“Be gone.” Caterine willed herself not to tremble. “I have seen all of you that I can bear.”
“You would be wise to remember that I hold power of pit and gallows,” he warned, his gaze snapping back to her face. “My authority extends over your dominions as well, Lady Caterine.”
“What are you saying?”
“Ah, well…” His fingers now plucking at the globular pommel topping the hilt of his sword, he slid a glance at his men. “Word has come to me that some women in your family carry the mark of a witch. I am not of a mind to examine and see for myself if you bear such a blemish. Yet.” He paused, cupped his hand over the sword pommel. “Should you displease me further-”
“Say you?” Her restraint snapping, Caterine stepped forward, thrusting her face within inches of Sir Hugh’s. “Would that I possessed such powers,” she seethed. “I’d turn you into a toad!”
“I was not aware you had such heated blood.” The earl smiled, a hungry look in his eyes. “Perhaps I shall enjoy sating myself on you, after all. I am a man of great appetite.”
“Then you will starve, for you will not dine on me,” Caterine vowed, hoping he mistook the quaver in her voice for scorn rather than dread.
“My lady will never grace your bed, sirrah!” Rhona pushed through the door opening to glare at the earl. “She is spoken for. A great Highland warrior will arrive any day to make her his bride. Her sister’s husband is sending him.”
* * *
“Rhona!”Caterine whirled on her friend, her blood running cold. “Be still-”
“Why? I speak the God’s own truth.” Rhona put back her shoulders, then turned to Sir Hugh. “My lady’s sister is married to the MacKenzie of Kintail, the Black Stag, a much-feared warrior chieftain. He has negotiated a most agreeable marriage for Lady Caterine. She will wed the most accomplished knight in his garrison. A champion.”
All amusement vanished from the earl’s face. “Is this so?” He stared at Caterine, his expression a strange mix of anger and incredulity. “Would you dare defy Edward of England’s wishes? He has vowed to see you wed to an Englishman – to me. He desires Dunlaidir safe, in English hands. ’Tis his behest.”
“Your king’s wishes do not matter to me, his orders even less. I hold no allegiance to an English sovereign.” Caterine’s distaste for the English churned inside her. “Nor will I wed a Sassunach,” she said, her pulse racing faster with each spoken word. “Not you. Not any man of that tainted blood. I would sooner rot away of the pox before I’d allow Dunlaidir to fall into English hands.”
“So you mean to marry some wild and heathen Highlander?” Sir Hugh challenged her, his gaze hard. “Edward will be much displeased.Iam displeased.”
Caterine pressed her lips together. The blackguard could take what answer he might from her silence. She’d get her own answers, from Rhona, as soon as the odious earl and his grim-faced henchmen removed themselves from her holding.
Sir Hugh’s heavy-lidded eyes narrowed to slits. “I do not believe you.” His stare bored into her, stripping away the last bits of pride she’d wrapped around herself. “You are lying.
“I do not think you’d accept another husband, Englishman or Gael.” His knowing gaze pierced the darkest hiding places of her soul. All vestiges of his earlier attempts at chivalry gone, he derided her, “You are too dried up and pepper-tongued to give yourself to any man no matter his blood. Nay, I do not believe it.”
“Be gone and may the plague take you!” Rhona dashed forward, near shoving the earl down the stairs. “Go now lest I fetch a blade and run you through myself!”
“Rho-” Caterine tried to call back her loyal companion, but her voice failed her, dying in a sputtering croak, her throat suddenly as dry as Sir Hugh had accused her man-weary body of being.
As if he’d known exactly where to aim his hurtful words.
More shamed by his slurs than she cared to admit, she stood stiffly at the top of the stairs and watched her friend hasten Sir Hugh down the steps. At the bottom, he shook off Rhona’s flailing arms and glared up at Caterine.
“Know this, I shall watch for the arrival of this Gaelic warlord,” he vowed, his voice reeking of venom and spite. “If he arrives, I will be present at your nuptials for only then will I believe it.”
Dashing the rain from his forehead, he glowered at her. “Should he not appear within a fortnight, I shall claim this holding, and you, for myself. Fourteen days, lady, and then my patience will come to an end.”
Cold anger rolling off him, he stalked across the rain-shrouded courtyard to where his men awaited him, their solemn faces still set in hard, disapproving lines.
* * *
Caterine stoodas if carved of stone, her hands clasped tightly before her, as Sir Hugh and his knights rode out of the courtyard and across the narrow bridge of land spanning the deep chasm between Dunlaidir’s promontory and the cliffs of the mainland, a formidable headland now all but invisible behind teeming sheets of rain and mist.
When the last clattering noises of their departure faded and nothing more could be seen of them, she exhaled, finally letting her shoulders sag.
Only then did she push the wet strands of hair off her forehead and dash the cold raindrops from her face. At last, she accepted her ill ease, the nerves sending chills all through her. Her entire body trembled, quivering like brown and dried leaves on an autumn-bare tree.
“Lady, come inside,” Rhona soothed, once more at her side. She placed an arm around Caterine’s shoulders and urged her toward the shelter of the waiting hall. “In fresh and dry clothes and with a belly filled with hot soup, you’ll feel better. You must not listen to Sir Hugh’s insults. He is furious because you’ve thwarted him.”
“Aye,” Caterine said, her voice flat. “And now you seek to undermine me. Or dare I hope your babble about Linnet sending a champion was just that – babble?”
