Highland Master (19 page)

“There is one other thing I’d like to ask you,” Fin said after he and Ivor had cast dice for exorbitant, albeit imaginary, wagers for a time. “Sithee, I’ve been thinking more about Bishop Traill and our meeting here as we did.”

“I have, too,” Ivor said, scooping the dice up into the cup. Covering a yawn, he added, “Traill may have
much
more to do with this business than we knew.”

“I’m coming to think so,” Fin admitted. “As Bishop of St. Andrews, he has the ear of the royal family, and thus wields influence over the King and the Queen, as well as Rothesay, so perhaps he influences Albany, too. And perhaps…” He paused. “Do you know yet who else will be attending Rothesay’s meeting here?”

“I thought that it was to be just my grandfather, my father, Alex, and Davy’s minions. Do you mean to say that someone else is coming?”

Fin nodded. “The Lord of the Isles.”

“Donald? But everyone in the Great Glen—aye, and west of it, too—would do all they can to keep his ships from touching shore, let alone allow him to cross their lands with his army to get here. Sakes, everyone knows that he covets control of the western Highlands, and more. How the devil will he get here?”

“He’ll carry safe conducts from Rothesay and the Mackintosh, and he brings no army but only a small tail of men, as Alex will,” Fin said. “Sithee, Rothesay needs them both to stand with him against Albany. The Mackintosh
suggests, and I agree, that Davy likely wants them both to promise him their votes when his provisional term as Governor of the Realm expires in six months. After all, if they will agree to that, most men who support
them
will also support Davy.”

“Then it is possible that someone else from our group is serving Donald, as I serve Alex and you serve Davy. Any number of us may be mixed up in this.”

“Aye,” Fin agreed. “And if so, we become part of a much greater conspiracy against Albany, do we not? My concern is that the more people Davy involves, the greater the risk grows that Albany will learn of it.”

“I’d wager that he already has. Does Davy understand the danger
he
is in?”

“He knows that Albany wants to take the Governorship back into his own hands. In troth, Davy believes that his uncle covets the throne.”

“Albany is not next in line,” Ivor pointed out.

“Nay, but Davy’s brother, James, is just seven, and Albany is next after him.”

“Some would say that Albany is better suited to take the throne than Davy is. Many more agree that Scotland does need a stronger king.”

“Aye, but Davy is the heir, and I believe that he will be a strong king. Sithee, he believes in the people. Albany believes only in acquiring power for Albany.”

“We’ll have to wait, then, and see who triumphs, won’t we?”

“Aye,” Fin said. But he felt a chill shoot up his spine as he said it.

“I’m for bed,” Ivor said. “I’ve not slept a full night in four months.”

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Fin said, putting out his hand. “ ’Tis glad I am to have you as my friend, Hawk, and to be talking things over with you again.”

Firmly grasping his outstretched hand, Ivor shook it, saying, “I, too, Lion.”

Fin left then, hoping that they would still be friends when the events they had set in motion had played themselves out.

As he rounded the torchlit curve before his landing, he met Catriona hurrying upstairs. She stopped, staring wide-eyed at him, her cheeks suffusing with color.

Amused, he said sternly, “And just what mischief have you been up to, my lass, to put such fire in your cheeks?”

Catriona gaped at Fin, feeling his gaze with every fiber of her being.

Standing two steps above her, he looked taller and larger than ever, and he filled the stairway so that she knew she would have to brush against him to get by.

She felt the heat in her cheeks spread elsewhere when the thought of pressing against him grew to a mental image that included his arms slipping around her and pulling her close. She drew a sharp breath but could not think.

“Cat got your—” He broke off, chuckling. “I expect that that old saw does not find much favor with you, does it?”

“It does not, although my brothers have long delighted in finding new ways to say such things. One of James’s favorites was always to promise that he would do something before Cat could lick her ear.”

“Is that your tactful way of saying I’d be wiser not to call you Cat as they do?”

“I did not mean that, nay.” Aware that she was standing outside her mother’s room and wondering if the other women had come upstairs, or the men, she glanced warily at the closed door.

Apparently oblivious to her concern, he said in a normal speaking tone, “You still have not said what happened to put such color in your cheeks.”

“Perhaps you do not know that you are blocking my way.”

“Am I?” He stepped down a step.

Tension filled the air around her, raising the hairs on her arms and drying her lips. Wetting them with the tip of her tongue, she glanced again at the door of her mother’s bedchamber and listened for footsteps that might be her father’s coming up the stairs. Looking up at Fin, she muttered, “You know that you are.”

His eyes twinkled. “Nay, then, why should I? Nervous, lass? I’ll wager that you
have
been up to mischief, then. If so, and if I am to let you pass, I believe I should collect a toll as a small penalty for your misbehavior.”

“I have not misbehaved.”

“Ah, but you have. Why else would you keep looking at that door as if you expect it to open and an ogre to leap out and call you to account for yourself?”

“Prithee, sir, keep your voice down. Anyone on this stairway will hear you.” But she looked at the door again, sure that it
was
about to fly open.

“If you fear discovery, you had best get upstairs, had you not? I’ll just tell anyone who comes that I was flirting with a maidservant who has since fled.”

“Good sakes,
do
you flirt with maidservants in other people’s households? I thought that only your royal master did such things. I expect I should have known that you would be just like him, though.”

His eyes narrowed dangerously, but before she had time to realize that the feeling that raced up her spine was not fear but delight at having stirred him to such a look, it vanished. He said, “Art going to tell me where you have been or not?”

Pretending to consider which answer she would give, she said, “Not, I think. Why should I trust you with such a confidence when you do not trust me?”

“So that still rankles, does it?” He stepped down again, so that he stood on the landing with her, crowding her as if to see if she would step back.

She did not, but her body hummed at his nearness.

“I won’t insist that you tell me,” he said quietly. “But, as Ivor and I told you, if word of what we discussed drifts beyond these walls, it could put others at risk. I’d wager that you would put only yourself at risk by answering
my
question.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “But you do want to know, and that makes us even.”

“Does it?” He put a finger under her chin, tilting her face higher. Moving his own face close enough so that she could feel his breath on her lips, he said softly, “Art so sure now that we are even, little Cat?”

That single fingertip seemed to burn into the soft skin under her chin, and she could smell the subtle essence of wine on the breath that caressed her lips. Without conscious thought, her lips parted.

He bent nearer, slowly, so slowly that she could not
think, could not even breathe. She could only anticipate the moment when his lips would touch hers.

The moment stretched until her whole body tingled and warmed, and then his mouth brushed hers… lightly and so softly that it was as if no more than a warm wind had followed his wine-scented breath to caress her.

He did it again, and she was concentrating so hard on what he would do next with his mouth that when his hands touched her shoulders and stroked lightly downward, she gasped and leaned toward him on tiptoe, pressing her lips to his.

His felt warm and soft, but she scarcely had time for that thought to enter her mind before he slid his arms around her and his right hand moved gently up her back and under her veil until his fingers could weave themselves in the plaits at her nape. He held her so, kissed her, and tasted her lips with his tongue, gently at first and then more urgently until she parted them, and he slid his tongue inside.

The hand that had remained on her shoulder moved slowly, tantalizingly, to the small of her back, teasing her senses as it moved. Then he pressed her closer to him until she felt his body move against hers. His mouth moved more possessively as his tongue explored hers, and she could feel her breasts swelling against him. They had come alive when he touched her, in a way she had never known before.

With a sigh, he gave her a last soft kiss on the lips and then set her back on her heels. Somehow his hands came to rest lightly again on her shoulders.

She blinked and looked up at him, wishing that he had not stopped.

“You go up to your chamber now, lass. But we must
talk more. Will you walk with me on the shore again in the morning, early?”

She stared at him, wondering what had come over her… sakes, over him! Was he imagining that one such kiss meant that she sought more? What was he thinking?

Striving to sound as if she were in full possession of her senses, she said, “Ailvie will have to come with us. My father would dislike it otherwise.”

He frowned. “I don’t want to share what I have to say to you, lass. Would it suffice if she walks far enough behind to see us without hearing us?”

“Aye, I’ll tell her.”

“At dawn then,” he said. “Now go.”

F
in waited until Catriona had disappeared around the curve of the wheel stair before he opened the door to his chamber. Warm candle glow greeted him.

As he had expected, Ian Lennox was waiting to assist with his ablutions. The brush and breeks he held told Fin that Ian had been seeing to his usual chores.

When Ian looked up at him with a smile, Fin shut the door and said bluntly, “How much could you hear just now of what took place out on the stairway?”

Ian’s smile vanished. “Only enough to know that one voice was yours, sir. I heard nowt of the other person and could not make out even if you spoke the Gaelic or Scot. You ken fine, though, that I’d never repeat aught that I’d heard.”

“I do know that, Ian. But whilst we are here at Rothiemurchus, I want you to keep an even closer guard than usual on your tongue. Also, I want you and Toby to learn all you can from others in the yard and in the hall. Practice your Gaelic, for enemies may soon surround us despite Rothesay’s hope of finding allies.”

“Enemies, sir? More than just the Duke of Albany?”

“The Lord of the Isles will be here. He has no love for
the Lord of the North and less for Highlanders who resist his own insatiable thirst to add them to his realm. In troth, Donald would control the Highlands from the west coast to Perth.”

“What about the Lord of the North, sir? I ken nowt o’ the man save that his father’s numerous offspring were all bastards.”

“You’d be wise not to prattle about that here, I think,” Fin said.

“I don’t prattle,” Ian said. “Be there more I should know about the man?”

“I doubt that he covets more land, as Donald does. Alex assumed the Lordship of the North despite Albany’s having named his own son to inherit it. But the people hereabouts are doubtless grateful for that. They seem to like Alex.”

“I do know Albany’s son,” Ian said, setting the well-brushed breeks aside. “A soft-living, preening coxcomb, I’d call him, not a man of knightly skills.”

“He has none,” Fin agreed. “Sakes, Albany himself despises him.”

Ian chuckled. “The new Earl of Douglas is the same. Men called his father Archie the Grim, but they call the son ‘the Tyneman’ because he is such a bad leader. Why is it, do you think, that powerful men so often beget weak sons?”

“I can tell you only what my father said about it,” Fin said. “He was a clan war leader, so he saw what happened with other such men. He said most powerful men trust only themselves to resolve problems properly. So, they constantly correct their sons, trying to teach them to think as
they
do, rather than how to make good decisions. The
result, he said, was that they teach their sons instead to have little or no confidence in their own opinions—the opposite of what most fathers seek to do.”