Some Like It Wicked (20 page)

Kieran nodded. “I know I said some harsh things earlier, but I wanted ye to know Connor was like a brother to me.”

“He was like a brother to me too. Once.” Catriona swallowed around the lump in her throat so she could ask the one question that had been haunting her ever since Kieran had revealed her brother’s fate. “If he was going to leave this place, going to give up on all of you and our father’s dream of reuniting the clan, then why didn’t he come to me?

Why didn’t he come
for
me?”

Kieran shook his head. “He wasn’t the same lad ye remembered. This life takes a harsh toll on a mon, lass. Too many days o’ knowin’ the only food ye’ll have in yer belly is what ye can steal. Too many nights o’ takin’ yer pleasures wherever ye can pay for them

’cause no decent lass would ever look at ye twice. There’s a reason there are no women among us, no bairns, and only a handful of auld men.” He touched a hand to his neck.

“Sometimes ye wake up chokin’ in the middle o’ the night ’cause ye can feel the hangman’s noose already tightenin’ ’round yer throat.

“Yer brother had seen things…done things just to survive that no mon should ever have to do. If I had a sister, I’d spit in her face before I’d let her be seen in the street with me.”

“Then you’d be just as big of an arse as my brother, wouldn’t you?”

Looking taken aback by her boldness, he cleared his throat, then reached into the pocket of his threadbare tunic and drew out a book. “Some o’ the lads were wonderin’ if ye’d be so kind as to read us a poem out o’ one o’ yer fancy books? They don’t care much for kissin’ and the like, but some swordplay or bloodshed might be just the thing. Preferably English blood, of course,” he added, the ferocious glint in his eye deepening along with his shy grin.

Biting back a smile of her own, Catriona took the book from his hand. “I believe I know
just
the poem.”

******************

When Simon returned to the ruins of Castle Kincaid after hiking the surrounding hills for well over an hour, the last thing he expected to find was Catriona holding court in what had once been the great hall.

Since the English had blown off its roof and rafters decades before, leaving it open to the majestic sweep of the sky, the hall was now more courtyard than court. Nature had wasted no time in reclaiming what man had so briefly called his own. Thick clumps of grass sprouted through the cracks in the flagstones. Moss grew lush and green on the north walls, while nightjars flitted to and fro through the gaping wounds of the windows.

A cheery bonfire burned among the crumbled bricks where a hearth used to be.

Catriona was reading aloud by the light from that fire, the Highlanders gathered around her like a flock of grubby, overgrown nursery children. She sat cross-legged on a broad stone with the Kincaid plaid tucked around her shoulders and Robert the Bruce draped across her lap like a fat, furry rug. She absently stroked his ruff as she read, earning an adoring blink from his drowsy golden eyes.

“Fickle beast,” Simon murmured, hanging back in the shadows of a fallen rafter just outside that circle of light.

Judging from the beguiling hint of hoarseness in her voice, ‘The Battle of Sherramuir’

wasn’t the first poem she had read them. Her Highland lilt had returned, melting away the crisp edges of the accent she had acquired during her years in London and making her every word sound like music.

Simon shook his head in disbelief. The motley band of thieves and cutthroats were hanging on her every syllable just as he was.

As he watched the firelight dance over her gleaming curls and delicate features, he fought to kindle the embers of the fury that had sent him stalking over those hills. He should have known better than to even consider trusting his heart into her hands. She wasn’t the first woman to betray him. Or the first woman willing to sacrifice him for another man.

But he was determined that she would be the last.

Her voice softened as she reached the final stanza of the poem:

They’ve lost some gallant gentlemen,

Amang the Highland clans, man!

Now wad ye sing this double flight,

Some fell for wrang, and some for right,

But mony bade the world guid-night.

She finished with a melancholy sigh and gently closed the volume. A grizzled old Highlander fished a filthy kerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at his eyes.

The tender moment was spoiled by a rude bleat. Everyone, including Simon, winced and swung around to glare at the culprit.

A gangly lad of about fifteen was sitting on a nearby rock. He grinned sheepishly, nodding toward the bagpipes in his arms. “I thought ye might enjoy some after-dinner music.”

Kieran snickered. “Hoot, Callum, I thought ye were slaughterin’ a lamb.”

“I thought he ate too much haggis,” one of the other men said, referring to the notorious Scots delicacy that was usually boiled and served in a sheep’s stomach.

The lad made another valiant effort to coax something resembling music from the instrument, his face growing more purple by the minute as he heaved and pumped and squeezed and puffed, all to no avail.

The man sitting next to Kieran tucked a blade of grass between his teeth and sighed.

“Puts me in mind of a lass I once met in Glasgow. Why, she could blow the varnish right off a—”

Kieran elbowed him in the ribs hard enough to make him double over, nodding toward Catriona. “Mind yer tongue, Donel. We’ve a lady among us.”

When a particularly tortured squeal sent Robert the Bruce darting off into the night, the grizzled old Highlander who had wept at the end of the poem marched over to the boy and snatched the bagpipes from his hands. “Give me those, lad. Ye should be ashamed o’

yerself! Ye’re a disgrace to the Kincaid name!”

As he went striding off into the darkness, removing both the bagpipes and their ears from harm’s way, the men raised their mugs of ale in a toast and sent up a collective cheer.

Catriona laughed and lifted her own mug, joining in with a rousing huzzah of her own.

As she lowered it, Simon stepped out of the shadows and their eyes met.

“Come join us, Wescott!” Kieran called out. “Yer wee wife here has been readin’ us some poetry written by one o’ the finest Scotsman who ever lived—Robbie Burns.”

“Robbie Burns,” his clansmen echoed reverently, lifting their mugs again.

“Oh, I’m familiar with his work.” Still gazing into Catriona’s eyes, Simon softly recited with a flawless Scots burr:

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will love thee still, my Dear

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

For a timeless moment, Catriona continued to gaze at him, her eyes misty with longing, her lips parted, ripe for the kissing. Then she ducked her head with an awkward laugh.

“My Mr. Wescott grew up in the theater. He can make even the most preposterous drivel sound convincing, can he not?”

Kieran’s cool, assessing gaze traveled from one to the other of them. “Hell, if his tongue is as silver in bed as out of it, I just might marry him meself.”

The men’s rollicking laughter was cut short by a pure sweet note that seemed to pour from the throat of heaven itself. As that note soared into a full-blown tune, every hair on the back of Simon’s neck stood straight up.

The men of Clan Kincaid exchanged stunned glances. Even Kieran couldn’t quite hide the wonder in his eyes. Catriona came to her feet and, one by one, they all followed, drifting silently toward the lone remaining arch on the north wall to find the grizzled old Highlander silhouetted against the moonlit sky. He was standing at the edge of the steep cliff that overlooked the vale below, the bagpipes cradled against his shoulder.

The majestic strains hung in the air like the wailing ghost of days gone by, singing of battles won and loves lost, hopes fulfilled and regrets mourned, dreams forsaken but never forgotten. Simon felt those lofty notes pierce his own soul, calling him to a battle that wasn’t his own, a woman he might love for the rest of his days, a home he’d never known. The melody seemed to carry with it the haunting echo of fife and drum and a thousand voices raised in one accord.

Every man on that hillside stood a little straighter, including him, and without knowing how they got there, he found his hands fiercely gripping Catriona’s shoulders.

By the time the old man sent the last note of his tune winging its way across the vale to find its final resting place in the arms of the mountains, hers weren’t the only cheeks wet with tears.

Kieran was the first to recover. “Ye can save yer bluidy dirges for me burial, auld mon,”

he called out. “Do ye not know any fine dance tunes?”

The old fellow glowered at him. “I didna want to waste me breath, since it’s likely the only place you’ll be dancin’ is on a gibbet, ye young fool.” With that, he lifted the pipes to his lips and launched into a merry reel.

His eyes glittering with mischief, Kieran turned and offered Simon and Catriona a surprisingly courtly bow. “If ye’ll excuse us, sir, I do believe the lady promised the first dance to me.”

Before Simon could protest, Kieran had grabbed Catriona by the hand and snatched her from his arms. She threw him a helpless glance over her shoulder as Kieran whisked her into the reel, leading her down a double line of her hooting, clapping clansmen.

Simon watched her pass from hand to hand, from man to man, her cheeks growing pink with exertion, her grin blooming into full-blown laughter as she tossed back her head and kicked up her heels, sending her skirts whirling around them. He had danced with countless women in scores of ballrooms, almost always knowing the night would end with one of them in his bed. But he’d never been as hard or as hungry as he was in that moment.

Or as dangerous.

He wanted Catriona. So much that he was willing to risk everything to have her in his bed—his pride, his heart, even his life. Regretting that he could no longer dull both his wits and his longing with whisky, he turned on his heel and went stalking off into the darkness, never seeing Catriona’s smile fade as she watched him go.

S
imon awoke the next morning feeling as if he had the weight of the world on his chest.

But when he cautiously opened one eye, he discovered it was just Robert the Bruce.

Giving him an insolent look, the cat cocked back on his rump and began to lick himself between his splayed hind legs.

Simon lifted one eyebrow. “If men could do that,” he growled, “we’d have no need of women.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Without a woman or at least a decent valet, you still wouldn’t be able to find your stockings or properly tie a cravat.”

At that wry pronouncement, Simon sat up abruptly, dumping the cat from his chest. The beast gave him a malevolent look as he sauntered away, his tail twitching in indignation.

Catriona was perched on a fallen stone that had once been part of an overhead arch in the mossy grotto he had claimed for his bedchamber. He was surprised to see her blankets spread out less than a foot away from his. It was probably just as well that he had never known she was within arm’s reach during the long, lonely hours of the night.

She had donned a gown the color of fresh strawberries and twisted her curls atop her head in a careless knot, leaving several of the more unruly ones free to tumble over her cheeks and nape.

She eyed him warily, as if unsure of her welcome. “I hated to send Robert to wake you, but I thought you were going to sleep until noon again. We’ve been summoned.”

“By whom?” He yawned and raked his tousled hair out of his eyes. “The King?”

“No, the clan. It seems that Kieran has called a Council.”

“Is that like Parliament? Will we have to wear long black robes and powdered wigs and listen to unbearably pretentious debates about the raging inflation and whether or not the King is too balmy to rule?”

“The Council is an ancient custom of the clan and is only called when an important matter is to be decided or announced.” She leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “According to Callum and Donel, no one in Clan Kincaid has called a Council since the ’45.”

Simon sighed and tossed back his blankets. “Then by all means, let me find my robe and wig.”

Simon and Catriona entered the ruins of the great hall a short while later to find her clansmen already gathered. The men were using the collapsed rafters as benches while Kieran stood in their midst, one foot propped on the same broad stone Catriona had occupied the night before. Their carefree merriment of the previous night seemed to have vanished, leaving their sun-leathered faces solemn and unreadable. Their mood seemed to be at odds with the cheerful wisps of clouds drifting across the dazzling blue swath of sky above.

Kieran wasted no time on pretension or formalities. As soon as Simon and Catriona entered their hallowed circle, he looked Catriona dead in the eye and said, “We want you to stay.”

“Oh, we plan on it,” she assured him. “We’re very honored that you invited us to sit in on your Council.”

“No,” Kieran said. “I mean we want you to stay here. At Castle Kincaid. With us.”

Catriona shook her head in wonder, hardly daring to believe that someone might actually want her. That she might have finally found the home and family she had been dreaming of for so long. “But Simon told me you were going to run away. That you were going to scatter and hide so Eddingham wouldn’t find you.”

“Most of us have been runnin’ and hidin’ since the day we were born. Connor used to say that sometimes a mon has to find a spot to make his stand, even if it turns out to be his last one.” Kieran’s gaze swept the ruins of the great hall. “Well, this looks to be as fine a spot as any to me.”