Chapter 9
The next few weeks pass in a blur. I try to remain calm and focus on my lessons with the children. I’ll do anything as a distraction from the dress fittings and talk of suitors. The preparations for the games are being made and as the responses start coming in, the excitement builds to a frenzy.
I walk into the kitchen as the women are chatting while cooking. Something they’ve gotten down to an art.
“Alisdair MacDonald and Ewan Buchanan are my favorites for the games,” Myrtle says.
“How can ye say that? Donald McMurtle cannot be beat with a sword,” Mrs. McCray scoffs.
“Yer daft! Graham Ross is the favorite,” says another from the crowded kitchen. The debate is heated. Cheers and hisses fill the air. You’d think we were talking about the Yankees and the Red Sox. I’ve gotten used to the tournament talk recently. Everyone is excited, and it’s difficult not to be pulled into it.
They are even taking bets on the winners for each event, as well as the overall winner. I’ve tried to convince Lord and Lady MacGregor not to offer my hand, but they won’t budge. They actually laugh at me. I must have been a sight, ranting and pleading my case. I offered all of my reasons why this idea is so absurd to no avail.
Cook’s voice rings out above the chatter, “You’re all wasting your coin. Angus willna let anyone else win.”
I need a break from the debate, and as I look out the door, I decide it’s a great day for a stroll to the waterfall. I’ve heard Duncan talk about it enough. I’m sure to find it. My idea of getting fresh air is walking to the center of town for an iced caramel macchiato and a new book. At home, I would never think of traipsing through the woods in a dress. If I’m being completely honest, I wouldn’t think of walking through the woods at all, for any reason, in any attire.
I’ve done a lot of things here I wouldn’t normally do back home. Some things, like using a water closet or taking a bath sound like a horrible alternative to a hot shower and indoor plumbing. Oddly enough, I’ve gotten used to it. Not having electricity or fast food isn’t the end of the world. It is possible to communicate without a smartphone. Who knew? I can laugh about it now as I make my way through the woods. I’ve gotten acclimated to this way of life. I have close friends here, and I feel like part of the family. I’ve never had that before.
And then there’s Angus. My mind always finds its way back to him—that beautiful, arrogant man. He’s honorable and possessive. He’s rough and smooth. He confuses me and excites me. I want him, and I want to smack him all at the same time.
As I make my way through the forest, I hear the distant roar of the waterfall. I can’t believe I found it on my own. Granted, I’m an educated, competent woman, but I could get lost in a parking lot without the navigation app on my phone. Laughing to myself, I push through some small trees to the water. Since I’m pretty deep in the woods and the water is clear, I decide to take a dip.
I undress down to my shift and wade into the water. It’s chilly but not unbearable. Waist deep with the sun shining through the trees, I feel wonderful. The sound of the waterfall drowns out all the other sounds of the forest. If I were home, I could play nature sounds on my iPod, and here I am in the middle of the forest. I have the real deal right here.
I giggle to myself. Modern technology has no place in this ancient, primal forest. This is the stuff of fairy tales and myth.
“What’s so funny?”
“Ahhh!” I scream and sputter and would have drowned if the water weren’t only waist deep.
“Jesus Christ! What the hell is wrong with you sneaking up on me?” Angus really needs a bell around his neck.
“Ye curse like a sailor.”
“What are you doing here? Did you follow me? That’s super creepy, ya know,” I say as I walk away from him toward the edge of the pond. Good grief, how am I going to get back to my clothes? I’m soaking wet in a white cotton shift. I may as well be naked.
“Creepy? What does that mean?”
I hear him splashing behind me. “It means why are you following me?” I’m surprised they’ve not asked me why I speak so differently before. I will have to tell the girls the truth someday. I have no idea what they’ll say.
I supposed that means I’m staying. I don’t think I made a conscious decision to stay, but I can’t imagine leaving. Even if the brutish, possessive, beautiful man behind me thinks he owns me. I can’t say he’s wrong but I’m not ready to tell him that.
“Where are ye going?” he asks from behind me.
I hear splashing around, and I can tell he isn’t too far behind. “I’m soaked and half-naked. I just want to get back.” He always manages to rattle me.
Heading for the edge of the pond, I’m more concerned with getting to the safety of my clothes than with paying attention to the slippery rocks. I can’t get my hands out fast enough to catch myself and land on my face over the edge. Now I’m covered in a mass of reeds and muck.
Reaching me on the bank, he turns me over. I try to push him off me, really I do. Struggling is futile. I can’t hear the roar of the waterfall over my heart pounding in my ears. He has my wrists pinned above my head, and I have no more fight left in me at the moment, though I love fighting with him. It’s like medieval foreplay.
“Have you had enough?” he asks.
“Get off me,” I sass back at him as I make a weak attempt to pull my wrists away. The more I struggle beneath him, the less I think I want him to let me go. He’s pressing me deeper into the mud and his leg slides between mine.
“No.” He laughs.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“No, I’d never laugh at you, love,” and he laughs with his whole body, leaning his head into my shoulder. He’s usually such a serious man. I’ve never heard him laugh. It’s lovely and natural. Now that I’ve heard it, I want to be the one that makes him do it again.
One minute we’re laughing, the next minute we aren’t.
Kiss me. I want to say the words but they don’t come out. I see the look in his eyes and feel his hardness against my hip and I know he wants me, too. I wish he’d just take me. I don’t care if we’re in the mud or the kitchen or the field. I don’t know what he’s waiting for, but I’m soaking wet and it has nothing to do with the pond.
He starts to stand and pulls me up with him. No easy task considering I’m weighed down with mud and water. I’m plastered against his body like my wet shift is against my skin.
Without flinching, he lifts me into his arms. I think he’s carried me more than he allows me to walk.
“Are you kidding me? Put me down!”
“Not until I show you something.”
He’s in his kilt and nothing else. He’s so warm and I have gooseflesh from the cold water. Pressed against his slick, hard chest, my arm around his neck, I’m all too aware of the hardness of his body.
I must stop ogling but it’s difficult not to stare. He must feel my eyes on him but he doesn’t even glance at me. Before I know it, we walk into the waterfall and come out on the other side in a small cave, the water forming a curtain over the entrance.
“Angus, put me down immediately!” I shout over the roaring of the waterfall.
He sets me down gently but doesn’t let go. For all of my bristling at his arrogance, I must say, I don’t mind. I rather like it in his arms.
He cleans my cheeks and lips with his index finger. He’s so close and warm and hard against me. Even sopping wet, in his arms I feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
“Ye’ve something in yer hair.”
Breathing and all coherent thought abandoned, I’ve forgotten why I was so irritated. He holds my cheek in the palm of his warm hand and gently pulls a twig from my hair and eyes it suspiciously.
“Interesting.” He smiles inches from my face. He tosses the twig to the ground and his crooked smile changes to something else altogether. In a heartbeat, it goes from charming to deadly.
“I shouldn’t be here like this. Lady MacGregor has sent word to the clans. There will be games for my hand. I could soon be another man’s wife.”
“Never.”
His words are the only warning I get before he lowers his face to mine.
He kisses me like a starving man and I’m his last meal. He’s everywhere. His mouth moves to my neck as his hand slides my chemise off my shoulder. I say his name, barely a whisper.
He kisses me with the urgency of a man staking a claim. He wants me to know that I’m his. He will fight the warriors that come. Through battle, he’ll show the world that I am his, but here, alone in the cave behind the waterfall, with me in his arms, he needs me to know I belong to him.
He pulls me to the ground. On our knees, my hands are free to roam his beautiful muscles that I’d coveted. He’s marble covered in silk. As he grasps my hair and slides his tongue into my mouth, a moan escapes me. He pulls my earlobe between his teeth and I tingle all the way to my toes. I can’t think beyond my lust.
“I want to hear you say it, Katherine.”
I’d say anything at this point and he knows it. “Shut up and make love to me.” Can’t get more direct than that.
Pulling my hair harder now, he looks me in the eye. “Say it,” he growls.
And dammit if my skin doesn’t scream YES!
But I don’t relent. Instead, some wicked part of me, the part that’s slick and wet and shaking with need replies, “You, first.”
And before I realize what’s happening, he has me trapped. I’m on my back on the floor of the cave. He’s pulled the wet shift up to my waist and his warm hand slides up my thigh. Wrapping my legs around him, I feel his erection rubbing against my slickness. I need him inside me.
“Angus, please.”
One hand grips my thigh as the other fumbles with his kilt. He finally frees himself when I hear them.
“Damn!” Apparently, he heard it too.
“Angus! Where the hell are ye?” The Guard call from the other side of the waterfall.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
He kisses my forehead and says, “Come on, love.”
No, no, no! We were so close. “This is not happening,” I mumble.
We dress in haste, and I try to pull myself together, but considering I’m in a soaking wet shift, in a cave with a man who is not my husband, I’m sure this is going to land me in a heap of trouble with Lady MacGregor.
Angus wraps his plaid around me, and we walk out of the cave to meet seven huge Highland Guard. Oh, hell. I’m not getting out of this one. They look from me to Angus. I may be a modern woman, but that look means the same thing in the sixteen hundreds as it does today.
Connor, who is holding my dress, tries to hand it back to me but Angus intercepts it. Looking like the cat that swallowed the canary, Angus says, “Well? What’s going on? You’ve not come up here for your health.”
They all laugh. “Lochmere and Alisdair have arrived.” As if that explains it all, but apparently, it means something to Angus since he throws my dress over his shoulder and takes my hand dragging me along.
Angus makes that sound that’s a cross between a growl and a typical Scots grunt, but doesn’t comment. The men don’t say anything, but I feel the charged air around us. They’re just waiting for their chance.
And so we all head back down the mountain, four in front and three behind. I feel their eyes on me.
Dougal can’t keep quiet long, “So, did ye have a nice swim?”
And so it begins.
“It was lovely, thank you.” There, that was innocuous enough, or so I thought.
They all laugh. All but Angus.
“Enough,” he says.
He needs to lighten up. It’s actually pretty funny. Angus looks like a kilted stripper. He’s shirtless, in his kilt, wet and covered in mud and bits of earth, two braids in his hair down the side of his face, the rest free from its queue.
And I look like a banshee wrapped in his plaid, muddy and soaked to the bone, no shoes on my feet, and a head of snarled hair.
Even I have to laugh, which I do until Angus slides me a sideways glare.
By the time we get back to the castle, the square is filled with people. I see the MacGregors and the girls talking with the guests. They are giant men, dressed in battle clothes and although they look like they’re ready for battle, their laughter lightens the mood. It occurs to me as I walk toward the crowd that maybe I should cut around the back of the castle and enter through the kitchen.
I start to back away from our group when Lady MacGregor looks up from her conversation with the men. As her eyes travel over me, the men follow her lead.
“Ah, Lady Katherine. Here you are. May I present Sir Alisdair McConnell and Sir Malcolm Lochmere. They’ve just arrived, here for the games.”
She tries not to look put out, but I can tell she’s angry with me. The men step forward to greet me, but Angus moves to block their path. It’s subtle but calculated.
“Lochmere, McConnell.” He grasps their wrists in typical Highland greeting.
Angus is an imposing man. Men fear and respect him. But Lochmere and McConnell remind me of David Gandy and Chris Hemsworth. It’s a heady thing to have men fight over me regardless of the reasons. I’m not saying it’s rational, but I’m not going to lie—it feels pretty good.
The girls look equal parts horrified at my current state and in awe of my situation.
“A pleasure to meet you, Lady Katherine,” Lochmere tries to step around Angus to take my hand. Not gonna happen.
Angus steps squarely in front of me, arms crossed over his chest. Oh, yes. My inner goddess is actually purring. All I can see are the muscles in his back and shoulders as he blocks my view of the men.
The problem with the men is that they come with other men. Now two camps are facing off against each other. That’s a lot of testosterone concentrated in one place.
Lord MacGregor neatly diffuses the situation.
“Gentlemen, you must be weary from your travels. Let’s have a drink and you can tell me the news from the north.”
McConnell and his camp turn to leave, but Angus and Lochmere are still facing off. Duncan, bless his heart, comes to save the day.
“Katherine, I’ve got a new bow. Come and see it.”
And with that he grabs my hand and pulls me into the castle, past the crowd of men. Claire and Margaret follow us in. We walk through until we reach my room. Duncan begins to follow us in, but Claire stops him.
“Oh no. Katherine needs privacy.”
“Aw, I want to know what happened. It looks like a good story!” Duncan pouts.
“Out, ye wee rascal.” And Claire pushes him the rest of the way out and closes the door. She turns and leans back against it and crosses her arms over her chest while Margaret sits on the bed. Both stare at me, waiting for me to begin my tale.
I sit down by the fire still wrapped in Angus’s plaid and smiling like a fool.
“Now, tell us what happened, and I swear by all that’s holy, if you say ‘nothing,’ I’ll skin ye alive!” Leave it to Claire to get to the point.
I relate my tale of the walk to the pond and my encounter with Angus. I don’t leave anything out since they would catch me immediately. They don’t say a word through my tale. Instead, they sit silently. At the end of my story, I take a deep breath and wait for what is sure to be a barrage of questions. They never come. These two women sit and stare at me and then each other. They look as though they want to say something. It must be killing them to stay quiet. For once, I wish they’d tell me what’s on their mind.
Before anyone breaks the silence, Lady MacGregor and Mary enter. One has her hands on her hips the other is wringing her necklace.
I begin to speak but Lady MacGregor holds up her hand in the international and apparently cross-century symbol for shut the hell up.
“Katherine. I do not want to know why you are naked and wrapped in the Sinclair plaid. Nor do I want to know why you are soaking wet and covered in muck.”
As she speaks, an army of maids arrives with pails of hot water. Dresses are shaken out and arranged on the bed and every hairpin, ribbon, rouge, and perfume is placed on the vanity. It’s a whirlwind of activity. Though the room is huge, I feel claustrophobic with so many women bustling about.
All finished their tasks, Lady MacGregor winds down her tirade. As the last maid retreats, Lady MacGregor turns on me.
“Get in the bath this instant!”
Wow. I haven’t known her very long but I’ve never seen her this angry.
I do as I’m told and hop in the bath. The maids wash my hair with lovely scented soap. Verbena perhaps? As they work in silence, Claire and Katherine sit huddled on the chaise. Mary busies herself with my dresses and ribbons while Lady MacGregor paces. Back and forth she crosses the room. She stops in front of Angus’s damp, muddy plaid that I’ve draped over the bed.
She picks it up and continues on to the high-back chair by the fireplace. Something big is brewing, and I’m going to be at the receiving end. If I were the girls, I would have left by now.
Calm and composed, the very picture of gentility, Lady MacGregor seats herself on the high-back chair by the fireplace. Holding the plaid in her lap, sitting with her back straight, she looks directly at me.
“Did you sleep with him?” she asks.
Four sets of eyes are now trained on me for my answer.
“No,” I answer plainly.
She nods her head and rises from the chair. Standing over me now, she smiles.
“My dear woman, what are we going to do with you? Angus is ready to kill any man who dares to look at you, and Lochmere loves a challenge.” She’s shaking her head and pacing again.
“There’s a castle full of men who want to commit bloody murder over you, and you’re traipsing around the woods naked! Tonight at dinner, there will be no less than four men that want you, Katherine, for many different reasons. They’ll want ye because of your beauty and courage. They’ll want ye because of the dowry we’ve promised. And one wants you because he loves you. All very powerful motives, my dear. They’ve come here to fight for you and fight they will. Please try not to stir up trouble until the games.”
The bathwater is still hot by the time she finishes her speech. She pauses to think. I can see that she’s choosing her next words carefully.
“I know you may feel like you are alone here, but you are not. You are loved as a daughter, sister, and friend. We just want what’s best for you, but you have a choice to make. I can send word to Sister Rose at the Abbey. I also have family in other parts of the country, or I can send you with the ladies to court. But no matter how far you travel, he’ll never let you go. So, you must choose, Katherine.”
“Thank you, Lady MacGregor,” I say with a full heart, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
“Well,” she says, “you can start by not getting into any more adventures until after the games.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Looking for a change in topic, I ask, “So, what am I wearing tonight?”
Four smiles light up the room and I have to say, I’ve never felt less alone. We spend the remainder of the afternoon primping for the evening. They have it all worked out among themselves, so I decide the best course of action is to stay out of their way and agree with whatever they say.
“She’ll wear the blue dress with the green ribbons,” says Lady MacGregor.
“Those colors are awfully close to those in the Sinclair plaid, aren’t they?” Claire fires back.
“Never mind that. The color suits her and she’s wearing it.”
Must be good to be the boss!
Claire looks at me seated on the bed awaiting instruction.
“You’ve been awfully quiet.”
“I love you all very much, and I’m honored that you’d do all of this for me. Tonight, we’re going to wear beautiful dresses, drink lots of wine and dance with handsome men. What’s better than that?”
A rousing “cheers!” goes up in the room and we have fun getting ready together. As Mary is finishing my hair, a knock on the door gets our attention. Considering Margaret is discussing her plans for Sir Callum, I’m surprised we hear the knock at all.
Claire opens the door to Ann, one of the maids.
“I’m verra sorry to intrude but I’ve a gift from Sir Lochmere. He said he’d like ye ta wear it tonight.”
As the parcel is handed to me, another knock sounds. In total, four maids brought me gifts from my would-be suitors.
The girls are ecstatic.
“Pearl ear bobs from Dougal. A gold bracelet from Alisdair. A sapphire and diamond pendant on a gold necklace from Lochmere, and last but not least, a lovely brooch from Angus.”
“Och, Margaret, that’s not just a brooch ye silly lass. Look at it.” Claire says.
We all gather around. I have no idea what I’m looking at. Is it David Yurman or Tiffany? No, perhaps not, I smile to myself.
The brooch looks familiar the more I study it. What’s that? A rooster?
“Canny Angus,” Mary laughs knowingly, “that’s the Sinclair crest.”
Lady MacGregor takes it from Mary and studies it carefully.
“If she wears it, Angus will nay let her remove it. They may as well read the banns,” Claire whispers.
“Which will she wear?” Mary asks.
They all look from the gifts laid out on the bed to me.
I take my glass of wine from the table and study it in the light.
“Ladies, they’re all lovely. Why should I have to choose one?”
The room erupts in a discordant symphony expressing all of their opinions at once.
“All!”
“She canna do that? Can she?”
“Brilliant!”
“Interesting idea.” This from Lady MacGregor.
“Aren’t you always telling me that I know nothing about men?” I ask Mary.
“Ye don’t.” She answers a little too quickly.
Well then.
“The men came here to fight for me so fight they will.”
“What are you up to lass?” Mary asks.
Each item holds its own significance. The earrings are lovely and delicate. I pick them up and put them in my earlobes. I also put on Alisdair’s gold bracelet. It is a gold bangle with tiny pearls between each flower, a thistle perhaps? Both pieces are delicate, beautiful decorations.
I hold the brooch in my hand. It is strong and sturdy. It’s meant as a proclamation. It asserts a claim. Worn on my bodice, front and center, it would be my declaration to the world that I’m for Sinclair.
The pendant from Lochmere, is sapphire and diamonds. It sparkles in the firelight. The jewels are arranged in a Celtic pattern, interspersed among gold knots. It would go lovely with my dress. I put it on and the ladies eye me with speculation.
“So you’re not going to wear the brooch?” Mary squints in disapproval at me.
And as I pin the brooch in my hair, they all laugh.
“Well, you’ve done it now, lass. If you wanted a battle, you’ve got it.”
We all share a glass or two of wine before heading down to dinner. We’ll walk in late, but a lady needs to make an entrance.