It wasn’t until after he’d left the hall that she realized he hadn’t really answered her question.
Once she’d recovered from the shock of Jamie’s sudden departure, anger took over. Dirt and mud sprayed her skirt as she stomped along the path to Ascog, but she paid it no mind. It would serve him right to have her go around in mud-spattered “rags.”
As if departing without explanation weren’t enough, she’d been informed when she’d tried to leave this morning that he’d confined her to the castle for the duration of his absence. She was not even permitted to walk the short path to Ascog to watch the progress of rebuilding.
It had taken her precisely a quarter of an hour to disobey his orders—long enough to find a plaid to cover her head and a group of servants to join as they passed through the castle gate. She’d picked up a bucket and acted as if she were one of the women on her way to work at Ascog. Apparently, it had never occurred to him that she would defy his bidding, because no one was paying close attention to the maidservants leaving the castle.
Not trusting herself to control her anger at her husband, she’d fallen back from the other servants as they walked.
Jamie Campbell was going to face a severe tongue-lashing when he returned. If he thought she would be a complacent wife who meekly followed the bidding of her “lord and master,” a wife who waved good-bye with a handkerchief in her hand and welcomed him back with open arms and a smile, he was in for one rude awakening. If he cared for her, he would show her the respect due his wife, his partner. Partner. Yes, she liked the sound of that. She wanted to know everything and refused to be kept in the dark again. When she thought of how he’d kissed her on the head … of all the overbearing, patronizing, loutish—
“It’s good to hear you come to your senses, lass.”
The voice from behind startled her. It took Caitrina a moment to realize it was Seamus.
Apparently, she’d been speaking her thoughts aloud. Not pleased by the interruption, she said sharply, “Senses? What do you mean?”
“We feared we’d lost you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“To Argyll’s Henchman.”
She stiffened at the sobriquet, but as she was in no mood to argue her husband’s finer points, she didn’t jump to his defense—an exercise in futility with her father’s old guardsman as it was. Instead she asked, “Did you wish to see me about something, Seamus?”
“Aye. That I do, mistress. I’ve been trying to tell you for some time, but the Henchman never lets you out of his sight.” He looked around, as if someone might jump out from behind a tree. “Even the castle has ears.”
Caitrina gave her father’s old guardsman a measured look. “It is the laird’s duty to keep himself apprised of all that is going on in the castle. Perhaps caution on his part is warranted given the accident that nearly took both our lives.”
She’d yet to speak with Seamus about what had happened, but Jamie had done so first thing this morning. Her father’s old guardsman claimed that while he’d been hoisting one of the large beams into position, a rope had slipped, knocking another piece of wood off the platform. The knocking was the sound that had alerted Jamie to danger and saved their lives. To a one, her clansmen swore that it had been an accident. Unfortunately, Jamie’s men had not been in position to prove otherwise.
Without proof, Jamie had been reluctant to further stir up the Lamont clansmen’s resentment by punishing Seamus, but he’d warned the older man that if there were any more “accidents,” he would find himself with a rope around his neck—“proof” or not.
“Aye, that was a terrible mistake,” Seamus said with unabashed sincerity. Caitrina couldn’t tell if it was an admission and he was attempting to offer some sort of apology.
She held his gaze. “Seamus, promise me nothing like that will happen again. I know it is difficult, but we must try to adjust—”
“No!” The vehemence in his voice took her aback. “We’ll never accept a Campbell as laird. It pains me that you would say so, lass.”
How could she explain that she’d done what she’d thought best under the circumstances?
“If you had anything to do with what happened—”
“Not now, lass. It will all make sense soon enough. But hurry, we don’t have much time. Follow me.”
He tried to take her hand and drag her into the trees toward the mountains, but she dug in her heels, refusing to budge. “Where are you taking me? What is all the secrecy about?”
Seamus looked around again and lowered his voice. “I can’t explain now, it’s too dangerous—one of his Campbell guardsmen could come along at any moment—you’ll have to come see for yourself. But trust me, lass, this is something you don’t want to miss.”
Caitrina hesitated, not feeling right about traipsing after Seamus into the wilderness. After what had happened … something in her urged caution. And then there was Jamie’s order for her to stay at the castle. She bit her lip. She hadn’t given much thought to its purpose but merely reacted against the presumption. What if he had a reason beyond his general protectiveness? A prickle of guilt needled at her. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Perhaps tomorrow—”
A disembodied voice, coming from behind one of the trees deeper in the forest ahead of them, cut her off. “God’s wounds, Caitrina, must you always be contrary? Haven’t I told you repeatedly that men prefer biddable women?”
The hair on her arms electrified as shock froze every bone, every muscle, every nerve ending of her body.
Her hand went to her throat as she stared wildly in the direction of the achingly familiar voice. She shook her head. Dear God, it can’t be. “No …”
A man stepped out from behind a tree, his tall, wide-shouldered body silhouetted by the low light and trees. “I’m afraid so, little sister.”
The blood drained from her body. Niall.
She was seeing a ghost. It was too much to believe. The rush of emotion to her chest was too much to take.
“Catch her,” he said, taking a step forward. “I think she’s going to …”
But Caitrina didn’t hear the rest as darkness rose up to swallow her.
Ouch. Someone was slapping her cheek. Caitrina twisted her head and batted the hand away. “Stop that!”
A man laughed. “I’d say she’s fine. Looks like the blow to the head didn’t soften her temper any.”
Caitrina opened her eyes and gazed into familiar blue depths. She drank in every inch of his handsome face. It was lean and weather-beaten and bore a few new scars, but there was no mistake. Tears welled in her eyes as she placed her hand on his rough-whiskered cheek. “You’re real.”
A smile curved his mouth into the roguish grin he’d perfected many years ago—well before it had proved so devastating on the village lasses. “Aye, love. As real as they come.”
She threw her arms around his neck and sobbed into the dusty leather of his heavy quilted cotun. Niall. Dear God, it was really him. The happiness she felt at having her brother returned to her from the dead was unfathomable. She felt as if a light had just shone on the dark corner of her heart she’d thought closed off forever.
And now he was here. Her irritating, teasing, cocksure brother was alive and by all appearances well. But she could see that, like her, he’d changed. He was harder, sadder, angrier.
The hot ball of emotion lodged in her chest exploded into a torrent of choking tears. Niall held her, smoothing her hair as he murmured soothing words. “Shush, Caiti, it’s all right, I’m here.”
She pulled back, blinking the tears from her eyes, feeling as if she’d just woken from a terrible dream. “But how?” Her eyes narrowed with sudden realization. “Why did you not tell me?” She swatted him on the arm. “How could you let me think you were dead for so long?”
He chuckled. “Now there’s my sister. I’d begun to fear the sweet sobbing creature in my arms was someone else.” His eyes swept over her meaningfully. “You look different, Caiti. I almo
st didn’t recognize you.” He took in her dirty gown and worn arisaidh. “What’s happened to you, lass?”
A wry smile played upon her mouth. “I’ve changed.”
“So I see. The damn Campbells have made beggars of us all.”
Niall’s anger made her wish she’d purchased the new cloth Jamie had insisted upon, but now was probably not the time to point out that Niall and Jamie were in agreement on the subject of her clothing. Instead she asked, “Where have you been, Niall?”
“I’ll explain everything, but first come with me.” He stood up and held out his hand to help her up.
She looked around and for the first time realized they were not in the forest, but in a cave. The tunnel of stone was dark and musty, the air cool and damp. “Where are we? How did I get here?”
“We’re in a cave near Ascog, and as for how you got here, I carried you.” Niall rubbed his back. “For such a wee lass, you sure weigh a lot.” She swatted him again, and he laughed. “After you fainted …”
Now that demanded an immediate response. Her spine straightened at the affront. “I don’t faint.”
“You do now.” Niall grinned again, and she thought if she weren’t so happy to see him, she might shoot him.
She opened her mouth, intending to give him a few choice words on the subject, but he cut her off.
“I think, under the circumstances, it is understandable.” He called over to one of the men guarding the mouth of the cave. “Isn’t that so, Seamus?”
“Aye, Chief, very understandable.”
Chief. Caitrina met Seamus’s gaze with dawning understanding. Of course. Niall was Chief of the Lamonts—or would be, if it were known he was alive. Seamus’s attitude suddenly made sense.
“Come …” Niall took her hand and led her deeper into the cave. “Come see why I have brought you here.”
They walked about fifteen feet in the semidarkness and reached a fork.
“Be careful,” he warned. “It’s easy to get lost in here.”
Caitrina clutched his hand a little harder and ducked as they entered a tiny chamber. A few torches had been secured to the walls, and on the dirt floor there was a makeshift pallet with a large deerhound laid out at its foot. It looked almost like Boru. One of her father’s guardsmen was bent over.…
And there in the flickering torchlight, Caitrina had the second biggest shock of her life.
“Brian!” She ran forward and dropped to her knees, gathering his limp body in her arms.
“Caiti!” He coughed weakly. “I knew you’d come. Just like Boru. He was waiting for me when I returned.”
Realizing how ill he was, she released him gently. Her eyes traveled over him, taking in every detail of her brother’s bedraggled appearance: the thin, dirty face, the arm in a sling, the bloodstained bandage wrapped around his head.
She turned to Niall. “What’s happened? What’s the matter with him? We must get him help.”
Niall shook his head, indicating he didn’t want to say anything in front of the lad.
Caitrina looked back down at Brian, but his eyes were closed. A pang struck in her chest. Seeing her must have sapped him of his strength. She adjusted the plaid around his shoulders, making sure he was warm, and then leaned down to place a kiss on his head.
Tears glistened in her eyes again. Her throat grew thick with happiness. It was unbelievable. Niall and Brian both alive. She looked around, half expecting to see …
Her eyes met Niall’s. He must have guessed her silent question and shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid not, Caiti. Malcolm fell not long after Father.” His face hardened, becoming unrecognizable. “At the hand of Campbell of Auchinbreck: your husband’s brother.”
A chill went through her. The happiness she’d found with Jamie suddenly felt wrong. His eyes pinned her as if challenging her to deny it. She winced at the silent accusation. “Niall, I can explain—”
“You will, but not here.”
She took a few more minutes with Brian, simply savoring the sight of him. Though weak and clearly dangerously ill, he was alive. She smoothed her hand across his warm, clammy forehead. God, how she’d missed them.
Knowing that there was nothing more she could do for him right now, she gave Brian another kiss on the head and followed Niall back toward the larger chamber near the mouth of the cave.
Niall pulled up a dried-out log they’d been using for a stool. “Sit.”
She did as ordered, and he took a seat beside her.
“I know you have many questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them. But then you will answer some for me.”
Caitrina swallowed, not liking his tone. She lifted her chin. He had much to answer for himself. For months she’d suffered, thinking them dead. How could he not have sent her word? “Very well.”
Niall cleared his throat and began recounting his version of what had happened the day of the attack. “After the first wave of fighting, it was pandemonium. The Campbells had taken the castle, and women and children were pouring out of the keep. Father and Malcolm had fallen, and I was trying to organize what was left of the men.” He paused. It was clear that remembering what had happened that dark day was difficult for him. “At that point, I knew there was no chance we would retake the castle; my main concern was saving as many of our people as we could, leading them into the hills, and regrouping to fight another day. But before I had a chance to come after you, we were attacked again and I lost even more of my men. By that time they’d lit the fires.” He looked into her eyes. “I can’t tell you the agony I felt when I realized you and Brian were still inside.”
Caitrina felt tears burning her eyes, remembering as well.
Niall continued, “It was a living hell. I’ve never seen so much blood. My men were being slaughtered left and right. Auchinbreck gave no quarter, intent on taking no prisoners. Knowing we would all die otherwise, I ordered the rest of my men into the hills and decided to go after you and Brian myself. I was doing my best to stay out of sight when I saw a couple of soldiers dump Brian on a heap of dead bodies they were piling in the barmkin to burn. They were laughing and joking, and I heard your name. They said it was a shame they hadn’t had a chance to”—he caught himself—“violate you before you’d died.”
An anguished sound escaped her.
Niall’s gaze turned harder than she’d ever seen it. “It was the last thing they ever said.”
Caitrina nodded, understanding. After a minute she said, “So you thought I was dead?”
“Otherwise nothing would have made me leave you. The tower was aflame, I never thought anyone would get out of there alive.”
Yet somehow Jamie had managed it.
“Brian was in a bad state, barely breathing when I got him out of there. The blow to the head nearly killed him.”
“Did you hide in the hills with the MacGregors?”
He shook his head. “Nay. I knew the Campbell scourge would be hunting us—and I’d seen the Henchman riding in as we left. If we led them to the caves, we’d lead them right to the MacGregors. What was left of my guardsmen sailed in birlinns to Eire. We thought it would be safer for those left behind not to have to hide us.”
She couldn’t hide her amazement. “You went all the way to Ireland?”
“For a while. Until Brian and the other injured men recovered enough to return. My men were anxious to have word of their families. Some had been forced to flee before they’d learned of their safety.”
“When did you come back?”
“A couple of weeks ago, when word came that Alasdair MacGregor was going to surrender, we knew it was safe to come back. We took refuge in the hills near Loch Lomond.”
MacGregor country. “Why didn’t you return home to Bute?”
“I wasn’t sure what I would find. I suspected Campbells would have overtaken the place.” He gave her a grim look. “I was right. What I didn’t expect was my sister to be leading them in. How could you marry him, Caiti? How could you marry the man who
killed our father and brother?”
The betrayal in his gaze cut like a knife. She tried not to wither under its icy edge. “Jamie had nothing to do with the attack.”
He looked at her as if she were a fool. “You believe that? The only reason he came to Ascog all those months ago was to hunt the MacGregors.”
“A fact that I could never have known since no one elected to tell me that we were harboring outlaws,” she reproached him. “Surely Father knew the danger? He had to know what would happen if it was discovered.”
Niall flexed his jaw. “He had no choice. The obligation of hospitality is absolute. You know of our debt to the MacGregors—of the history that binds us together. Honor demanded he give them shelter. And Father was sympathetic to their plight.”
Caitrina sighed. “I know.” Though his motives had been noble, it was still hard for her to accept the futility of her father’s death. “But you are wrong about Jamie’s part in the attack. He had no knowledge of his brother’s coming to Ascog. Indeed, Jamie came to help as soon as he found out. It was Jamie who pulled me from the fire and prevented my being raped by one of his brother’s men.”
He studied her face. “You’re sure about this?”
She nodded. “I remember him carrying me out.”
Niall shifted his gaze, staring back into the darkness of the cave. “Well, then I’m grateful for that, but you did not need to marry him. Hell, Caiti, he’s not just any Campbell, he’s Argyll’s bloody Henchman.”
How could she explain? She twisted her hands in her skirts, trying to find the words. “He’s not like that. I didn’t know what else to do.” She relayed the events that had led up to his proposal, including her escape to Toward and the attempt to communicate with the rest of their clan at Ascog. “I thought I was doing what was best. He and our uncle had been working for the peaceable surrender of Alasdair MacGregor, and Jamie offered marriage as a way for me to reclaim our home for the Lamonts. Our uncle not only supported but brokered the union. I had no idea that you and Brian had survived. So many weeks had gone by. Why didn’t you get word to me?”