Chapter 25
Iain left Palmer with his housekeeper and took the stairs two at a time. Adair had found them riding back to the big house and pulled Iain aside to tell him that Cait had asked to spend the night at the house and that something was wrong but he didn’t know what.
Iain headed toward the room the housekeeper had said she’d put Cait in but stopped before entering to gather his composure.
He wasn’t certain what he was feeling, but it was a volatile mixture of emotions that would do Cait no good if she was indeed shaken.
A thousand thoughts had gone through his head, a hundred scenarios of what could have happened, none of them good.
He’d been shaking by the time he could extricate himself from Palmer, but racing into her room wasn’t the way to address whatever problem she had come to him with.
That she’d come to him at all was a small victory, but that was not what was important now.
He opened the door without knocking and with as much control as he could manage.
She was standing in the middle of the room in nothing but a white dressing gown—where the hell his housekeeper had found that, he didn’t know.
She was combing her long red hair, which hung down her back in thick wet coils.
“Cait?”
She gasped and spun around, grabbing the front of her dressing gown and pulling it tighter around her.
Good Lord, but she looked horrible. She was extremely pale, and her body was trembling.
Dressed in just a thin shift, she appeared too thin and extremely vulnerable. Not like the strong Cait he knew.
“Iain,” she breathed, pressing a hand to her chest. “Ye should knock.”
“My apologies.” They both knew he wasn’t repentant. “Adair said something happened.”
“I never said that.”
“Not now, Cait. We’re not arguing now. Adair said you were frightened and asked to stay here. And you sent him to warn Sutherland off tonight. What happened?”
She stood there staring at him, and he began to get angry that she wouldn’t trust him with her fears. What the hell did he have to do to prove himself to her? Then he realized that she was silent not out of stubbornness but because she was desperately trying not to cry.
He closed the distance between them and took her in his arms. She put her head on his shoulder; she didn’t cry, just shook and leaned in to him.
Though his mind was whirling with so many questions, part of him just wanted to stand there and enjoy the feel of her in his arms and the sense of rightness and the fact that she was willing to let him hold her without arguing.
But something had driven her into his arms. Something that had frightened her so badly she was still shaking, even hours later.
Eventually, she pulled away. The sleeves of his coat were wet where her hair had lain, but he didn’t care.
She half turned away from him and fingered the hairbrush that she had put down when he walked in.
“I was on the road to visit Alice this morning,” she said, her voice tight.
“She’s close to delivering, and I figured I would stop in to see Murtagh as well because he’s no’ following my orders to sit with his leg elevated.
His knee has been paining him awfully lately—”
“Cait.” He took both of her hands in his. “While I love to hear about my clansmen’s ailments and births, I don’t think that’s why you’re here.”
She tried to smile, but it wobbled and turned down at the corners as her chin trembled.
“Just tell me,” he said a bit desperately.
“I came across four English soldiers on the road.” She looked up at the ceiling and blinked rapidly, her fingers tightening around his.
“They wouldn’t let me pass. One was injured but didn’t want the help of a Scottish healer.
The other…” She swallowed. “The other rode closer to me and…” She shuddered. “He told me that we will…He would…”
He was glad that he was holding on to her, because his anger spiked immediately, and at the moment her touch was the only thing anchoring him. “Cait,” he said on a strangled breath.
She was in her own world now and wasn’t listening to him. “He told me that he would be at my cottage tonight. If I cooperate, I will be well protected from the other English soldiers. And…he said if I told someone then I was just postponing the inevitable.”
Iain squeezed her hands, wanting her to stop. His anger was choking him, strangling the breath in his lungs. There was a strange noise, and Iain realized he’d growled like a damn dog. “Did this soldier give you a name?” he asked quietly.
“Donaldson. Lieutenant Donaldson.”
“He said he would return to your cottage tonight?”
She nodded. Her eyes were dry, but she was clearly shaken. Hell, he was shaken. And he was furious. Murderously furious.
He touched her chin with the pad of his thumb, moving her head one way and then the other. There were two bruises, one on either side of her jaw.
“He touched you.” It wasn’t a question, and he really didn’t need confirmation.
“He…” She swallowed. “He kissed me,” she whispered.
Iain was going to meet this Donaldson tonight at Cait’s cottage, and God help the man.
“Ye can’t go to the cottage,” Cait said. “Please, promise me ye won’t go.”
“Oh, I’m going.”
She grabbed his arm, her fingers digging in. “Don’t. It will only make things worse. A Scotsman can’t confront an English soldier like that.”
“This Scotsman can.”
She pulled away and struck him in the upper arm. It was so unexpected that he could only stare. “Damn ye,” she said between clenched teeth, her face twisted into an ugly grimace. “Damn ye.”
“Cait—”
She hit him again. And again. He didn’t even think about turning away or defending himself. The raw anger inside her paralyzed him. Her blows didn’t hurt, so he stood there and became the outlet of her anger as tears ran down her cheeks and sobs shook her body.
“Ye don’t listen,” she said. “None of ye listen. Ye just go and do what ye want without thinking of anyone else.” She balled up her hand into a fist and punched him; he’d tensed for it, and it didn’t hurt.
“And then ye…die.” The hits came faster, and then she stopped and spun around, grabbing the hairbrush and hurling it across the room.
“Ye all die. And ye don’t care about who ye leave behind all alone. ”
Good Lord. She was coming undone. All of those years of staying strong had come to this.
She sank to the floor and buried her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking with sobs.
Iain knelt next to her and gathered her trembling body to him, rocking her as he stroked her wet hair.
“Cait,” he whispered, his heart breaking.
Had she ever had a chance to grieve the loss of her daughter and husband?
She’d been pushed out of her home by her grandparents, but had she ever given herself time to feel sorrow over that loss?
He’d argued with her about confronting Donaldson, and she’d equated it with him marching toward his death.
He kissed the top of her head, wishing he could take away all of her pain and make it his. He settled more fully on the floor and pulled her onto his lap. He didn’t think she even noticed, she was so far into her grief.
“I hate him,” she said, her voice hoarse.
He wasn’t certain whether she was referring to Donaldson or John.
“I felt safe in my cottage, and now…” She sniffed. “And now I don’t. He took my safety away.”
Iain tucked her head beneath his chin and closed his eyes. “You’ll feel safe again. I promise you that, Cait. I’ll make it so you feel safe again.”
She rubbed her wet cheek against his coat. “I hate him for leaving me,” she whispered, and Iain figured she was talking about John now. “If he were here…”
“He would kill Donaldson.”
She sighed and turned her head so her cheek was resting against his chest. “I never would have been alone if he hadn’t died. I wouldn’t have been alone on that road or in my cottage.”
Iain’s heart twisted, and he wanted to say that she wasn’t alone now, but he thought better of it. Now wasn’t the time. She was too vulnerable and too angry to accept him as a substitute for John.
“Ye didn’t see him. He thinks he’s invincible. He thinks he can do anything and nothing will happen to him.”
He was finding it a bit difficult to follow her train of thought, but he figured she was speaking of Donaldson again. “He’s not invincible. Not on my land.” And not with my woman.
“I’m afraid,” she whispered. “And I hate being afraid. I don’t want to be afraid. I want my life back. It was simple and uncomplicated.”
Was her life more complicated now because he was in it? Was she accusing him of turning her life upside down? He’d forced her from her comfort and made her face things she’d turned away from for years.
“I’m sorry you’re so afraid,” he said. “I want you to feel safe again.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible anymore.”
“It is, and I will see that it happens. For now, know that you’re safe here.”
“I don’t think any of us are safe anymore.”
—
He found the English captain in the study, drinking a Scottish whiskey and thumbing through a book on animal husbandry. Iain went straight to the whiskey, poured a shot and downed it, then poured another while Palmer watched.
He was shaken. More shaken than he wanted to admit. To watch Cait break down had been heartbreaking and frightening, and his hand was trembling as he raised the glass to take a drink.
“What do you know about a Lieutenant Donaldson?” he asked after a third shot that didn’t even come close to calming his nerves or blunting his rage.
Palmer hesitated, and in that hesitation Iain had all the information he needed.
“He threatened one of my people,” Iain said.
“Threatened how?”
“He told Cait Campbell that he would come by her cottage tonight and that she had better be there. He even kissed her, and I have no doubt that he has intentions of raping her. What the hell is that all about?” He wasn’t couching it in nice words. He was too raw for that right now.