Highland Song (9 page)

If so, Cat was surely one of the fair folk, for there was a light in her eyes he had never spied before, and he sighed at the thought of seeing those beautiful green jewels on the morrow.

For the second time in just a few days, he whistled and sang all the way home.

 

Just a sliver of moonlight peeked through the thick mist outside. The tower window remained open for the moment, but the nights were growing colder now, and the air no longer held any warmth beyond the gloaming.

Glenna, the midwife, appeared in the doorway of their bedchamber, looking quite fierce, though Iain MacKinnon had eyes only for his wife and his new daughter. Seated at Page’s bedside, her husband coddled the babe, smiling down into her face and rubbing his knuckles reverently over the tiny cheek bones.

“
She has your nose, I think,” Page offered, waving Glenna into the room.

“
Dinna say so!” Iain returned, sounding affronted, his brows colliding. “I see only you in this sweet face!”

Page was hardly in the frame of mind to argue, but she definitely saw Iain’s nose and the babe’s eyes were his as well—blue as the morning sky.

“
When you two doves are done cooing, we’ve had a wee visit from
Bodachan Sabhaill
,” Glenna complained.

When his wife screwed her face, Iain explained. “A haunting in the barn.”

“
We’re missing a palette full of new candles!” Glenna railed. “Och, damn! But we spent all day shaping those tapers and then we laid them all out flat to harden, and now they are gone—every one!”

“
Give the remaining candles to our guests,” Iain said pleasantly. “We can use the pitch in here, dinna worry Glenna.”

Glenna would not budge from the doorway. “Nay! Not with the babe!” she declared. “The smoke will blacken her lungs!”

Both Iain and Page peered up at her, smiling gently at the exaggeration. Certainly this child would find herself protected and spoiled by every member of this clan, of that there was little doubt—most particularly by her older brother, who was abed early now after having spent literally all day long at the babe’s bedside—guarding her, he’d said, from the Sassenach hordes. No doubt he was still feeling a little insecure after his own ordeal with David, despite that Iain had reassured him no one would steal the babe away. Poor boy had nearly fallen asleep standing up and Glenna had whisked him away to a proper bed.

Glenna grumbled beneath her breath. “Why waste the best of our stores on that Sassenach loving wastrel?”

The wastrel in question was none other than King David of Scotia and Iain and Page shared an amused glance. Apparently, their eldest son wasn’t the only one with an axe to grind.

“
Give David the remaining candles,” Iain demanded to Glenna’s dismay.

The light in the chamber seemed to darken with her expression, almost as though she had willed it. Though in fact, the remaining candles were burnt to nubs, drowning their wicks in their wax.

“
We can make do until they are gone, and in the meantime, you can make some more,” Iain suggested. He gave Page a wink that twinkled full of love.

Glenna sighed. “And when will that be, prithee? Those ne’er-do-wells have been here more than a week now with no sign of the lass. When will they go away?”

“
When they are certain she has fled the area,” Iain suggested. “Apparently, David hopes to wed her to an English lord to appease her brother, though the lass seems reluctant.”

Page laughed softly. “To say the least!”

“
For shame!” Glenna berated. “How can ye harbor that odious man after he once did the same to you—thieving your son as he did. I dinna care one whit that he seems to believe ’tis for the guid of all. Who gave him the bluidy right?”

“
He is a legal claimant to the throne,” Iain reasoned.

“
Humph! And so are you!” she returned, stomping a foot. “So is your son for that matter! And so is my fist.” She said, raising it for both Page and Iain to see.

Page laughed, though she knew this discussion would only incite tempers. At the moment, Iain was enraptured with the babe, but she knew Glenna would not leave off until her husband’s ire was finally pricked. “’Tis not the same,” Page offered.

“
Isn’t it?” was all Glenna said in response, and her hands went again to her hips.

“
Let us not dwell upon the past,” Iain charged, smiling largely at the babe. “Not in the presence of so much hope.” He tickled the babe’s chin with his lips.

“
Verra well,” Glenna relented. “But I willna like it!” she declared, and stormed away.

Iain rose from the chair, never looking toward the door. He spilled their daughter into Page’s arms with a warm smile, and said, “I love you, my dear wife. And she looks
exactly
like you.”

Page only smiled, thinking that her husband was stubborn and blind, but alas, he was blind with love for her, and for the first time in her life, she understood the power of such a devotion.

She watched him as he made his way to one of the diminishing tapers, lifting up the candle along with its holder. He carried it to the pitch torch, and then removed the taper from the holder, setting the flame to the pitch. It flared at once, brightening the room with a dirty orange glow.

“
When do you think he will leave?” Page ventured, admiring the wide set of her husband’s shoulders.

Iain turned to her, pin-points of flame reflected in his deep blue eyes. “Soon, I hope, lest I run out of good will. God’s breath but he does engender so much ill will.”

Page sobered at that, and said honestly, “’Tis because he seems quite unconcerned about who he suppresses in the name of peace. She rocked the babe in her arms, shuddering softly over the memory of what they had done to Iain’s son. The poor child had not spoken for months after, but she did not dare remind her husband of that. Still, she had to ask, “Are ye certain you trust him this time?”

Iain blew out the taper and set it back in the holder. He placed both upon a table and then went to the window, closing the shutters before returning to the bedside. His smile faded, and in the devilish light, Page could easily forget he was her soft-hearted husband. In the orange glow of the torch light, his eyes were shadowed as he looked down upon their child in her arms. There was no need to speak a word for she knew instinctively what he was thinking.

“
Trust has nothing to do with aught,” he told her. “King or nay, if David betrays me yet again, I will carve out his heart and I’m certain he knows it. Though just to be certain, you shall remain here... safe in our chamber... and you, the babe and my son will keep a guard at all times.”

 

As planned, Gavin broke the news of his eminent departure to his brothers. No one seemed the least bit surprised, and neither were they disappointed.

Clearly, the current arrangement was equally disconcerting to them all, though they did put up a token of a protest, reassuring him that the manor would always be his home—particularly during the long winters, when the chill winds seeped into every fiber of a mon’s bones.

He’d been just about to tell them about Cat, but, for some reason, he kept that bit of information to himself—maybe so they wouldn’t feel like he was letting them off the hook so easily. Cat’s presence at the house was temporary anyway, and the winters indeed would grow long and cold. By then, surely Seana’s haggis would have improved by much and it comforted him to know he had a place to go.

Although he wasn’t yet prepared to haul everything he owned out to the little house, he carted out a few supplies, and found himself surprised yet again.

He wandered into the new house to find that Cat had built a small pit in the center of the room using stones. Peering up, he saw that she had allowed for the smoke’s escape through a small aperture in the ceiling. It was so skillfully done that he hadn’t noticed it before now.

There were a number of half-burned unlit tapers in the room and the house smelled like beeswax candles and had the look of a cozy little hovel, even devoid of furniture as it was still. Once he brought his bed and built a few small conveniences, he would nearly be set.

“
In the winter, you can place your kindling against the walls,” she said. “It’ll help keep the chill at bay.” He could see that she had constructed something like braces to keep piles of kindling secure against the walls.

It was genius, of course, to have a double wall for insulation, though Gavin wasn’t particularly pleased to see that she was working her fingers to the bone—she must be; all this work didn’t magically happen.

Not to mention the fact that he had never met a woman who did men’s work better than men did—far better than he did. He scratched his head, “Och, lass... I have no way to repay you for all this.”

She smiled benevolently. “As you have said so eloquently... the gift of your company is quite enough, Gavin.”

And so he had. For his part, he was just pleased to see that she had decided to remain for a few days.

As for the matter of locating water, Cat fashioned a divining rod, and then set out to pace the area while Gavin following behind her, wondering how the devil she was going to discover well water without actually digging. In truth, he had heard of such a thing from his Grandminny Fia, but had never seen anyone actually do it.

By early afternoon, she had divined a spot, bidding him to trust her, and Gavin did. Setting aside his doubts, he began to dig. He dug all day, and well into the next, and the next, not allowing Cat to help at all with this task—well, because, damn it, he was a man, and a man must do his part.

He made her watch—and eat, since she seemed to like to do that—until his hole was deep enough for a body to stand in. All the while, she sat there above him, her legs dangling into the pit, chatting endlessly—an easy banter that he suspected hid more than it revealed.

On the other hand, there were other things she seemed to have no qualms over revealing to him.

God help him, if he were any other man, he might have reached up at any given moment and slid his thumb easily across her lovely bits.

Even more appealing—damn his lusty soul—he could have buried his face between her thighs and drank from the well of her body.

Instead, he shoveled furiously, saying nothing, trying to look beyond the lovely legs she tempted him with and those dark red curls. The longer he shoveled, and the longer she sat, the more mischievous she seemed to become.

Gavin began to wonder if she were the devil himself come to tempt him.

Cat knew full well what she was doing.

Not that she had ever lain with a man before, but her people were not pietists. They loved where they wished. And right now, though it would surely confuse matters, she wanted Gavin Mac Brodie.

The sight of him working so furiously down there in his pit—bare backed—made her smile. She had never seen a man work so desperately just to keep from taking his pleasures—and she knew full well that’s what was on his mind. She recognized the sparkle of lust in his dark green eyes and the surreptitious glances he cast between her thighs were hardly lost to her.

But neither were the glimpses she offered him any accident.

She had been drawn to him from the instant she had met him. In truth, had she not been she would have been long gone by now, especially knowing they were still searching for her.

But for some reason she still couldn’t go.

She had convinced herself that if she fled north, they would surely anticipate that move, and overtake her quickly if she were on foot. And that was probably true, so she had intended to steal herself a horse. But the simple fact was that now she didn’t want to go.

His pit was growing deeper and deeper and soon she would be out of his reach. She had hoped, desperately, that he would reach out for her—och, but he was nothing like the groping fools she had known.