“Your own kin hate you? Why?” she demanded to know.
A glossy curl obscured the alluring curve of her cheekbone. The tilt of her chin tempted him to lean down and kiss her until she went weak in his arms.
“Many of these people have changed their names and live here now as Camerons. They want the world to ferget us. I keep reminding the world that we still exist.”
“How do you remind them?”
“By keeping our name alive and avenging the wrongs done to my kin.” Hell, she tempted him as no one had ever done before to give account of what his name meant to him.
Her expression on him softened briefly, and he was the one who felt weak. “You sound more like their hero than their enemy.”
For an instant, he wanted to stay in that moment forever. But the lives he’d taken for his name, and in the name of vengeance, were too great an iniquity to be forgiven. He ground his jaw and picked up his steps again. He was an outlaw, a murderer, the most feared MacGregor in Scotland, and the one with the largest price on his head. He was not a hero.
“Come,” he said, grasping her hand as he cut toward the stone keep overlooking the village. “I must be granted permission before we go further.”
They were met just outside the fortress by Roderick Cameron. He was an imposing man with thick gray hair plaited on either side of his weathered face. The plaid draping his expansive shoulders and belted low on his waist was fashioned of many colors. His eyes were the shade of a stormy sea, but when they settled on Callum they softened with fondness.
“How d’ye fare, MacGregor?” He slid his gaze to Kate and smiled in a way that told her he thought Callum was faring rather well. He swept his arm across the threshold to usher them inside the keep. “Enjoy the comforts of my home as is afforded to friends.”
Callum placed his hand on the chieftain’s shoulder. “I must refuse yer generous offer. I would chance nae further peril to yer people. I wish only to see the woman.”
“Verra well.” The Cameron held his palm up to stop two of his men when they stepped forward to accompany him. “This way.” He led Callum and his small troop toward a cottage at the farthest edge of the village.
Kate fell in behind the two lairds and found her pace even with Graham’s. All around her, the inhabitants stepped outside their doors, drawn by the presence of the tall, dark laird accompanying their own. Kate regarded none of them, for their stares were hard, fearful, and mistrusting.
She knew both the Campbells and the MacGregors had their enemies, but she wasn’t sure whom these people regarded with more contempt, her or Callum. “What wrongs have been done to them, and how has he avenged them?” she asked Graham softly, though her gaze remained fastened on Callum’s back.
“I fear ye’re about to find out, lass.”
She tilted her face up to look at him just as they reached the cottage. Graham swept his cap off his head and moved to the side of the entrance, after Callum and Roderick disappeared within. His hand reached for Kate when she moved to follow them.
“Mayhap ’twould be best fer ye to wait here with me.” His words were firm, as was his hand on her arm, but the gentle entreaty in his green eyes told her his request was given for her own good.
Kate brushed his hand away and stepped inside. A small fire burned beneath a trivet in the center of the outer room. Firelight mingled with that of the sun’s rays spilling across the rushes from the window.
Callum stood with the Cameron and another man, slightly smaller in stature, his palms resting on the shoulders of a boy with large, doleful eyes and a dirt-streaked face.
“’Tis yer laird, boy,” the man said, looking as wide-eyed as his son. Kate could not tell which of the two chieftains the man referred. “Pay him the homage he deserves.” He pushed the child to a kneeling position in front of Callum, but Callum raised his palm to stop him.
“Tell me aboot the attack.”
The man pushed his son away with a quiet order to leave the cottage. He waited until the boy was gone before he spoke. “’Twas a band of Menzies who did this to m’ Rhona.”
Callum’s jaw twisted around a low curse battering against his teeth.
“We’ve had nae quarrel with the Menzies fer years.” Cameron assured him. “These men acted on their own. No’ under any command of their laird.”
“They marked m’ wife’s face in accordance with the law!” The man stepped closer to Callum, his eyes gleaming with defiance and fury. “They are Argyll’s dogs, fer they spoke of their reward as they burned oot her eye.”
A sharp gasp drew the men’s attention to where Kate stood at the door, her face ashen and her hands trembling as they twisted the woolen folds of her skirts. “What has my uncle to do with this?”
“Yer uncle?” the man asked, sounding as horrified as Kate looked. His expression changed quickly to loathing as he drew a small dagger from a fold in his plaid. “Have ye come to finish what yer kin began, then?”
Before he took a step in her direction, Callum blocked his path and snatched the dagger from his hand.
“I will avenge m’ wife,” the man insisted.
Callum’s rigid gaze stilled the remainder of his protests. “No’ on her.” The thread of warning in his softly spoken words was unmistakable. “Bring me to yer wife. I’ve tarried here long enough.”
