Lady Of The Glen Part 32

"Silver might do," Dougal offered.

"Silver!" Jamie cried. " 'Tis our sister's future I'm thinking of, not having her substance bought and sold like a cow!"

"Och, save your thunder for Breadalbane; d'ye think to fool me?" Cat said wearily, s.h.i.+fting long legs and arms to plant elbows and b.u.t.tocks into the stairs, and sprawled inelegantly. "You'd take silver for it, Jamie-you just want to make your noise so you might get more out of him."

Colin laughed briefly. "Aye, well . . . 'tis a good way to fatten our purses, Cat. Even yours."

"This is my home," she said, intending to remind them she had a right to stay in it.

Jamie interrupted. "Mine."

Cat stared, astounded, then scrambled up untidily to face him toe to toe, drawn up straight as a Lochaber ax. "And would you throw me out of it?"

"I'd sooner see you married," he retorted, moving a step away. "You need a man, Cat."

"And would you marry me off only so you can have this house?" She wanted to spit at his feet. "Just so you can move Ellen in here and sp.a.w.n more bairns upon her? Well, 'tisn't your house 'till he's dead, Jamie-"

"Or until someone kills him," Dougal put in mildly. "For debts, most likely."

Colin laughed. "Or he'll put the gun to his own head!"

Cat stared at her brothers one by one. "Have you no shame?" she managed at last. "The man is our father!"

"And likely he sired us one by one in various drunken fits," Jamie said flatly. "I doubt he'd have the wherewithal, else."

"Oh, but you do!" she shot back. "Isna Ellen breeding again?"

Ellen was. The retort darkened Jamie's face. " 'Tis no surprise to me no man will have you . . . you'd shame him with that tongue."

"Or shrivel his c.o.c.k with her spite," Dougal agreed cheerfully.

Colin grinned at her. "You'd best mind it, Cat, if you want to catch a man."

"Aye," Jamie said pointedly. "Or are we to think Duncan Campbell eloped to escape marrying you?"

"Go home," Cat told them. "I'll hear no more of your whisky-soaked wind. You are as bad as he is. Glenlyon breeds raukle fools for sons."

"There are amends," Jamie said darkly.

Cat sighed. "Then go to Flanders, aye?-and have the earl give you the silver you think you're due. Now, go home. All of you. Una isna here-I've was.h.i.+ng to tend."

"If you were a countess," Colin declared, "you'd have more women than absent Una to do the was.h.i.+ng for you."

Cat marched to the door and s.n.a.t.c.hed it open. "I dinna want to be a countess. I dinna want untold women to do my was.h.i.+ng for me. I dinna want anything at this particular moment save to be let alone." She swung the door so it thumped against the wall, letting the daylight in. "Go. "

They went, Jamie muttering of stubbornness and ingrat.i.tude for their great care and affection while Colin and Dougal, less annoyed by her mood, set horn cups into her hands as they pa.s.sed through the door.

"If you're was.h.i.+ng linens," Colin said, "you might as well wash the cups."

Cat slammed the door behind them. Angrily she set her spine against it in a vain attempt to bar further entry; if they truly wanted in, in they would come. "Pawkie b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," she muttered. "There isna a man in the world worth a woman's time!"

She scowled at the cups. One was empty, the other nearly half-full. She would indeed have to wash them, but it was a waste of good whisky to pour it out on the ground.

-I should ken what it is my father likes so gey well! Cat lifted the cup, paused, examined its contents suspiciously, then gulped the liquor swiftly.

"Cruachan!" she gasped as the fire burned into her belly. "Och, oh Christ Jesus . . . 'tis no wonder a man goes screaming like the bean sidhe into battle-he's coals heaped up in his belly-" She coughed, pressing the back of one hand against her mouth. Her eyes watered. She caught her breath, tasting peat-smoke in her mouth along with the coals in her belly, then nearly choked in shock as a scratching sounded at the door.

She lurched off the door, spinning in place. "Which one of you doesna understand good Gaelic-?" Clutching the cups in one hand, Cat grasped the latch and yanked open the door. "I'll hear no more of your pawkie words-"

Nor would they. Nor would he, leaning nonchalantly slantwise in the door with one shoulder lodged against the wooden jamb. "I've lost my bonnet," he said. "Have you one I might wear?"

And Dair MacDonald smiled.

-bonnie, bonnie prince- "Oh Christ," Cat blurted. "I canna be drunk already-"

He arched one brow incongruously dark beneath the silvering forelock. "Already? Have you begun on it, then?" He spied the cups in her hands. "One for each fist, aye? Well, I've kent men as prefer it that way . . . though never a la.s.s." He grinned. "But then you have never been like other la.s.ses." "Och, indeed," Cat said, senses all atumble and nothing at all in her world, in her body, making any sense. "I dinna like other la.s.ses."

The grin trans.m.u.ted itself. Cider-eyes, whisky-eyes, were abruptly dark and intense. "Nor I," he said plainly.

Glenlyon's daughter said nothing as he came into her house.

MacDonald, in her house.

-bonnie lad, bonnie lad- He shut the door on sunlight. "Cat," he said. "Come home with me to Glencoe."

She laughed at him. Och, good Christ . . . does he think I'll say him nay? And dropped the cups altogether to fill her hands instead with the plaid across one shoulder, with the linen of his s.h.i.+rt, with the thick wind-tumbled hair unhindered by missing bonnet.

-with silver in his hair, and white teeth a'gleaming- And a fierce, wild music skirling through her body far greater even than ceol mor, piping the Gaels to war.

She waits impatiently as he brings up two horses. She sees the expression on his face, the tension in his body, but gives in to neither unspoken plea. And when he halts, she reaches out swiftly and takes the rein from his hand.

His expression is troubled. "What will this serve?"

Does he believe she might reconsider, given time? Or merely hopes? Grimly she says, "It serves me to see what has become of my home, and of the man I married. "

He still frowns even as she mounts her horse, though he says nothing.

"You've a wife yourself, "she tells him, "and two bairns. Think of them as I do this. Think of not knowing if they lived, or if they died. For the rest of your life. "

He grimaces. "Not knowing might be easier. "

"Oh, no. No . . . "she turns her garron toward the track that winds through Rannoch Moor.

No one can understand who has not been there. And until she goes back she will never know the truth.

She needs to know. Until she knows the truth there can be no future, only the past.

In Glencoe, she will know. If he lives. Or not.

Part V.

1691.

One.

The floor, as the braes of Craigh Eallaich before the Battle of Killiecrankie, was a field of tartan spoor. Dair's kilt, unbelted, unpinned, had been discarded into tangled folds, mingling with woolen trews that once had been a man's, but more recently-and with much greater grace!-had attired a woman instead. All such impediments as clothing lay strewn across the hardwood floor of a room Dair believed must be the Laird of Glenlyon's; the bed was large enough for two, and as they were neither of them lacking in height nor length of limb, he found it much in favor.

But far more in favor for the woman who was in it, dawn-gilded hair caught now beneath his shoulder as well as her own.

He touched a sleep-tangled, wiry coil improbably red against pale linens; nothing, with Cat Campbell, so restrained as sandy rose or sullen auburn. But Cat slept on, no more self-conscious in sleep than she was awake, blatant in posture and pride.

Dair smiled drowsily, content with the day, the dawn; content within himself of what they had wrought in Glenlyon's bed. Her pa.s.sion, unschooled, had been the greater for his guidance, for his restraint and hard-won patience; she was an apt pupil and did not stint response. While Jean had been well cognizant of how to please a man and did so with consummate skill, Cat was wholly unaware and thus more honest. She was virgin and he hurt her, but the moment pa.s.sed. Between the dusk and the dawn she had forgotten the pain, disdained the blood, and gave of herself freely even in awkwardness.

For her, he doubted the earth had s.h.i.+fted. It was more difficult for a woman, he knew, less generous with less time, and he had not been able to wait so long as he might have liked. But she, clearly, was not displeased. Once roused beyond the beginning there was pleasure in it for her, and would be more yet. They had all the time in the world to learn the ways, the movements, that most pleased them individually as well as mutually.

He s.h.i.+fted closer. Feet and knees aligned themselves perfectly. She was nearly as tall as he, so they fit together far better as spoons than one might expect. With his breast against her spine he could feel her steady heartbeat, and knew when her breathing changed.

She went rigidly stiff, as if astounded by his presence. Then she softened all at once and turned, grasping the hair caught beneath his shoulder to rescue her scalp. He s.h.i.+fted, smiling, and freed her.

She faced him now, brows level and eloquent, staring at him so critically Dair had to laugh. "Did you think I might be gone? Or naught but a dream?"

"No dream ever did that, "she declared. "But gone-aye. 'Tis dangerous for you here."

"Why, d'ye expect your brothers to come in with dirks drawn, and claymores?" He grinned. "Aye, I saw them yesterday-had to hide myself away until they left the house. One of them had a gey black face, but the others were no' so worried."

"Jamie." Cat's generous mouth twisted. "He thinks I should be married with a house of my own so he might claim this one the sooner. As for dangerous-aye. I've a woman who stays with me."

"I heard her," Dair agreed. "Last night when she came up the stairs, but she didna look in here."

"Christ, no!" Cat said fervently. "Una would have screeched like a snared coney. . . ." She s.h.i.+fted against the sheets, one foot hooked with his tentatively, uncertain of her welcome but wanting it nonetheless. "This is my father's room. She'd no' come in here."

"Then we are safe," he said, trapping the ankle between his own, "from such prying eyes as a screeching coney and three pawkie brothers." He bent close, then rolled back as she jerked the covers from his hips. "Christ, Cat-what?"

She peered warily beneath the coverlet. When she lowered the bedclothes at last her eyes were stricken.

"What?" The expression disturbed him. "Cat-what is it?"

Her voice was strangled. "Dougal was right."

"Dougal?" It was preposterous. "What has he to do with anything?"

"He said I'd shrivel it, and I did!"

"Shrivel . . . och, Christ, Cat-"

"With spite," she explained. "Was I so spiteful?"

It was gey difficult not to whoop in laughter, until he thought of Una. Instead he had to m.u.f.fle his noise against the pillow.

She was much perturbed. "Are you crying, man?"

When he could breathe again he nodded. "Oh, aye-but not from pain or sadness." He hitched himself up on an elbow and caught her hand, lacing her fingers with his. "Cat-'tis nothing like spite. I promise. "

"But-" Her expression was eloquent.

Dair opened his mouth, shut it, began again. "You've seen bulls rutting, and stallions-" She nodded. "-well, you ken verra well they dinna always look so large."

"Well, no," Cat agreed. " 'Twould be gey difficult for a bull to walk, like that."

He caught back a laugh. "Oh, aye . . . and for a man as well."

She was dubious. "I saw Robbie-my brother Robbie-once. With Mairi. He looked verra much like a bull."

"Smaller, I should hope, for Mairi's sake!" Dair kissed one knuckle, then the back of her hand. "You didna shrivel it, Cat. Not with spite, or anything else. 'Tis only resting."

She was sly despite her innocence, tightening her grasp. "Then wake it up, aye?"

Dair grinned toothily. " 'Tis for the la.s.s to do."

"Oh, aye? How?"

"For you," he said, "just breathe. You see?" He guided her hand beneath the coverlet, across his belly, and lower. "No' so shrivelled now . . . and if you-"

A banging on the door below drowned out his quiet suggestion. Cat jerked her hand free and sat up rigidly, yanking sheets to her shoulders. The banging repeated itself, resolved into knocking.

"Oh, Christ Jesus," she hissed, bestirring herself from bedding to search frenziedly for her clothing. "Oh Holy Mary-"

The banging continued unabated.

"Where did you put-? Oh, Christ-where is Una?" Cat knelt to the floor and began to scoop up clothing. "Is this-?-no, yours . . . here . . . oh good Christ-"

Dair sat upright. "Cease your swearing," he said, "and come back to bed. 'Tis your house, aye?-you've a right to answer the door when you choose."

Cat glared at him as she stuck one long leg into the trews and pulled colorful tartan over her knee. "And let Una see me come out of my father's room . . . ?" She struggled with the other leg. "Who is at the door this early?"

"Not so early as that." There was no dissuading her. Resigned, Dair bent and caught a s.h.i.+rt. "Here. You've got mine-" He stood, unabashed in nakedness, and put it over her head, pulling hair through. "Give me an arm, Cat-here-" He bent it at the elbow.

"I'll no' let you dress me like a bairn," she said crossly, thrusting an arm through the sleeve without his aid. "Oh, I shouldna had that whisky last night-I smell of it . . ."

"-And of me, and I of you."