“She's a woman who was unhappy in marriage, plain and simple,” Alec said. “Half English, half Scottish, and caught up in a bad marriage to old Lord Caithness.”
“Did she choose to marry or no?” Colin asked, stopping in front of his friend, his feet spread, his hands on his kilted hips.
“Apparently, she didn't,” Alec responded, surprised at the personal nature of Colin's question. This was so unlike him. “It was a marriage arranged by the king to settle a land dispute or some such business. But Caithness was old enough to be her grandfather, and the marriage had no chance from the start. According to Ambrose, she couldn't last at Caithness Hall even a year. And when she returned to court, the gossip really started.”
Alec stretched his long legs out in front of him and yawned before continuing. Colin leaned his muscular arm on the stone mantel that spanned the fireplace and waited...but not patiently.
“They say that at court, she'd run around with anyone who caught her fancy. From what I hear, Caithness wasn't too sure about that bairn being his, either.” Alec peered into his friend's face, interested in Colin's reaction to this bit of gossip, but Colin turned his face to the fire.
Colin looked into the flames before him. Something inside him didn't want to believe this old story.
“One thing I do know,” Alec continued. “I saw him in the king's fight, and he may have been up there in years, but he was more than willing to do battle. He died in a swarm of bloody English foot soldiers, swinging his sword like the true warrior he was. For a Lowlander, that Caithness was a fighter.”
“But obviously not much of a husband,” Colin concluded. “Why didn't he just force her to stay put and away from court?”
“From what I saw tonight,” Alec remarked, feeling at his throat, trying to lighten the mood in the room, “that woman will not be forced to do anything she does not want to do.”
Colin let his friend change the tone of the conversation. This was, after all, Alec he was talking to.
“Well, don't worry, Alec. I will not spread the word too far about you being bested by a woman half your size,” Colin smirked. He was going to enjoy holding this over his friend's head for a long, long while.
“One thing my brothers didn't mention, though,” Alec mused, “was how bonny a lass she is.”
“Those brothers of yours have got court tastes now,” Colin answered with mock disdain. “Those black eyes and auburn hair do not find their way into the love songs they hear at court. White skin and blue-gray eyes are all they think can be beautiful, more than likely.”
“Truly said,” Alec said, a wry smile creeping across his face. “But, you know, my friend, I'm a bit surprised that Colin Campbell would even notice this woman's eyes.”
“You're daft,” Colin replied, starting to pace again. “I didn't notice.”
“No? Then why were you standing with your tongue hanging clear to the floor instead of living up to your reputation?”
“You did not look any too anxious about being saved in there,” Colin snorted, halting in front of Alec and giving him an accusing look.
“You know, my friend,” Alec responded, smiling smugly back at him. “I was feeling no anxiety, at all. With those eyes looking so lovingly into mine, I could have lain there all night.”
“Enough of this idle talk!” Colin snapped, walking across the room to the window. Sometimes Alec Macpherson could be quite annoying. “I still need to know why she is here.”
“Why don't you believe what she told your father?” Alec asked, looking at the massive warrior curiously.
“Because it makes no sense. When the English burned Caithness Hall, any woman, especially this woman, would have gone straight back to court, not to the Highlands.”
“That's probably true,” Alec said thoughtfully. “From what I hear, every widow in Scotland is at court these days.”
“Aye, all looking for husbands,” Colin added.
“Well, then who is she after here?” Alec asked, sardonically.
But Colin was not so sure. After all, he himself had not been expected back for another couple of weeks. She may have known that and come looking for another aging laird. Colin wondered bitterly if he had foiled her plan just by arriving early. His father clearly cared for this woman already. It must be Lord Hugh she was after, Colin concluded, and yet something in him didn't want to believe it. There had to be something else. The only thing to do was to stay close to her.
“I'll find out soon enough.”
Chapter 4
We should be going home now. Instead, I hear we're moving farther north. We won't be leaving what remains of this fishing village soon enough to suit me, though. There is no one left here except us. We've murdered them all. Dragged them from their lofts and their root cellars and their sheepcotes and cut them down in their gardens. The others laugh now as they drag babies from the screaming mothers' arms. They all die when we find them, and Lord Danvers looks on with a smile.
No wonder they all flee from us when they can still run, the terror in their eyes. I've never in my life seen such destruction...such utterly senseless destruction.
Colin would not get too close to her the next day.
Celia was wide awake before dawn. Kit and Ellen were sleeping soundly, but Celia's night was finished. Restless, she paced the room like a lioness ready to hunt. She needed movement, fresh air, a good fight. Celia needed something to get her blood moving.
What little sleep she'd gotten had been riddled with dreams. Fires. Gray, windswept moors. Secret passages. And Colin Campbell.
Damn, what's wrong with me, she thought. She was acting like some starry-eyed girl. This isn't some French love poem. She was not a person to be affected by some handsome face. She'd seen many handsome faces in the courts she'd attended. His face was not so different from so many others—two eyes, a nose, a mouth. No, she was way past that stage in her life. Twenty years old. A grown woman.
And she had never thought of herself as beautiful, or even attractive. No, she always had been practical. That was all that mattered. But last night when Colin had looked at her so appraisingly, she had felt demeaned. Her response had been unthinking—she'd wanted to strike back at him.
But lying awake during the night, Celia had seen that look again, in her mind, and striking back was not the response that permeated her being.
Celia had escaped from fire. She'd ridden through the harsh Highland winter. She'd blocked the secret passage. But Colin Campbell was a different kind of obstacle.
When the dawn broke clear and dry, Celia put on her travel clothes, the only outfit she had, looked in again on the sleeping Kit and Ellen, and quietly slipped out into the hallway.
This was the first time she'd been out of her quarters for fresh air since arriving. As Celia worked her way down the wide corridor, her eyes took in the magnificent architecture.
This part of the castle was clearly new. Celia had been impressed when she'd first awakened in a bright bedroom furnished with glazed windows and a fireplace. Even the new manor house at Caithness had only had glass in the top halves of the windows. The bottom halves, like the windows even in the king's castles at Stirling and in Edinburgh, had been shuttered with wood. But here, the windows were large and completely covered with a grillwork of leaded glass. What was most shocking, though, was that they swung open on hinges.
In this part of the castle the builders had used a style she hadn't seen in Scotland before. The ceilings, even in the hallways, were higher, with arches that came to a point at the top, like some of the newer cathedrals in England. The effect was one of space. Why, the Campbells lived better than the king himself.
As she reached the wide stairway that led down into the Great Hall, she was startled by Runt's sudden emergence from an alcove farther down the hallway. Despite his name, Lord Hugh's squire was hardly a runt—the young man was not much shorter than his master. Ellen told Celia that she'd spoken with him in passing one day, and that he'd said he was called `Runt' because his elder brother, Emmet, was a giant—the size of Lord Colin.
Ellen had also heard that after losing their parents at a young age, the two brothers had been raised in Lord Hugh's household. While Emmet had attained the position of Lord Colin's top fighter, Runt was still training as Lord Hugh's squire.
“Lady Caithness! You're up and about today,” he said, with obvious delight at the sight of the lady.
Suddenly Celia felt guilty, as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't have been doing.
“It's...it's time I got some air, Runt,” she answered haltingly. “It certainly looks like a fine morning.”
“Is that so, m'lady? If you'll let me, I'll wake up Lord Hugh. Or Lord Colin, perhaps. I know they'd want to show you around, now that you're feeling more yourself.”
“No! Please don't, Runt,” Celia answered quickly. “I'm not going far. I just want to go out into the courtyard for a few minutes. I'm not used to being cooped up for so long.” The last thing she needed was the company of Colin Campbell, the one man she was hoping to avoid.
“Then let me walk down with you, m'lady. I'll unbar the door for you.”
This is far better than having to face that gruff master of mine first thing in the morning, Runt thought to himself. But even better would be meeting up with Ellen, that fair-haired, green-eyed beauty who's traveling with Lady Caithness.