Chapter Four
KATE WAS RIPPED from her dreams of being cradled in the arms of her rescuer and came awake with a choking gasp. With painful clarity, she remembered being shot. She looked around the unfamiliar bothy, with understanding dawning on her that she’d been taken from her home, as well. And not by some knight of the realm, but by a MacGregor! There was little she could do now, fighting the dizzying effect of herbs, no doubt fed to her by the woman standing over her and wiping Kate’s blood from her own hands with a small cloth. Or by that horrendous whiskey, as deadly as her rescuer . . . er . . . abductor. Good God, she’d been abducted! Where was her captor? She asked the woman, who gave her no answers, save for a reassuring pat before she hurried for the door. MacGregors! Kate’s head reeled. Was it only this morn that her uncle was warning her about them? Pity she had wounded the laird in the leg. She ought to have sliced open his spine like they had done to her father.
She turned her face toward the door when she heard someone enter. She hated this man’s clan for terrorizing her kin for so many years, but she had to have been daft to lift a meager dagger against him. Why, he was even taller than Robert, and solidly built beneath a shirt of dyed saffron and belted plaid. He moved with the confidence of a conqueror. Two wide bands of brown hide encircled his wrists. Dried blood caked his bare knee and disappeared beneath the rim of his kidskin boot. But even the slight limp from his wound did naught to thwart his dominating presence. He paused for a moment, his eyes settling on her like a tempest, turbulent and dangerous.
Kate leaped from the table and stumbled back against the wall. Let all of Scotland fear the MacGregors. She would not! Her eyes darted around the room for something with which to hit him. She picked up a stool with her uninjured arm and raised it to ward him off. She fought a moment of sheer panic when he picked up his steps again. Pain resonated though her body, but she was not about to stand here and allow him to kill her without a fight. Gritting her teeth, she squeezed her eyes shut and swung.
When her stool came to a dead halt, she opened her eyes to find the chieftain’s broad fingers closed around one wooden leg. He towered over her, so relentlessly compelling, his gaze on her so unforgiving.
“Ye will cease tryin’ to do me bodily harm,” he warned, taking a step even closer. “Or I’ll be forced to confine ye.”
“I mean to kill you.” Kate stared up at him and gave the stool another tug.
Her would-be weapon flew across the room and crashed into the trivet with a mighty clang. Kate barely had time to startle before he swooped down and caught her in his arms. He lifted her to his chest, cradling her in a stone embrace. She struggled to free herself, but to no avail.
“Where are you taking me? Unhand me!” she demanded more forcefully when he did not answer right away.
“I’m bringin’ ye to the bed.”
Kate froze. Did he mean to ravish her? Aye, he had threatened to do the like earlier, had he not? She turned to look at the small mattress in the corner and fought to quell the drum of her heart. “If you dare touch me, I will rip out your heart.”
“How might ye do that?” he asked, sounding somewhat amused. “With yer teeth?”
Kate wished she had the fortitude to do just that. She stiffened. It was true she could never overtake him with one arm. She reasoned she could not even fight him with two. She tried appealing to his sense of honor, hoping he possessed some. “I’m betrothed,” she lied.
He peered down at her and then scowled for all he was worth, his eyes darkening to a smoky blue. “To whom?”
Kate drew the corner of her lower lip between her teeth, trying to come up with a name. She remembered one Amish had mentioned a time or two when he used to speak of his youthful days fighting the English. “To Lord Mortimer of Newbury. My uncle is very close to our lord protector, Cromwell, and I have been promised to Lord Newbury as an—”
“Newbury?” His scowl deepened into a glare that would have caused the most battle hardened warrior to blanch. “Ye’re goin’ to wed an Englishman?”
Kate glared right back at him as he crossed the room. “Aye, and I’m told he has an army two hundred strong.”
The MacGregor snorted and shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t care if Lord Newbury’s army numbered over a thousand. “I have nae intention of dishonorin’ ye, woman.”
He laid her in the small bed, then sat at the edge, beside her. “’Tis bad enough ye’re a Campbell. If ye considered weddin’ an Englishman, ye’re a fool, as well.”
Kate lay there glowering at his profile. She had the mind to slap him, preferably with an ax! Still, he made no move to ravish her, which meant her lie had worked. Either that, or he hated her as much as she hated him. The latter seemed more likely, since every time he set his eyes on her, he frowned.
“Being a Campbell and a fool is better than being a MacGregor. My kinsmen never cut off a man’s head and sent it to his sister, causing her to lose her mind.”
He angled his head to look at her fully, his expression hard and unyielding. “Ye’re correct. Yer kinsmen have done far worse.”
Kate drew in a deep breath and forbade herself to tremble, though that trembling had less to do with fear and more with the rugged beauty of his visage. His dark hair swept past his shoulders. A strand on either side was braided at his temples and tied with thin leather strips. His jaw was shadowed with a few days’ worth of whiskers, but not enough to conceal the alluring hint of a dimple in his chin. His nose was straight and noble, his lips full and sensual.
“Worse than carrying the head to a church and swearing on it to uphold the wicked deed in defiance of the king?” she demanded, pushing herself up into a sitting position. She tugged on his plaid when he began to turn away again.
He took a moment to let his gaze drift over her features, then riled her temper with a slow, slanted grin that made her feel like the biggest dimwit in Scotland. “Ye speak of the forester John Drummond, woman. The MacGregors killed him almost seventy years ago after he hung a number of them fer huntin’ deer on their own land. Have ye nothin’ more recent to remind me what ruthless bastards my kinsmen are?”
Kate blinked, and then her eyes flashed. “Aye, the worst among you killed my father and my grandfather.”
His grin faded, but his voice still mocked her. “Are ye certain?”
The door burst open, stopping her from asking him what he meant. Angling her head around his arm, she surveyed the four men filing inside the small bothy, one in front of the other. They pushed and shoved their way toward her. Then the smallest of the bunch, a pleasant-looking young man with enormous blue eyes and pale yellow hair, stopped and grinned at her.
“Jamie Grant makes yer—”
The man behind him bumped into Jamie’s back then swatted him across the back of the head. Another warrior, standing slightly to their left, took the opportunity to gracefully step around his comrades and bow to her.
