TENDER FEUD

by Nicole Jordan

  “Behold Duart Castle, Miss Campbell,” Raith said finally, his tone laced with the bitterness she had come to expect from him. But this time she felt she could understand. The once proud MacLean stronghold was now roofless, its thick tower walls, embrasured battlements and crenellated parapet decaying into dust, its narrow window slits looking out on a bare waste of moorland and bog.

  “Argyll owns all of this,” Raith remarked wearily. “Do you truly think anything I might say to him could change the patterns of a lifetime?”

  Katrine remained silent. There was nothing she could say that hadn’t already been said.

  It was late afternoon by the time they sailed back across the Firth of Lorne and reached Oban. Katrine sensed Raith’s impatience and suspected he blamed her for the delay; her harping about the feud had made him alter his plans to take her directly home.

  Katrine couldn’t find the energy to defend herself, though, let alone argue with him. Nor could she take any pleasure in the scenery that had excited her only a few short weeks before. The mountains that rose in graceful curves and high coned peaks around the bay of Oban could have been flat farmland for all the interest she showed, while the fishing huts and the quaint shops that dotted the sloping streets and the surrounding wooded hills could have been a London slum, rather than a charming seaside village.

  Instead, Katrine found herself scanning the village for the tolbooth where the Duart MacLeans were imprisoned, and wondering if Raith would try to free his clansmen tonight, after he had escorted her home. Alarmed at the thought, she tilted back her head, peering up at the blue summer sky through the black veil she had been given to wear.

  Could she perhaps delay Raith long enough to prevent his return before morning? Callum had told her they would be required to press if they meant to make her uncle’s house before midnight. And there was no possibility of their remaining in Oban for the night, Callum was certain. Raith wouldn’t risk putting up at an inn for fear of her being recognized. That was also the reason she was wearing the veil and voluminous hat that completely hid her bright hair.

  Katrine pondered the thought as the ship drew alongside the pier. While the crew cast out lines and dropped anchor, she even considered trying to escape, so Raith couldn’t deliver her to her uncle. But she suspected such an attempt would fail. Raith was no doubt expecting something of the sort, for he’d been keeping a watchful eye on her ever since they’d come within range of the harbor. And short of jumping ship and swimming for shore—not for the first time did she regret never having learned to swim—there was nothing she could do at the moment to elude his vigilance. Perhaps later, when she and Raith were alone. And they would be alone, Callum had already confirmed. No doubt those two horses waiting on the dock were meant for them....

  “So, sweeting, this is the moment I bid you a tearful farewell.”

  At Callum’s approach, Katrine broke off her musings and forced a smile. She greatly regretted that he wouldn’t be accompanying them on the long ride. She didn’t want to be left alone with Raith, not now. She didn’t think she could bear his smoldering silence alone.

  “Thank you for all your past kindness,” she managed to say unsteadily as she extended her gloved hand. “I hope…I will see you again someday.”

  Callum’s grin was roguish yet comforting. “Oh, you will, bonny Katie. Sooner than you may think. And I may yet someday have you for a cousin.” Lifting her veil, he bent and kissed her on the cheek, a solemn and tender gesture that nearly had her crying again. “Take care, Katie, and keep your chin up.

  It was good advice, she thought wretchedly as Raith came up to her and offered his arm. Accepting it with quiet dignity, she allowed him to escort her down the gangway to the waiting horses. When he had helped her mount, she adjusted her skirts over the lady’s sidesaddle and waited for Raith to swing into his own saddle, then followed as he led the way out of town.

  All too soon they had left the village behind. The Highland peaks rose around them in silent splendor, piercing the blue sky and the floating, fleecy clouds of summer that seemed to mock the pain in her heart. Raith never spoke a word, not until hours later when they paused beside a burn to rest and water the horses. And then it was only a terse command to dismount and stretch her legs. He came to her side to help her down, taking care not to touch her more than absolutely necessary.

  Yet Katrine was grateful for his restraint. Though she raised her veil, she avoided looking at him as he silently attended the horses, watching instead the flaming red sunset that shimmered like fire between the hills. Still, any thought of escape was only a distant whisper; Raith was all she could think about. This might be the last time she ever saw him, the last intimate moment she ever shared with him.

  She heard him rummaging through the blanket roll in front of his saddle for food, and kept her gaze carefully averted as he approached. Yet as she accepted the bannock Raith offered, his fingers brushed her hand. Even through her gloves, she could feel the shock of sensual awareness, a sizzling jolt that turned her both feverishly hot and shaking cold. Her gaze flew to Raith’s and she found him staring down at her. She could have sworn he had been as affected as she.

  “Raith…” She faltered, her voice trembling. “I can’t leave you…not without…”

  Her voice broke before she could complete the words, but from the torment in his blue eyes, she knew he understood. She needed Raith to make love to her, to hold her once more, she needed to feel his hard body melding with hers. She wanted him so overwhelmingly she ached all over.

  She remained there, staring up at him, her eyes pleading with him. When Raith made no move toward her, she unashamedly reached out to touch his arm, determined to have this moment, wanting a memory of him that would sustain her through the lonely years ahead. “Please…one last time.”

  Raith shut his eyes, his face contorting as if he were in agony. But his hands slowly reached up to remove her hat and toss it aside. With a sigh of acceptance, he drew her to him.

  For a long moment they stood in each other’s arms, saying nothing. Reality faded away. For that enchanted moment they might have been any young man and his sweetheart stolen out to meet in the privacy of the hills. But it wasn’t enough. For either of them. Drawing back slightly, Raith cupped her face in his hands. Quivering, Katrine raised her parted lips to his.

  The kiss was wild and sweet, like the heather, like the cool mountain air. Their heartbeats accelerated as they savored the magic of it, kissing, tasting, drinking in the essence of the other.

  Complete, Raith thought in some still-functioning part of his mind. This was what he needed to make himself complete. He had to have her. He needed her more than his next breath of air.

  And she needed him. When he shifted his body urgently against her skirts, fitting himself between her thighs, letting her feel that powerful male part of him, Katrine whimpered in sheer delight and arched her back, pressing closer, her fingers clutching at his clothes.

  They undressed each other impatiently, her hands feverishly stroking the hard muscles of his back and shoulders, his lips hungrily devouring the silken skin he bared.

  Raith saved her hair for last. He murmured another sigh, this one of pleasure as he pulled the pins from her hair and let the radiant mass fall around her pale, slender shoulders. Then he stepped back, drinking in the sight. She stood there trembling with need, naked, beautifully naked, her breasts flushed and dewy from his mouth’s caresses, the setting sun gilding her body with gold and red.

  When she shivered in the cool air, he went to his horse and withdrew a green MacLean hunting plaid from the blanket roll and spread it on the ground. Katrine felt her heart contract with love for him. He could have used the blanket, but he had chosen to acknowledge the rightness of their union by sharing the tartan of his clan. Her eyes misted with tears.

  Silently he pulled Katrine down upon the plaid and slid his fingers into tresses the color of the sunset.

  “My sweet Katie,” he murmured, seeki
ng her mouth.

  “My love,” she whispered moments later when he bonded their bodies together in joyous desire.

  Raith never acknowledged her claim to his heart. Not in words. But his body spoke to her. His powerful muscles bunching beneath her roaming hands, he drove into her, loving her fiercely, as if merging with her could cleanse him of the bitter hatred that was like a poison in his blood.

  Hatred. It was only in moments like this, when he was immersed in the fire storm of her passion, that he believed his hatred could be conquered by love. Only at times like this, when the hot, bright feeling exploded in his soul, that he could deny his responsibilities and forget the enmity between their clans.

  But like their physical mating, the moment couldn’t last.

  When it was over, a silence descended heavier than any Raith had ever known. He lay beside Katrine, his chest heaving, his damp skin slowly cooling in the aftermath of passion. The flaming sky had faded to twilight before he dared look at her. Katrine was watching him with a quiet intensity that threatened to destroy every shred of his resolve.

  “We have to go.” He forced the words past his lips—and then wished he could take them back when she slowly nodded. Without voicing a single word of protest, she rose and began to gather her scattered clothing. The most difficult thing he’d ever had to do in his life was not reach for her again.

  No words were spoken between them as they resumed their interrupted journey, or even later when the moon rose to light their way through the wild pass of Brandor, in the shadow of lofty Ben Cruachan. The inevitability of the moment hung between them like a shroud. The only sound was the rhythmic plodding of horses’ hooves.

  And even those stopped when they neared their destination, for when Katrine drew her mount to a halt, so did Raith. In the distance loomed the black outline of Kilchurn Castle where the English militia was garrisoned.

  “You shouldn’t come any closer,” Katrine whispered, vaguely surprised that she could even manage that much.

  “I’ll see you safely home,” Raith returned in a voice so grim that it quelled all argument.

  He took her nearly to her uncle’s door, and then helped her dismount. Afterward he stood looking down, his face a dark mask of shadow.

  Hers was not so unreadable; sorrow, despair, longing were there in her upturned face for him to see. Unable to help himself, Raith reached for her and drew her close.

  Katrine clung to him, holding on with a tight, quiet desperation. And when she felt his lips press against her temple, she turned her head, searching blindly for his mouth.

  Yet she was the one to break off the anguished kiss. Choking back a sob, she took a deep breath and pressed her palms against his chest, forcing herself to quit clinging. “Raith…whatever it is you intend…please…be careful.”

  No longer remotely able to maintain the detachment he had striven for, Raith felt a twisting emptiness grip his heart. His face contorted in pain, he bent slowly and kissed her on the cheek, much as Callum had done, a strange and tender gesture. “Go home, bonny Katie,” he whispered, his own voice trembling.

  She wondered if he might have meant her home in England, but she wasn’t sure. Watching him leave, Katrine was certain of only one thing: Raith took her heart with him as he slowly rode away in the moonlight.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Oblivious to the gathering storm clouds, Katrine lay back among the heather, gazing dreamily at the sky. The hand resting lightly on her abdomen occasionally stroked protectively, and sometimes she murmured her thoughts out loud, as if someone were actually there to hear. Only when a chill gust of wind raised gooseflesh on the skin bared by her elbow-length sleeves did she stir enough to tuck her bare feet beneath her skirts and draw her Campbell plaid about her shoulders.

  As happened frequently of late, she had stolen out to the hills behind her uncle’s house to spend the August afternoon in idle contemplation. At times like these she would usually remember only the pleasant experiences of her “ordeal,” as her uncle termed her abduction, but as the brewing storm darkened the sky, she found her thoughts drifting back to her parting from Raith.

  After enduring the anguish of watching him leave, she had crept into the dark house by way of the servants’ entrance, and silently made her way upstairs to the bedchamber she had used on her last visit. She wouldn’t, couldn’t rouse her sleeping uncle; she couldn’t face him just yet. Without pausing to undress or do anything but lock her door, Katrine had thrown herself on the bed and slept from sheer exhaustion. The body and mind could only deal with so much grief, it seemed, and she had had her fill. Not until late the next morning had she awakened, and it had taken another hour of composing her shredded emotions before she was prepared to face her uncle with anything resembling composure. Marshaling her courage then, she went downstairs.

  The murmur of masculine voices led her to the study—the same dark-paneled, ledger-filled room where she had met Raith what seemed like a lifetime ago. To Katrine’s surprise, a scarlet-coated officer was standing at attention beside the desk, respectfully holding his tricorne hat in his hands.

  The tall, elderly gentleman behind the desk was standing, too, a fierce scowl on his face as he read the missive in his hands. He was plainly dressed in a frock coat and matching waistcoat of brown twilled wool. His white shirt and starched jabot sported a minimum of ruffles.

  For a moment Katrine stood watching her Uncle Colin, memories of her late father flooding her. Her uncle’s powdered tie-wig covered hair that she knew would be a sandy red, possibly sprinkled by now with gray.

  “This cannot be!” she heard him mutter. His voice was tinged with the Highland burr that she remembered from her childhood, but at the moment, his tone was far more grim than her father’s had ever been. “They truly escaped?”

  The question sent fingers of apprehension curling around Katrine’s heart. Apparently the Ardgour MacLeans must have rescued their Duart kin from the tolbooth in Oban last night. She took an involuntary step forward as her uncle crumpled the scrap of vellum in his fist.

  “Those cursed MacLeans! They’re determined to make fools of us. Spiriting away their fellow curs in the night, under the very noses of the guards you had posted!”

  “Aye, Mr. Campbell,” the young officer replied in a weary tone. “We found the turnkey in the vacant cell shortly after the escape took place. He had been trussed up and blindfolded. He swears he never saw the culprits.”

  Katrine slowly exhaled in relief. No blood had been shed, and no one yet knew the identity of the rescuers. Nor would they ever learn it from her.

  Squaring her shoulders, she stepped into the room. “Uncle?”

  Colin Campbell looked up impatiently, then his mouth dropped open. The soldier turned to eye her curiously.

  Katrine cleared her throat. “I’m pleased to see you again.”

  “Katrine…praise to God, you are safe.”

  The relief on his face filled her with guilt, making her regret what she was about to do. But there was no help for it. Taking a deep breath, she clasped her hands together. “Why, Uncle Colin,” she replied innocently, “is there any reason I shouldn’t be safe?”

  His heavy eyebrows snapped together in a bewildered frown. “Reason? Why, because you were a prisoner of the villainous MacLeans, ‘tis reason enough.”

  “But I wasn’t a prisoner.”

  “Ye weren’t a— If not, then where the de’il have ye been?”

  “I couldn’t say for certain. Nearby, I think.”

  “Ye think? Ye think! Surely ye can give me some clue as to their whereabouts.”

  “Well, no…I can’t actually.”

  “Well then, tell me who these blackguards are. I’ll arrest them and clap them in irons—”

  “I’m sorry, Uncle. I can’t tell you who they are.”

  A thundercloud gathered on Colin Campbell’s brow. “Did ye not even learn their names?”

  “A few, I suppose, but I can’t seem to remember them at the
moment.”

  “Not remember! Damn! I’ve had two detachments of troops scouring the countryside for ye! And the duke himself has been exercising all possible effort in your behalf. We feared for your life!”

  Her uncle was sounding more Scottish by the minute. Like Raith, it seemed he became so when his emotions were aroused. And at the moment they were indeed aroused. The way his color was rising, it appeared that any minute he would succumb to a fit of apoplexy.

  “I’m sorry if you were unduly concerned,” Katrine hastened to soothe him, “but there truly was no need to worry. I never was in any danger. Indeed, I was treated very well on the whole.”

  Thankfully Uncle Colin paused in his blustering long enough to stare at her. “Do ye mean to claim ye were never abducted?”

  Katrine took another deep breath, not wanting to lie. “What I mean to say is that I remained there of my own free will.”

  “And the infernal MacLeans, they had no hand in this…this escape?” Fiercely he brandished the crumpled note he had been reading when she came in.

  “I…I really couldn’t say.”

  “Plague take it! Then how do you explain this?” Smoothing out the note, he marched past the red-coated officer to wave the scrap of paper under his niece’s nose.

  Unable to read the moving target, Katrine gently took it from him. The message itself was brief. Simply the Gaelic words Bàs no Beatha—Death or Life—the war cry of all the MacLeans.

  But below the warning was a small sketch of a battle-ax crossed by branches of what Katrine guessed were meant to be laurel and cypress. She recognized the emblem as one on Raith’s coat of arms—the ax of Gillean. One afternoon while searching through Raith’s library for suitable books for Meggie, Katrine had taken the opportunity to study the crests of the various MacLean branches. Several of the septs, including the House of Ardgour, claimed the battle-ax, although the main branch of the MacLeans—the Duarts—did not.

  But scrawling the ax on a note for all to see had been a dangerous and reckless piece of work, for it came closer to identifying Raith as the malefactor.