Parris Afton Bonds (26 page)

“
That’s not enough hot water."

Duncan lowered the empty pail and stared across the w
idth of the copper tub at the wild Highland lass swathed in a linen towel. “Ye try me patience, Mhorag."

Her lids lowered. "You are insolent. Do you want another beating?”

“I want ye.”

“
Ye'll never have me!”

His stance relaxed. He grinned. “
Ye know ye want me, too, Mhorag."

Her free hand knotted into a fist. "Like I want the plague!"

"I’ll plague ye ’til ye give yerself to me."

He started around the tub toward her and she sidestepped the other way.

"Do you dare dream?" she sneered, but he noted the tinge of fear in her voice.

He laughed. "I'd climb Scotland
’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis, for ye—or swim Loch Morar.” With that, he stepped into the knee-high water and latched an arm around her waist before she could retreat. "Mhorag, me mermaid, I want only to love ye.”

She went rigid. Her lips quivered. Her eyes dilated. "I can
’t!”

"Sure ye can." He lifted her over the tub
’s rim and pulled her against him. The ends of her towel trailed in the steaming water. His gaze ran over her upturned oval face; those eyes closed and their long lashes lay like black lace fans over her high cheekbones. “Ye are verra beautiful."

Her lids snapped open. Her eyes were blue stones. "I
’m ugly inside!”

"No. Only hurtin
’ inside." He took the towel from the clutch of her cold fingers and let it slide into the bathwater. "Dinna ye know ye’re made for love?”

She did not try to cover her nakedness. "I have done things that have hurt other people.”

“Fear drives us to do things we wished we hadn’t. That doesn’t make us ugly inside. Ye are formed so perfectly. Small waist. Breasts me hands could cup. A bum that begs to be—”

“
A bum?"

He chuckled. “
This." His hands slid down over her bare buttocks.

She trembled, but a hint of a smile touched her bow-shaped lips. “
Something is prodding my stomach."

“
Ach, he wants to be let out."

"He?"

"Look for yeself.”

She eyed him doubtfully, and he said, “
He willna hurt ye." His callused fingers played lazily with a nipple that hardened quickly. “He’s quite tame. Just a wee insistent about making known his wants."

A flush the color of summer
’s wild roses tinted her cheeks. Her breathing was shallow and rapid. Her fingers drifted down to the fly of his breeches. She smiled shyly. “Mayhap I’ll make his acquaintance."

This time he wa
s the one to close his eyes as she went on her knees in the water. "Take yer time. I want ye two to become intimate friends.”

The onions Enya chopped for the pea soup not only made her teary-eyed but were making her nauseated. Gone was her sweet tooth. Not even black currant cake hot from the oven tempted her.

In a way, she reflected, the Lowlanders were all captives. She was Ranald
’s captive, Duncan was captivated by Mhorag, Mary Laurie’s captor was a salter, even debonair Jamie had been taken by the country lass Annie Dubh.

Wiping away a tear with the back of her hand, she forced herself to think about another captive of sorts. Her mother had been Malcolm
’s captive. Then she had been forced to become his bride. Afterward, that descendant of wild Pictish princesses had become a captive of culture, doing what her head told her rather than her heart. Kathryn’s love child by Arch had, also, become a captive of culture.

And her own love child?

She placed her hand on the flat of stomach, almost concave. Yet she knew life stirred there.

As for culture, was not Ranald
’s as impressive as her own? Gaelic was Europe’s oldest vernacular literature, its manuscript illumination the finest flower of art, its harp music Europe’s most advanced.

She could not mee
t Ranald’s discerning gaze when she served him and his men that evening, for fear he might see her nervousness.

He barely glanced at her. He and Jamie and Ian were deep in discussion. "I rode down to Corrieyarick Pass,”
Jamie was saying. “The snow there canna be more than a horse’s wither high.”

“
But it could get deeper farther through the pass,” Ian said.

“
It could melt, also," Ranald said, and tore off a hunk of the hot, sweet bread and the hard and pungent goat cheese from the platter she set before him. "Murdock’s regiments could be upon Lochaber before we know it.”

Though she would have liked to linger, to hear more, she felt it best to move on so she would not arouse his suspicion. Besides, while Ranald and his men supped she had her own agenda, one wh
ich he was too preoccupied to take note.

Minutes later, she slipped into her mother
’s room. Arch stood behind her mother, who sat in a rocking chair with a woolen plaid thrown across her legs. Elspeth sat on a stool, and Mary Laurie leaned against one of the bed’s four posters. Duncan perched a hip on the window seat. One booted ankle was crossed at his knee.

"A cache of supplies await us in the forest," Arch said without preamble. “
The mounts will be saddled at the third hour two days hence."

"Already Rana
ld is discussing leaving Lochaber,” Enya said.

“
That settles it,” he said. "We ride out just before dawn. Duncan and I shall divert the portcullis guard until everyone is safely on their way.”

Kathryn leaned forward and addressed Enya. "Will there be any problem in escaping Ranald in the early-morning hours?"

Heat flushed her cheeks. "If he summons me to his chambers, I usually leave for the kitchens just before he rises at dawn.”

Her mother nod
ded. "Then our plan remains as is. Who goes with us—and who stays? Duncan?"

He fingered the worn heel of his boot, then glanced up. "Tis no secret I
’m taken with Mhorag. But she’ll never come away with a mere fisherman.” He grinned unabashedly. "A smuggler at heart—and a Lowlander at that."

"Elspeth?" Kathryn asked.

That network of wrinkles webbing the old woman’s face thickened. “Me soul is in the Lowlands. I go with Enya and ye.”

"Mary Laurie?"

The plump maidservant focused an inordinate amount of attention on her folded hands. "I am loyal to the Clan Afton. Ye know that. But me heart is with Cyril the Salter. I willna be going with ye, but neither will I betray ye."

Kathryn nodded. "You two have my blessing. We
’d best go our separate ways now."

“
Until the third hour then,” Arch said. “For now, go with God.”

Enya felt as if she needed God and much more to protect her, not from Ranald but from her own feelings.

Like a condemned prisoner, she walked the parameters of her quarters. Her stomach churned and knotted. At times she would rush to the window, throw open the shutters, and inhale the cold raw air until her nausea passed.

Her sorrow would not depart as easily. She had come to love the man. There was no denying he was respected by men, women, and children
alike. And desired by any number of pretty young females.

So why would he love her? A woman whom most would not call beautiful or even pretty by any standard. A woman whom he associated with his greatest pain.

The mantle clock softly chimed the hour of midnight. She was so utterly exhausted these days. She paused before the mottled mirror. Her lips twisted in a grimace. With the mauve shadows that ringed her eyes she looked like a raccoon.

In the reflection of the mirror she saw the door open. Ranald appea
red like her worst nightmare. "Not tonight," she told his reflection.

Those wondrously colored eyes scanned her face. “
Ye are ill?”

“
No." She rubbed her hands together, then thrust them behind her back. "Just tired."

He shut the door behind him and strode
on into her room to sprawl in its single chair.

"You look tired,”
she said, then regretted her outburst. It betrayed her concern. He had not shaven that day, and in the mirror the lines fanning either side of his eyes appeared more pronounced.

"Don
’t be thinking of leaving.”

She whirled to face him. Her heart beat like a hummingbird
’s. "You know?”

He grimaced. "All of you vanished at the same time this evening. I may not be an Edinburgh engineer, but I can bloody well figure out something is afoot.”

She sagged, slumped to the bed, and was barely able to remain in a sitting position. She braced a steadying hand on the mattress. Her head drooped. “Now what? What more can you do to me short of murdering me?" Slowly her gaze raised to meet his. She whispered, "Or is that, too, an alternative?”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We ride out of here on the morrow. All of us. Except for Thane. He has a better chance of surviving if I leave him here. I shall miss him.”

"You worry more for an animal than you do for me and my family and servants. You are a brute.”

"I know. Ye have told me so often enough." He rose to his towering height. "The others have already been confined to their rooms. They will be released
—unharmed—once we reach Loch Leven.”

Her eyes widened. “
I, also?”

"Aye.”

His simple reply stung her pride, quenched her secret hope. "Why?”

"You will slow us down."

Somehow this was worse, this indifference. She almost welcomed his resentment if she couldn’t have his love. "I see."

He strode to her door. "We ri
de out after breakfast. Be ready."

She didn
’t even go to bed that night. Like a sleepwalker she attended to her kitchen duties that morning. Flora and Annie looked as down at the mouth as she felt. The rank odor of frying bacon turned Enya’s stomach. Even the porridge looked unappetizing. With enormous will she finished the last of her scullery tasks.

In the great room, the reivers
’ arms were loaded with assorted baggage, weapons, and gear. Like a stream of ants, they scurried out to the bailey and back.

Sh
e spotted Duncan and crossed to him. He toted a trunk, hers. Apparently, while she had been working, her belongings had been packed.

Duncan
’s mouth quirked in a lopsided smile. "Looks like our Grand Tour of the Highlands is over.”

She put a hand on his arm
. “You don't have to go with us, Duncan,” she whispered. "Stay."

"As I said, Mhorag wouldn
’t have me."

“
How do you know? Have you asked her?"

His smile faded. “
Aye. Half an hour ago. She said she liked having me in her bed, but that she could find plenty of men willing to warm her sheets."

Enya ached for her friend. She knew exactly how he felt. “
I think the Cameron clan has separated the chaff from the wheat, and you and I are definitely in the former category.”

“
Milady?”

She turned. Jamie held out her fur
-lined cloak for her. His gave her an encouraging smile. "Ranald is waiting for you."

Childishly, peevishly, she wanted to snap, "Let him wait!" She didn't. With a "Thank you, Jamie," she accepted the cloak he draped around her shoulders.

She didn’t draw the hood. Partly because the day promised sunshine, and partly to flaunt her red hair. No mob cap covered it. Instead, she left it tumbling loose about her shoulders and down her back.

The bailey was filled with horses and riders, their breaths commingling
to frost the morning air. The jingle of spur and surcingle and the creak of leather vied with the shouts and grumbling and yawning of the would-be sojourners. The village lasses who had worked for the reivers bade the men farewell with kisses and tears.

En
ya hugged Mary Laurie and kissed her ruddy cheek. "You will make a lovely Highland bride.”

This time the priggish lass didn
’t blush. "Me and Cyril will make good bairns."

"The best of the Lowlands and the Highlands,”
Enya predicted. The hope of Scotland lay in people like Cyril and Mary Laurie, who were willing to ignore regional differences.

Even crusty old Flora wept when Enya put her arms around her, but Annie was nowhere to be seen.

Enya noted that the fierce-looking Cameron chief was already astride his great horse. Next to Ranald, Mhorag sat in her saddle with the ease of a Cossack.

Mounted behind them and encompassed by riders armed with pistols and muskets, were her mother, Duncan, and Arch. One-eyed Robert was helping Elspeth into the saddle of a po
ny that had to be as old as she, and much more docile.

Enya approached the saddled Shetland waiting beside Ranald
’s mammoth horse, which danced in nervous impatience. With smug satisfaction she observed that Ranald took note of her unbound hair. She expected a reprimand for her rebellious act. She was disappointed when he switched his attention to one of his reivers, who had approached him for consultation.

She would have mounted her pony on her own, but Jamie appeared suddenly to assist her. Then he assisted Ian in mounting before doing so himself. Gradually the riders fell into a two- line formation, and Ranald gave the signal to move out.

The villagers gathered along the high road out of Lochaber to wave good-bye and cheer on the warriors. Ranald nodded solemnly at the shouts of encouragement. A girl of no more than five or six darted forward to press a sprig of holly into his hand.

Then, near the auld
brig, Enya saw Annie standing, waiting. Her sloe eyes glistened with unshed tears. Enya glanced behind at Jamie. He, too, had seen the lone Lochaber lass. Would he leave her without saying a farewell?

As the horses
’ hooves clattered across the wooden bridge, Jamie leaned from the saddle and swept the buxom maiden into his saddle with all the gallantry of the knights of old. A round of cheers went up from the reivers.

"Well done, Jamie!”
Ranald said.

Once the party was clear of town, she asked him, “
What if the pass down is still snowbound?”

"We
’re not going down.”

“
We’re going by way of the Hidden Valley Trail?"

"Only partway. Then we go over. Over Buachaille Etive."

She shivered. She turned her face to the hazy sun, as if to absorb its warmth for storage against the arctic trek the party was preparing to make.

All that morning the double line traversed the same narrow path, the Hidden Valley Trail, by which Enya had arrived in Lochaber.

Bit by bit the conifer woods ceded the right of way to granite. Patches of snow began to glisten along the roadside. As the afternoon wore on, the snow mounded into curbs. Branches drooped with the weight of snow that thickly carpeted the ground beneath them. By late afternoon the cloud-streaked sun had disappeared behind the higher peaks. Fog settled lower. Moisture glistened on the path like a slick looking glass.

A red squirrel darted in front of one of the horses, pot-bellied Macdonald
’s. His mount shied. Rearing, it danced precariously near the path’s edge. Snow and dirt and stone crumbled beneath its hooves. With a valiant effort, Macdonald leaned forward in the saddle and goaded the horse to scramble to safety.

"Then 'tis over Buachaille Etive we go, after all?" Jamie asked.

“That means we won’t be coming out at Loch Leven,” Ian said.

Ranald fixed him with a gauging glance. “
Is it important?"