Highland Savage (7 page)

’The arrow wound was bad, but I dinnae believe ’tis a mortal wound,” Lucas replied. He espied a jug and tankard on a small table in the corner of the room and moved to pour himself a drink. “Ah, wine,” he murmured after peering into the jug. “Just what I need.”

“She looks verra pale,” William said as he moved closer to the side of the bed and studied Katerina’s face.

“Loss of blood and pain will often leach all the color out of a person. She didnae lose too much blood, however.” After hastily downing a whole tankard of wine, Lucas poured himself another one and moved back to stand at Katerina’s bedside.

“Did she break anything when she fell off her horse?”

“Nay, but she will be bruised from head to toe and verra sore.”

“Ah, weel, mayhap that will serve to keep her abed until she heals enough to rise safely.”

“She isnae an amiable invalid then, aye?”

William rolled his eyes. “The moment she isnae feverish or in too much pain to move, she thinks she is healed.”

“Weel, if she becomes too much trouble we will simply tie her to the bed.” Lucas winked at Annie when she gasped.

“’Twill work, but only if ye can tie better knots than I can.”

Lucas stared at William in shock for a moment and then laughed. “Ye tied her to the bed?”

“She wouldnae lie still and had reopened her wounds several times. Also had to do it when she grew feverish as she kept trying to return to the loch to look for ye.” William looked at Lucas and cocked one brow. “Only God kens why.”

The knowledge that Katerina had tried to find him soothed Lucas in some way and that irritated him. “Guilt?” he murmured and just shrugged when both William and Annie glared at him. Deciding it might be wise to change the subject, he asked William, “Exactly how are ye related to Kat? Ye are her cousin, aye?”

“Aye,” William answered. “I am her uncle’s bastard. He had a lot of us. He liked the lasses.”

“Too much so,” said Annie, her expression one of utter feminine disgust. “’Tis
what got the fool killed. Everyone told him to stay away from the blacksmith’s wife, but he wouldnae heed that bit of good advice.”

“Ah, so the blacksmith caught the mon cuckolding him and killed him, did he?” Lucas realized he was gently stroking Katerina’s pale cheek, told himself he was just checking to see if she was feverish, and yanked his hand back.

“Beat him badly, but didnae kill him, ’though I still think that beating led to his death.”

“Aye,” agreed William. “He acted verra odd for about a week and then just fell down dead.”

“I suspicion he was bleeding inside, mayhap e’en inside his head,” Lucas said. “So, if ye are such a close relation, why didnae the old laird choose ye to be the laird after he died?”

“Because the old laird hated his brother and the feeling was fully returned. I ne’er heard the full tale, but it had something to do with a woman. I suspicion it was the laird’s wife. She was a good woman so I cannae believe she did anything wrong, but I fear I cannae say the same about my father. So, any child of my father’s wasnae good enough in the old laird’s eyes.”

Lucas shook his head. “’Tis sad when there are feuds between the verra people who should stand firmly together. And the council the old laird selected didnae argue with him about it all, I suspect.”

“Nay. I fear my father didnae make as many friends as he did enemies.”

“Because he liked the lasses?”

William nodded. “Several of the men here are my brothers. Agnes and Ranald see us as threats and, weel, Katerina was always good to us. She didnae care who bred us, or that we were bastards, only that we were blood kin. That meant a lot to us, so when she was in trouble, we stood with her. Ye see, Agnes also hates us, always has. The fact that she, too, is a bastard doesnae seem to have made her verra sympathetic.”

“How could I have misjudged that woman so?” Lucas muttered.

“Ye seem to make a lot of misjudgments about people.”

Before an argument could begin between the two men now glaring at each other, Annie said, “Agnes is verra good at playing the sweet, somewhat witless woman that men seem to think they want. All smiles and titters, caring only about being admired by men and dressing in fine clothes. Tis mostly women who see through that guise quickly, if only because Agnes doesnae much like other women and cannae hold fast to her mask of sweet idiocy. E’en her own husband was fooled for months and he is a canny fellow. I think she fooled the old laird, too, because I cannae believe he would have done anything to place Katerina or the weelbeing of the people of Dunlochan at risk. Yet, his dying wishes have done just that.”

“Aye,” agreed William. “He may have made it too plain to see that he was disappointed he could only breed daughters whilst his brother scattered bastard sons all over the countryside, but he loved his child as best he could. His illness came on him sudden and it didnae give him much chance to think long and hard about what he was doing. Katerina was furious that he made no plans for any of us, for all his nieces and nephews.”

“Especially since ye and a few others had served him weel as men at arms,” said Annie.

William shrugged. “We didnae really do any of that for him. Nay, ’twas for Dunlochan and Katerina.” He looked closely at Lucas. “Do ye think Ranald recognized her when her hood slipped back?”

“I feel certain he did,” replied Lucas. “The mon was struggling to get to her, e’en striking out at some of his own men when they got in his way.”

After cursing softly and viciously for a moment, William noticed Annie’s bright blushes and took a deep breath to calm himself. “Pardon, Annie.”

“Nay, ye dinnae need to ask for it,” she said. “’Us just that I have ne’er heard ye curse so much,” she suddenly grinned, “or so verra colorfully. This situation almost demands a mouthful of curses, I am thinking.”

William smiled faintly and then looked at Lucas. “Ranald hates Katerina. If the mon truly believes she survived, he will tear apart all of Dunlochan to find her.”

“Why does he hate her so much?” Lucas asked,

“Because she told him
nay
,” said Annie. “E’en worse, he kenned that she probably didnae say
nay
to ye.”

“And since ye seemed to be most serious in your wooing of her,” continued William, “there was a chance ye and Katerina might wed. Ranald kens that fool council would approve of ye and that will take away what power Agnes has granted him. If Ranald gets his filthy hands on Katerina, she will die and it willnae be an easy death he gives her.”

“Then we had best make verra sure the bastard doesnae get her,” said Lucas.

It took some persuasion, but Lucas finally got William and Annie to go to bed and allow him to stay with Katerina. Lucas pulled a rough-hewn chair up to the side of the bed, rested his feet on the bed, and studied Katerina. Her father had obviously been a cold, hard man and made his disappointment over her not being a son all too clear to her at times. Her half-sister was apparently a vicious little witch and had undoubtedly made Katerina’s life a misery as often as possible. Now she had people trying to kill her so that she could not claim what was hers by right of birth, something that should never have been in doubt. Lucas felt sympathy for her despite his reluctance to do so.

Sipping his wine, he decided it was time to search out the whole ugly truth. He refused to believe he was completely wrong about Katerina, but thought he might find something that would make it easier to forgive her part in the beating he had suffered. Lucas suspected he was close to forgiving her anyway, but some justification for doing so would be a comfort, would make him feel less like some lovesick fool.

He also needed as much information about Dunlochan, Ranald, Agnes, and the battle for the right to rule Dunlochan as he could get if he was going to keep Katerina safe. Even though he did not want to look too closely at what he might still feel for her besides desire, he knew he could never let her come to harm. Recalling the look upon Ranald’s face as he had struggled to get to Katerina, Lucas knew William was right. Now that Ranald knew that Katerina was still alive, the man would never stop hunting her. It seemed that Lucas was soon to get the hard, fierce battle and bloodletting he had argued for.

“What do ye mean she is still alive?”

Ranald looked at Agnes, idly thinking that her usually soft, sweet voice could sound painfully shrewish at times. “Just what I said—she is alive. I saw her hair when the
hood of her cloak slipped down.”

“A lot of people at Dunlochan have fair hair.”

“Nay like Katerina’s. ’Twas her, Agnes, and arguing with me o’er it willnae change that. We need to plan what to do next. Both Murray and your sister are alive and that means a lot of trouble is soon to come our way.”

Agnes watched her lover pace her solar, a tankard of ale clutched tightly in his big hand. Ranald was not a very handsome man, his features too coarse and his nose too large, but he was big and strong. He was also mean and devious, two things she admired in a man. Her husband had possessed neither quality and had quickly bored her. Neither did her sister and so it puzzled Agnes that Katerina could have fooled them for so long.

The fact that Sir Lucas Murray was still alive both pleased and dismayed her. Lucas was a man who made her mouth water and her stomach clench with lust despite his rough manners. She had been enraged when he had shown no interest in her, but had continued to woo Katerina. Even though she had ordered his death, Agnes now wondered if she might have a second chance to seduce him into her bed. He would still have to die, but, mayhap, she could have a little taste of him first. If she could do so while Katerina watched, it would be even more exciting, and satisfying.

“I dinnae ken what ye are thinking of, Agnes, but ye best stop,” said Ranald. “That smile ye now wear would send chills down the spine of even the bravest of men.”

“Ye flatter me. I was but thinking of what to do about these people who refuse to stay dead.”

Ranald studied his lover. She was beautiful, as many of the Haldane women were, with thick fair hair, big blue eyes, unblemished fair skin, and a body that was somehow both lithe and voluptuous. Her face was as beautiful as any he had ever seen, one that made men see sweetness and innocence in her expression, compassion in her smile. He knew she had none of those qualities. It was one reason they worked so well together. Ranald was still astonished that the old laird had been blind to the hard, cold, almost amoral woman hidden behind those sweet smiles.

“And just how do ye think we ought to deal with them?” he asked.

“Why, we must correct your mistake.”

“
My
mistake? Curse it, Agnes, the Murray mon was a broken hulk when we threw him into the loch. Your sister went under when we threw her in and stayed under. ’Tis no surprise that I thought them both dead. Aye, and the fact that we havenae seen either of them for a year only made me even more certain of it.”

“But we
have
seen Katerina, havenae we. She has been plaguing us and ruining our plans all along.”

Ranald cursed. “Ye didnae ken the leader of those reivers was Katerina either.”

“Nay, I didnae. True enough. I accept that error in judgment. ’Tis time to mend things, however.”

“How?”

“Why, by finding them. Finding them and killing them. And this time I want to see the bodies.”

“Ranald kens I am alive, doesnae he?”

Katerina stared at Lucas wondering why he was sprawled in a chair next to her bed. He looked tired and a little surprised by her question. Hazily recalled nightmares had prompted those first words out of her mouth, however. All those nightmares had concerned Ranald capturing her and all the painful suffering that would bring to her. She needed to know if she had been recognized, if there was any chance that some of those very chilling dreams might come true.

“Aye, he does,” Lucas replied as he stood up and fetched her some mead, mixing a few herbs into the drink before bringing it to her. “Drink this,” he ordered quietly as he slipped an arm behind her and held her up a little to help her drink.

Even though the strong taste of the herbs made her grimace, the mead soothed her sore, dry throat. Katerina surreptitiously studied Lucas as he helped her drink the brew. He looked
very
tired. She had a few vague memories of his presence at her bedside, along with Annie’s, and wondered if he had actually helped care for her. It seemed a strange thing for a man to do for a woman he believed had tried to have him killed.

By the time she finished the drink, she felt so weak and tired she knew she would be a long time recovering from this wound. She also had more important things to worry about than whether or not Lucas had cared for her wound. It was a very bad time for her to be so helpless.

“He is looking for me then, is he?” she asked as he gently bathed her face with lavender-scented water.

“Like a mon obsessed,” said Lucas. “Turning o’er every rock.”

She inwardly winced at his blunt answer, but recalled that Lucas was not one to tell the truth gently. ’That isnae good.”

“Nay, it isnae, but he has been looking for ye and your men for a long while.”

“He thought he was looking for reivers, for naught but a nuisance. Aye, the longer we plagued him, the harder he tried to catch us, but he didnae really see us as a threat to him. He felt his place at Agnes’s side, as a mon of power in Dunlochan, was secure, and that only Robbie remained as a thorn in his side. Now that he kens I am alive, that we both are alive, I suspicion he recognizes the threat to him. If naught else we could get him hanged. E’en Robbie cannae do that.”

Lucas sat on the edge of her bed, ignoring the cross look she gave him. Her color was good but the occasional wince she made told him that she still suffered some pain from her wounds. Despite his opinion that the wound she had suffered was not a mortal one, it had been a long, hard fight to keep her alive. Katerina had obviously not been taking very good care of herself and that had left her with little strength to fight blood loss, pain, and a raging fever. Having had most of the care of her, he felt as exhausted as she looked. He was also feeling highly emotional and knew it would be best if he got away from her as soon as possible.

“Has there been any trouble then?” she asked when Lucas did not argue her opinion on how great a threat Ranald was.

“Nay. A few beatings as Ranald searches for someone who kens that ye are alive and where ye might be hiding.” Lucas saw how much that news upset her and quickly added, “He seems to have given that up quickly. At the moment your people are safe.”

“How long have I been abed?” she asked, suddenly startled by the weakness in her
leg when she tried to move it away from where it pressed against his body.

“Almost a week. Ye took a fever and it was slow to release ye from its grip.”

Katerina cursed softly. “That is why I feel so weak then.”

“Aye. Ye will need at least a week ere ye regain your strength. The only good thing about it all is that the fever kept ye abed long enough for your wounds to begin to heal weel.”

“An arrow?” she asked, not sure her memory about how she was wounded was correct. She lightly touched the bandage wrapped around her upper chest. “I didnae realize it had gone all the way through.”

“It didnae. The best way to remove an arrow from a body is to push it all the way through, cut off the arrowhead, and
then
take it out. Otherwise that arrowhead can do a great deal of damage as ye pull it back through the body.”

Thinking on that for a moment, Katerina slowly nodded. “That makes sense. It feels as if it is healing weel.”

“Thank ye.”

“So it was ye who tended to my wounds?”

“I did. There are a lot of healers in my family. I am nay a true healer, but I did learn a lot about tending wounds from the women in my clan. I assume none here felt skilled enough to push me aside so that they could do the work. They left me to it. Annie helped, tending to ye when ye needed a woman’s aid.”

Katerina inwardly sighed with relief at that news. Knowing the sort of intimacies required in tending to a badly injured or ill person, she had begun to get alarmed as he had spoken of tending to her wounds. It was hard enough to accept Annie’s care in such matters. If Lucas had tended to her more personal needs, she would never have been able to look him in the eye again. She actually felt herself blush when she suddenly realized she was going to have to ask for Annie’s help right now.

“Is Annie close at hand?” she asked quietly.

Seeing how flushed she was, Lucas grinned and stood up. “Aye. I sent word that ye were waking up and she should be here verra soon.” He leaned over her, ignoring the way she pressed deeper into the pillow in a vain attempt to keep some distance between them. “Ye
will
rest, Kat, and give us no trouble about it, or I will be tying ye to this bed.”

“Ye wouldnae dare.”

“Aye, I would.” Placing his hands on either side of her head, he fixed his gaze upon her mouth. “I think I will dare one other thing, too.”

Katerina was just about to protest when his mouth covered hers. Despite the weakness in her body, she blindly wrapped her arms around his neck as he kissed her. It was a slow, deep kiss, as if he was savoring the taste of her, and Katerina knew that, if she was not so very weak, she would be crawling all over the man. Every feeling she had ever felt for him came rushing back, pulled out of hiding with each stroke of his tongue. Katerina felt shaken, even a little afraid, when he finally ended the kiss and pulled away from her. This kiss had disturbed her even more than the first one and she doubted that was because she was so tired and weak.

“And here comes Annie to lend ye aid,” Lucas said as he strode out of the room. “I will return later.”

Much later, he thought as he barely stopped himself from running, as far and as fast as he could. Katerina still moved him, still had a tight grip on him, and it scared him
to death. He had grieved for her, for the loss of all he had thought he had wanted, and for the betrayal she had dealt him. To his shame he had even wept for the loss of her. Every feeling he had thought he had killed or buried had been renewed as he had fought to keep her alive. When she had finally begun to recover he realized that every caution he had thought he had learned had been swept away. That kiss had shown him just how susceptible he still was. In fact, he feared he was still in love with her.

He cursed and headed for the hall. He would have something to eat and then find a quiet place to get some rest. After that he was going hunting for some answers even if it took him deep into Dunlochan keep itself.

“Men can be such a trial,” Katerina complained as Annie helped her back into bed.

Worrying over all she still felt for Lucas and how dangerous those feelings were had actually helped her endure Annie’s kind help in seeing to her personal needs. She had been so busy fretting over that kiss and all it had made her feel that she had done what she needed to, been cleaned up, and was now back in her bed without being painfully embarrassed by Annie’s help. Unfortunately, she had not come up with any solution about what to do concerning Lucas and how she felt about him.

“Sir Lucas kept ye alive, m’lady,” Annie felt compelled to say.

Katerina sighed. “I feared that might be the way of it. So now I must be grateful.”

Annie bit back a grin over those somewhat petulant words as she helped Katerina sit up slightly, resting her against the bank of pillows Annie set behind her. “Aye, I fear ye must. Now, I have brought ye some broth. Ye should try to eat as much of it as possible.”

“I ken it. I do feel verra hungry, but I also ken I cannae eat anything too rich or hearty.” She was pleasantly surprised by how tasty the broth was as Annie spooned some into her mouth. ’This shallnae be too hard to bear. ’Tis surprisingly tasty.”

“Sir Lucas told me about some ways to make broth taste better.”

“The mon can cook, too, can he? That simply isnae fair.”

Annie laughed, but quickly grew serious again. “He told me that he learned about such seasonings when he was recovering from that beating. He had to have a lot of broth as his jaw was broken and he couldnae eat much of anything for a verra long while.”

“The beating he thinks I ordered done out of jealousy.”

“I cannae think he truly believes that, nay down deep in his heart. No mon could care for a woman as he has cared for ye this past week if he thought she had betrayed him so. Nay, not e’en if he does come from a family with a lot of healing women in it. I feel sure he was verra worried about ye and he worked the whole night through several times to keep ye alive when the fever was raging through your body.”

That news stirred a hope inside Katerina that she did not wish to feel. It could make her do something very foolish, such as give her heart into Lucas’s keeping again only to get it shattered once more. He had not yet offered her an apology for his accusations and, until he did, she could not trust in the hope that he had already changed his mind about her. She had lost faith in him as well and was not sure if that could ever be fully restored.

“Ah, Annie, when I first saw that he had survived I was overjoyed and ready to run into his arms. I felt as if every prayer I had uttered had just been answered. ’Tis then that he accused me of trying to have him killed. It will be hard to forget how that hurt, how it
still hurts. It will be also verra hard to trust my heart into his care again.”

“What if he grovels?”

“That may soothe me a wee bit,” Katerina drawled and exchanged a grin with Annie. Pleased with how that touch of humor had lightened her spirits and eager to get Lucas out of her mind for a moment, Katerina decided to change the subject. “Tell me what news there is. I cannae bear nay kenning how everyone fares.”

Annie began to tell her nearly everything that had gone on since she had been wounded even as she kept spooning the broth into Katerina’s mouth. Despite the fact that Ranald was hunting for her and Lucas with a vengeance, nothing of any great importance had happened. Relieved, Katerina was able to settle down for a rest once she had finished eating. She knew she was going to need all her strength to face what lay ahead and it was not just Ranald’s pursuit that concerned her. Lucas and her feelings for him would have to be faced and dealt with and she knew whatever decision she made about him would affect the rest of her life. It was a daunting thought.

Lucas caught William looking at him with something approaching amusement. “Ye can laugh if ye feel so inclined,” he drawled.

“’Tis a sore temptation,” William said and grinned. “Might I ask what ye are planning to do?”

“I am going into Dunlochan keep and see if I can find a way to hear or see something that will help us. We cannae just keep hiding, nay with Ranald so desperate to get his hands on Katerina.”

“And for that ye have to dress all in black and dirty your face?”

“Aye. It makes it easier to hide in the shadows and slip about in them. One can dress all in dark clothes but then be betrayed by the whiteness of one’s face. My brother and I used to practice the many ways one could hide in the shadows and quickly discovered how the hands and face could give one away. Hence the gloves and the dirty face.”

After studying Lucas for a moment, William nodded. “I can see that now. Dinnae ye think that ’tis a wee bit dangerous to go right into the keep?”

“It is that, but we can barely move now because of Ranald and his men hunting us as they are. They seem to be everywhere and ne’er rest. I also think there are ways to move about inside Dunlochan without being seen. There are passages in the walls.”

“Aye, but I dinnae ken where they all are.”

“Neither do I, but I have learned from Katerina where some of them are and I will start with those. Most times one passage will lead into another although there is often a trick about it.” He shrugged. “It will give me something to do aside from hiding in these caves and hoping Ranald doesnae discover them.”

“Weel, I wish I could go with ye, but I suspicion this is one of those jobs best done alone. Take care. We cannae afford to have ye caught If naught else, they would use ye to get to Katerina.”

Lucas nodded even as he told himself William was wrong. Ranald and Agnes might try to use him to get to Katerina, but Katerina might not be interested in sacrificing anything to help him. After all, there was still a chance she had tried to have him killed just because she thought he was showing too much interest in Agnes.

As he made his way through the passages to the storerooms of the keep, he realized
that the accusation he had flung at her and tried to ding to even now no longer felt right. Even the words in his mouth tasted wrong. At some time during the days and nights he had spent with Katerina and her men, he had begun to believe her incapable of trying to kill him. He did not know when or why, but he knew he no longer thought her guilty of wanting to see him dead. Lucas did not think she was completely innocent, but he found far too much comfort in the fact that she did not want him dead. It was somewhat alarming and made him even more determined to find out the whole truth.

After slipping along several passages and finding out nothing more than the fact that Agnes’s people had very few morals, Lucas was ready to return to Katerina’s hiding place. If nothing else it was growing uncomfortable to listen to so many lovers entertaining themselves when he had been celibate for so very long. Even as he turned to start his journey out of Dunlochan keep, his hand lightly sliding along the wall of the dark passage, he felt something that drew his attention. Cautiously opening his shuttered lantern a little more, he found himself staring at what looked to be a door. The mix of wood and stone that lined the passages inside the keep walls had made it hard to see at first, so perfectly did it blend with its surroundings.