Belonging to a Highlander Page 11

  Actually, remembering more and more, it surprised him to see her now as she was, fairly attacking him, and he wondered to what purpose. Hugh narrowed his eyes on her. Last he remembered, Galena was warming the bed of one of his men. Hugh searched for a name to the man … and then it hit him, and his gaze on Galena turned from annoyance to understanding.

  Douglas. One of his lower ranking men who had not made the return journey home—not alive, anyway.

  "Och, lass," Hugh started, holding her at arm’s length.

  Galena was still unaware that he had come to the realization of the truth. That she was only trying to find her way in a world that was much too cruel to women who had nothing but their bodies to offer.

  "I thought you would never return, warrior," she purred. She had him by the collar of his tunic in one hand and her other pressed him firmly to the stone wall. Not that he couldn't easily remove himself from the position if and when he decided to.

  Remembering clearly the night before, he decided to do just that.

  "Galena," he started, reaching to steer her away.

  How had he forgotten her, too? Had he so many women vying for his attention when he left? Hugh searched his mind. He supposed he must have. Had it truly been so long since he was in his own home? Or had he perhaps become bored of them before he'd left.

  Catriona came to mind, and his promise.

  "There's something I must—"

  Her lips silenced his.

  Hugh's hands flew up to ward her off, gripping her shoulders.

  "Hugh."

  His insides gave a lurch at the sound of the new voice from the top of the stairwell and he groaned aloud against the mouth hungrily ravishing his. Which he instantly regretted.

  Galena mistook his dread as a groan of passion and made a delighted sound of pleasure.

  Catriona made a small sound of outrage.

  At a loss, Hugh lifted Galena and set her away though she was still fairly clawing to get back against his body, not yet realizing they had been joined by his wife.

  "Enough," he shouted.

  That stilled Galena at last and her passion turned to confusion.

  Catriona cleared her throat, looking daggers at the both of them.

  "I can expl—"

  "Explain?" Catriona cut him off. "I'm sure." Her voice was flat, disbelieving.

  He directed his attention back to the woman who had attacked him. "You mustn’t do that again, lass. I'm a married mon now," he said, setting her straight. "You'll have to seek pleasure elsewhere."

  To his horror, Galena reached up and ran her finger over his lips, casting a look of doubt. "When you tire of her, you'll find me," she purred, then sauntered away.

  Hugh's stare flew up to the top of the stairs in absolute apprehension of what was to come.

  Bright blue eyes were wide and cold on him as Catriona came down those steps slowly. Her eyes never deviated from him for a second. Her cheeks were pink with anger and indignation.

  "I do'na believe this," he muttered, raking a hand through his hair in frustration.

  "No one, but two?" She gave him a look that cut him down to size. "Your womanizing is ridiculous!"

  "I'm sorry." So much for all those ideas of having her in his arms so soon. At this rate, he would never bed his wife. "I swear to you, I've no been with either of them since returning."

  "How do you expect me to believe that?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper as she looked at him with the most appalled look he had ever seen on a lass. "Liar."

  "Do'na call me that." Was that a hint of pain in her eyes? He wasn’t sure. "I offered you my protection, no a fairytale. You must give me time as I've said I would allow you."

  Her eyes flared. "To do what? To carry on as I've just witnessed? If you can'na remain loyal to even one of them, what am I to expect of you?"

  Hugh shut his eyes briefly. "'Tisn't what it looked like."

  She fumed. "Do you kiss all the lasses like you kissed me last night? The little fool I was to have believed you after you sent Rowena away. How many more will I find?"

  Hugh growled in exasperation. The odds were stacked against him. He racked his brain before answering, just to be sure. "I have no others. I promise."

  "Och." She stuck her hands on her hips. "I believe I heard the same assurance last night, too." Catriona started around him but he caught her by the elbow, not willing to relinquish her just yet. She whirled on him. "I may have been raised in an abbey, but that does'na make me a fool when it comes to the likes of you, Hugh. I may no yet be your wife in truth, but I'll no—"

  "Laird!" a rushed voice carried from the hall to both their ears and had a new set of apprehensive thoughts rushing Hugh.

  For Chriost's sake, he couldn’t deal with one issue before the next broadsided him. "What?" Hugh thundered, turning a murderous glare toward the hall. Hugh left Catriona and hurried to the end of the corridor searching for the owner of the voice.

  "Riders approaching. Appears to be the McAlison himself."

  "Damned me," Hugh muttered. He turned and took quick steps back to his wife and pulled her against him. Her fists came up to grab his tunic and push away as he lifted her so that she had no way of not listening to him.

  "You are my wife, lass, and we shall finish this later." He searched her gaze. "If I did'na care, proving I've no been with another woman since I wed you wouldn’t matter and I wouldn’t bother explaining myself. Take that for what it is, but I must see to McAlison first."

  ****

  Hugh had only just stepped foot into the hall when the doors swung open and an angry Laird McAlison burst in, two of the other laird's men flanking him at his sides, their hands on the hilts of their swords.

  Malcolm, his steward who had kept McCross Keep running in his absence, tried to block the man, but the steward's lean frame was no match for the blustering laird. McAlison shoved him aside without a thought, sending Malcolm stumbling back. The steward watched the men advance, palming his chest where he had been shoved, and looked on with apprehension.

  "Ho!" Hugh called out, raising a hand toward the fellow laird, cutting a sharp look of warning to Alaric as his man came from the shadows of the kitchens. "What means this intrusion, McAlison?" Hugh asked hesitantly.

  After being called away from Catriona, he had watched the approach of the men riding hard, bearing down on the keep with all haste, but he had not given any order to stop them. He knew McAlison would be coming to demand his due.

  Hugh lifted a hand to stay his men, and nodded at Malcolm. The men fell back to allow the angry laird room.

  "What means this intrusion?" McAlison asked, blustering. "What means you stealing off with my enemy's daughter? The verra lass you were to take for me!"

  Hugh eyed the other man hard, then glanced behind at Catriona. Gillie and Jamie's men had come forward to surround the lass, blocking her mostly from view. He wished she wasn’t there, but had stayed out of sight for her safety. He had no desire for McAlison to know who she was—or that she was now his wife.

  "Do you mind telling your men to be at ease?" Hugh asked, lifting his arms, slowly starting toward the other man. "There's no need for them to draw their swords. I've no intent to draw mine."

  The side of McAlison's nose twitched in a snarl, but at last he gave a curt sideways nod and his men fell back from him, to the doors.

  "You've betrayed me," McAlison said when Hugh came to a stop before him.

  Hugh looked down on the other man steadily. "You've taken this too far."

  "I once called you friend." McAlison gestured to his marred eye, or rather where his eye had once been. A shiny-skinned scar covered the right of his face from brow to cheekbone, before grabbing the cloth that covered his scarring. He ripped it away to reveal the eye socket closed by cauterization, so bad was the wound he had suffered. "You owe me a great deal as of yet."

  Hugh swallowed at the reminder. "Aye, I do." The truth leaving a bad taste in his mouth. "But I'll no repay my debt this way.
You've taken your revenge on the McLaren lad?"

  McAlison nodded once.

  Hugh hardened his stare on the other man. Catriona's light gasp was like a fist closing around his heart. "Then enough is enough."

  "The hell it is! That boy killed my son and heir."

  "That boy, aye. But no the innocent lass." Hugh shook his head at the man, his gaze locked with the coldness in McAlison's eyes. "Leave the lass oot of this." Briefly, he glanced to Malcolm and then to the chamber he reserved for business. "I no found her anyway. The lass I took from that abbey was an imposter."

  "McCross…" The other laird hissed his name, a snarl running the length of his nose. "She was my only hope at gaining McLaren's lands, those bordering my own."

  "And is that what will soothe your pain at losing a child?" Hugh crossed his arms over his chest then. "Securing more lands with no heir to inherit?"

  "I could yet produce another heir."

  Hugh scoffed at the presumption. "Is that why you really want the McLaren lass?" For a usually calm man, a tremor laced Hugh's words. "She's too young for the likes of you. You're old enough to be the lass's father." He gave McAlison a snarl. Really, he shouldn’t care. Young brides wed to decrepit old men was quite normal, but he hated seeing their misery. And miserable the McLaren lass would be if saddled with this old fool.

  McAlison scoffed now. "And what does her age matter? If she is old enough to become a bride, she is old enough to breed with."

  The remark infuriated him tenfold. "You are an old mon!" Hugh thundered. To his relief, Malcolm approached and came to a halt at Hugh's side then, bearing a leather pouch.

  "What is that?" McAlison asked.

  Hugh took the purse from Malcolm and thrust it toward McAlison. "This is every bit of what you would have paid me for such a service as what you set me to do. Take the gold, and be gone. Find another to do your bidding, for our dealings are finished."

  McAlison's face mottled in rage. "This was a debt owed by flesh and blood! No coin. What of our friendship?"

  "'Tis something of which I have put under great contemplation of late. What kind of friend asks another to do what you've asked of me?"

  McAlison snatched the purse from him then, and Hugh dropped his outstretched arm.

  "I shall win this feud with McLaren, with or withoot you. And then, Hugh McCross, you had better watch your back, because I will be coming for you next."

  McAlison turned on his heel with his cape swinging behind him. His men turned to leave after their laird, but one looked back straight through the gaping hole in Catriona's guard Gilbert had made by stepping away too soon. Hugh glowered at the young man, wanting to kick him just then.

  McAlison's man eyed Catriona over his shoulder a long harrowing moment until he reached the doors of the hall. Only then did he turn his attention ahead, speaking rapidly to McAlison as they departed.

  Hugh didn’t like this encounter one bit.

  "You must do something," Catriona said at his side. Her voice wavered with urgency, but after their little quarrel in the stairwell, he was not in a mood to oblige her. She, too, stared after the men. Together they could see McAlison and his men mounting their horses through the open doors, left flung open from McAlison's entrance.

  As servants came forward to close the heavy doors, Hugh turned to stare down on his wife. She trembled at his side. The anger toward McAlison rolling off her was palpable. His first instinct was to reach for her, to gather her close and soothe her injured feelings.

  That McAlison had been so vulgar about Tamsin surely upset his wife.

  His wife. It pinched at his heart that she did not yet consider herself thus. Of course, he had not been the perfect groom or husband thus far.

  "Och, what would you have me do?" he asked.

  She gave him a frightened stare, a shake of her head, and finally a stomp of her slippered foot, to which Hugh lifted a brow.

  "You’ve many men. Send some to look for her." Her insistence brightened her eyes.

  Hugh couldn’t help but grin. Though he understood her anger, she looked quite cute in it now that the violence storming in her eyes was not directed solely at him. "Should I send the men, what shall you give me in return?"

  She blanched. "No everything between us can be bartered for."

  Hugh chuckled lightly and reached to lift a strand of her hair from her shoulder. Indeed, it could. Catriona would be finding that out shortly. "Until you're fully my wife, I've no interest in sending my men after your friend."

  Her cheeks reddened. She fumed a moment. "You're an imbecile," she said with incredulity. "How can you say nay when an innocent young woman needs your aid?"

  "I did'na say nay, lass." He shook a finger at her, his smile turning taunting.

  Her eyes rounded with shock, and Catriona huffed before turning on her heel and started from the hall at a stomping pace. Hugh watched her flounce her way to the back of the keep. For half a second he contemplated going after her to further his pursuit. Instead, he shook his head. Perhaps he should not have purposefully upset her so after what McAlison had said, after the incident with Galena. He was aware how much she cared for Tamsin. Alas, he had to get somewhere with Catriona, and bartering with her to share his bed seemed the only way at present.

  "Alaric," Hugh called. His second came to his side, watching the same line of vision as Hugh.

  The other man chuckled. "Aye?"

  "Send a half dozen men back to the abbey to look for the McLaren lass. Have them question the sisters to find where Tamsin has gone and at whose behest."

  Alaric nodded. "You wish me to join them?"

  Hugh clenched his jaw. At the moment, he needed the man here in case McAlison returned to attack so soon. Alas, only settling the matter of Tamsin's disappearance would resolve his problems as well. Only when McAlison and McLaren ended their quarrel would he be free to do as he wished. And, at present, his wish was to stay at his own bloody keep and for once be a laird to his people.

  He was long ready for this. His time of warfare was behind him, almost.

  "Aye, see it done," Hugh said, but lifted a finger. "Do'na let Catriona ken you are leaving."

  Alaric cast a look of confusion over his shoulder, then chuckled. "As you wish."

  ****

  Catriona ripped at the weeds, envisioning a McAlison head atop each and every one. The garden had been her solace for the past few hours since leaving Hugh. Her fingers still trembled from McAlison's sudden presence. She had not expected the man to come here.

  Now she could put a face to the murderer, the man who intended Tamsin and her clan harm.

  Tears dripped in a steady stream down her cheeks.

  Since they were young girls, when they each had been brought to the care of the sisters in Atholl, Tamsin had been her rock. Her friend was there for her when she felt hurt or alone, when she began to feel as though she would spend the remainder of her days alongside the sisters because of the circumstances of her birth.

  Now look at them.

  Tamsin was in trouble, and she was the only one who could help her. Her friend's clan was in dire need of help.

  Catriona tossed down a handful of weeds and put her hands on her hips. She turned to look at the aged stone of Hugh's keep. The towering fortress wasn’t beautiful. It was not McBruiey Keep. Her new home was not nestled against a glittering Lock Kincaid with pure waters she swam in during the summer. Yet sprawling Highland hills loomed on the opposite side of this old keep, the grass not yet green, but still patched with snow. Shaggy fat cows grazed those hills, and a cold breeze blew Catriona's hair in front of her face, reminding her it was still cold out and spring was not yet here. In fact, she had a while to wait yet.

  She smoothed her sun-kissed brown hair back and dusted the dirt from her hands.

  As she and Tamsin had grown older, she had become the more outspoken of the two, the braver, wilder one. Tamsin was more suitable to be a queen than she.

  Catriona scoffed at the idea of herse
lf as royalty and then laughed aloud. She had been digging in the dirt a moment prior. What queen would do such a thing, or, more to the point, would be allowed to do so? No, the life of a queen would never have suited her at all. Least of all a Saxon queen.

  She sank down to sit on the lip of one of the rough-hewn boards surrounding the raised bed.

  Perhaps what had happened was for the best. Perhaps Tamsin had saved her from a fate that would have made her miserable, and now her friend was the one suffering. Hugh was no prince, but he was charming and—she stopped short on that thought, shaking herself. No, she wouldn’t say she could allow herself to like him, not yet.

  Not when she was still discovering the women he had kept for pleasure. Perhaps he was too charming. The vision that greeted her this morning was quelling, considering after he had kissed her the night before she had actually begun to believe him.

  And then to find him with yet another woman.

  She shook her head.

  Her presence was new here, she reminded herself. Hugh had had little time to relinquish those relationships. But, she still questioned, had he lain with one of them?

  That he'd had time for.

  The thought stung.

  Regardless of the other women, he had pleased her this morning when he'd sent McAlison away. At last doing the right thing. His debt might not be repaid, perhaps not ever now, but she was gladdened that Hugh did not intend to have any more dealings with a blackguard like McAlison.

  A ruffling sound tensed Catriona, and for a second she froze, until she heard it again. She smiled, thinking she already knew what it was. The shuffling sound came again as she turned at the waist to look behind. There she spotted the fat gander visiting the garden again.

  This time he pecked at the ground, nosing away clumps of snow in search of food.

  "Hello there," she said quietly. "Have you come to keep me company?"

  The fat bird ignored her.

  Catriona turned fully, bending her knee so she sat sideways on the beam.