Chapter 3
Chapter 3
“Let me up, Eòsaph,” Catrìona demanded when her lover pinned her to the shabby bed that lay in a small room at the back of the deserted chapel. He was nipping at her neck and breasts, and ’twas all becoming too tiresome for words.
Cullen Macauley was far more interesting. Unlike Eòsaph Drummond, Macauley had come from the Isle of Skye, where the wealthy MacDonalds ruled.
And he was intent upon courting her as his wife.
Macauley pleased her well. He was handsome and refined, a far cry from the lovers Catrìona was accustomed to. And after all these years, she was going to have two candidates to choose from. ’Twas as though fate had decided to play some strange jest upon her.
Mayhap ’twas to balance the scales after bringing beautiful Anna to Kilgorra with her mother years ago. How could Catrìona ever have hoped to compete with her father’s new family? And when Sigrid had gotten with child, her father had seemed to forget his “wee wren,” as he’d liked to call his one true daughter.
He’d called Anna his golden lass and had showered his attentions upon his new young wife’s comely daughter.
She pushed away from Eòsaph and pulled on her clothes. “I must go. We have much to do up at the—”
“Will you meet me on the morrow, Catrìona?”
Her hands stilled for a moment, and she gazed down at him. “Do you never tire of ... of”—she gestured toward the unkempt bed—“this?”
“Are ye daft? Ach, no.” He took her hand and put it on his swollen erection. “Even now ...”
Catrìona laughed, retrieving her hand to finish dressing. She was anxious to meet the young man from Braemore who would arrive on the morrow, though no one knew quite when his ship would put into the harbor. So she’d made plans to meet Cullen at the distillery, which had become her favorite trysting place, by far.
She went to the creaky old door and opened it. “I cannot meet you tomorrow, Eòsaph. I’ll send word to you when it suits me.”
He reached for her. “When?”
She pushed him away, irritated now. “You know I can make you no promises. We have guests arriving, and I’ll have duties to attend to.”
Catrìona followed the narrow path back to the keep, her thoughts on Cullen Macauley and his reaction to the news that Lachann MacMillan was coming to marry her.
’Twas almost as though he’d known.
But how could he?
Ach, what did it matter? She’d taken him to her bed, well aware that her father had made a tentative pact with the MacMillans stipulating that Lachann would become her husband.
But only if she agreed to it after they met.
’Twas so very amusing to see Macauley taking more notice of her than of her impossibly innocent stepsister, Anna MacIver. For the first time in her life, Catrìona was the one coveted—desired—by an incredibly interesting, sophisticated man.
It wasn’t until she reached the door of her father’s keep that she realized something was amiss. There was far more activity inside than she expected.
The MacMillans had arrived early.
Anna sat against the wall of the healer’s cottage with her hand at her throat.
“Come on up, lass,” Janet said, reaching a hand down to help her. Kyla was weeping quietly on her pallet.
“Where is he?” Anna asked. “Where did MacMillan take Birk?”
Janet shrugged and shook her head.
Anna rose to her feet and started for the door, but three familiar young boys came running up the hill toward the cottage, laughing. Angus MacLaren called to her. “Anna! Ye should’ve seen it! He threw Birk into th’ drink, he did!”
“Who, Angus? Who threw—”
“The stranger,” the boy quipped before running off with his friends. “He dropped him into the sea and threatened him about puttin’ bruises on any more women.”
Anna leaned back against the door.
“You do’na believe the Braemore man will take any further interest in Birk, do ye?” Janet asked, rocking Kyla’s bairn, Douglas, in her arms. “His business is with them up at the keep, and no’ wi’ the likes of Birk Ramsay.”
“Aye,” Anna rasped. But the man had come to Kyla’s aid, and then Anna’s—all within minutes of his arrival.
But mayhap Janet was right. He happened to have been standing on the dock when Kyla had nearly collapsed, and he’d later recognized Birk as Kyla’s husband—or a threat, at least—on his way up to Janet’s cottage.
Lachann MacMillan had not needed to go out of his way to assist them. Still, it had been a glorious rescue, like the ones recounted in tales of old.
“If ye’re all right, Anna, ye should hasten up to the keep,” Janet said. “Ye know they’ll be wanting ye with MacMillan arrivin’ early. Wait until Catrìona sees the braw lads that sailed in this time!”
Anna ignored Janet’s reference to Catrìona’s inordinate lusting after the men of the isle and the seamen who came in to trade. It had naught to do with anything now, for Catrìona would marry Lachann MacMillan, and ’twould be his responsibility to deal with the wife he’d chosen.
Anna knelt down beside her friend. The cuts and bruises on Kyla’s face should not have shocked her, for she’d seen the results of Birk’s beatings before. But the man’s brutality was never easy to witness. She hoped MacMillan had put the fear of God into him.
Anna swallowed and winced at the pain in her throat. ’Twas uncomfortable, but she’d survived injuries at the hands of her stepsister, who’d treated her with malice from the day she’d come to Kilgorra with her mother. Anna did all in her power to avoid the nasty-tempered witch.
But Ky could not evade her own husband for long. There wasn’t a hiding place anywhere on the isle where he would not find her if he was of a mind to search.
Anna delayed her return to the castle, quite willing to endure Catrìona’s wrath for Kyla’s sake. She wrung out the cloth in the bowl Janet had filled with water and dabbed at the cuts on Kyla’s forehead and lip. The lass was trembling fair to shake the pallet beneath her. “Ah, Kyla–you’re all right now. We’ve got you, Janet and me.”
But Kyla shook her head, and the tears streaming down her face tugged at Anna’s heart. She’d been horribly betrayed by the man she loved. Nor was Kyla the first woman to suffer at the hands of her husband. Anna had long ago resolved never to let it happen to her.
She gazed down at her friend, wishing she could say something of substance that would comfort her. Kyla was more a sister to her than the one who was connected to her by her mother’s second marriage. Both Kyla and Anna had been orphaned young, and when loneliness and fear had darkened the days of their childhood, they’d clung to each other for comfort.
“No,” Kyla whispered. “No one’s got me but Birk.”
“Aye,” Janet railed. “And the lad’s turned into a right wee bawbag.” She put Douglas on the pallet beside his mother and got busy mixing a potion that would help ease the worst of Kyla’s pain.
“He has,” Anna whispered, her temper flaring. “I hope he drowns.”
“Anna, no,” Kyla whimpered.
“And why wouldn’t I hope such a thing?” Anna demanded, unable to contain her anger. “The damned dolt is likely so jaked he can’t even swim—”
“Because he is my husband. He drinks to quell his headaches.” She said the words, but her voice was tremulous.
“Oh, aye. And a fair bit of good that’s done him,” Anna said acerbically.
“Ye’d best finish here, lass,” Janet said to Anna. “Ye know how Catrìona will behave when the MacMillans arrive up at the keep and you are not there to serve them.”
Anna blinked back her tears of anger, aware that Janet was right. ’Twas likely Catrìona had already gotten herself into a state with the early arrival of Lachann MacMillan.
“Kyla, you know I must go, but I want you to stay here until I get back.”
“No, Anna,” Kyla whispered. “I must take my son and go home.”
“Are you daft? You can do no such thing,” Anna cried, causing the pain in her throat to flare. “You’re in no decent condition. I’ll come back for you and we’ll find somewhere—”
“No use delayin’ it, Anna,” Janet said. “Birk won’t be back. At least, not for a while. He knows MacMillan will wed Catrìona and become laird. He will’na care to risk the man’s ire.”
“Aye,” Kyla added. “Go now. Before your sister gives you a beating like mine.”
Leaving Kyla this way was the last thing Anna wanted to do, but she gritted her teeth and went for the door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, then we’ll find a place for you to stay where Birk won’t find you.”
Kyla turned her face to the wall in resignation.
Anna hesitated a moment, but she knew she could not stay. “I will come back for you, Kyla,” she said before picking up her basket of berries and leaving Janet’s cottage.
She hurried down the path to the pier and searched for signs of Birk floundering about in the water.
Young Angus and his two friends skipped onto the pier. “He climbed out and went away,” the lad said with a great belly laugh. “Ye should’ve seen him, Anna! Sputterin’ and cursin’ to beat all!”
“Angus! Does your father know you’re wandering about the village?” Anna asked. Donald usually kept a close watch on his mischievous son. Ever since his wife’s death, he’d kept the lad inside the castle walls and under the watchful eye of his brother, Alex, to minimize the amount of trouble the boy could get into.
“Only if ye tell him, Anna!” he shouted as the three young lads ran up the path to the castle walls.
Without further delay, Anna followed the lads up the steep road. She wished she’d been able to see Birk brought low by the man in the red plaid. If anyone ever deserved it, ’twas Birk Ramsay.
He’d been a braw young fisherman two years ago when he’d courted and wed Kyla. But soon after he’d gotten her with child, taken a bad fall, then he’d started with the drink, and he had not been a pleasant drunkard. ’Twas as though someone other than Birk lived inside his body. He’d beaten Kyla so viciously that she’d nearly lost Douglas when the bairn was barely started in her belly. A few months later, he’d burned his own boat in a fit of temper, and now he had to work on his father’s birlinn as he’d done as a lad.
Everything seemed to set him off, from the crying of his own son to the paltry state of his larder. And it seemed Kyla was to blame for it all.
Anna arrived inside her stepfather’s fortress. She circled ’round the bailey and past the huge Bruce Tree in a small close, and on to the back of the keep, where the kitchens and scullery were located. Taking an apron from a hook, Anna joined Flora, the castle cook, who was working at a frantic pace along with Nighean and Meg, the two scullery maids, to produce a suitable meal for the newly arrived men from Braemore.
Already, someone had summoned the fiddlers, and they were upstairs near the great hall, tuning their instruments, making ready to entertain.
Flora stopped what she was doing and looked at Anna. “What happened to yer neck, Anna? Ach, no! ’Twas the sluagh dubh!”
“Nay, Flora, ’twas—”
“I’ve always said that nasty boggle on the isle would do ye harm one day. Years ago, I told Gudrun—”
“ ’Twas Birk. Not the sluagh dubh.”
Flora narrowed her eyes, muttering something entirely unholy under her breath. She did not care for Birk any more than she liked the sluagh dubh. “How did this come to be, lass?”
“Well, after he beat Kyla nearly to death, he came up to Janet’s cottage, grabbed me by the throat, and pinned me to a wall.”
“No.” Flora covered her mouth in horror.
Anna tied a cloth ’round her neck to hide the bruise Birk had given her. There was naught she could do about her raspy voice. “But then Lachann MacMillan dumped him in the sea for it.”
“What? MacMillan did what?”
Anna grinned. “At least, that’s what Angus MacLaren told me.”
“Serves him right, and more. Did he drown?”
“I wish. But Angus said no,” Anna retorted.
“Ye ought to take Kyla and the bairn into that wee curragh of yours and sail as far from Kilgorra as you can go,” Flora said, taking hold of Anna’s arms.
“You know she will not leave her husband.”
“If anyone can convince her, ’tis you, lass.”
“Where would we go, Flora?”
“To your father’s people.”
“The MacIvers?” Anna retorted. “Gudrun said that when my father died, the new laird of Kearvaig drove my mother out.”
Flora furrowed her brow. “Ye could go to your mother’s people, then.”
Of course Anna had thought about that. Often. But to sail across the open seas to the Norse country? The mere thought of it terrified her. She could contain her fear of deep waters long enough to row her curragh across the narrow straits to Spirit Isle, but not all the way ’round the north of Scotland and across the North Sea.
Besides, she did not know her mother’s people, except by reputation. ’Twas said Sigrid had come from a prestigious family in Norway. But all connections had been lost. Anna had no idea if her mother’s family still lived. Or where she might look for them.
“Flora, I have no money for passage either by land or by sea,” Anna said sadly. “How would I manage it?”
Flora pressed her mouth into a tight line of resignation.
Anna put her hand on the older woman’s arm. “Tell me what I can do to help you here.”
“Ach, well.” Flora sighed heavily and returned to her work. “The mistress has been clamoring fer the meal. So if ye’d carry this tray up to the hall, ’twould be a great help.”
Anna made a derisive sound. “MacMillan did not seem the type of man to demand any special treatment. He arrived unexpectedly early. Surely he does not expect a lavish meal.”
Flora’s eyes widened. “Ye met him?”
“Aye, at the pier, before he threw Birk into the sea,” Anna replied. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Ach, and what will that radgy wench upstairs say when she hears of it?”
“I hope that never happens,” Anna said. “And you ought not to use such raw words when you speak of— You know.” Anna leveled a pointed glance toward the youngest maid, Glenna, a wee lass of eight years who’d been orphaned and taken into service at the castle, much the same as Anna and Kyla, years ago.
“Ach,” Flora said, “that wench is what she is. And she’ll lay claim to the MacMillan lad faster than he can climb the stairs to his bedchamber.”
“Where will that leave Cullen Macauley?” Anna asked, for Catrìona had put her hooks into the man from Skye the minute he’d come to the isle more than a fortnight ago.
“Where does it leave Eòsaph Drummond?” Flora asked.
’Twas thought that Catrìona knew every secret trysting spot on the isle and had used them all, most recently with Eòsaph, who had a wife and children.
Anna shrugged. What Catrìona did was her own concern and had naught to do with her, though it pained her every time she saw Eòsaph’s wife in the village. She liked Ilisa Drummond very much, and her heart clenched in her chest every time she saw the poor woman with her eyes cast down, assuming everyone knew of her husband’s infidelity. Catrìona had been man-hungry ever since adolescence, though most of the island men had known well enough to stay clear of her. Anna suspected her stepsister had had her earliest assignation with a sailor who’d come on a trading ship from the Isle of Lewis, but that had been years ago.
“Eòsaph would do well to turn his attentions to his own family,” Flora fumed as she placed bowls and platters on a large wooden tray.
Anna nodded in agreement but went back to the original question. “Don’t worry about Catrìona hearing about what MacMillan did for Kyla and me, Flora. The talk will be all about Birk. Not us.”
Besides, Catrìona had little interest in what went on in the village. She only cared about making as favorable a first impression with Lachann MacMillan as she’d done when Macauley had arrived a few weeks earlier. Both men seemed to believe that marriage to Anna’s sister would be a conduit to the lairdship of Kilgorra.
The talk in the village indicated they were likely right. But only one of them could be laird.
Since Macauley’s arrival, Catrìona had been barely tolerable. Anna could not imagine how unbearable she was going to be now that there were two highborn men vying for her hand.
And then there was Eòsaph, and she hated to think who else might have fallen into her stepsister’s snares.
“Ye know she’ll play one against the other, aye?” Flora asked.
“You mean Macauley and MacMillan?” Anna nodded. “I suppose so. Everyone knows the agreement with the MacMillans was not sealed. Catrìona is still free to choose.”
Flora clucked her tongue. “Aye, and she’ll enjoy the game.”
Without even meeting him, Anna and the rest of the islanders believed Lachann MacMillan must be the better choice. So far, Macauley had not managed to endear himself to anyone on Kilgorra other than Catrìona and her father. He was imperious and demanding at the keep, and he’d taken charge of the Kilgorra distillery, giving orders and overriding Geordie Kincaid’s authority.
Had he done it to demonstrate his worth to the laird?
Anna wondered if her stepfather still had the capacity to take notice of such things. But the machinations of the high and mighty had naught to do with her, naught but Macauley’s unwelcome advances, which she took pains to avoid. Catrìona had treated her with full-blown animosity when she’d come to Kilgorra as a young child and her mother had married Catrìona’s father. Anna’s mother had taken all the laird’s attentions, leaving Catrìona to fend for herself. When Sigrid and her newborn son had died, naught had been the same for either daughter.
Anna had lost the only family she would ever have.
And Catrìona had lost any chance of gaining her father’s attention, for he’d started turning to the solace of drink more often than not. Catrìona had blamed Anna for all her woes back then.
She had seen to it that every memory of Sigrid was erased from Kilgorra Keep. And she’d relegated Anna to the servants’ quarters at the very bottom of the keep.
Naught had changed since then. These days, it seemed Anna’s stepfather hardly remembered who she was.
Anna started for the tray Flora had prepared, but Catrìona suddenly descended into the kitchen from the stairs that led up to the great hall. She caught sight of Anna and snapped at her. “I’ve been looking for you, you lazy wench!”