Suddenly he jerked his hand back and shook it as if he’d been burned. “Christ, ye near took off my finger!” he bellowed at her.
“She bit him!” someone shouted. A dozen men moved forward ready to protect their laird. The rest simply stood there gaping.
“Stand doun,” Brodie warned, stepping in front of the men before they reached Kate. “’Tis no’ the first time she’s wounded him, and I’m guessin’ ’twillna be the last.”
“Aye.” Kate’s glassy eyes blazed at Callum. “And if he ever muzzles me again”—she paused to lift her fingers to her lips and burp—“I shall do more than bite him.”
“She’s a fiery wench,” a male inhabitant called from the crowd.
“Will ye be claimin’ a Campbell, Laird?”
“Nae, I willna be,” Callum called out over the sudden throng of dissatisfied voices.
“Of course he won’t,” Kate responded in kind. “I am already betrothed to a lovely man.” She tossed Callum a pert smile when he scowled at her.
“A lovely man?” Even Angus had to question that.
“He’s English,” Callum explained.
“I love him!”
Callum didn’t actually smile in front of his clan, but his eyes warmed considerably at Kate’s announcement. “Good, then ye’ll be pleased when yer brother returns ye to him.” He did not give her the opportunity to reply but called to one of the lasses hanging off Graham’s arm. “Glenna, take her to a room.”
He watched Kate reluctantly leave the hall, turning over her shoulder to glare at him one more time. Hell, she was spitting mad.
Callum grinned.
Brodie snickered while Angus pushed through the dispersing crowd and headed for the buttery.
Callum looked around the hall as the people returned to their duties. He hadn’t seen her among the faces, and he turned toward the doors to check the barn.
“Brother?”
He heard her voice, slight and soft behind him, and his heart slowed as he turned.
Margaret MacGregor’s frame was small, almost frail compared to her brother’s brawn. Her back was slightly hunched. Her short, pitch-black hair pointed out in all directions and was littered with straw.
“Greetins, fair lass.” Callum bowed slightly to his sister. When he stood to his full height a moment later, his eyes grazed over the top of her head. “I see ye were lyin’ in the barn again.”
She did not return his smile, but Callum knew she was happy to see him by the tears glistening over the tips of her long, dark lashes.
“Did you find him?”
“Nae,” Callum told her, knowing who she meant. “He fled.”
She nodded and scratched her small, dirty nose. “Why did you bring her here?”
“She is his niece.”
His sister looked toward the stairs, pondering his words. After a moment she turned her enormous blue eyes on him, knowing his reason. “So he will come to ye.”
Callum nodded and looked away. For she saw who he was. She had seen what became of him when he gave up his soul to take her from hell. She hated the thought of him killing anyone, even a Campbell. “It will end with him, Maggie.”
She lifted one small hand to his face and the other to the tears streaking her cheeks. “Nae, it will end with ye,” she said, wiping her face.
Callum took her hand and kissed it. He did not bother telling her that was what he meant. When Argyll was dead he would stop warring with the Campbells. He would explain it all to her later.
“Jaime’s been pickin’ flowers fer ye again,” he said, wanting to lighten the mood of their reunion. He crooked her arm through his and led her toward the great hall. “When last I saw him, he was headin’ fer yer chambers with an armful of daffodils. Those are yer favorites, nae?” he teased and was rewarded with a scowl as dark as his own.
