Page 29 of In Bed with her Highland Foe

“Well? What dae ye think?” the woman asked impatiently.

Before Gilchrist could answer, something sharp attacked his heel. He looked down in curiosity.

The smallest kitten of the lot, as black as its mother, had latched her teeth into his ankle, though she had caught more of his trews than skin at all. Her tail was high in the air as she tried to play with his trousers. She released him, then stood back on her hind legs and tried to swipe his leg with her paw, but she nearly fell over and dropped back down again.

“Nae that one,” Aaden pleaded behind Gilchrist. “She’ll be thought bad luck in the castle.”

Gilchrist bent down and picked up the kitten. She was so small that she fitted into the palm of his hand. Round faced, irises that glimmered green, she yawned then attacked his thumb, toying with it. She tried to bite him again, though it felt more like the scratch of a fingernail.

“Nae that one,” Aaden urged again.

“The black ones are usually left behind,” the woman said as she plopped down into the box chair behind the mother cat, petting her warmly. “Soft as sugar yet hated for their appearance.”

Something in the words made Gilchrist look at the kitten even more closely than before. He knew what it was like to be gazed at with suspicion and fear. As captain of an army, people thought him a man of battle, a soldier ready to kill at a moment’s notice. The scars on his body made people turn away from him, wary.

“What happens tae those?” Gilchrist asked.

“I cannae keep them all.” She shrugged. “I turn them out tae fend for themselves.”

Gilchrist turned another protective hand over the kitten. She nestled down into the palm of her hand, apparently having tired herself out, and was now ready to sleep.

“Gilchrist –” Aaden pleaded.

“I’ll take this one.” Gilchrist dug his hand in his pocket, doing his best not to disturb the sleeping kitten.

She refused the money he offered her, just glad to be rid of the kitten knowing it had found a home and a few minutes later, he was walking out of the house with the cat still cradled in the palm of his hand and Aaden at his side.

“Well, some plan this will be,” Aaden said with a sigh. “We’ll have tae hope that Lady Kyven isnae superstitious, or she may insist ye throw a black cat out of her castle at once.”

“It’s a kitten, Aaden. It cannae hurt anyone. Ow.” The cat bit his thumb and he laughed at it, even as Aaden shook his head.

“Well, at least it is a start tae me plan.”

Gilchrist did not comment on the plan again. It still seemed mad and ridiculous. By the time he got back to the barracks, he had to admit that the kitten’s playfulness was frustrating, but still, he did not regret his decision to take the black cat rather than one of the tabbies. He placed the kitten down in a pile of socks, urging her to rest there as he laid down on the bed, but she would not settle.

“Maybe I’ve bought the devil in disguise,” he muttered as he heard her try to tear up one of his socks.

Half way through the night, after much meowing, with Gilchrist groaning into the night and fearing he’d made the wrong decision, he felt the brush of fur beside him and lifted his head to find the kitten had leapt up onto the bed. She curled up on the pillow beside him, her head tucked under her front paw, her back against his shoulder, then she promptly fell asleep, purring softly. Gilchrist smiled a little, then joined her in sleep.

“Well?” Shay said tartly to Larry beside him. He couldn’t sleep, not yet, not when he had not stopped thinking about Michael all day. He stared into the mirror in front of him, prodding his nose, that was still pink. The angle was back to normal, but he now had a distinct ridge in the brow, which showed exactly where it had been broken by Michael. “That bastard of a man. We need tae be rid of him.”

“I dinnae understand,” Larry said from a chair nearby. “If ye dinnae want him here, why nae tell yer betrothed who he really is? He’s a Gregor!” He leaned forward, his ratty features all the more noticeable in the light of the fire before them. “She would surely send him out of the castle on his ear.”

“Aye, perhaps.” Yet Shay was not convinced. He prodded his nose again, wondering when it would stop being so pink. “But I am nae convinced. In that healer’s chambers, Kyven went straight tae him. Tae him!” he cursed loudly, the sound bouncing off the walls of his chamber back at him. “She didnae care he is only a soldier, a captain in her army. Her hand went tae his arm. She was worried fer him.”

“But kenning he is a Gregor, she wouldnae care fer him anymore, surely?”

Shay wanted to agree with him. He poked his nose, sighed, then turned and washed it in a fresh basin of water. He turned his hand over too, examining the neat job the healer had done with her bandage.

As much as he wanted to believe Lady Kyven would throw Michael out, he couldn’t hold onto hope alone. The fact remained that the last battle between the Gregors and the McDowell was many years ago. If Michael could convince her he was no threat, she might just let him stay.

“Nay. We need tae be rid of him in another way. This man has a habit of turning up where he is nae wanted. Each time I plan tae marry, he is in the way. Again, and again.” He splashed the water in anger in the basin then gripped the sides of the bowl so tightly, his knuckles ridged white.

He could still remember the way Elisa had talked of Michael, with such softness in her tone, it was plain where her heart had always lied. It was not her heart he had been worried about, so much as her money. In the end, he’d got it, though it took getting rid of Michael to make it happen. He could still remember the pain in Elisa’s face the day he had told her that Michael had gone into exile and would not be returning.

She had only agreed to marry him on the day that he had told her he’d heard a rumor that Michael had been murdered on the road.

“Where did he get that name?” Larry asked. “Gilchrist? Why that name?”