Laird of Vice (The MacDonalds Legacy #3)
Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Days had passed since the attack on the MacDonald clan by Laird Roderick Munro and his men, yet whenever the wind shifted Catherine swore she caught the sting of ash carried down from the hills.
It was a reminder that their keep had been breached, that the MacDonald name itself had almost burned.
Now they stood in the courtyard of the castle, the chill air sharp with the scent of pine and river mist, ready to ride to the birlinn that would carry them west to Aidan Cameron’s lands.
She kept her chin lifted high as she stood beside the line of horses, refusing to let her sisters see the heaviness lodged sharp in her chest. Alyson’s pale face was drawn with quiet courage, while Sofia clutched her mare’s reins too tightly, knuckles white against the leather.
Catherine would not add her own fear to theirs.
She would be steel if she must, even if her heart trembled. For them.
The sound of hooves striking stone pulled her back to that night—the sudden thunder in the courtyard, the shouts that had split the dark.
Bare feet against cold flagstones, her skirts gathered high as she flew into the passage, then her brother Michael’s shoulder, blood smeared across his arm, his sword already drawn.
Her brother, Tòrr’s voice had cracked through the din, fierce as a whip.
Keep the lasses safe! Get them out!
She blinked against the memory, forced her breath even.
At the front, laird Aidan Cameron stood conferring with his men, broad shoulders squared, every movement calm, precise, infuriatingly controlled.
Dark hair tugged loose in the wind, his plaid snapping behind him like a banner.
He gave nothing away, not a flicker of whatever weight he bore.
And damn him for it. Damn him more for the way the sight caught at her chest. Broad and cut from stone, with the air of a man who needed no one, he looked every inch the kind of warrior women whispered of in corners.
She hated that her eyes lingered too long on the line of his jaw, on the quiet strength in the way he held himself, hated that a thought as traitorous as beautiful stirred where only disdain should have lived.
Her pride burned hotter for it. That her and her sisters’ fates should rest in the hands of that man—the one her brothers trusted above all others, her brother Tòrr’s dearest friend and the man who had fought beside Michael more times than she could count.
A rake by reputation, cold by nature, with a heart that Michael once muttered was “hard enough fer war.” Catherine had thought it was more curse than compliment.
When Sofia fumbled with her skirts, Catherine leaned to help, disguising the act with a bite of her tongue. “If ye take any longer, sister, the Campbells will have burned the rest o’ the Highlands afore ye settle in the saddle.”
Sofia gasped, scandalized and soothed in the same breath. “Catherine, ye cannae jest o’ such things.”
“’Tis better than weeping.” Catherine flicked her reins, her mare shifting under her with a toss of the head as the iron gates creaked wide.
The clang of chains and the groan of wood rolled through the courtyard like a drumbeat of farewell.
“And I’ve nae mind tae let those devils have the last o’ me laughter. ”
Hooves struck sparks off the cobbles, the sharp rhythm echoing against stone before softening into the damp earth of the open glen. The sound swallowed them whole, the cadence of exile.
Keppoch’s walls loomed high behind, scarred by smoke yet proud still, banners torn but flying.
Catherine felt their weight at her back, the tug of everything she was leaving behind, but she refused herself even one last glance.
To look was to ache. It was better to ride forward with her chin high, even if her heart dragged like lead.
The road tightened, funneling them into Glen Spean where mist clung heavy to the slopes. Hills rose close and steep, hemming them in, their shoulders draped with pine.
Catherine drew her cloak close, though the cold at her ribs was not from March’s air. It was the memory of the night when flames had lit those very walls they now left, the sound of steel in the dark. She pressed her shoulders straighter against it.
The small party rode in tight formation along the narrowing path through the Glen Spean Corridor, Aidan Cameron and his men leading ahead, the MacDonald sisters guarded in their midst, and a second line of Cameron soldiers closing behind.
The rhythm of hooves echoed through the glen, steady and sure, a sound meant to promise safety though Catherine felt none of it.
Alyson rode beside her, lips thinned, jaw tight, silence speaking what her pride would not.
Sofia’s wide eyes darted with every stir of shadow.
Catherine forced herself into poise, mouth curved in a wry arch, the kind of smile that dared the world to test her, though her pulse pounded fast beneath her calm.
“Tell me,” she said lightly, breaking the silence, “will Aidan Cameron’s grand keep be so fine as he boasts? Or shall we discover that all his pride is smoke and air?”
Alyson sighed. “Dinnae bait him, Catherine. Nae when he holds our charge.”
“Bait him?” Catherine arched her brow. “I merely wonder at the comforts that await us. Fer if we are tae be hidden away like hens, I should at least like the coop tae be well feathered.”
From the head of the column, Aidan’s voice carried back, deep and even. “Ye’ll find Achnacarry secure enough. That is all that matters.”
Catherine smiled, slow and triumphant. “Aye, secure,” she murmured under her breath, “if a woman can bear such company.”
Aidan turned in his saddle then, not fully, just enough that his gaze caught hers over his shoulder. The look was steady, unreadable, but it sent something sharp through her chest all the same.
“Ye’re welcome tae walk if me company offends ye, lass,” he said, the faintest edge of amusement beneath his calm.
“I might,” she returned, chin lifting, “if I trusted the road half so much as ye trust yerself.”
He gave a quiet sound—half laugh, half scoff—and turned forward again, his shoulders shifting beneath the weight of his plaid. Catherine’s pulse stumbled despite herself. She told her heart to still, to remember what sort of man he was: her brother’s friend, her reluctant escort, nothing more.
Catherine felt her lips curl in satisfaction. She had not addressed him directly, yet he had heard her all the same. And if she pricked him enough to draw a reply, then perhaps his lairdly calm was not quite as unshakable as he wished the world to believe.
Hours passed in the steady rhythm of hooves and the occasional murmur of soldiers shifting formation.
Catherine’s thoughts circled restlessly, refusing to be stilled.
Every turn of the glen seemed too quiet, every tree a place for enemies to crouch.
The Highlands were not safe. Not for the MacDonalds, while Angus Campbell gathered clans into his Pact of Argyll, weaving alliances like snares so that their family stood nearly alone against the tide.
Her jaw tightened. She would not be taken like a lamb to slaughter, no matter what Tòrr or Aidan or any man decreed.
The glen widened at last, the loch glimmering ahead through the mist. Catherine took a deep breath, relief prickling through her veins at the sight of the birlinn waiting at the shore, its mast stark against the sky.
One passage, and they would be behind Cameron walls. For now, safety seemed within reach.
Until the horses at the front balked. A ripple ran down the line. Catherine straightened in her saddle, eyes narrowing as she peered past the men ahead and she noticed shapes moving on the shore. A band of riders with steel at their sides, waiting.
Her pulse kicked hard. She felt Alyson stiffen beside her, heard Sofia’s quick breath. The air thickened, weighted with the certainty that danger had found them again.
Aidan reined forward, his horse stamping the earth. His voice rang cold across the glen. “What is this?”
The group parted, and a single rider advanced. Catherine’s stomach twisted at the sight of him—familiar in ways that scraped raw against her pride. Broad shoulders, fair hair darker than memory, eyes fixed on her with a heat that made her blood run cold.
“Catherine,” he said, and the name on his tongue was a claim.
Her breath caught. Laird Edwin MacLeod.