The Pride of Lions

by Marsha Canham

  “Oh, no. No! No, Alex … you cannot mean to send me away!”

  “Catherine—” His arms prevented her from jerking up and pulling away from him. “Catherine … listen to me!”

  “No! I won’t listen! And I won’t go! You cannot make me go!”

  “I can and I will,” he said evenly. “We are a two-hour ride from the coast. The ship I made arrangements for you to sail on should be docking sometime before midnight and leaving again within a few hours. You are going to be on it.”

  “No. No. No! Nooo!”

  “Catherine—goddammit, will you stop squirming and listen to me! There is going to be a war!”

  “I don’t care. I’m your wife! I belong here with you!”

  She twisted frantically to break out of his grip, but he only wrestled her flat on the pallet and pinned her down with the weight of his body. “Yes, you are my wife. And I would be a pretty damned poor husband if I did not do everything in my power to see that you were safe.”

  “I will be safe at Achnacarry—”

  “As safe as you were the other day in the garden?” He waited until the hot flash of anger in her eyes passed. “Catherine … a castle is only as strong as the men who guard the gates, and there will be precious few men left behind to do so. Donald has pledged to raise every clansman who can bear arms to join the Prince in a show of strength. His clan, his strength. But there are others who do not share his sense of honor. Clans will be fighting against one another; boundaries, territories, laws, and loyalties will cease to exist—”

  “I don’t care. I … I’m not afraid. And I doubt if Donald will be sending Maura away, or Archibald will dispatch Jeannie to some safe haven.”

  “Maura and Jeannie have lived with blood and violence all their lives. They know what to expect and they can accept it.”

  “Tell me what to expect and I will accept it too. Haven’t I just proved I can survive the worst life has to offer?”

  “Catherine …” His voice became softer, more desperate. “I never want you to have to prove anything to me again. Only that you trust me and love me enough to know this is what is best for you. For the both of us. I want you to be safe. I want to know you are safe and warm and protected—”

  “Please,” she sobbed, her hands trembling where they cradled his cheeks. “Please don’t do this. Please don’t send me away, Alex. Please … please …”

  He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her with all the tenderness and passion it was within his power to impart. Her pleas were tearing at his heart and his weakness was so acute he knew he dared not look into her eyes again or the resolve he had been building so carefully over the past few hours and days would desert him completely. She had no idea, could not conceive how Highlanders went to war. Scotland was known as the birthplace of valor, but it was also renowned as a country of wars. The Campbells would see this rebellion as an opportunity to swarm across Lochaber’s borders and put the torch to everything that could burn. The English would send their fine, well-trained infantry and cavalry; they would bring heavy guns that could blast holes through stone and mortar as if it were paper. They would not stop to ask the nationality or political leanings of any man or woman who stood in their path, but they would surely leave a trail of bloody, broken bodies in their wake.

  When the kiss ended, he laid his head between her breasts and prayed to feel her arms close around him. One last time. Just one last time. He did not want to send her away. Dear God, he did not want to let her out of his sight for even an instant … but he knew it was what he had to do. He had to send her out of harm’s way at all costs, even if it meant destroying her love for him.

  Catherine stared unseeing at the thatched roof over their heads. All of the joy, the peace, the sense of belonging she had been feeling, learning to feel, had vanished, leaving her numb and empty inside. He was going to send her away. He was going to send her away, then go off to fight a war, possibly to die.

  “You knew all along it would come to this, didn’t you?” she asked woodenly. “You knew, and yet you didn’t tell me. Instead, you let me believe … let me hope you loved me enough that it wouldn’t matter who or what I was.”

  He raised his head and frowned.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? It’s because I’m English. A Sassenach. An embarrassment to the great Clan Cameron.”

  “Your being English has nothing to do with my decision,” he said evenly, “and you damned well know it.”

  “At this exact moment I do not know anything anymore. I only know you are sending me out of your life without giving me a real chance to try to belong in it.”

  “Catherine, this is the wrong time—”

  “Yes, yes. I understand all about your valued sense of timing. Yesterday and today you needed time to prove you were capable of feeling and acting like a human being—a caring, compassionate, loving human being. Tomorrow and the days and weeks after that, you’ll be going off to play at war, and the only needs you will have then are the need to kill, maim, and brutalize—all in the name of family honor. Well, thank you, perhaps you are right. Perhaps I shouldn’t be here to see that happen. Perhaps I shouldn’t be here to see you degenerate into something less than a man.”

  She pushed away from him and stood up, and he did not try to stop her, not even when he saw how badly she was shaking as she gathered up her clothing. He watched her slip her arms into the cheap cotton chemise, and he longed to reach out and stop her. She stepped into the single petticoat and drew it snug about her waist, then shrugged the shapeless homespun frock over her shoulders and laced it tight over the bodice … and he could not resist standing behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders, smoothing the wild curls of her hair.

  “I love you, Catherine. I know you are angry with me now, and you may not believe it absolutely, but I do love you. What is more, I swear on that love—and on my life—that I will come for you as soon as I possibly can.”

  The slender back remained like a solid, impenetrable wall before him; her hands continued to tug on the laces of her bodice as if she had not heard—or did not choose to hear.

  The impending sense of loss drove him to lean forward and place his lips tenderly over a fading bruise that marred the soft white flesh of her neck. He turned away to dress, so ridden by his own inner turmoil that he did not see the terrible shudder that swept through her body and sent her nails gouging into the flesh above her heart.

  24

  Catherine stood on the beach watching the last of the longboats being loaded with contraband. Highland wool was at a premium in Europe, along with the heady amber spirits distilled and taken for granted in nearly every castle and bothy in the kirk. Incoming goods reflected the suspicions of intrepid businessmen and merchants: gunpowder, flints, lead, and weaponry of all kinds, which would command exorbitant prices in the months ahead.

  The captain of the Curlew was a short, wiry bristle of a man who appeared to have gone through most of his life without ever having laid a hand to soap and water. Blackpool, she had been informed in no uncertain terms, was not one of his regular stops, but as a personal favor to The Cameron of Lochiel he would set her ashore in a small inlet he knew of about four miles down the coast. From there, two of Alexander’s most trusted men would accompany her into the city and stay long enough to arrange a coach and escort to Derby. Catherine recognized one of the men from the group who had rescued her from the clutches of Malcolm Campbell. The other was Aluinn MacKail.

  Part of the reason for their delay in the shepherd’s glen became apparent when Struan MacSorley reappeared after a two-day absence. He rode at the head of a sizable column of armed clansmen he had collected from Achnacarry. And riding in the middle of the burly Highlanders was Deirdre O’Shea.

  Lochiel, they were told, had returned to the castle and was already making preparations for raising the clan. Struan carried with him a packet of letters, hastily written, from Maura, Donald, even Archibald, wishing Catherine a safe journey and praying for her swi
ft return. Not one of them argued with Alex’s decision, not one ally among them suggested what she might say or do to change his mind.

  Catherine blinked to keep the tears back as she looked up at the hazy rift of moonlight breaking through the clouds overhead. A crisp, salty breeze cooled her cheeks and stirred the sand underfoot into tiny whirling dervishes. She was wrapped in a broad swathe of tartan that kept out all but the most persistent drafts, and yet she shivered. Her mind brimmed with pictures and images, yet she thought of nothing. The numbness she had felt in the cottage was deeper, colder now that she had the waves lapping at her feet.

  “It’s time,” Alex said softly, startling her, for she had not heard his footsteps in the sand.

  She looked up and saw his face in surprisingly sharp detail: his eyes, his nose, his wide and sensual mouth, the truant locks of black hair that insisted on curling forward on his brow …

  “You will give Maura and Jeannie my fondest regards?” she began. “And your brothers and Auntie Rose? You will tell them this wasn’t my idea?”

  “If you want me to, I will.”

  She bit down on the fleshy pulp of her lip and gazed out over the water. The waves were clear, luminous where they rose and curved over a wash of foam, glittering under the moonlight as they ran up on the shore and slipped back again.

  “I was thinking how ironic it was. How I pleaded so hard for you to send me home, and now that you are …” Her voice faltered. He reached out a hand to touch her, but she saw the movement and flinched out of range. “Please, don’t. I never was very strong when you touched me … but then, you knew that, didn’t you? You relished that particular little hold over me, used it rather shamelessly at times too, I daresay.”

  He looked down at his hands … and curled them into fists. “The captain tells me the winds are fair. You should have clear sailing between here and Blackpool.”

  “Assuming the revenuers do not interfere. Then again,” she sighed, “what new adventures could a battle at sea possibly provide over what I have already experienced thus far? I should think it would prove tame by comparison.”

  “The captain is an excellent sailor. I doubt you will even see another ship on the horizon.”

  Their eyes locked for the span of a brief, strained silence before Catherine turned to the sea again. “Yes, indeed, the little man looks anxious to be away. I should not delay him any longer than necessary.”

  “Catherine—”

  His voice was thick and low, and the sound shivered across the nape of her neck. She did not face him again, but stared steadfastly out across the water so as not to let him see the tears collecting along her lashes. She would not let him see her cry. If it was the last thing she did on this accursed shore, she was determined to keep the shreds of her pride intact.

  He pressed a rolled, sealed, and beribboned set of documents into her reluctant hand.

  “The letters I promised you,” he said softly. “The choice as to whether you return to Derby a wife or a widow is still yours. In any event, these papers will give you legal access to the accounts … and the estate … of Raefer Montgomery. Aluinn has copies of everything; he will send them on to London.”

  “I told you once before I did not want your money.”

  “Then safeguard it for me. This also—” He took her hand and she felt something cold and hard glide onto her finger. It was a ring, a huge amethyst stone surrounded by a fiery circle of diamonds.

  “It belonged to Sir Ewen’s wife, and before that, his mother, and so on back a couple of generations. I had almost forgotten about it until Maura reminded me it had been a bequest for my wife.”

  “It … should stay at Achnacarry,” she whispered.

  “It should stay exactly where it is.”

  Catherine averted her face from a particularly cutting gust of wind and found herself looking up into her husband’s dark eyes. The ache in her chest grew until the pressure threatened to smother her, and without another word she turned and stumbled toward the two pots of burning tar that marked the landing area for the longboats. Deirdre was already seated in the bow, her hands clasped around the portmanteau she had guarded ever since leaving Derby.

  With the water crawling up the sand and licking at the hem of her skirts, Catherine braced herself for the final farewells. The expressions on the faces of Aluinn MacKail and Struan MacSorley were grim and uncomfortable, the latter looking as if he wanted to grasp two heads and knock them together.

  “I am sorry to have been the cause of so much trouble,” she said quietly, “and I do appreciate everything you have done for me. I … I cannot honestly say I wish your venture well, but I do wish you personal success … and safety.”

  She moistened her lips and cast a final glance along the craggy shoreline. She had been less than a month away from Derby, yet she felt as if she had aged by a score of years. Sights she would never forget had been forged onto her memory: Did the moon ever balance so brightly in the sky over Rosewood Hall as it had over the ancient battlements of Achnacarry? Was the mist as eerie and secretive, the grass as green, the moorlands as pungent with heather and peat? True, she had spent the most frightening days of her life in Scotland, but she had also found happiness and meaning … and love.

  The captain cleared his throat impatiently, prompting Catherine to turn her back on the shore and step into the longboat. Alex stood rock-still, his face expressionless, his fists held down by his sides. Aluinn regarded him with an impotent sense of frustration, knowing there was nothing he could do or say to ease his friend’s pain.

  “I’ll take good care of her,” he promised and clasped a hand around Alex’s arm.

  Cameron nodded, but before he released Aluinn’s grip he reached beneath his coat and withdrew a slim, sealed letter.

  “When you arrive in Blackpool, give this to Deirdre. Ask her, in your most cavalier manner, if she would pass it on to Damien for me. You may assure her the contents are purely personal—a simple request from me to my brother-in-law.”

  “I’ll see she delivers it.” He stepped into the longboat as the oarsmen prepared to shove it into the surf. He tossed a wave of his hand in Struan’s direction and, as an afterthought, shouted, “Don’t start the war without me.”

  MacSorley laughed and returned the wave as the little boat cut into a shallow trough of water. “Bah! We’ll have it fought an’ won by the time ye find yer way back!”

  Alexander remained on the glittering shore, his broad frame bathed in the bluish moonlight, his hair whipping in the salt air. His gaze stayed fixed on the bobbing craft until it was absorbed into the blacker shadow of the waiting Curlew. Within minutes the sheets of wide canvas were unfurled on her two tall masts, swelling and straining eagerly forward as they filled with the stiff southerly wind. The ship glided soundlessly out of the narrow inlet, bending her bow gracefully into the larger waves beyond the jagged point of land. By morning they would be clear of the most dangerous stretch of water and out into the open sea-lanes. Two days, three at the most, and they should be close off Blackpool.

  “I will come for you, Catherine,” Alexander whispered. “I swear I will come for you, though hell might stand between us.”

  The wind snatched the vow and flung it to the heavens as he turned away from the water’s edge, his convictions pounding solidly in his chest. But it would be many months before he would find himself on the road to Derby again. And then not as a husband seeking to reclaim his wife, but as a soldier in the Highland army seeking to reclaim a throne for his king.

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  Excerpt from The Blood of Roses

  It had been because of an almost desperate need to feel the sunlight on her face, to smell the crisp, clean air, and to escape to the haunting beauty of the still, silent forest that Catherine had ridden away from Rosewood Hall that morning.

  Somewhat
calmer now, she led her horse along the dappled pathway, the only sound being that of the hoarfrost crunching underfoot. Why she found solace and comfort in retracing the steps that had led to her initial meeting with Alexander Cameron she did not know. Was it because, secretly, she hoped to find him in the clearing again? Or that she thought by some miracle he had come back to her and was waiting to carry her away just as he had promised?

  No. If that was what she thought and hoped, then she was dreaming again.

  Her heart and thoughts heavy, she rounded the final copse of evergreens and stood at the outer rim of the clearing, almost in the exact spot she had halted the first time she had seen Alexander. The pond where he had been bathing was crusted with a thin rime of ice, the mossy banks were frozen and coated brown with fallen leaves. Even though it was winter now and the trees were stripped to their bare branches, the sunlight was still mottled where it touched the ground, the beams broken and stippled with shadows.

  Catherine could still feel his presence. She could still recall with startling clarity every detail of their first encounter—her shock at seeing a half-naked man bathing by the pond; the first riveting moment when their eyes had met; the seemingly endless eternity before her heart had commenced beating again. In her confusion and foolishness she had accused him of trespassing, poaching … anything that came to mind in the heady rush of excitement. It had been a defensive measure, taken against an intoxication the likes of which she had never felt before and doubted she would ever feel again.

  Catherine closed her eyes, reliving the sensation of his hands stroking down her body, of his mouth winning her capitulation. He had possessed her completely, body and soul, flesh and spirit, and had branded her forever a woman. His woman. Even if he never came back into her life, he had spoiled her for all others. His passion, his strength, his tenderness could have no equal. Never.