TENDER FEUD

by Nicole Jordan

  It was an implausible claim, but the mere absurdity elicited a genuine smile from Katrine. How could Raith have spurned this kindred soul? she wondered, regarding Morag’s sympathetic expression. Then she remembered Ellen and the obvious love Raith had felt for his late wife.

  Katrine was about to ask Morag about Ellen when she heard impatient footsteps outside the cottage, then an abrupt rap on the door. Morag went to answer it, while Katrine rose quickly to her feet, her hand stealing up to cover her suddenly pounding heart.

  As she had expected, Raith stood at the doorway. Through the haze, she could see that his face was as grim as she had ever known it. Her first inclination was to run. Not because she was afraid of him, but because hiding might delay the inevitable.

  Yet even as she heard Raith tell Morag he was looking for the Campbell lass, his eyes were searching the dim interior of the cottage. The next instant his piercing gaze found her.

  Rather than appear a coward, Katrine lifted her chin and stepped forward. “You weren’t obliged to search for me. I wasn’t attempting to escape.”

  Her tone was purposefully belligerent, so she was surprised to see Raith’s hard expression relax the slightest degree. He actually looked relieved to find her safe. And his next words confirmed it, though his tone was one of censure. “I was worried that some harm might have befallen you,” he said tersely. “You could have become lost in the fog.”

  “Well, you needn’t have worried. I found my way easily enough. I came to Morag because I needed a poultice for my abused posterior.”

  At her pointed reference to the thrashing he had given her, a muscle clenched in his jaw. He made a slight movement, as if he might come after her, then checked himself.

  He refused to step over the threshold, Katrine realized. He wouldn’t voluntarily enter Morag’s house.

  The two women shared a look of mutual condolence before Raith spoke again, his tone harsh. “Come, I’ll escort you back to the house. We leave for the coast in one hour.”

  Katrine shook her head obstinately, yet her defiance was really an effort to hold despair at bay. “How can I possibly leave with you? I can’t ride since I can’t sit down without agony.”

  “I’ll supply a cushion for you. Now come. You’ll want time to pack and say goodbye to Meggie.”

  His determination was unshakable, she could no longer doubt it. Fighting back the sickening, hopeless feeling of desperation, she thanked Morag for her kindness and took her leave, saying that she hoped she would be able to visit again some day. Then adjusting her shawl over her shoulders once more, Katrine accompanied Raith outside.

  She hesitated as the door shut quietly behind her with a finality that sounded like a death knell. The gray mist had dissipated somewhat, and she could see Raith’s horse cropping grass at the end of the path.

  Raith had taken a single step down the path when Katrine’s self-command failed her. “Raith, wait! Please…” When he turned impatiently, she stared up at his hard, uncompromising features. “Please…don’t make me leave. I want to stay here…with you. It sounds foolish, I know, but I’ve always thought it my destiny to return to the Highlands, to find my mate....”

  The words trailed off into an anguished void, her last grasping hope dying at the fierce resolve she saw in his blue eyes. She would have lowered herself to begging if she had thought that would convince Raith to let her remain as his wife, but she doubted any amount of pleading could persuade him. Her hand moved to her breastbone as if to slow the near-painful pulsation there. How could she love so deeply and not have it returned, not even a little?

  The misery in her face broke through the cold barrier of detachment Raith had, by sheer force of will, managed to keep in place till now. Silently he stared down at the woman gazing at him with a quiet though desperate intensity. Love lay naked in her eyes—love and hurt and longing. An ache swelled up inside him that left him momentarily still and helpless. Love. A love he didn’t want, couldn’t have.

  A future together was impossible. He despised everything she stood for, her clan, her English government, her fragile gender that reminded him how powerless he was to control life’s events. Yet how could he hate someone who was regarding him with such hopeless devotion, with such despair? How could he bear to deny her anything she wanted?

  Katrine saw the struggle Raith was waging within himself. For a moment she saw the same agonized intensity in his eyes that she herself felt, the same gut-wrenching vulnerability written across his face that she had seen once before—last evening when she had asked him about the future. He was a man caught somewhere between love and hate…if what he felt for her was anything like love.

  “Raith…why? Why can’t I stay here with you?”

  “Katrine, please don’t ask it of me.”

  The vulnerable catch in his voice tore at her raw emotions, made her vision blur with tears. “You don’t have to marry me. You wouldn’t—”

  “Oh, God.” Helplessly, Raith reached out to her and drew her into his arms. “Don’t. Don’t weep.”

  She made a valiant effort at control, forcing herself not to plead with him, not to beg. “I only wish,” she whispered finally, “that our clans could live in peace.”

  “No, Katrine. You’re chasing a dream.”

  Raith leaned back, taking her face in both hands, wiping at the wetness beneath her eyes with his thumbs. Mustering his resolve, he gazed down at her, at her lovely face, at her riot of tresses, the color of fire and passion. “Bonny Katie,” he murmured. “Beautiful hot-haired, hot-tempered Miss Campbell…always setting the heather on fire. You don’t belong here,” he said in a tone he had to fight to keep from being gentle. “You belong with your own people.”

  That was his final word, she knew it. With mute wretchedness, Katrine nodded and stepped back. Her throat hurt from needing to cry, but she drew her dignity around her as she would a cloak, holding her shoulders erect, determined to salvage some semblance of pride.

  Yet pride was a pitifully small barrier against the pain she was feeling. It was all she could do to force the words, “I’ll walk,” past the ache in her throat.

  Raith didn’t argue. Instead he gathered the horse’s reins and followed silently at a distance, leading the animal.

  He let Katrine outpace him, so that she arrived in the yard before he did. Her steps slowed as she saw Callum lounging against the house wall, beside the door. He was apparently waiting for her.

  He arched a dark eyebrow at the bleak eyes she raised to him when she reached his side. “So you’ll be leaving after all?”

  Katrine nodded.

  “Raith is a bloody fool.”

  “Perhaps it’s for the best. What kind of life would we have with a marriage founded in hate?”

  Reaching up, Callum touched her cheek gently with a finger, tracing the track of a tear. The tender gesture was both comforting and sad, and it made Katrine want to cry again.

  “I should have fallen in love with you,” she murmured. “How much simpler everything would have been.”

  “Once you had laid eyes on Raith, you never noticed me.”

  “I might have, if I had met you first.”

  “Do you truly think it would have made any difference?” Callum shook his head with mock sadness. “Och, Katie, love, I never stood a chance. ‘Tis most lowering for a man like me, who is accustomed to females falling at his feet.”

  Katrine couldn’t smile at his attempt at levity. She felt nothing now but turmoil and a frightening deathlike numbness. “I have to say goodbye to Meggie,” she mumbled, her voice a husky quaver as she turned and fled into the house.

  Callum crossed his arms over his chest and waited for his cousin.

  When Raith arrived, Callum’s dark, accusing stare pierced him clear across the yard. Ignoring it, Raith went into the stables, where he turned his mount over to a groom. When he came out again, Callum still hadn’t budged. With a muttered oath, Raith crossed the yard.

  “No doubt you are pr
oud of yourself,” Callum said in a mocking drawl. “She came through here looking as if the soul had been torn out of her.”

  Raith’s jaw clenched, but he kept silent as he pushed past Callum and went into the house.

  Katrine was grateful for the deathlike numbness that wrapped around her and deadened the pain. She should have been surprised to learn that Callum was to accompany them, but after her heartrending farewell with Meggie, she couldn’t summon the interest. Even when the small party, led by Raith, rode into the fishing village of Corran and then boarded the two-masted brigantine that was to carry Katrine home, the merciful numbness protected her.

  It was an hour later, as she dispassionately surveyed the passing shores of Loch Linnhe, a stiff breeze whipping up her traveling cloak and billowing the square sails above her head, that Katrine could even make herself wonder at the curiosity. Callum was captain of the vessel, that was obvious from his orders to the crew, yet the ship seemed far too large for the purpose of smuggling. No doubt with its speed, it could easily evade the King’s excise men, but such a vessel would be spotted and recognized with little trouble. And eventually captured. Katrine shivered at the thought of Callum and his band of brave Highlanders being taken by the British.

  “Are you cold, Katie?” Callum’s lilting, masculine voice murmured in her ear.

  Startled at his nearness, she turned to glance up at him. Callum had entrusted the wheel to the first mate and come up behind her, his footsteps unheard over the snapping sails and creaking timbers.

  “No,” she replied truthfully. “I was merely thinking of what would happen to you if you were ever caught in your unlawful smuggling activities.”

  A dark eyebrow shot up, an amused smile twisting his mouth as he moved to stand beside her at the gunwale. “I am honored by your concern, sweeting, but ease your mind. I’m not likely to be caught in any illegal endeavors. Not unless you choose to tell your uncle the identity of your abductors. And you wouldn’t do that, now would you, Katie? Not when you might implicate Raith as well.”

  The dull ache that had merely gnawed at her all morning suddenly became sharp and jagged. Without meaning to, she glanced along the railing where Raith stood at the stern, as far away from her as possible. He seemed as remote and as intransigent as the Scottish Highlands. Beyond him a dramatic vista etched the horizon—majestic piles of mountains heaped mass upon mass, with the bulky, cloud-capped summit of Ben Nevis looming over Fort William like some benevolent giant.

  Dragging her eyes away, Katrine returned her gaze to Callum. Like Raith he was dressed in Lowland attire, and though his clothing lacked the fine ruffles and rich trimmings that were impractical and unnecessary for the task of commanding a ship, his garb bespoke a similar genteel elegance.

  “You aren’t really a smuggler, are you?” Katrine murmured, suddenly convinced that she had been wrong about Callum all along.

  He shrugged almost apologetically, then shook his head. “Alas, no, Katie. You chose to think so, and I didn’t want to disappoint so charming and lovely a lass.”

  “Well, if you aren’t a smuggler,” Katrine retorted, irritated that all this time he had been roasting her, “what are you?”

  Callum regarded her with unshakable amiability, his dark eyes dancing. “A humble seaman, my dear. Merely a humble ship’s captain.”

  Humble, hah! Katrine thought with a trace of her former spirit. Absolutely nothing about Callum MacLean was humble. He was bold and arrogant and lawless, just like his cousin. Her narrowed expression told him so.

  But Callum seemed unperturbed. “I’m not above taking a cask or two in payment for my services, mind you, but as a general rule I don’t traffic in contraband.”

  Did he intend to keep her guessing? “What services?” Katrine demanded, at the end of her patience.

  “I transport indigent Highlanders to England—Blackpool or Liverpool, usually—where they can find passage to America.”

  “Emigrants? You carry Highlanders to England so they may emigrate?” Katrine stared at him.

  “There’s nothing dishonorable in it, I assure you.”

  “I didn’t think there was.”

  “And there’s a need for what I do. After the Forty-five, countless Highlanders fled Scotland in fear of their lives—and those who didn’t were charged with treason and forfeited their lands to the government. Others were evicted from their crofts by their new English landlords. Some simply grew weary of eking a living from harsh soil in a harsher climate. Most of them are poor. Even after selling all their worldly possessions, they can’t afford the price of a ferry ticket, let alone the cost of traveling to England.”

  Katrine shook her head in wonder, thinking of the flood of Highland emigrants who had gone to America, giving up their freedom to become bondservants in hopes of finding a better way of life. And Callum MacLean, rogue that he pretended to be, was helping them. Her throat tightened with emotion. “I’ll wager the fee you charge is a mere pittance, if you even charge a fee.”

  “Oh, we never demand payment from those who can’t afford it. Some years ago a number of our Highland lairds banded together to provide the funds.”

  “Lairds? Then Raith is involved?”

  “Oh, indeed. It was his idea.”

  Of course. Highlanders taking care of their own. Her eyes misted with tears. “How noble of you all.”

  “Not noble, Katie. Merely a fact of life. We can’t turn our backs on our kinsmen.”

  “No, certainly not,” she murmured, thinking how it was loyalty that had precipitated her own situation.

  Callum must have followed her thoughts, for his voice dropped in sober warning. “I hope you realize the risk Raith is taking in returning you to your clan. A word from you could have him arrested. Argyll would take great pleasure seeing him dance on a gibbet—and the rest of us as well.”

  “I wouldn’t…I could never—”

  “I know that, and so does Raith. Still, it puts us in a tenuous position.” Callum threw an idle glance over his shoulder at his cousin. “Raith has never been comfortable giving control of his fate into other hands. That’s what has him pacing the deck like a caged wildcat.”

  Katrine’s brows drew together in puzzlement. “Pacing? But he hasn’t moved in the past half hour.”

  “In his thoughts, bonny Katie. In his thoughts he’s worn a hole in my deck.”

  “And you expect me to sympathize? No doubt he’s planning a raid on my kin.”

  Callum grinned. “Among other things.”

  “How can you stand there, acting so nonchalant? People could be killed! You and Raith might be killed.”

  “Would you miss me then, Katie?”

  “Oh, you’re impossible!” She flung Raith a darkling look. “Both of you.”

  “Why don’t you tell that to Raith?”

  “I think I shall!”

  It was only as she was marching across the deck that she realized Callum had purposely provoked her, probably to distract her from her morose thoughts. And his strategy had worked momentarily; she was ready to do battle again.

  “Raith?”

  He stiffened, not turning around.

  Watching the rigid set of his shoulders, Katrine took a deep breath. “It isn’t too late. There is still time to talk this over peaceably. You could come with me and speak to my uncle. He might be convinced to petition the duke. That’s the only way to end this feud, I tell you.”

  Raith turned then, his hard blue gaze scrutinizing her, piercing her with its chill. “You honestly think Argyll would yield.” It wasn’t a question but a statement, voiced with disdain.

  “I…I think you should at least make the attempt.”

  His stony expression never softened as he glanced beyond her at his cousin, who had ambled up. “Before we put in at Oban,” Raith told Callum, “I want you to set a course for Mull. Miss Campbell deserves to see for herself the extent of Argyll’s treachery.”

  The finality of his tone at last convinced Katrine tha
t her cause truly was hopeless. She felt the merciful numbness wrap around her aching heart again.

  Callum held up his hands in a mocking gesture of submission. “As you wish, cousin.” Reaching Katrine’s side, Callum tucked her arm in his. “Come below with me, Katie, out of the chill. Flora expressly bade me to keep you plied with hot tea so you wouldn’t brood.”

  Wretchedly, Katrine nodded, her eyes burning with tears that she refused to let fall in front of Raith. But when she allowed Callum to escort her below to the ship’s galley and saw him carefully measuring out dried tea leaves into a teapot, she choked back the hysterical urge to laugh. She appreciated the kindness of the dour housekeeper, but just now Flora’s belief in the restorative powers of tea only seemed absurd.

  No, Katrine thought miserably, the tears beginning to flow. A thousand cups of hot tea could never heal the rent in her heart caused by Raith’s rejection of her love.

  The ship detoured briefly to the Isle of Mull where the ruined castle of Duart stood, so Katrine could see for herself the fate of the Duart MacLeans at Argyll’s hands. Subdued and silent, she watched as the brigantine cut through the choppy sea, bringing the island ever closer. She had managed to quit crying, but she was bleakly aware of Raith’s grim silence as he stood beside her at the gunwale.

  The island mountains were not as savage as the peaks they had recently left behind. Indeed, Mull was almost pretty, with its rich hues of green and purple. In contrast, the dark headland overlooking the Sound of Mull appeared dramatic, as did the fortress of crumbling stone, which was perched upon the great mass of rock a few hundred yards from the sea. Katrine could see it looming in the distance, a grim reminder of the stormy and often violent history of the Highland clans, a testimony to the destruction wrought by man through war and neglect.

  The Duart MacLeans, Callum had told her, had been dispossessed of their castle three generations ago after it was assaulted and partially destroyed by government forces. After the forfeiture to the crown, the ownership of the castle passed to the earl of Argyll, who let it further fall to ruin.