Seduced by the Highlander (16 page)

Hoping her maid was referring to Lachlan, Catherine stepped onto the stone rooftop and looked up at the night sky. The stars were twinkling. The air was still. Wispy clouds floated in front of the moon. She glanced from east to west, wondering how long she would have to wait here alone.

“Lady Catherine.” That familiar husky voice reached her from the other side of the tower stairs.

At last, Lachlan stepped into view, darkly handsome in the moonlight. Her knees nearly buckled beneath her, and she felt giddy with excitement.

“Why did you summon me here?” she asked, determined to reveal none of that.

He dug into his sporran. “I wanted to give you these, and I didn’t dare come to your bed again.”

He withdrew her heavy pearl and emerald necklace and held it up. The stones gleamed brilliantly in the moonlight.

“I believe there are some dangly earbobs in here as well,” he added, patting his sporran.

Catherine reached for the necklace, but he quickly drew it back. “What will you give me for it?”

There was a charming playfulness in his eyes, which again surprised her. He had not shown this side of himself before.

“You are a terrible tease.” She attempted to swipe the jewels from his grasp, but he hid them behind his back. “I should kiss you like I did at Drumloch,” she said, “just to punish you.”

The playfulness in his eyes vanished instantly, and his tone grew serious.

“Those are dangerous words. Please, allow me.” He moved behind her to drape the pearls around her neck and fasten the clasp. “I’ve never been called a tease before,” he said while she tingled at the sensation of his warm hands gracing her nape. “It was always the other way around, where women were concerned.”

“But our situation is not like anyone else’s, and I am not like most other women.” She was referring to her memory loss, of course.

He moved to face her again. “No, you are not. You are more beautiful, and a thousand times more intriguing.”

Lord help her, she felt as if she were floating in a sea of heavenly bliss.

“May I have my earbobs now?” she asked, holding out her hand.

He kept his eyes on hers while he dug into his sporran again, pulling out one earring at a time. He handed them over and watched her fasten them to her lobes.

“Now you look like a proper heiress,” he said.

She lifted an eyebrow. “I am hardly proper. You should know that better than anyone, for you have slept with me under the stars for five days straight, with no chaperone in sight.”

“Now who’s being a tease, reminding me of such a thing?” His eyes smiled in a way that made her pulse thrum.

“It takes one to know one, sir.”

He grinned. “Aye, and if I were not half-dead from lack of excitement over the past three years, I would show you how dangerous it is to tease a man like me. I am attracted to shiny things, you see, and
you,
my lady, are quite dazzling.”

Catherine inclined her head at him. “I appreciate the compliment.”

But it was so much more than that. She loved the fact that he was flirting with her and allowing her to see his famous charm, which he had kept hidden from her until now.

He held out a hand. “May I escort you to supper?”

“That would be delightful,” she replied. “I am absolutely ravenous.”

*   *   *

For more than ten years Lachlan had managed to avoid permanent relationships with women. He could spot a frisky lassie at twenty paces, and such women, in turn, seemed able to recognize in him a mutual inclination for involvement without commitment. They recognized that he did not seek or want love. He’d had it once, with Glenna, and when she died he decided there would never be another to replace her.

Over the years, no woman had come close to making him feel the things he had felt with his first real love—the tragic adolescent longing, the willingness to sacrifice everything for that one person, who seemed destined to be one’s only mate forever. The power and poignancy of his brief love affair and marriage had never touched him again after Glenna.

He had, in subsequent years, been faithful to her—not in body, but in heart. He had sought intimacy through sexual dalliances with women who did not require more from him than mere physical pleasure.

Until the curse, of course, which had exiled him to a life of celibacy and a complete absence of intimacy of any kind.

Tonight, however, as he escorted Catherine into his chief’s private dining chamber, he felt all sorts of unbidden emotions stirring within. Emotions he found both disturbing and enticing, for he wanted her with something more than just physical desire.

As they walked side by side through the corridors of the castle, he breathed in the intoxicating scent of her flowery perfume. Everything about her challenged his capacity for restraint—her gleaming red hair and soft cherry lips; her ample breasts, spilling out of her tight bodice in a luscious burst of temptation. It all made him feel reckless, and that worried him, for she was not a frolicsome tavern wench with loose morals. She was something else entirely.

At last, they entered Angus’s private dining chamber, where a hot fire was blazing in the massive stone hearth. The mahogany table was polished to a fine sheen and adorned with silver candelabras and colorful bowls of fruit. The walls were paneled in dark cherry oak, the windows covered in heavy velvet drapes.

Angus and Gwendolen turned to greet them in the glow of candlelight. A servant brought a silver tray and offered them wine in gold-plated, jewel-encrusted goblets.

“Lady Catherine, the gown is stunning on you,” Gwendolen said. “I hope your chamber is sufficient to meet your needs.”

The conversation continued in a light vein, for it was not every day that a famous Scottish noblewoman from the Lowlands came to dine at Kinloch, and certainly not under such bizarre circumstances of mistaken identity and possible kidnapping, depending on who was describing the events.

They dined on bowls of spiced beef broth, followed by fresh roast goose bathed in a thick cream sauce, and boiled greens.

When the servants came to take away their plates, Angus lounged back in his heavy chair and signaled for more wine.

“Have you decided,” he asked Catherine in his deep Scottish brogue, “how you wish me to proceed in regards to your current predicament, my lady? We can have you escorted back to Drumloch at first light, if that is your wish.”

“I am grateful to you, sir,” she replied, “for your kindness and hospitality. I will wish, of course, to be reunited with my family, but what I desire most of all—aside from meeting my twin—is to recover my memories and learn where I have been for the past five years. You have helped immensely by confirming my identity and the existence of my twin. I had not known of it, and I long to know the truth. If I were in possession of magical powers, I would summon my grandmother to this table tonight, so that I could ask her directly about the circumstances of my birth, but alas, I am without such magic, so I will have to be patient, until I am reunited with her.”

Angus leaned forward. “What do you require, Lady Catherine? I can send a man tonight with a written letter if you wish. Or as I said, I can make the necessary arrangements to deliver you back to your family.”

Catherine sat back in her chair and considered the options presented to her, then turned her eyes to Lachlan.

He nodded once at her, to indicate that he, too, was at her service. Whatever she needed, he would provide it.

“Perhaps a letter would be the best thing,” she decided. “I want my grandmother to know that I am safe and in the care of good people. Also that I chose freely to leave Drumloch and travel here in order to learn about my past.” She regarded Angus again. “Then—if you could arrange it, sir—I wish to travel to Edinburgh to meet my sister.”

He took a deep breath. “I will see to all of it. Every detail.”

“Thank you. But I have one final request, and that is for Lachlan to be my escort. He has brought me this far, and I trust him to see me safely to my destination.”

Angus turned to his wife, who picked up her goblet of wine and took a slow sip, regarding her husband warily over the rim of the cup.

Gwendolen turned and addressed Catherine. “I understand your desire to meet your twin,” she said, “but I must warn you that you may be disappointed. She is not like you, Lady Catherine. She has lived a life apart from the world, and she has lashed out at me and my husband, and Lachlan as well. We will not stop you from traveling to Edinburgh, of course, but please keep your wits about you. Do not become too hopeful. She is not to be trusted.”

Catherine gave her a melancholy smile. “I thank you for your honesty. I will certainly heed your advice, and I hope that one day I will be in a position to repay you both for your generosity. You have been very kind.”

Dessert plates with sugar cakes and buttered cream were placed before them, and the conversation turned to other, lighter topics.

Afterward, they all went together to the Great Hall, where musical festivities had begun. Gwendolen took Catherine across the Hall to meet a group of prominent clanswomen while Lachlan remained with Angus.

Lachlan picked up a tankard of ale from a passing servant. “Does everyone know that she is not Raonaid?” he asked. “Because if someone makes that mistake, they will need to be corrected.”

“Everyone has been informed,” Angus replied. “I suspect she will become an object of fascination,” he added, “especially among those who have met Raonaid in person.”

Lachlan took a deep swig of the ale. “Identical twins, yet opposite in every way. Gwendolen was right to warn her against becoming too hopeful, and believing she will discover a true loving sister in Raonaid. I’ll not leave Catherine alone with her, that is certain.”

Angus glanced at him sharply. “It is true,” Angus said, “that Raonaid is volatile, but do not forget that she was my lover once, for a full year. I would not say this to my wife, Lachlan, and if you repeat a word of it to her, I will knock your head off your shoulders. But I am not sure what would have become of me if Raonaid had not taken me to her bed that first night when I arrived in the Western Isles, after being forsaken by my father. I might have kept riding straight into the North Atlantic.”

Lachlan regarded his cousin with disbelief. “But she betrayed you. She provided your enemies with information that resulted in an attempt on your life. You were poisoned and hung from the battlements, and she tried to frame Gwendolen for it.”

“She did so because she felt abandoned.”

Lachlan regarded him with dismay. “How can you defend her? She was malicious and vengeful. I became a victim of her malice myself, when I wasn’t even the one who jilted her.”

“You were the one who came to her home and stole me away.”

Lachlan turned and watched Catherine converse with the other clanswomen. She was Raonaid’s identical twin, but when he looked at her he did not see the witch.

“What are you trying to say to me, Angus?”

His cousin finished his ale and set the tankard on a table. “I know how much you despise Raonaid, but your pretty heiress might not take your side if you go to war with her sister. Be prepared for that, Lachlan. Be prepared also for the fact that her family would never approve of you. They would rather see your neck in a noose than have you as a son-in-law.”

“Who said anything about marriage?” Lachlan asked.

Angus studied his eyes. “I saw how you looked at her at dinner.” He paused. “Be careful, Lachlan. This curse of yours … it has more power over you than you know.”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” he replied. “I’ve survived this long, haven’t I?”

“It’s not
you
I’m worried about. It’s her. And since I have given my oath to ensure her protection, I intend to send an armed guard with you to Edinburgh. A few of my best men, extra horses, supplies, and a cook.”

“That’s not necessary,” Lachlan told him.

“I will decide what is, or is not, necessary, for by bringing the Drumloch heiress here, you have involved me in her disappearance. Not just now, but five years ago. I will therefore spare no expense in assuring her safe return to her family.”

A lively reel began, and members of the clan rose to dance.

“When you reach the town of Killin,” Angus continued, “hire a coach and a reliable driver. Stop as often as she wishes, and when you are finished in Edinburgh, take her home to Drumloch by coach. Purchase a vehicle if you must, but see that she arrives home in luxury. And if Raonaid lifts the curse, for God’s sake, release your pent-up lust on someone else, Lachlan, not Lady Catherine. She is not for you.”

Angus turned and left him standing alone, uneasy with the notion that he might not possess the discipline it would require to obey
all
of his chief’s commands.

The music in the Hall seemed to grow louder and livelier while the dancers moved faster, their heels pounding across the floor.

Lachlan pinched the bridge of his nose, then grimaced through all the noise and chaos, his eyes searching only for Catherine.

Chapter Eighteen

Catherine danced a reel in the Great Hall, and by some miracle, remembered all the steps without having to think. Though she could not remember anything about her life, she somehow knew how to dance, how to ride a horse, and she could recite the Lord’s Prayer perfectly well.

Her cheeks were flushed with heat when the dance ended, and she fanned herself with her hand. She was still laughing when she turned and saw Lachlan on the other side of the Hall, standing under a stone archway, watching her with passionate intensity.

Their eyes locked on each other, and a spark of excitement lit in her belly. In the glow of the candlelight, he leaned one broad shoulder against the stones, and with his strapping form and powerful stance he flaunted a breathtaking masculinity that was unmatched by any other man in the room. The fine, chiseled features of his face, and his dark probing eyes, only served to increase his allure. No other Highlander could rival his extraordinary beauty.