Colin frowned. “At Castle Campbell. Where else would she be?”
Jamie felt a flicker of unease. He shook his head. “She wrote me a few days before I left that she was coming here.” He met his brother’s gaze, neither wanting to give voice to their thoughts. “She should be here by now.”
Colin’s face hardened with anger. “He wouldn’t dare.”
“There is not much that Alasdair MacGregor would not dare,” Jamie said grimly. “He is a man with nothing to lose.” He turned, striding for the door he’d just entered, not wanting to delay another minute.
Colin cursed and followed after him. “I’ll go with you.”
“No,” Jamie said, his thoughts already on the journey before him. “You must be here when Argyll arrives. I’ll go. But I will need men. Even now, mine are on their way back to Bute.”
Colin looked as if he might argue but seemed to realize someone would have to stay and explain things to Argyll and nothing would turn Jamie from his course. “Take whomever you need. I’ll have Dougal ready the provisions.”
Jamie was already halfway down the stairs when his brother called after him. “And Jamie . . .” He turned. “Bring me his damn head on a pike.”
Colin had always been the bloodthirsty one, but for once Jamie was in perfect accord. “If MacGregor has touched one hair on Lizzie’s head, you can be sure of it.”
Shaken by her argument with Jamie and the events that precipitated it, Caitrina took her time in returning to the castle. But when she entered the great hall and caught her father’s questioning gaze as he spoke with a few other chiefs, she knew right away that her wish had been granted: Jamie Campbell was gone.
Just like that. As if what had happened between them had never occurred.
She felt a jolt of something akin to panic as she fought to stem the unwelcome tide of emotion. This was what she’d wanted. It was only the shock of him leaving so quickly—on the heels of such a cataclysmic event—that made her feel such an overwhelming sense of loss.
She’d dreaded the explanation to her father, but he’d accepted her decision to refuse without question. He wrapped her in his arms and placed a kiss atop her head, telling her that she must do whatever made her happy.
But she was anything but happy. The guests who had descended on Ascog for the gathering had departed, but rather than the sense of peace she’d expected, it felt unnaturally quiet—like the calm before the storm. Her father seemed distracted—almost worried—by something, and her brothers were no better. They were hiding something from her, but she knew they would never share it, and she resented being kept in the dark.
But what bothered her most was that since Jamie’s abrupt departure, she couldn’t seem to get him—or their passionate interlude—out of her mind. In his arms she’d felt safe and protected, and when he’d kissed her she’d felt a connection unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.
Worse, she realized that she’d acted unfairly. He’d come to her rescue not once, but twice. She shivered. If he hadn’t come along when he had, who knows what MacNeil might have done?
She still couldn’t conceive of marrying a Campbell, but there was no question that she’d welcomed his kiss. And more. Yet she’d lashed out, accusing him of seducing her, when she knew deep in her heart that he’d done nothing of the sort. It was just that she’d been angry at him for making her want something she shouldn’t.
For pity’s sake, he was the Campbell Henchman. The favored cousin of her clan’s most hated enemy. Just because he was handsome and strong, commanding and intelligent, and nothing like the monster she imagined didn’t change the facts—not all the rumors could be wrong. He claimed to want justice, to see order restored to the Highlands, but wasn’t that just a convenient excuse to justify his actions?
Caitrina never doubted that despite her undeniable attraction to the scourge, she was right in refusing him. That is, until the morning three days after he’d gone, when she found Mor upstairs in the tower garret, sobbing at the bedside of a young serving girl.
“Mor, I—” Caitrina stopped. She took one look at the poor girl’s beaten face and had to bring her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. The girl’s face was swollen beyond recognition and covered with welts and cuts where she’d been struck. Dark bruises mottled her freckled skin. She’d lost her kertch, and her long red hair was clumped with twigs and mud. The sleeve of the sark that she wore under herarisaidhhad been nearly torn off. “Dear God, what has happened?”
Mor’s voice was thick with tears. “She was attacked in the woods on the way to the village of Rothesay to buy some cloth.”
Caitrina was dumbstruck. “But who would do such a thing?”
Her old nurse shook her head. “She didn’t recognize them. But from her description, they’ve the sound of broken men.”
“On Bute?” Caitrina asked, shocked.
Mor gave her an odd look. “There are outlaws everywhere, child. We’ve been more fortunate than most, but no place is immune.”
You are a cosseted girl who lives in a glass castle.Jamie’s words came back to her with growing horror.
Mor wiped the girl’s brow with a damp piece of cloth, but the light touch made the girl jerk with pain. The sound she made brought the sting of tears to Caitrina’s eyes.
It seemed the world that Jamie had warned her about had just made its brutal appearance. His objective to clear the Highlands of outlaws no longer rang so false. Dear God, what else had she been wrong about?
Chapter 8
The vicious attack on the serving girl Mary brought the problem of rampant lawlessness in the Highlands home to Caitrina in full force. The sanctity of Ascog had been violated, and never again would she feel completely safe and secure. It seemed that in the space of a few hours, her world had shifted. Outlaws were no longer an amorphous problem; they were a very real threat.
