As if to mock his surly temper, Catriona’s demeanor only grew sunnier with every passing league. Most women of his acquaintance would have long ago succumbed to a fit of tears or the vapors at being forced to endure such primitive traveling conditions. But not Catriona. She chattered on cheerfully and at great length about every crested tit, red squirrel and patch of early-blooming wood sorrel they encountered. One would have thought God had designed them purely for her pleasure. As the rolling pastures of the Lowlands gave way to the craggy peaks and brooding moors of the Highlands, that enchanting lilt he remembered from the barn began to creep back into her speech.
“I feel as if I can truly breathe for the first time in ten years,” she said as the cart lumbered its way up a narrow, twisting path more suited for sheep than humans. “I don’t think I ever realized how much soot I’d sucked into my lungs.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the crisp mountain air, her blissful expression making Simon wish he was the cause of it. “Doesn’t it make you feel almost drunk with delight?”
“No, but this will,” he replied shortly, drawing a fresh bottle of Scots whisky out from under the bench and uncorking it with his teeth.
The dilapidated inn they had stayed at the night before had provided very few comforts, but the copper still bubbling out back had almost made up for that. If the Scots could do one thing right, it was make whisky. Simon had cajoled a reluctant Catriona into purchasing three bottles of the stuff, hoping it would make both the journey and her company more tolerable.
He groaned as the cart jolted through a particularly nasty hole. “I can’t decide which aches more. My head or my arse.”
Catriona gave the bottle a disapproving look. “Your head might ache less if you wouldn’t drink so much.”
“My head might ache less if you wouldn’t talk so much.” Eyeing her defiantly, he brought the bottle to his lips and took a long, deep draw of the whisky.
She pulled her plaid around her shoulders and turned her profile to him, a hint of a tantalizing pout playing around her full lips. But Simon wasn’t destined to enjoy the peace and quiet of her sulk. As the wagon rounded a bend, emerging on a broad shelf of rock that overlooked the valley below, a sharp cry spilled from her lips.
Simon tugged the horses to a halt, afraid they were about to be set upon by a horde of marauding Highlanders. Before the cart could come to a complete stop, Catriona had scrambled to the ground and run to the very edge of the cliff.
Her slight figure was framed by a distant range of snowcapped peaks. The wind whipped across their majestic crags, sending billows of fresh snow gusting across the valley. Golden beams of sunlight slanted down from the west, polishing the shards of ice into glittering flecks of gold. They waltzed on the wind, twirling like lovers to the strains of a symphony inaudible to human ears.
Even to Simon’s jaded eyes, it was a spectacular sight. But no more spectacular than the sight of Catriona standing there on the edge of that cliff, her face tilted skyward to welcome the arrival of the snow, her expression rapturous. The lusty fingers of the wind made short work of her chignon, tearing away the pins and sending gleaming tendrils of hair fluttering about her face and shoulders. But the wind couldn’t sway her noble bearing or the proud set of her slender shoulders. It was if his bedraggled little Celtic princess from the barn had finally found a kingdom worthy of her.
Hugging her moth-eaten plaid around her shoulders as if it were an ermine stole, she turned to him, her smile heartbreakingly earnest. “Oh, Simon, isn’t it just the most glorious thing you’ve ever seen?”
“No,” he whispered, too low for her to hear.
His lack of enthusiasm did not discourage her. Laughing aloud, she turned back to the cliff and spread her arms wide as if to embrace the whole world and everyone in it.
Except for him.
Despite the crisp mountain air pouring into his lungs, Simon suddenly felt short of breath. He feared it wasn’t the dizzying height of their perch making him feel light-headed, but some profound shift in the balance between the earth, the sky and his heart.
“If you’re done admiring the view, I’m just about done freezing my arse off,” he called to her, sounding even gruffer than he intended.
Giving the snow-and-sunswept sky one last lingering look, she reluctantly turned back toward the wagon. She clambered awkwardly back up on the bench, looking at him askance when he didn’t even offer her a hand. As she settled herself beside him, her slender body radiating warmth, Simon stared straight ahead and clutched the neck of the whisky bottle, terrified that he had finally fallen victim to a thirst so powerful even the finest of whiskys could not quench it.
******************
By nightfall the spring snow had thickened, settling like downy white feathers in Catriona’s hair. More chilled by Simon’s inexplicably icy mood than by the frosty wind, she drew her faded plaid up over her head and huddled on the far corner of the driver’s bench. Without the heat of Simon’s body or his effortless charm to warm her, she was soon wracked by uncontrollable shivers.
The darkness deepened, but there was no sign of an inn, a cottage, or even a barn where they might seek shelter. Simon stole a glance at her, then swore beneath his breath and snapped the reins on the horses’ backs, driving the wagon off the road and into a forest clearing.
Without breaking the awkward silence, he gathered several armfuls of kindling and built a crackling fire. While he tethered the nags to a nearby tree so they could graze through the thin crust of snow, Catriona roasted potatoes in their crusty jackets and fed bits of dried beef to Robert the Bruce.
They were eating the steaming bits of potato with their fingers when Simon finally spoke.
“So tell me about this sainted brother of yours.”
Torn between relief that he was speaking to her again and dismay at his choice of topics, Catriona laughed nervously. “Oh, I can assure you that Connor is no saint. At least he wasn’t when he was a lad. He was five years older than I and never missed an opportunity to tug on my braids, use my dolls for archery practice or put a mouse in my bed.”
“So you adored him, then?”
“With all my heart,” she admitted with a wistful smile. “He might tease me mercilessly, but if anyone else so much as looked at me crooked, they could expect a bloody nose or a black eye for their trouble.”
Simon stretched out his legs and leaned back on one elbow, his shadowed eyes unreadable. “It must have been hard for him to let you go.”
“I don’t think he believed he had a choice. After our parents were…murdered by the redcoats, I cried and begged him not to send me away. But he wiped away my tears and told me I had to be brave. That the Kincaids never cried when they could fight. He promised to come for me as soon as it was safe and bring me home.”
Simon frowned. “But he sent for you instead? Rather than coming to fetch you as he’d promised?”
She suddenly took a keen interest in digging the last crumb of potato from its charred skin. “So what was
your
brother like?”
He shrugged. “Fairly insufferable. Our father could barely stand the sight of me, but I suppose Richard still saw me as some sort of rival for the old man’s affections. He never missed an opportunity to remind me that he was the true heir and I was nothing but a bastard. Richard was twelve when my father took me in. When I first arrived at the ducal estate, his favorite game was to take me to some remote corner of the house and leave me there, knowing I couldn’t find my way back.”
Catriona’s heart ached at the image of Simon as a small boy, wandering a bewildering maze of corridors while his brother mocked him. “You must have hated him,” she said softly.
“Almost as much as I idolized him.” Simon used the tip of his knife to flip his potato skin into the fire. “But I suppose the final joke was on him, because now he’s dead and I’m our father’s only son.” He dug the half-empty whisky bottle out from under his bedroll and raised it in a toast. “To absent brothers everywhere.”
“To absent brothers,” Catriona echoed. “Wherever they may be,” she added, lowering her eyes.
******************
Simon stretched one leg out in front of him and tipped back his head to study the sky.
The snow had stopped and the curtain of clouds had parted to reveal a scattering of stars.
Their twinkling edges looked sharp enough to draw blood.
He’d already polished off the first bottle of whisky and started on the second, but the familiar numbness had failed to dull the fresh ache in his heart. His body was drunk, but his mind was painfully sober.
He shifted his gaze to Catriona. She had retreated to her nest of blankets on the other side of the fire and fallen asleep almost instantly. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to convince himself that what he felt for her was simply lust—a cruel trick being played on his heart by his body to protest being denied what it so desperately wanted.
He shook his head. He should have known better than to take a wife, even a mock one.
He would have been better off squandering his charms on other men’s wives.
Catriona rolled to her side, throwing one arm over the brocaded portmanteau she guarded with more care than her virtue or her heart.
Setting aside the open bottle of whisky, he rose as silently as an assassin and padded around the fire to stand over her. Despite its crackling flames, her delicate nose was still pink from the cold. He would have liked nothing more than to strip off his clothes, slip beneath those blankets, and warm her with the heat of his body. He ached to make her flush with passion…with pleasure…with desire. He could almost feel the sweet and timeless slide as they danced together beneath the blankets, skin to skin and heart to heart…
He ran a shaking hand over his jaw, feeling feverish despite the chill breeze.
Kneeling beside her, he gently slipped the portmanteau from her grip. He hesitated for a moment, then drew off his coat and laid it over her, adding one more layer of warmth to her nest.
******************
Catriona breathed in the intoxicating masculine scent of warm toffee and sea breezes, then sighed with pleasure. She opened her eyes to find Simon crouched on the other side of the fire in his shirtsleeves, his hair gleaming like freshly minted gold in the firelight.
She glanced down to find his wool coat tucked around her.
A sleepy smile curved her lips. Although he would deny it to his last whisky-scented breath, somewhere within that lean and muscled rogue’s body of his beat the noble heart of a gentleman. She blinked drowsily as she returned her adoring gaze to him.
A gentleman who was kneeling over her gaping portmanteau. A gentleman who was rifling through its contents with the icy efficiency of a Covent Garden cutpurse. A gentleman who was cocking a lascivious eyebrow as he held the most unmentionable of her unmentionables up to the firelight. A gentleman who was tossing that delicate garment carelessly aside so he could draw her most prized and private possession into his sneaky, greedy, thieving hands.
C
atriona shot up out of her nest of blankets as if a stray spark had ignited them.
“Don’t!” she shouted, shattering the tranquil hush that had fallen over the forest.
Simon froze, his hand poised over the lid of the delicate rosewood box. Cradling the bottom of the box in his other hand, he slowly rose to his feet, eyeing her warily.
“Don’t,” she repeated, more softly this time. “Please.”
He studied her through narrowed eyes just glazed enough to warn her he had imbibed more of his supper than he had eaten. “Just what are you hiding, my clever little Cat? A sapphire necklace worth more than your dowry? Letters from an admirer? Is it really your brother waiting for you at the end of this road or someone else? A lover, perhaps?”
She took one step toward him, then another, approaching him with the same caution she might have used to corner a wild animal in its den. “Just give it to me, please. It’s mine.”
She made a sudden grab for the box, but he easily lifted it just out of her reach.
“Not at the moment. At the moment, it happens to be mine.”
Realizing that she had no hope of wresting the box from him by virtue of her height or physical strength, she folded her arms over her chest and glared daggers at him. “You have no right.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, my dear.” He gave her a lopsided grin she might have found charming if he hadn’t been holding her heart in his big, clumsy hands. “I have every right. Have you forgotten that we’re married now? What’s yours
is
mine.”
She watched with helpless dread as he began to lift the lid of the box one agonizing inch at a time, watching her reaction from beneath the decadent length of his lashes.
She realized too late that he was only teasing her. By the time he let the lid fall shut and offered the box to her, she had already made another frantic lunge for it. The back of her hand struck the edge of the box, tipping it sideways and sending it crashing to the ground. The lid flew open and its contents went spilling across the ground—not jewels or pound notes or love letters but fragile newspaper clippings, faded and yellowed with age.
Before she could react, Simon had squatted and swept the nearest one into his hands. He unfolded it, paying little heed to the careful creases she had smoothed into the paper when she had lovingly tucked it away.
As he gazed down at the faded newsprint, Catriona bowed her head, already knowing what he would find. It was a sketch done by an artist with a sure and gifted hand. A sketch of a young man standing at the top of the gangplank of a mighty warship. He was lifting his hand to greet the throng of adoring onlookers who had come to the docks to welcome home their conquering hero. A gracious smile played around his lips and there was no trace of mockery or cynicism in his clear-eyed gaze.