Once Upon A Highland Christmas (15 page)

But Edina MacDonald
was
hereditary heiress to the Glen of Many Legends.

She was also twice widowed. Her first husband—Catriona’s heart seized with the horror of it—had been a Cameron and her second, a Mackintosh.

And now Lady Edina was dead.

Catriona wheeled to face Sir Walter. “This is the true meaning of your visit. Now that Lady Edina is gone, and without a will, the King means to take our lands.”

Again, shouts and curses rose in the hall as MacDonalds everywhere agreed. Men stamped feet and pounded the trestles with their fists. The castle dogs joined in, their barks and howls deafening.

Even Geordie, a half-lamed beast so ancient he rarely barked at all, lent his protest from his tattered plaid bed beside the hearth fire.

Sir Walter stood unmoved. “These lands are the King’s, by any right, as even you must know. Be glad he wishes only to bring you peace,” he said, his weasel-smooth voice somehow cutting through the din. “When he received petitions from both the Camerons and the Mackintoshes claiming their due as Lady Edina’s heirs, he knew strong measures would be needed to settle this glen. He wishes to see these hills held by the clan most worthy.”

Alasdair made a sound that could only be called a growl. His face turned purple.

Catriona’s ambers blazed against her neck, the stones’ pulsing heat warning her of danger. She took a deep breath, drawing herself up until the disturbing prickles receded and her necklace cooled.

“How did the Camerons and Mackintoshes know of Lady Edina’s death?” She looked at the Lowlander. “Why weren’t we informed, as well?”

“You know better than me how swiftly—or erroneously—word travels in these parts.” Sir Walter shrugged. “Perhaps a missive meant for you went astray? Either way—”

“You mean to see good men slaughtered.” Catriona felt bile rise in her throat. “Men who—”

“Men who fight, yes, until only one remains standing.” Sir Walter set his hand on his sword again, his fingers curling around the hilt. “If they do not”—his voice chilled—“you must face the consequences. Banishment from this glen to parts even wilder. Resettlement, if you will, in places where the crown can make use of men with ready sword arms and women adept at breeding.”

The words spoken, he folded his arms. “The choice is yours.”

Across the hall, Geordie barked hoarsely.

Out of the corner of her eye, Catriona thought she saw the dog struggling to rise. She wasn’t sure, because the hall was spinning, going black and white before her eyes. Around her, her kinsmen shouted and cursed, the noise hurting her ears. Even more alarming, something whirled and burned inside her. It was a horrible, swelling heat that filled her chest until she couldn’t breathe.

Slowly, she felt down and along the folds of her skirts, seeking the lady dirk hidden there. But she caught herself in time, clasping her hands tightly before her just before her fingers closed on the blade.

Ramming a dagger into the King’s man would bring even more grief to her clan.

But she
was
tempted.

Fighting the urge, she looked from the Lowlander to Alasdair and back again. “I believe, Sir Walter, that my brother has given you our choice. MacDonalds won’t be driven from their land. These hills were our own before ever a Stewart called himself a king. If our men must take up arms to avoid the Stewart wrongfully banishing us from a glen we’ve held for centuries, so be it.”

A curt nod was Sir Walter’s reply.

Returning it, Catriona dipped another curtsy and then showed him her back. She needed all her dignity, but she kept her spine straight as she strode to one of the hall’s tall, arch-topped windows. Once there, she stared out at the sea loch, not surprised to see its smooth gray surface pitted with a light, drizzly rain. Dark clouds crouched low on the hills, and thin tendrils of mist slid down the braes, sure portents that even more rain was coming.

The Glen of Many Legends was crying.

But she would not.

She wouldn’t break even if the Lowland King and his minions ripped the heart right out of her. Highlanders were the proudest, most stoic of men. And MacDonalds were the best of Highlanders.

So she stepped closer to the window, welcoming the cold, damp air on her cheeks. Countless MacDonald women before her had stood at this same window embrasure. In a fortnight’s passing, her brother and cousins would ensure that they would continue to do so in years to come. It was just unthinkable that they were being forced to do so with their lives.

Incomprehensible and—she knew deep inside—quite possibly more than she could bear.

When Geordie bumped her hand, leaning into her and whimpering, she knew she had to try. But even as she dug her fingers into the old dog’s shaggy coat, the sea loch and the hills blurred before her. She blinked hard, unable to bring her world back into focus. The stinging heat pricking her eyes only worsened, though she did keep her tears from falling.

On the day of the battle she’d do the same. She’d stand tall and look on with pride, doing her name honor.

Somehow she’d endure.

Whatever it cost her.

Nearly a fortnight later, James Cameron stood atop the battlements of Castle Haven and glared down at the worst folly to ever darken the Glen of Many Legends. Wherever he looked, Lowlanders bustled about the fine vale beneath the castle’s proud walls. A different sort than the lofty souls gorging themselves on good Cameron beef in his great hall, these scrambling intruders were workmen. Minions brought along to do the nobles’ bidding, whose busy hands erected viewing platforms while their hurrying feet flattened the sweetest grass in the glen.

Already, they’d caused scars.

Deep pits had been gouged into the fertile earth. Ugly black gashes surely meant to hold cook fires. Or—James’s throat filled with bile—the bodies of the slain.

On the hills, naked swaths showed where tall Scots pines had been carelessly felled to provide wood. Jagged bits of the living, weeping trees littered the ground.

“Christ God!” James blew out a hot breath, the destruction searing him with an anger so heated he wondered his fury didn’t blister the air.

He went taut, his every muscle stiff with rage.

Beside him, his cousin Colin wrapped his hands around his sword belt. “They haven’t wasted a breath of time,” he vowed, eyeing the stout barricades already marking the battling ground where so many men would die.

A circular enclosure better suited to contain cattle than proud and fearless men.

James narrowed his gaze on the pen, unable to think of it as aught else. “Only witless peacocks wouldn’t know that such barricading isn’t necessary.”

Colin flashed a look at him, one brow raised in scorn. “Perhaps they do not know that Highland men never run from a fight?”

“They shall learn our measure soon enough.” James rolled his shoulders, keen to fight now. “Though”—he threw a glance at the men working on the nearest viewing platform—“I might be tempted to flee their hammering!”

Half serious, he resisted the urge to clamp his hands to his ears. But he couldn’t keep an outraged snarl from rumbling in his throat. The din was infernal. Any moment his head would burst from the noise. Each echoing
bang
was an ungodly smear on the quiet of the glen, most especially here, in this most beauteous stretch of the Glen of Many Legends.

Equally damning, the MacDonald wench once again stood at the edge of the chaos. On seeing her, he felt an even hotter flare of irritation. He stepped closer to the walling, hoping he erred. Unfortunately, he hadn’t. She was truly there, hands on her hips and looking haughty as she glared at the Lowland workmen.

Joining him at the wall, Colin gave a low whistle. “She’s Catriona MacDonald, the chief’s sister. Word is she’s the wildest of that heathenish lot.”

“I know who she is.” James glared at his cousin, not liking the speculative gleam in his eye. “And she
is
wild—so prickly some say she sleeps in a bed of nettles.”

Colin laughed. “She’s bonnie all the same.”

“So is the deep blue sea until you sink in its depths and drown.” James scowled at the lass.

Pure trouble, she’d clearly come to show her wrath. As she’d done every day since the Lowlanders began setting up their gaudy tents and seating. If Colin hadn’t noticed her before now, James had. He
always
noticed her, rot his soul. And just now, she was especially hard to miss with the sun picking out the bright copper strands in her hair and her back so straight she might have swallowed a steel rod. And if he didn’t want to lose his temper in front of workmen who—he knew—were only following orders, he would’ve marched down to the field days ago and chased her away.

He’d done so once, running her off Cameron land years ago, when he’d been too young and hotheaded to know better than thrusting his hand into a wasp nest.

She’d stung him badly that day. And the memory still haunted him. At times, sneaking into his dreams and twisting his recollections so that, instead of sprinting away from him, she’d be on her back beneath him, opening her arms in welcome, tempting him to fall upon her and indulge in the basest, most lascivious sins.

Furious that she stirred him even now, he tore his gaze from her and frowned at the long rows of colorful awnings, the triumphal pennons snapping in the wind. The festive display shot seething anger through his veins. Truth be told, if one of the King’s worthies appeared on the battlements, he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself.

Apparently feeling the same, Colin stepped back a few paces and whipped out his sword, thrusting it high. “Forget the MacDonald wench and her jackal blood. We could”—he made a flourish with the blade—“have done with yon mummery in the old way! Cut down the Lowland bastards and toss them into a loch. We then block every entry into the glen, keep silent, and no one need know they even reached us.”

He grinned wickedly, sliced a ringing arc in the cold afternoon air.

James strode forward and grabbed Colin’s wrist, stopping his foolery. “The old way ne’er included murdering innocents. The workmen”—he jerked a glance at them—“are naught but lackeys. Their blood on our hands would forever stain our honor. Sir Walter’s blood, much as I’d love to spill it, would bring a King’s army into the glen. No matter what we did, they’d come. Even if every clan in the Highlands rose with us against them, their number alone would defeat us.

“And”—he released Colin’s arm, nodding grimly when his cousin sheathed the blade—“King Robert would then do more than scatter us. He’d put us to the horn, outlawing us so that we’d lose no’ just our land but our very name. A fire-and-sword edict passed quicker than you can blink. That, he would do!”

Colin scowled, flushing red. “Damnation!”

“Aye,” James agreed, his own face flaming. “We are damned whate’er. So we do what is left to us. We keep our pride and honor and prove what hard fighters we are. With God’s good grace, we shall be victorious.”

Colin’s chin came up, his eyes glinting. “Perhaps He will bless us now.” He flashed a wicked grin and strode for the door arch. “I’m off to the hall to see if God in His greatness might cause Sir Walter to choke on a fish bone. I shall pray on the way.”

James’s lips twitched. On another day, he would have thrown back his head and laughed. As it was, he watched Colin hasten into the stair tower without another word. Only when his young cousin’s footsteps faded did he glance at the heavens and mutter a prayer of his own.

Then he whipped around to toss another glower at Lady Catriona, even though she couldn’t see him.

He snorted when he saw her.

She’d edged even closer to one of the viewing platforms, her glare pinned on the workmen. James shuddered just looking at her. He almost felt sorry for the men flamed by her scorching stare. Deepest blue yet piercing as the sun, her eyes could burn holes in a man if he didn’t take care.

James knew it well, much to his annoyance.

Fortunately, their paths didn’t cross often, but each time they’d had the displeasure, he’d regretted it for days.

Just now, with the wind blowing her skirts and her hair whipping about her face, he almost felt an odd kinship with her. There was something about the challenging tilt of her chin and the blaze in her eyes that—for one crazy, mad moment—made her not a MacDonald but every Highland woman who’d ever walked the hills.

Almost, he was proud of her.

But
almost
was just that—something that hovered just short of being.

He let his gaze sweep over her one last time, glad that it was so. Catriona MacDonald was the last woman he wished to admire.

Blotting her from his mind, he strode to another part of the battlements, choosing a corner where the sight of her wouldn’t spoil his view. Then he braced himself and stared past the fighting ground to the hills beyond, deep blue and silent against the sky. Directly across from him, a sparkling rock-strewn cataract plunged down a narrow gorge cut deep into one of the hills. It was the same vista he enjoyed from his bedchamber window. The sight—as always—took his breath and made his heart squeeze. This day, the falls’ beauty also quenched any last shred of sympathy he might have felt for the MacDonald she-wolf.

In Cameron hands since distant times, the glen was his birthright and his joy. Cloud shadows drifted across its length, the gentle play of light and dark bleeding his soul. His eyes misted at the well-loved scene, his throat thickening. He’d always believed his children would one day love the glen with equal fierceness. That they’d carry on tradition, bound to the land and appreciating their heritage, teaching their own offspring to do the same.

Now…

He wrenched his gaze from the glen, fury whipping through him like a flame to tinder. He should’ve known better than to come up here. But Colin had wanted to see the workmen’s progress. And, truth be told, brisk winds always blew across the ramparts and he’d relished a few moments in the cold, clean air before courtesy demanded he join Sir Walter and his ravenous friends in the hall.

The man’s lofty airs and barely veiled insults were more than any man should have to tolerate within his own walls. And watching Lindsay and his henchmen eat their way through Castle Haven’s larders—with neither the MacDonalds nor the Mackintoshes helping with the costs—was as galling as it was enlightening.