where she had been sitting cross-legged, picking at the tray Bess had brought for her evening meal. She had skipped to the door and pressed her ear against the solid wood, not daring to throw the door open. She wasn’t ready to face Hugh yet again, not that night. Not unless she had to. Not unless he had a good explanation at the ready.
She listened to the hushed voices as Hugh discharged the guard and a spike of hope and anticipation caused her heart to flip and jump into her throat. The sound of his deep voice caused her heart to stick there as she waited, her nerves tingling on edge as he paused at her door long after the other man left.
Then Hugh turned and walked away, to his chamber. Her heart fell a little when she heard the sound of his chamber door shutting.
She had cried after that.
What was it she wanted from him? And why after what he had done?
You do'na ken what has and hasn’t been done for sure. Rowena is a liar, that you do ken.
"Oh, shut up. Do'na make excuses that can hurt you later," she muttered to herself.
Her freedom was there for the taking. All she waited for was the sun's rise. At last, a warm glow touched her face, warming her cheeks, drying the tears there.
Catriona hurried from her chamber, quiet as a mouse, into the hall and to the kitchens.
Luckily, Rowena was not there. Neither was Gertie.
Bess slipped her freshly baked bread after a good deal of squealing over her release. Catriona quieted the lass as she grabbed a few staples, refusing to say where she was going, only that she wouldn’t be gone long. She wrapped the fresh bread around a fat sausage before commandeering a cloak hung on the wall and wrapped the worn and frayed garment about herself, the hood covering her face and hair.
She paused, looking at each of the young girls working there, knowing it belonged to one of them. "I'll return this shortly," she promised.
She ate as she ducked past Gillie where he sat at a trencher table. The youth yawned and scratched a mop of unruly red hair as though he had crawled straight from bed to the table. Jamie's warriors were filling the remaining seats to break their fast alongside Hugh's men. Today she would not ask for their accompaniment or protection.
She wouldn't think of going to her garden either, where they would look first once they realized she was missing. No. She would go further.
She pulled the cloak lower and started out of the keep, heading on a walk to clear her mind. She kept her head low as she passed the guards at the doors, coincidentally the same two she had blustered at the last time she had left the keep.
This time they paid her no heed, her identity disguised under the simple garb she sported. She was sure everyone likely thought her still locked up above in her chamber.
She gasped as her shoulder bumped one of them on her way out.
"Och! Watch yourself, lass," he called after her, blustering to his companion about spilling milk down his tunic.
She pulled her hood lower, fearing she had been caught already. She cringed, too, as she hadn’t intended to soil the man's clothing.
With one fleeting glance at her garden, she spotted Claude pecking the ground and waddling here and there in search of food. She smiled at the awkward bird but walked on, through the gates.
She needed to feel free for a moment. Icy grass crunched under her slippers, and it occurred to her, as her toes steadily grew numb, that perhaps she should have better prepared for this outing.
What did it matter now?
Catriona twirled in a small circle atop a grassy knoll.
Oh, how the earth had greened during her confinement.
She visited the horned cows, shaggy with extra hair from winter, in the pasture beyond the keep. They mingled alongside
fat sheep grazing, ignoring Catriona as she walked through their breakfast. To her delight, she discovered the loch. A small one glowing under the morning sun with gold caps on lapping waves. No matter its size, come summer, she could sneak away for a swim. The thought kindled a momentary happiness, but then almost as quickly faded.
Hugh had mentioned a loch, once.
"I'll have you during the day as weel as the night. Mayhap right under the sun, our bodies sprawled at the edge of the loch in warm heather during the summer, my plaid under your back."
She shivered.
But, like his bed, how many others had he brought here? Two, five, ten? More? she wondered.
She wanted to trust him, to believe this rumor was only a lie created by Rowena's wishful thinking. Her heart momentarily swelled with hope, near to bursting, and brought forth tears she quickly swiped from the corners of her eyes.
Wouldn’t the other woman realize her rumors could harm Hugh and cause a rift between him and the clan? And if her words were untruths, then he would surely be angry with her? Why would Rowena say such things if they were not true?
Jealousy, her conscience answered.
Catriona stared longingly over the rolling hills surrounding the water, the earth spotted with hard ice and small patches of green. She inhaled the sweetly perfumed air of coming spring tinged with chimney smoke drifting all the way from the village.
She gazed on the ice-patched waters of the shimmering loch a long time, trying in vain to erase Hugh from her deepest thoughts for but a moment. Even now, she wondered where he might be. Was he with one of them?
Were there really more contenders than Rowena, she wondered morosely.
This time her derisive snort came from deep inside.
Talk to him. 'Tis the only way you will ken for sure. You will see the truth in his eyes if he is lying.
Catriona rolled her eyes and crossed her arms on a huff.
She knew before she’d wed Hugh that women would always try to get in his bed. He was a handsome man, plain and simple.
She supposed she had bigger, worse, things to vex her mind with—like family trying to kill her for something she had no interest in.
She didn’t desire lands or need them. Hugh had plenty of land, gold, and men. If the keep and clan could be turned around they could do very well for themselves. Unlike Barnaby, she didn’t want a kingdom. Nor would she ken the first thing to do with one.
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