“Taking you back to your uncle in London. That Kieran fellow was right. You’re a puir daft lass and you ought to be locked away.”
She planted her feet in the mud but could find no purchase against his determined momentum. “We can’t leave now! Just look at the unfortunate creatures!” She swept a hand toward the motley crew of bandits who were gathering their weapons, muttering among themselves, and shooting her and Simon murderous looks. “They’re the last of the Kincaids. Even Connor has deserted them. They need me now more than ever!”
“If you had been standing downwind of them, you’d know that what they need is a nice hot bath. Preferably in a jail cell.”
Digging her sharp little fingernails into Simon’s palm, Catriona broke away from him.
She snatched up her tattered plaid from her pile of blankets, wrapped it around her shoulders and marched resolutely over to the milling band of thieves.
“My brother was right,” she shouted, winning back their reluctant attention. “You
are
cursed. I know you’ve all heard the words that were spoken by my great-grandfather as he lay on that battlefield at Culloden with his life’s blood seeping into the dirt after being betrayed by his own son for thirty pieces of silver and an earldom. ‘The Kincaids are doomed to wander the earth until they’re united once again beneath the banner of their one true chieftain.’” She straightened to her full height, her gray eyes glittering like polished moonstones. “Like it or not, with my brother gone, I
am
that chieftain. I
am
the Kincaid.”
Kieran shook his head and laughed aloud. “Och, lass, what ye are is out o’ yer bluidy mind.”
Still shaking his head, he slapped one of the other chuckling men on the back and started toward the forest.
As the men began to melt back into the trees, Catriona felt a flare of panic. She’d waited ten long years for this moment. Ten years of enduring Alice’s taunts and pinches, ten years of feeling like an unwelcome stranger in her uncle’s house, ten years of longing for a home she could barely remember.
“Wait!” she cried. “You can’t go! I brought you gifts, remember?”
The men froze, then turned back as one, unable to hide the greedy gleam in their eyes.
Catriona marched boldly over to Kieran, jerked the dagger out of his belt and strode back over to the wagon.
Simon watched through narrowed eyes as she sawed at the ropes binding the oilcloth. It took her several minutes of struggle, but they finally fell away, allowing her to throw back the oilcloth with a theatrical flourish.
The men inched nearer, their curiosity outweighing their caution. Catriona beckoned them forward, eager to reveal her treasures.
“I know the English have outlawed most of these things to rob you of your heritage and your pride. We could have been hanged for smuggling them into your hands, but I thought it well worth the risk.”
“How very noble of you,” Simon said dryly, folding his arms over his chest. “I’m glad to know it was worth risking my neck as well.”
She shot him a quelling glance. Reaching into the bed of the wagon, she dragged out a heavy bolt of green and black tartan. “This isn’t precisely the pattern of the Kincaid plaid, but it’s as close as I could come. I bought two dozen bolts of the wool. You can use it to make kilts and plaids for yourselves, gowns for your wives, and blankets for your horses.”
“What horses?” asked the homely fellow who had stepped forward earlier, scratching one of his enormous ears.
“What wives?” asked another man, spitting a fat wad of tobacco on the ground.
“Well…” Catriona said, at a sudden loss for words. She awkwardly heaved the bolt of wool back into the wagon, then dusted off her hands. “I’m sure you’ll appreciate my next purchase. I’ve brought you several volumes of poetry by your esteemed countryman Robert Burns. I couldn’t believe my good fortune when I stumbled upon them in a tiny bookshop in Gretna Green.” She drew out one of the cloth-bound volumes, leafing through its faded, gilt-edged pages with reverent hands. “They’re a bit the worse for wear, but that won’t stop you from reading them by the fire on a cold winter’s night.”
“If we could read, that is,” Kieran said with such gentle sarcasm that even Simon winced.
“Oh.” Both her face and her spirits falling, Catriona tucked the book back into the wagon. She could not help but brighten when she saw her next treasure. “I suppose that brings us to the crown jewel of our little collection.” Reaching back into the wagon, she dragged out a tangled nest of pipes. “Aye, it’s just what you’d hoped for—a genuine set of bagpipes!”
She stroked the instrument, feeling tears well up in her eyes. “They’ve been banned in the Highlands since old Ewan Kincaid died at Culloden. The English thought that if you could rob a man of his music, you could crush his spirit as well. Without the triumphant wail of this exquisite instrument calling him to battle, they believed he would be too disheartened to fight.” She lifted the bagpipes to her shoulder, sweeping each of her kinsmen in turn with her shining gaze. “But they didn’t take into account the song that still echoes in the heart of every Highlander. The stirring drumbeat that demands freedom—freedom from oppression, freedom from tyranny, freedom from—”
“Have ye any whisky in there?” Kieran interrupted impatiently, peering over her shoulder. “Any gold? Any food?”
Catriona blinked at him, taken aback. “We have a few extra potatoes and a loaf of bread.”
“Have ye any boots to keep our feet from crackin’ and bleedin’ durin’ the long winter months? Or guns to fight the English who’ve spent the last fifty years tryin’ to drive us off our own lands?” He plucked the bagpipes from her hands and held them aloft. “What do ye expect us to do with these, lass? Pipe them to death?”
His men responded with an ugly swell of laughter. Catriona felt something deep inside of her begin to shrivel.
Kieran carelessly tossed the bagpipes into the back of the wagon and plucked out one of the books. “Or maybe we could read ’em a poem from one o’ these fancy books o’ yers. If we’re lucky, they might doze off before they could find a rope and string us up from the nearest tree.”
“I d-didn’t…” Catriona stammered, mortified that she had been so painfully naïve. “I never meant to…”
She flinched as Kieran used his wiry hands to break the spine of the book and rip it clean in two. “Ye can take yer gifts back where they came from. We don’t need yer bluidy charity and we sure as hell don’t need ye. We’ve done just fine without a chieftain for all these years. We’re free men and we’d just as soon stay that way—free o’ the English and free o’ the likes o’ ye!”
Tossing the book at Catriona’s feet, Kieran turned on his heel and strode toward the forest with his men falling into step behind him.
Catriona stood there, looking much as she had the first time Simon had seen her—barefoot, wrapped in her beloved plaid, her sun-kissed hair tumbling around her face, her slender shoulders painfully rigid. But then her pride had been a shining mantle and now it lay in tatters around her feet.
Simon tore his gaze away from her stricken face, wishing he could turn his back on her as easily as her kinsmen had.
“I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the lass if I were you,” he called after Kieran, his ringing words stopping the men in their tracks.
The Highlander slowly turned, eyeing him warily. His hand tightened on his bow, but he made no move to raise it.
“You may believe you have some God-given right to this land, but there’s a man called the Marquess of Eddingham who thinks differently.”
“Go on,” Kieran reluctantly urged.
“Your time is running out,” Simon said. “Eddingham is coming for you and your men and he’s bringing a battalion of English soldiers with him. Catriona risked her life and her reputation to come here and warn you. So if I were you, I’d pay more heed to her words and less to your own foolish pride.”
Kieran studied him, his lips thinned to a taut line, his gray eyes as hard as polished flint.
“We can offer ye and yer woman shelter for the night but not much more,” he finally said. “And ye’d best bring those taters o’ yers if ye want anythin’ to fill yer bellies.”
As the men melted back into the forest, Simon began to pack up their belongings without a word.
He could feel Catriona hovering behind him but managed to ignore her until he felt her hand brush his sleeve. “Simon, I—”
He wheeled around to face her, something in his eyes making her take a step backward.
“I’m your hired gun, Miss Kincaid, nothing more. When I’ve completed the job to your satisfaction, I’ll expect my money. I might be willing to take a bayonet through the heart as part of my duties, but if you want me to perform any other
services
for you, it will cost you extra.”
He scooped up Robert the Bruce and thrust the cat into her arms, then turned away from her, stepping neatly over the shredded volume of love poetry.
C
atriona sat atop the highest point of the crumbling ruin that had once been the home and pride of Clan Kincaid, watching the moon rise over the jagged crest of the mountains. As the sky slowly deepened from lavender to purple to indigo, she leaned against the stone merlon behind her and wrapped one arm around her bent knee.
The rest of the towers that had once crowned the castle had been smashed to rubble by English cannonballs over sixty years ago, leaving only this one monument to the clan’s former grandeur. Her grandfather had fled its shattered walls and never looked back, having set his ambitious sights on an earldom and a fine estate in London.
She heard a footfall on the parapet walk behind her. “If you’ve come to push me off the tower before I make any more embarrassing speeches about the triumph of the Highland spirit and freedom from tyranny,” she said without turning around, “you’ll probably have to stand in line.”
“I’m willing to wait my turn,” Simon said, propping one foot on the parapet next to her and gazing up at the milky swath of stars that frosted the northern sky.
“My father used to bring us here when we were children,” she said. “Connor would be clinging to his hand and I’d be riding high on his shoulders. The place was a ruin even then, of course, but all Papa saw was the palace it had once been.” A wistful smile touched her lips. “He would spend hours telling us thrilling stories about the lords and ladies dancing in the great hall, the wild skirl of the bagpipes calling the warriors to battle, the Kincaid banner flying proudly from the castle ramparts. He’d describe it so clearly we could almost hear the banner snapping in the wind, heralding the splendor of days gone by and the glory of days to come.”
“He was a dreamer,” Simon said softly.
“He was a fool,” she said flatly. “Just like me.” She spared him a brief glance. His hair was loose and rippling in the wind like corn silk. “You must find me even more ridiculous than they do.”
He laughed, but the sound held little humor. “I’ve never been bold enough to believe in anything. Why would I mock your faith, however misguided?”
“It wasn’t faith. It was folly. Kieran was right. I brought them bagpipes and books when what they needed was food and shoes.”
“You tried to give them something more valuable and lasting than a fresh pigeon pie or a pair of new boots. Their pride.”
“Pride won’t fill their bellies or give them the weapons and resources they need to fight Eddingham.” She swung around to face him, knowing he never would have sought out her company if he didn’t have news to deliver. “They’re going to run, aren’t they?”
He nodded. “They believe they have no choice and I can’t help but agree with them. If they scatter before Eddingham’s men arrive, then at least they’ll escape with their lives.”
Catriona lifted her gaze to the shimmering opal of the moon. “I thought I was coming home. After all those years of living off of Uncle Ross’s charity, of putting up with Alice’s bullying and knowing I could never truly belong in their world, I thought I’d find a family here among my own people.” She rested her cheek on her knee, the ache in her heart threatening to spill over into tears. “Now I feel as if there’s no place in this world for me.”
Once Simon might have stroked her hair or made a gentle joke to comfort her. Now he simply said, “Perhaps someday you’ll learn not to put your faith in hopeless causes.”
Offering her a curt bow, he turned and walked away, his clipped footsteps echoing all the way down the stone stairs.
The night wind seemed to blow several degrees colder. When Catriona heard footsteps behind her, she sprang up from her perch to face the stairs. “Oh, Simon, I—”
But it wasn’t Simon who stood there. It was Kieran.
He’d washed the mud from his cheeks to reveal a face that was all hollow planes and sharp angles. Without the grimy mask obscuring his features, she realized he was much younger than she’d first believed, probably a year or two younger than Connor.
He moved toward her with the wary grace of a feral cat, his expression so resolute that she took an alarmed step backward. For all she knew, he really
had
come to fling her off the parapet.
“I remember ye,” he said, stopping a scant two feet in front of her.
“You do?”
“Aye. Ye were a wee thing, all ribbons and braids and big gray eyes. Ye used to follow Connor wherever he went, tumbling after him like some sort o’ vexsome kitten. Me mum and da lived in the village near yer cottage. We were friends even then, Connor and me.”
She smiled, her own memory stirred by Kieran’s confession. “He used to make Mama promise to stop me from following him. But the minute she turned her back to put a tray of cross buns in the oven, I’d sneak out of the cottage and be right back on his heels.”