She looked away, still rubbing her arms. “Can ye do me a favor, Adair?”
“Of course.”
“Can ye somehow get in touch with Sutherland and tell him…” She didn’t know how to word her request without giving it away that she was a safe house for Sutherland.
“I’ll tell him ye’re unavailable until he hears otherwise.”
She nodded. Somehow Adair knew, and while that might be alarming at any other time, it wasn’t right now. She felt safe here, and she began shaking again, this time with relief.
Adair stepped closer with a look of concern. “Can ye tell me what happened?”
“Stay away from my cottage tonight.”
He frowned, his brows creasing. “What does that mean?”
“Just promise ye’ll stay away.”
“Very well,” he said slowly. “I’ll instruct the housekeeper to prepare a room for ye.” He paused. “Unless ye’ll be using Iain’s?”
She shook her head quickly. She definitely didn’t need that rumor circulating, although she was certain it eventually would. “I’ll be needing my own bedchamber. Just for tonight.” She couldn’t really think past tonight.
“Very well.” He still appeared concerned as he left her to instruct the housekeeper.
Cait’s knees gave out and she collapsed into a chair. She’d always felt so safe in her little cottage. No one bothered her. Occasionally, she’d patch up an English soldier, but they were always grateful. Halloway was the only one she’d struck up a friendship with, and even then she didn’t consider it a real friendship, just a friendly acquaintance with a lonely young soldier.
This was the first time she’d felt frightened to be alone and the only time she’d ever felt unsafe. She hated it, and she hated Donaldson for making her feel that way.
Maybe Iain, Sutherland, and both of her grandfathers were right. Maybe it was no longer safe for her out there.
Chapter 25
Iain left Palmer with his housekeeper and took the stairs two at a time. Adair had found them riding back to the big house and pulled Iain aside to tell him that Cait had asked to spend the night at the house and that something was wrong but he didn’t know what.
Iain headed toward the room the housekeeper had said she’d put Cait in but stopped before entering to gather his composure. He wasn’t certain what he was feeling, but it was a volatile mixture of emotions that would do Cait no good if she was indeed shaken. A thousand thoughts had gone through his head, a hundred scenarios of what could have happened, none of them good. He’d been shaking by the time he could extricate himself from Palmer, but racing into her room wasn’t the way to address whatever problem she had come to him with. That she’d come to him at all was a small victory, but that was not what was important now.
He opened the door without knocking and with as much control as he could manage. She was standing in the middle of the room in nothing but a white dressing gown—where the hell his housekeeper had found that, he didn’t know. She was combing her long red hair, which hung down her back in thick wet coils.
“Cait?”
She gasped and spun around, grabbing the front of her dressing gown and pulling it tighter around her. Good Lord, but she looked horrible. She was extremely pale, and her body was trembling. Dressed in just a thin shift, she appeared too thin and extremely vulnerable. Not like the strong Cait he knew.
“Iain,” she breathed, pressing a hand to her chest. “Ye should knock.”
“My apologies.” They both knew he wasn’t repentant. “Adair said something happened.”
“I never said that.”
“Not now, Cait. We’re not arguing now. Adair said you were frightened and asked to stay here. And you sent him to warn Sutherland off tonight. What happened?”
She stood there staring at him, and he began to get angry that she wouldn’t trust him with her fears. What the hell did he have to do to prove himself to her? Then he realized that she was silent not out of stubbornness but because she was desperately trying not to cry.
He closed the distance between them and took her in his arms. She put her head on his shoulder; she didn’t cry, just shook and leaned in to him. Though his mind was whirling with so many questions, part of him just wanted to stand there and enjoy the feel of her in his arms and the sense of rightness and the fact that she was willing to let him hold her without arguing. But something had driven her into his arms. Something that had frightened her so badly she was still shaking, even hours later.
Eventually, she pulled away. The sleeves of his coat were wet where her hair had lain, but he didn’t care.
She half turned away from him and fingered the hairbrush that she had put down when he walked in. “I was on the road to visit Alice this morning,” she said, her voice tight. “She’s close to delivering, and I figured I would stop in to see Murtagh as well because he’s no’ following my orders to sit with his leg elevated. His knee has been paining him awfully lately—”
“Cait.” He took both of her hands in his. “While I love to hear about my clansmen’s ailments and births, I don’t think that’s why you’re here.”
