“I’m going to ride ahead with Gawyn,” he told her, “and set up camp. The others will see you there safely.”
“Thank you, Alex.”
He galloped off, but she did not watch him ride. Instead, she squinted through the pink twilight, wondering if Lachlan would share a private moment with her later, as Alex just had.
***
They ate supper in a small cave beneath a rocky outcropping, all sitting around the fire on beds of fur that covered the cold, earthen floor, and would later provide a soft place to sleep for Lady Catherine.
Lachlan announced that the clansmen would sleep just outside, guarding the entrance, but when he spoke the words, he experienced an ache of discomfort at the thought of Catherine sleeping alone in this cold hole in the mountain while he was outside, also sleeping alone.
Well, not alone exactly. With the others. But they were invisible to him. Everyone and everything was invisible when Catherine was near.
He hated the fact that they had argued that day. Hated that she was so lovely in the firelight and was glancing at him frequently, but looking away whenever their eyes met.
She was punishing him, he knew, for how he had pushed her away after the river crossing. But what else could he do? Treat her the way he treated other women? Smile and flirt, and flatter her?
God help him, he couldn’t even look at her without wanting to hold her.
Everyone sat down to eat, and he was pleased at least that Gawyn MacLean had put together such a tasty meat stew, which he’d boiled in an iron pot over the fire and served with crusty rye bread and a full-bodied wine in fine pewter goblets. Lachlan would have to thank Angus for sending such a functional fellow.
He would not thank him, however, for sending Alexander, for the lad had pushed his way into the circle to sit beside Catherine on the fur, and now they were eating their suppers together, laughing and engaging in light conversation while the others looked on and listened.
Alexander told her, in painful detail, about his schooling in Glasgow, and now he was asking her questions about her own upbringing, trying to help her remember things.
He was too polite. And helpful. And wholesome looking.
Lachlan didn’t like him.
Catherine, on the other hand, seemed to have taken a fancy to him. They had ridden together across the moor for near a quarter of an hour that evening.
Ach!Lachlan tossed his plate aside, for he had suddenly lost his appetite. He had made a noble effort that afternoon to do the right thing and put some distance between them, and the very next minute this boyish upstart was slinking up beside her, working a little too hard to charm and impress.
The lad reminded Lachlan of himself in his younger days, and that did not sit well in his stomach.
Downing the last of his wine in a single gulp, he tossed the goblet into a bucket and stood. “Alex! I need you outside to help groom the horses before it gets too dark.”
The young Highlander looked up in surprise, leaped to his feet, and tripped over the corner of the fur as he dropped his plate into the water bucket.
“Aye, sir.” He strode purposefully out of the cave.
Catherine frowned up at Lachlan. “It could not wait?” she said. “Poor Alex wasn’t finished his supper.”
“He looked done to me.”
They stared at each other for a tense moment while the others shoveled stew faster into their mouths. A starving bunch they were, apparently.
Catherine shook her head at him in a somewhat scolding manner, and he wanted very much to ask her what was so special about Alex MacEwen that she couldn’t bear to see him go. But that would reveal to everyone that he was jealous and that this woman was getting under his skin, so he simply walked out.
***
After supper, Catherine lounged back on the soft fur with a second goblet of wine and looked toward the mouth of the cave. Alex and Lachlan had not returned since they went outside to tend to the horses, and she was beginning to worry that Lachlan had sent the young clansman on a fool’s errand in the dark—to scale and scout the mountaintops on the other side of the moor or to measure the depth of the next raging river they might need to cross.
She stood and excused herself from the others. Outside, away from the warmth of the fire, the air was cold and damp on her cheeks. It smelled of winter.
The chill penetrated the fabric of her gown. Gathering her shawl more tightly about her shoulders, she peered through the darkness but could see nothing through the shifting mist, which hovered in brooding silence over the moor. If not for the sound of the horses nearby, munching on grass, she might have thought she was alone and that the rest of the world—mountains and all—had been swallowed up by the fog.
“You should go back inside,” a voice said, husky and low andoh,so familiar.
