Amanda Scott (32 page)

“As if ducking could save me,” he muttered, feeling stupid but flinching when another bolt stabbed a promontory just across the Sound. Glancing about, he half expected to see her laughing at him from the tree line that bordered the clearing, where dense bramble-ridden forestland stretched away across much of the landscape.

But he did not see her there. Had she taken another route back to the castle?

Forcing himself to think calmly, he remembered his earlier appraisal of his sensible wife, surely too sensible to wander off into unknown countryside alone. Moreover, he had warned her and her sisters never to do such a thing, and she was not defiant by nature. Had Mariota been the one he sought, he would have had more cause to worry about that.

Instinctively, he turned toward the cliff tops, deciding that Cristina would have sought a panoramic view, a place to think where she could see the landscape spread before her. She might even be watching the approaching storm. He had noted that she had no fear of the elements, and it occurred to him that she might be unaware of the danger lightning posed to humans. He certainly had said nothing to her about its terrors, fearing that she might deduce, as she so often did, exactly what was in his mind as he warned her.

She would realize then that he was neither ferocious nor formidable but a common coward. The lass barely heeded his wishes now, for all that she pretended to do so. What would life be like if she lost all respect for him?

As that thought formed in his mind, he grimaced, knowing he did not want to lose Cristina’s respect. Then he saw her, and another chill shot through him, for she was sitting on the rock, on
Creag na Corps,
the great judgment rock from which the Lord of the Isles ordered convicted felons flung to their deaths. Wrapped in a thick, dark cloak, tightly hugging bent knees with her chin resting on one, she gazed intently out over the bay and the Sound toward Duart, as if she could see all the way to Lochbuie or even Finlaggan. She was paying no heed to the threatening storm. Indeed, sitting as she was, she made a perfect target for an errant lightning bolt.

At the next flash and the crackling onset of its accompanying roar of thunder, he flung himself from his horse, not daring to shout lest he startle her or frighten her into jumping up and trying to run from him. In truth, the way the thunder rolled and reverberated around them, he doubted she would hear him if he did shout.

He ran as if the furies of the storm chased him, his pulse pounding in his ears, terrified that fate would hurl the next lightning bolt at her before he could reach her. The thunder faded to brief silence, and a scrape of his boot on the rock startled her just as he leaped onto the rock behind her. Giving her no time to act, he clapped an arm across her shoulders, slipped his other under her knees, swept her off the rock, and dashed back from the cliff’s edge toward the sheltering woodland.

Raindrops sprinkled them as he ran, quickened before he reached the trees, then spattered and danced on the thickening spring canopy above. When he had her safe from the lightning, his terror changed to fury. Setting her on her feet with a thump, he grabbed her by both shoulders and shook her hard.

“What did you think you were doing, sitting out in the open like that?” he shouted. “You might have been killed!”

“Nonsense,” she retorted. “You may have saved me from a wetting, for I did not realize the rain was nearly upon me, but that is all, and you frightened me witless when you grabbed me as you did. Moreover, if you want to snarl at me, sir, I suggest you wait until we find shelter. Most of these trees bear only new spring leaves, and we’ll soon be soaked through if we linger here.”

He shook her again. “By heaven, lass, if I startled you, it was as nothing to the fright you gave me. Do you not know anything about lightning?”

“Aye, sure, I do,” she said. “It generally strikes mountain peaks and trees, I believe, so we cannot be any safer here in the woods than I was out in the open.”

“You know little about it then. Lightning strikes where it likes, but rarely hits thick groves of trees, because it seeks high points—treetops or ridgelines.
Creag na Corps,
where you were sitting, is just such a place.” He pointed, and as he did, a deafening crack of thunder engulfed them and a bolt struck the cliff not far from the rock. “Did you see that?” he demanded, giving her another rough shake. “Have you no sense, that you would risk your life in such a foolish way? Are you daft?”

“Perhaps I am,” she snapped. “What difference can it make to you?”

“By heaven,” he said furiously, giving her yet another shake, “do not try my patience any further, because I’m as near as I’ve ever been to putting you across my knee. You deserve it for wandering up here alone, for risking your life as you did by making a target of yourself for the lightning, for deceiving me from the outset of this marriage of ours, for daring to flirt with a scoundrel like Fergus Love, and for coming to Ardtornish when I told you to stay at home. Sakes, but I ought to send you straight home since you have no more sense than a . . . Are you listening to me?” he demanded when he noticed that she was staring stonily at him. “You’d better be listening, by God, because whether either of us likes it or not, I am your husband, my lass, and you will listen with respect when I—”

“Let go of me,” she cried, jerking away from him.

The sound and fury—both his and the storm’s—overwhelmed Cristina until she could not think. She tried to tell herself that he was reacting as he was because she had frightened him, but it was as if his shaking her and ranting at her snapped something inside.

“What difference would it make to
you
if lightning struck me down?” she went on angrily while he gaped at her. “Why should you care when you never wanted anything to do with me in the first place?”

“Be sensible, Cristina,” he shouted over the storm as he gave her another shake, albeit not as roughly as before. “Of course I’d care if lightning struck you.”

“You don’t care a whit about me, Hector Reaganach. If I died, you could have Mariota, and say what you will, she is the one you have always wanted, and she wants you, so my death would merely put things right.”

“I don’t want Mariota,” he said. He was not holding her as tightly, and he sounded calmer, but he clearly spoke with half his attention on the weather, so the conversation was not of primary importance to him, which angered her even more.

“I wish you would listen to me,” she said. “I know you think I’m a female of little brain, but still you expect much of me, sir. Indeed, everyone expects me to resolve every problem, and I’m tired of it. Doubtless, you will think me selfish, but I’ve begun to feel as if my only purpose on this earth is to look after everyone else. If Isobel cannot find entertainment for herself, she expects me to provide it.”

“Now, lass,” he began.

But she ignored him. “When you couldn’t find your spurs, you assumed that I’d put them somewhere, even though you’d mislaid them yourself. And when I successfully pressed you to think where you might have left them, did you thank me? No, you wondered why you had left them there, as if I could tell you why. The responsibility is always mine. When Mariota takes the bit between her teeth, it’s my fault. The world thinks Aunt Euphemia looks after the Macleod sisters, when in fact, I look after Aunt Euphemia. As for Father . . . well, the fact is that everyone expects me to look after them, and no one looks after me!”

“Poor Cristina,” he said, reaching for her.

Sounding like pity, his words provided the last straw. Before he could touch her, she slapped him across the face as hard as she could. “Don’t you dare touch me,” she shrieked. “You have not that right. I know I said I would obey you, but you do not
want
to be my husband. The only reason you have not applied for an annulment is that your father and brother forbade it, not because
you
decided not to, and thus you have no rights where I am concerned. I don’t want a husband who keeps me only through his obedience and sense of duty!”

He stopped still and looked at her, and for a long moment, silence loomed between them. Even the noise of the storm faded away. She glowered at him, still furious, but when he said nothing, it slowly dawned on her what she had done.

Even in the dim light of the storm-drenched woodland, she saw that his left cheek was as red as fire. She could almost see the imprint of her hand on it.

Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart began to pound.

She stepped back carefully, as if the ground right beneath her feet had threatened to open up and swallow her.

His eyes narrowed, a muscle high in his cheek twitched, and he visibly gathered himself. “You go too far, lass,” he said, his voice grim, as he shifted his weight to step toward her. “No one—”

The air crackled, the hair on her neck tingled, and the woodland turned white around them as the heavens crashed, deafening her, and Hector threw himself at her, carrying her beneath him to the ground.

She landed with less force than she had expected and realized that he had cupped her head tightly against his chest and somehow had managed to cushion her fall as well as he could with his left forearm and leg while keeping the bulk of himself protectively atop her. The ground was soft, too, padded with inches of leaf mulch covering loose dirt. Nonetheless, she could scarcely breathe under his weight, and when the noise stopped and silence fell upon the woods again, he did not move.

“Please, sir,” she muttered, gasping.

He seemed to tremble, and then he drew a deep, shuddering breath.

She tried to shift from underneath him but could not. He still gripped her tightly, and his tremors were stronger, so she knew the lightning had only stunned him if indeed it had done anything more than startle them both out of their skins.

He seemed to realize that he was crushing her with his weight, because he rolled a little to one side, but still he held her tight, her face half-buried against his chest in the thick velvet doublet he wore. She felt him heave a great sigh, and as he did, she tried again to free herself.

“Keep still, lass,” he said, his voice low and containing an uncertain note that she had not heard before. “I want to hold you a little longer.”

A bubble of laughter surprised her at the thought that he could find comfort in smashing her lips and nose into his chest, but she suppressed the laughter, understanding that he meant much more than that by his request. At last, though, she managed to turn her head enough to draw a full breath.

He was still shaking.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“I might have lost you,” he said, and again that uncertain note struck her.

“But you didn’t,” she said. “And even if you had—”

“Don’t say that again,” he muttered gruffly. “I
would
care, and I did
not
decide about the damned annulment because of my brother or my father. I decided because of you, lass, only you.”

Memory of what she had said and done flooded over her, but as she tried to think of something to say, a drop of water struck her cheek, trickling down her neck and under her cloak, making her shiver. Another followed it, and another.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

“Nay, although I did think for a moment that I’d be crushed.”

“The lightning . . .” His voice shook, and he said no more.

She lay quietly, still thinking about all that had happened, ignoring drops that fell from the tree branches with more frequency. If Hector noticed them, he gave no sign. “Could the woods be on fire?” she asked. “Does lightning not start fires?”

“Aye, but with the rain pelting down on these woods as it is, we are safe,” he said. “I knew that, and yet . . .”

“And yet the lightning still terrified you,” she said.

“You know then.”

“Know what?”

“That I’m a coward.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“How can it be ridiculous? Only think of what my enemies—or worse, my own men—would say if they should learn that the man they call Hector the Ferocious is afraid of a little lightning.”

“You’re not a coward,” she said firmly. “No coward, least of all one terrified of lightning, would risk his life as you did to snatch me off that rock. You simply have a healthy respect for its power, based on your extensive experience with it.”

“That’s true enough,” he said. “Lightning struck down a servant of ours when I was a child. I saw it happen.”

“Mercy.”

“One minute he was in the field, herding a stubborn cow toward the barn to milk, the next he was dead and the cow as well, both smelling of roasted meat.”

Her stomach curled at the image his words evoked. She said, “How horrible for you! I never knew anyone struck by lightning, although I have heard tales, of course. I never paid them much heed, because the walls of Chalamine are thick and we always felt safe inside. Today, I expect I cared more about being away from the castle alone, and watching the storm, than I did about my safety. But truly, I did not realize I was in such danger. I will take better care in future.”

“You’d damned well better,” he said.

“You are still angry with me.”

“Me? What about you?” he demanded, pulling back to look down at her. “You were like a spitting, clawing cat, hurling accusations at me, at everyone.”

“Feeling sorry for myself,” she said with disgust. “Horrid.”

“Not so,” he said. “Much of what you said was true. You are so kind to everyone that we take advantage.” He winced.

“You
are
hurt!”

That made him grin. “Nay, lass, only wet. An icy raindrop went right down my back. We need to find shelter.”

“I said that long ago,” she pointed out. “Should we not just go back?”

“We’d be soaked through,” he said. “At least here, although we’ll be damp, the trees afford us some protection. Besides, I know of a croft nearby where we can even make a fire to warm ourselves if we can find dry wood.”

“Won’t the crofter have some?”

“Last time I looked, no one lived there,” he said. “It’s part of his grace’s Kinlochaline holdings. My grandfather, Ewan Maclean, was constable there when his grace’s father was Lord of the Isles. Lachlan and I used to play in these woods.”