9. Consequences
Consequences
Catriona sat back on her heels, dabbing sweat from her forehead.
What time was it? Only a few hours before dawn, she’d wager.
Tonight’s chore was to scrub yet another floor. She had a bucket of dirty water beside her—it would need changing soon—and a scrubbing brush. This corridor led around a quiet wing in the Keep, one that was unlikely to let her cross paths with any Farrish men.
This was the second night in a row that Sukie had kept her up late, cleaning and doing chores.
It was a fair punishment, really. Everybody had seen what happened.
Most of them had been close enough to hear the blow.
Sukie had said little about Laird Farrish’s attack, only that Catriona should count herself lucky and that it could have been worse.
I suppose she’s right, Catriona thought morosely. What was I thinking?
Well, I know what I was thinking. I thought I could get Alasdair to tell me something about Fiona. Foolish, really.
Letting out a ragged sigh, she got stiffly to her feet, picking up the bucket in one hand and the dripping brush in another. The floor, at least, was clean. She could snatch a few hours’ sleep before the day began in earnest.
The Keep was quiet at night, quieter than it had been before the Farrish men arrived. Now, all the female servants had been warned not to wander alone, if they could help it, and to stick to their rooms when they weren’t doing their chores. Sukie watched them like a hawk.
It was quickest to get to the kitchens by cutting back along the corridor, so Catriona took that path, smothering a yawn. She thought about her letter, winging its way back to Ma and Da.
Would they have gotten it yet? She hoped so.
Would they reply? Maybe.
She was only a few steps from the narrow door that led to the servants’ staircase when she passed another door, half-open, with buttery candlelight spilling out from inside.
Who’s up at this hour? She thought, frowning.
With an effort, she recalled that these rooms were reading rooms, or study rooms, full of parchment and pen and books, manuscripts and maps.
Maybe someone left a candle burning.
Tentatively, she pushed open the door. It swung open with a creak.
Behind the door was a smallish room, one wall dominated by heavy, dusty velvet curtains, probably covering a window. Two more walls were covered in bookshelves. Books, papers, manuscripts, and more were all crammed into the shelves haphazardly. Catriona itched to straighten them.
In the middle of the room sat a desk. A man sat behind the desk, a large book spread open before him. She caught a glimpse of the page and saw that it was an old map of the Highlands. His finger rested over a place marked MacAlpin Keep.
The man, of course, was Niall.
His sandy eyebrows shot up towards his hairline.
“We meet again,” he murmured.
Catriona struggled to find a response. “I… I didn’t know that anybody was in here. I thought maybe somebody had left a candle burning.”
He nodded at the candle in question, flickering and guttering at the edge of the desk.
“Ye weren’t wrong.”
“I’ll not disturb ye,” she said hastily, turning away.
“Wait,” he burst out, just as she touched the doorframe.
Swallowing, Catriona paused.
I should just go. Snatch up the bucket and make a run for it. I need to stay away from him. He’s trouble. I’m trouble.
Instead, to her horror, she remained. Slowly, she turned, meeting his eye. He rose to his feet, bracing his fingers on the desk.
“I should have defended ye when Laird Farrish struck ye,” he said at last. “I should have disobeyed my father and put my fist into that man’s face.”
“Nay, ye shouldn’t have done that. That would have been war. Besides, it wasn’t entirely unprovoked.”
He gave a snort. “Ye think that accidentally pouring some wine on a person means ye deserve to be struck?”
“Nay, of course not. I’m just saying that sometimes ye have to think of the greater good. Ye did the right thing.”
“I don’t feel as if I did. Laird Farrish and his wretched son think I am weak.”
Catriona shrugged. “Let them think that. It helps to be underestimated, I find.”
He gave a slow smile at that, eyebrows flickering. Sinking back down into his seat, he drew out a jug of what smelled like wine.
“Sit,” he said, gesturing to a seat opposite, laden with books. “Have some wine.”
“I… I ought to go to bed. I’ve been working all night.”
“Well, ye will be getting up soon,” Niall snorted. “So will I. We might as well see in the new day with a good, strong drink, don’t ye think?”
Catriona wavered. The sensible thing to do, of course, was to politely decline. She should leave and try and sleep, if she could.
Yes, that was the right thing to do without a doubt.
Instead, she moved the books off the seat and sat down with a thump.
What am I doing? What am I doing?
He poured out two cups of wine, pushing one towards her.
“What are ye doing up so late, anyway?” he asked, tilting his head. “Not off to meet a lover, I hope?”
Was it her imagination, or was there an edge to his voice? Almost like…
Almost like jealousy.
No, that couldn’t be true. Catriona eyed him over the rim of her cup. He’d flirted with her, of course, but then Niall seemed to be the sort of man who charmed everybody. It was impossible that his interest in her could have persisted through what had happened.
And I don’t want him to be interested in me, Catriona reminded herself.
“Nay, of course not,” she responded, missing a beat. “I was scrubbing. Sukie has me working late.”
“That seems unfair.”
“Well, I embarrassed the entire Keep, apparently. I’m forbidden from waiting on the tables now, and I’m to keep out of sight. Probably for the best,” she added.
Niall grunted. “I can speak to Sukie.”
“Nay,” she answered firmly, meeting his eye to let him know that she was serious. “I can fight my own battles.”
He eyed her for a moment.
“Aye,” he murmured softly. “I believe ye can.”
A ripple slid down her spine, a prickling sensation that made her shift in her chair.
She imagined herself, quite clearly, reaching across the table to where his arm lay on the desk.
She imagined herself placing her hand over his wrist, tracing the scabs that crisscrossed his knuckles.
The bandages she’d carefully wrapped around his hands were long gone, and as far as she could tell, he’d healed up well.
To distract herself, she took a long draught of the wine. It was poor wine, sharp and a little acrid, and made her choke.
“And what are ye doing up so late?” she managed. “Why are ye squirreled away in this room back here?”
Niall was silent for a moment, drumming his fingers.
“I’m studying,” he said at last.
“Studying what?”
He breathed out slowly. “Clan politics. I have a lot to catch up on. I don’t want anyone else to know I’m doing it.”
She paused, the cup halfway to her lips. “Clan politics? I thought ye weren’t interested in that.”
“I wasn’t,” Niall admitted, with a wry smile.
“But I’ve been thinking, and… I want the lairdship.
I think I could keep the clan safer than Kenneth.
My father wants me to take it, and I owe it to him.
I owe it to him, and I owe it to my people.
So, I had better prepare.” He paused, narrowing his eyes.
“Are ye going to run to Kenneth and tell him what I said?”
“Nay, of course not!” she responded, stung.
He shrugged. “Can’t blame me for asking.
As for this room, it used to be my mother’s.
She loved books. Loved reading, loved studying.
She brought me here when I was young. I adored the room, and I adored her.
When I was… when I was eleven, I think, she was kidnapped by a neighboring laird.
A small clan was threatening us, so Father sent part of the army to subdue them.
They were allies with Clan MacAlpin, which was why Father so easily turned against them when…
when the MacAlpin Keep was ambushed. He was always very businesslike about war, my father.
He considered it a tool. He’d send in his armies, and they’d do whatever destruction they could, and the people would soon surrender.
This time, the clan’s laird came here. He led a group of soldiers intending to kidnap me and my mother and hold us to ransom. ”
Catriona sucked in a breath. “That’s terrible.”
“They didn’t get me, but they took Mother.
Everything was chaos. We found out that they killed her shortly after taking her from here but tried to hide it from us.
Tried to make out that she was still alive to get us to surrender.
” He breathed out, closing his eyes. “Father saw through it, and that was that. That clan doesn’t exist anymore, they’re part of MacLeod now.
The MacAlpins are not their allies anymore.
But no amount of bloodshed could bring Mother back.
We found her body buried in a shallow grave not far from the Keep walls. ”
He let out a long sigh, abruptly rising to his feet and pacing over to the bookshelves. He scanned the spines as if looking for something, but his eyes never quite seemed to rest anywhere.
“I would rather not be laird,” he muttered, low and serious.
“But Kenneth will plunge us into war. He wants to make treaties with the Frasers and the Farrishes, and he wants to make war on MacAlpin again. He wants more land, more gold, more everything. More power. He doesn’t understand what war does to a clan.
What it can take from ye. But I do. I do, Catriona. ”
He turned to face her, something wild and desperate jumping in his eyes.
Licking her lips, she rose to her feet, inching towards him.
“I understand what war can do,” she heard herself say.
He lifted his eyebrows silently, a hint for her to continue.
“The people who raised me aren’t my real parents,” Catriona confessed.
“The man and woman I write to and send coin to, the ones who I call Ma and Da, they found me. My… My home had been ravaged by invaders. My parents were dead, or so I thought. My sisters…” he voice cracked, and she closed her eyes.
“I thought I was the only one left. Nobody was coming for me. I don’t know what would have happened if they hadn’t found me.
Ma and Da, I mean. But they did find me and took me home, and I’ve been their daughter ever since.
But I know how war can tear people apart. I know how it hurts.”
“Ye said that ye had sisters,” Niall murmured, stepping towards her. She could almost feel the heat of his body on hers. His thin linen blouse, unlaced halfway down his chest, revealed a triangle of pale skin, furred with a thick layer of golden hair. “Do ye have siblings now?”
Catriona shook her head. “It’s just me.”
He nodded slowly. He was within arm’s reach of her now. She could reach out and touch him without having to extend her arm all the way.
“I was a fool to think that I could simply duck away from my responsibilities,” he said at last, eyes fixed unblinkingly on her. “Ye told me I was a coward.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Nay, ye were right. I was a fool, trying to pretend that change wasn’t coming and insisting that I had no part in it.” He gave a mirthless bark of laughter. “I can’t run from my duty. I have to face my fears. So, I’ll become Laird. And what about ye, lass? What will ye do?”
“I-I don’t know what ye mean.”
Why was she stammering now? Why were her words getting tangled up on her tongue? Her breath kept getting stolen from her lungs, and she could do nothing but stand and stare, feet planted to the floor, tension fuzzing in her stomach as she stared up at him.
“This war which tore apart your family,” he said at last. “Would I be right in saying that my clan had something to do with it?”
She swallowed. Briefly, she considered lying.
“Aye,” she murmured at last. “It did.”
He nodded, unsurprised. “So, do ye hate me, then? Or my clan, at least.”
Aye, Catriona thought. I lost my family because of ye.
The next thought came right on its heels.
Nay, I don’t. Hating is hard work.
“I want peace, not revenge,” she whispered. “I want to go home.”
His hand darted out, the curve of his knuckle brushing along the underside of her chin. The touch was so quick and fleeting that she thought she might have imagined it.
“And where is home, Catriona?” he breathed, a faint line appearing between his brows.
A tendril of worry uncurled at the back of her mind.
Please, God, don’t let him understand. Don’t let him connect the dots.
“I could help ye,” Niall offered. “If only ye would ask.”
Something snapped inside her. Some line of tension, or perhaps some carefully constructed wall set up to protect her. Letting out her breath in one long, ragged exhale, Catriona darted forward.
Seizing Niall by the front of his blouse, she surged up, rising onto her tiptoes, and pressed her lips gracelessly against his. He gave a brief, surprised grunt but did not resist.
The kiss lasted a handful of seconds. It was not a good kiss, since Catriona had never kissed anyone before.
His lips were warm, surprisingly soft, and she could feel the faint prickle of his stubble against her cheek.
Heat bloomed in her chest, a sort of wanting bubbling up inside her, urging her forward.
His hands found her waist, palms warm, fingers careful, and that warm desire solidified into something stronger.
That rush of sensation woke her up, like a bucket of water over the head.
Gasping aloud, Catriona tottered back, eyes wide. Her hand flew to her lips.
Niall stared down at her, blue eyes dark and unreadable. He lifted those infuriating eyebrows, as if to say, What did ye expect?
“I must go,” Catriona blurted out.
Before I do something else I’ll regret.
Not giving him a chance to respond, she turned on her heel and raced out of the room.
She’d nearly gotten back to her own room by the time she realized that she’d left the water bucket and the scrubbing brush behind.