Chapter 15 #2
Should she tell Effie? It was mortifying. But then again, maybe it would feel less frightening if she explained it out loud, instead of letting the memory dominate her brain the way it had since last night.
“Well, it’s just…it’s that last night, he, um. He kissed me.”
Effie’s brows rose further. “Did he now.”
“I think it was mostly to upset me. He enjoys putting me on my back foot.”
“On your back…foot,” Effie echoed thoughtfully with amusement still in her eyes but now something else as well. “Yes, I can see how he might want to do that.”
“It’s really very mean,” Cat said. “Did he do that when he was young? Taunt people, I mean?”
“You think his kiss was a taunt?” Effie asked.
Well, it was more than one kiss, Cat thought. But she didn’t dare say that, lest Effie decide that it was so close to being compromised that Cat would get marched right to the altar so as to prevent damaging the MacPhearson family honor. “I believe he did it to test me. Or to make fun of me.”
Effie seemed genuinely surprised at what Cat said. “You can’t possibly think that Thane would have done it for a jest. That’s not his way.”
Cat sighed. “I misunderstood, then. Is that what you’re saying?” Of course his sister should take his side.
“In part. Though it sounds as though he didn’t explain himself either. He doesn’t, you know. It’s part of being the lord of manor and all that. Plus, the war made him different.”
“Different how?”
Effie gazed out at the vista for a long moment, gathering her thoughts before putting them into words.
She began slowly, explaining, “He was always the sort of person who saw danger before anyone else. I remember one time we were climbing up the mountain—that one there, see? With the peak that looks like a lion’s tooth.
” She pointed until Cat could identify the peak in question.
Effie went on, “I was about thirteen then, which would have made Thane almost twelve. Mama had put me in charge of him, of course, as I was older. But he never needed minding after the age of seven or eight. That’s, what, twenty-five years ago now?
” She sighed. “He’s thirty-two, you know.
Seems older with all the cares he took on after our father’s passing, and then the war.
How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking? ”
“I’ll be twenty-five come Saturday,” Cat said, rather surprised to think of it—she’d forgotten her birthday until that moment.
“My goodness!” Effie said. “You’ve got the air of an older lady. By which I mean you’ve got your head about you, not that you’re a crone.”
“Why thank you,” Cat said, laughing. “I believe I have a few years before I am officially a crone. Though I might as well be one, for refusing to play the marriage game. But tell me about the danger Thane kept you from.”
“Oh, yes!” Effie nodded. “That day, I was scrambling up a rock face ahead of him, and I was excited because I’d just glimpsed a wildcat above.
I dearly wanted to see it better, and I must not have been paying as much attention as I ought.
Suddenly Thane ran up from behind, and pulled me sideways.
Scared me half to death and I was yelling at him for being so reckless. I near lost my footing on the slope!”
“You could have died!”
“I could have, but not how you think. I’d been about to step into a gap, a crevasse that had opened up at some point in the winter.
And who knows how I’d have been hurt? A sprained ankle at best, but perhaps a leg broken?
Or worse. We were far enough away from help that I could have easily been stranded on the mountain all night, if not longer. ”
“But he saved you,” Cat said.
“He saved me because he’s always paying attention. That’s my point. Thane’s always been like that.”
“He did the same thing to me,” Cat said, “but in my case it was a bullet he’d noticed.”
“The war amplified his alertness,” Effie decided. “But that’s merely a matter of degree. The war changed him in other ways too. He’s more reserved than ever.”
Cat made a sound that was very nearly a snort. “I say dour.”
“He used to be more open. He made jokes all the time.”
“Jokes? Are you still talking about Thane?” Cat asked, raising an eyebrow.
Effie smiled. “He can be very funny when he’s in the mood. But he hasn’t been in such a mood for years. And it has to be the war that did it.”
“Well, a war is hardly a jovial undertaking.”
“I think he saw worse things than some other soldiers did,” Effie said softly. “I can’t be sure because he won’t talk about his experiences to me. Or anyone.”
“Perhaps he talks with the other men in his company?” Cat offered. “I saw three of them that night I was shot at: Duncan MacKenzie, Calan Shaw, and Kai Buchanan. They all seemed very close.”
“Men put into battle together must form a bond we women can’t imagine,” Effie agreed. “I invite some ladies for a day of knitting about once a month. It helps pass the time when we can talk, but I can’t say I’d expect one of them to give her life for me.”
“Knitting circles don’t offer much chance for danger,” said Cat. “Though if there was some intruder, at least you’d all be armed with two sharp needles.”
Effie laughed at the image. “The Highland Defenders! We look like ladies, but we fight like lions,” she said as she continued to giggle. “Oh, if only.”
“Why not propose the name at your next meeting? You can have a crest as well: crossed needles before a skein.”
“Wouldn’t that be marvelous? Alas that women cannot go into battle as they used to in bygone days!
” Effie laughed again. “I’m glad you’re here, Catriona Ross.
Though it will only be for a short time, you’ve brightened all our lives already.
Within a week, you’ll be on speaking terms with every soul in this castle. ”
“You’re kind to say so.” Privately, Cat didn’t believe it. She’d caught looks from half the people in the house, wary and skeptical. And Thane still barely spoke to her. He couldn’t wait for her to be gone, she was sure.
If not for the time when he kissed her, she would have thought he forgot her existence. But that moment—it was seared into her memory, and part of her hoped that he’d at least remember something about her when she left.