TENDER FEUD

by Nicole Jordan

  “Ye’re to come wi’ me,” the red-haired Highlander told Katrine gruffly, though not unkindly.

  “But why?” Katrine asked, puzzled.

  “Raith said to find a pet for the lass.”

  Lachlan led them across the yard, inside the stables, to a near stall, and disappeared within. Following with Meggie, Katrine cautiously peered inside the stall. The sight of the grizzled Hector MacLean, glaring at her beneath his bushy eyebrows, startled her. He was seated in the straw, holding a bundled-up woolen blanket in his arms.

  “‘Tis a wee lamb for the lassie,” Hector said, peeling away a corner of the blanket to expose a small, woolly black face. A lamb! Katrine thought with delight. A precious little bit of wool with a black head and white fleecy body.

  “Oh, Meggie, do come,” Katrine urged as she, too, sank down in the straw. “You must see this.”

  Meggie hesitated, her eyes wide and dark. She jumped when the woolen bundle suddenly bleated.

  “Don’t be frightened, Meggie. I expect this little fellow is crying because he’s hungry. Come here and sit beside me.”

  Warily Meggie inched forward again, but shortly, between Katrine’s coaxing and Hector’s gruff words of encouragement, they managed to get the animal settled on the child’s lap. The lamb was bleating continuously by now, which indicated his distress. From the straw, Hector withdrew a soft leather pouch that had been filled with cow’s milk. When he offered the makeshift teat, the lamb began sucking eagerly, and shortly Meggie had even gained enough confidence to feed her new pet. After a moment Meggie even looked up and beamed one of her beautiful little smiles that never failed to tug at Katrine’s heart.

  Meeting Hector’s gaze over the child’s head, Katrine smiled at him in gratitude. And she could see, beneath the dark gray of his beard, a gruff curve of his lips that might have been a return smile.

  When the lamb had his fill of the milk, he pulled away and bleated once more, then proceeded to sniff Meggie’s hand. The soft gurgle she made as she hugged the animal to her might have been laughter.

  A warm rush of feeling washed over Katrine when she heard it. This was Raith’s doing, she realized. He had taken her suggestion to heart that he find his ward something to love, and in her opinion, he couldn’t have made a better choice.

  Indeed, Meggie was so enamored of her new pet that she didn’t want to leave him, even when he suddenly fell asleep in her arms. Her big eyes grew solemn as Hector wrapped the lamb in the blanket and said that it was time for him to go home.

  “Don’t fret now,” Katrine said softly. “I’m sure Hector will allow you to visit your new friend.”

  “No,” Lachlan spoke up abruptly. “Ye’re no’ to take the lassie to the glen.”

  Katrine sent him a quick look, surprised by his adamant tone. The question that was on her lips, however, was forestalled when Hector assured Meggie he would bring the lamb back the following day so she could feed him.

  They followed the shepherd out into the yard and watched as he shuffled away with his bundle. With a reassuring smile, Katrine sent Meggie into the house to wash up, then turned to Lachlan.

  “Why can I not take Meggie to the glen?” she asked.

  He looked uncomfortable at the inquiry. “‘Tis the laird’s orders.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Aweel, he doesna want the wee lassie nigh the auld crone.”

  “What old crone? I don’t understand.”

  Lachlan’s freckled complexion slowly turned a more vivid hue. “Morag,” he answered with great reluctance. “She bides in the glen.”

  “So why am I to keep Meggie away from her?”

  “I should hae kenned a troublesome lass like yersel’ would no’ leave it be,” Lachlan muttered.

  Restraining a retort, Katrine repeated her question, but Lachlan stubbornly refused to answer. When she continued to press, he told her to ask the laird. Highly curious now, Katrine decided to do just that, despite her determination to avoid him.

  But Raith had left the house again, she soon discovered. He had gone to Fort William to interview candidates for governess. Flora told her so late that afternoon as they sat alone at the kitchen table, sharing a pot of tea—a singular honor that Flora had granted Katrine in light of her new responsibilities as temporary governess. Flora was taking a momentary respite from her duties, while Katrine was purposely allowing Meggie some time to play by herself. The child had lived a relatively solitary life until now, and Katrine didn’t think it wise to force too much companionship on her too soon.

  “Who is this Morag that Lachlan mentioned?” she ventured to ask the housekeeper during a lull in the conversation.

  Flora gave her a sharp look. “Why do ye ask?”

  “Because Lachlan said I wasn’t to take Meggie near her. Raith’s orders, he said.”

  “Aye.”

  “Well?” Katrine prodded when Flora made no effort to elaborate.

  “Morag is the old woman who lives in the glen.”

  She gave the housekeeper an exasperated look. “That much I gathered. But why will no one talk about her? Is there some secret that I’m not supposed to know?”

  “‘Tis no’ a secret,” Flora replied thoughtfully, as she sipped her tea. “Morag is a rare good midwife. But the laird canna bear even to hear her name.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “Because Morag is the one he holds to blame for Ellen’s death—and his son’s, as well.”

  Katrine stared at her. “Morag killed Ellen? But I thought she died in childbirth.”

  “Aye, she did.” Flora sighed. “And it wasna Morag’s fault. She couldna save the laird’s bairn, though she tried. The poor wee mite was dead before the birthing. I know, for I was there. I held my poor Ellen’s hand till the last. The fever claimed her.”

  Katrine didn’t speak for a long moment. “But the laird holds Morag responsible anyway?” she said then.

  “It doesna make sense.” Slowly, sadly, Flora shook her head. “’Tis a woman’s lot to bear a man’s bairns, and the Lord’s decision whether to let them live. But try telling that to a man.”

  Both women fell silent. Katrine found herself wondering what had caused Raith to lose his good judgment. From what she had seen in the past few weeks, he was fair and just in his dealings with others—except where the Campbells were concerned. And even then he had valid reasons for his prejudice. But there was no justification for blaming the attending midwife for failing to save his wife and son from an unpreventable tragedy.

  “He must have loved Ellen very much,” she whispered, the pain that thought caused resonating in her voice.

  But Flora must have recollected to whom she was speaking, for she gave Katrine a quelling look that clearly said whether or not the laird had loved his late wife was none of a Campbell’s business. “Well,” the housekeeper said briskly as she poured them another cup of tea, “he doesna want Meggie to go near Morag, and he’s the laird.”

  And the laird must be obeyed, of course. But at least that now made sense, Katrine thought, remembering Raith’s fury when she had taken Meggie to the glen. It hadn’t only been because he didn’t trust a Sassenach Campbell. “Very well, I’ll be sure to keep Meggie away. Thank you for telling me.”

  When Flora didn’t reply, Katrine changed the subject. “I thought I might give Meggie a lesson on the harpsichord tomorrow, if you’ve no objections.”

  The housekeeper frowned into her cup. “All this drawing and playing. What can ye be thinking of? Ye’ll give the lassie notions above her station.”

  “What do you mean, above her station? Is Meggie not the laird’s ward?”

  “Aye, but there’s no need to be making her into a fine lady. She’ll no’ go the way of a usual lass of the gentry with marriage and bairns.”

  “Marriage? For Meggie? Surely not.” The very thought alarmed Katrine. Ordinarily, a laird would marry his ward to one of his clansmen. But after Meggie’s experience, it would be cruel
to force her to wed. Only a man of great sensitivity could be trusted to care for her, or to take her for his wife, especially since she might never even speak again. Surely Raith would see that.

  “No, not marriage for Meggie,” Flora replied sourly. “Isna that what I just said? No,” she expounded, “‘twould be better if Meggie learned the means to earn her bread.”

  “I’m teaching her to sew as well to draw. A seamstress is an honorable profession.”

  “Aye.” Flora gave Katrine a long look. “But we’ve a saying in the Highlands—raise nae more devils than ye’re able to lay.”

  “I’m not raising any devils that I’m aware of.”

  “No? And what do ye call what ye’re doing with the lassie, spending so much time with her? I wouldna get too attached to her if I were ye. It canna be good for either of ye.”

  “Never fear,” Katrine said with conviction. “I’ll be gone before that happens…I hope.”

  But that night when she put Meggie to bed and caught herself feeling the kind of tenderness a mother feels for her children, Katrine realized the wisdom of Flora’s warning. She was growing inordinately attached to the child. Just as she foolishly had allowed herself to become attached to the master of the house. What was more, she was no longer quite so anxious to escape captivity. No longer anxious at all.

  Raith returned the following afternoon. Katrine knew it because she was in the stables with Meggie and Hector and the lamb when he rode in. Before she could prevent it, Meggie had gathered the startled animal into her arms and run out into the yard to show her guardian her new pet.

  Raith was appropriately admiring; Katrine could hear him eulogizing the lamb in glowing terms, then asking practical questions of Hector, who had followed the child.

  Despite her reluctance to face Raith, Katrine was drawn by the sound of his voice. Slowly she brushed the straw from her skirts, then made her way out of the stables, into the sunlight.

  He had bent down beside Meggie, and was sitting on his heels, oblivious of his fine clothes, holding the reins of his horse in one hand, his tricorne hat in the other. A tender smile was on his lips as he gently teased his young ward about her pet.

  Katrine paused in the stable doorway, watching his hard, handsome face, wondering how she could ever have thought him cruel or arrogant.

  Then Raith looked up.

  His dark eyes collided with hers, blue eyes that had softened momentarily and were, for an unguarded moment, searching. Returning his gaze, Katrine found herself remembering not the last night they’d been together, when they had calmed a frightened child who suffered from nightmares, but the heat of his mouth on her breasts, the fevered gentleness of his calloused hands on her skin. No matter that she scolded herself for recalling such unsettling, unseemly memories, she couldn’t dismiss them, not as long as Raith was looking at her like that.

  To her relief he tore his gaze away and focused it on Meggie and the squirming lamb. After another moment of listening to the bleating animal, Raith stood with an admonition to his ward. “You’d best feed the poor thing, Meggie, before it expires from starvation.”

  When Meggie and Hector had taken the lamb back to the stall, Raith turned his horse over to a stable lad. At the same time he gave Katrine a brief glance that she should have taken as a gesture of dismissal.

  He meant to return to the house, she realized, but she couldn’t allow him to go just yet. Taking a hasty step forward, she forestalled Raith with the question she knew she had to ask, even though she was afraid of the answer. “Did you have any luck finding a governess?”

  “No. I interviewed five, but none of them was suitable for a child like Meggie.”

  None of them was compassionate enough, Katrine interpreted his reply to mean. The relief she felt was absurd. She wanted Meggie to have someone to care for her, didn’t she? She would be freed shortly, and the child desperately needed a caring, motherly sort of woman to provide the love and attention her tormented little soul craved, even more than she needed to continue the lessons Katrine had begun.

  “I’ll try again next week,” Raith said, watching her face. “I’ll find someone, even if I have to go to Edinburgh.”

  Katrine nodded, realizing as Raith turned away that he had misinterpreted the motivation behind her question. But she was grateful that he had. For how could she admit to him that her concern wasn’t for Meggie as much as it was for herself? She simply didn’t want a hired governess, a strange woman, taking her place with the child she was coming to love. Nor did she want to hasten the day that it happened.

  But how could she tell Raith that she was having second thoughts about leaving Cair House, about being released?

  And how could she explain her even more profound reason for her reluctance to leave? What would she say? That she fancied herself in love with the Laird of Ardgour?

  It was a love that she couldn’t explain even to herself, but that nevertheless was real. Incredibly, stunningly, achingly real. He was the man of her dreams.

  Regrettably, her feelings for Raith didn’t diminish. No matter that she saw little of him in the following few days, Katrine’s yearning for him only increased, while a fierce restlessness settled over her like a pall.

  For the most part, she blamed Raith for her condition. He had completely disarmed her, showing her the gentle side of his hard, uncompromising nature. And he had awakened fires in her body that couldn’t be put out. At night, when she was alone in her stark garret room, lying on her pallet, waiting vainly for sleep, she would remember his fierce kisses and his soul-stirring caresses. And her body would begin throbbing in places she hadn’t even known existed.

  It was desire, plain and simple. She recognized it, even though she had never felt it before.

  But overlying her desire was a vague unease. She couldn’t shake the premonition that something dire was about to happen, even if that something was her release from captivity. Indeed, the only time she was at peace with herself was when she was with Meggie.

  At least the child seemed to blossom under her tutelage. Although Katrine attributed much of Meggie’s cheerfulness to her new pet, the young girl showed a joyful eagerness to learn, whether it was drawing or needlework or reading. Even if she couldn’t speak, she could mouth words—which Katrine encouraged—and her dark eyes never failed to grow bright at the stories her provisional governess read aloud to her. Moreover, Meggie showed a real aptitude for music. Before the week was up, she was playing simple tunes on the harpsichord. Her stitchery, too, was remarkable for a child her age, so good in fact that Katrine soon devised a purposeful project for her to complete—embroidering Raith’s initials on a handkerchief, along with a sprig of holly, the badge of the MacLean of Ardgour, so that Meggie could surprise her guardian with a gift.

  “‘Tis a fine braw handkerchief,” Flora pronounced when she saw the initial efforts. “The laird is sure to be pleased.”

  Nothing could have made the child happier, Katrine thought, watching Meggie’s beaming face.

  As for her own happiness, it was virtually nonexistent. Except for her delight in her charge’s progress, her emotional state was one of restless misery. Raith ignored her presence in his household entirely. It was as if she didn’t exist, as if the passionate interlude by the burn had never happened. She didn’t even have Callum’s roguish teasing to enliven her days, for he had been gone for more than a week.

  But it was Raith’s attention that she longed for, that she craved. Even a return to the hostile antagonism that had marked their early relationship would have been preferable to this total rejection.

  She found herself thinking of him constantly, and, more darkly, dwelling on thoughts of his late wife. Jealousy was a new emotion in Katrine’s experience, but that was what drove her one day to go searching through Ellen’s clothes, which were stored in an attic room. She told herself it was because she needed material to make over some frocks for Meggie, that it was shameful to allow perfectly good clothing to go to waste. But
she knew that was only her excuse to discover more about the beautiful young woman Raith had loved. For if she knew what it was about Ellen that had enamored him so, perhaps she could make herself more appealing to him, at least enough so that he would cease treating her like a leper.

  What she found in the trunks did nothing to ease her insecurity…flounces and furbelows, painted fans, vials of sweet-smelling perfume, a jewel-encrusted box that held Ellen’s beauty patches. How feminine and delicate it all was. Not at all what she herself would have chosen to wear, Katrine reflected—she, with her practical, hot-tempered nature that was so contrary to the fragile, sweet-natured Ellen MacDonald MacLean. With a heavy heart, Katrine closed the lids of the trunks. She was uncomfortably aware that Ellen was becoming an obsession with her.

  Neither could she forget about Raith’s grief upon losing his wife to childbirth, or the tale Flora had told her about Morag.

  Katrine had been held captive for exactly twenty-six days when she decided to learn for herself precisely what had happened to cause his fierce loathing of the midwife.

  “Where does Morag live?” she asked Lachlan that afternoon when she spied him in the stable yard. She would have asked Hector earlier when he had brought the lamb for Meggie to play with, but though the shepherd tolerated her for Meggie’s sake, Katrine didn’t think his courtesy would extend to discussing a subject that was really none of a Campbell’s business.

  Lachlan apparently shared that view, for he gave her a wary look. “Why do ye wish to know?”

  “I’ve heard she has a superb knowledge of healing herbs,” Katrine prevaricated. “If I had a wound that was festering, Morag would be the one to ask about a remedy, wouldn’t she?”

  “Aye, but Raith wouldna like it if ye were to seek her out,” Lachlan replied.

  “Why not? He didn’t say I couldn’t go to the glen, only Meggie.”

  But Lachlan shook his red head vigorously. “I’ll no’ be the one to tell ye.”

  “Oh, very well,” Katrine said irritably. “I’ll discover her location for myself. It can’t be so very hard to find.”