Teresa Medeiros (2 page)

The lad did not flinch when the Cameron’s shadow fell over him. He stood tall and straight, his eyes blazing a cold green fire. He had to crane his neck to look the Cameron in the eye, but he did it. Brian and Alex snickered. Sabrina covered her eyes and peeked through her fingers, bracing herself for the boxed ears that would surely result from such impudence.

But her father’s thunderous brow slowly relaxed into crannies of amusement. He reached to ruffle Morgan’s hair; the boy was too stunned to duck. “Spoken like a true MacDonnell, lad. A warrior born and bred just like your father. You’ll serve Cameron well.”

Morgan quivered with rage. “I serve only MacDonnell. I hate the Camerons.”

Brian’s and Alex’s snickers broke into open laughter. Morgan swung toward them, fists clenched. “How
dare you laugh at a MacDonnell, you wee freckled weasels? I ought to knock your teeth down your throats!”

The boys found this new threat even funnier. They doubled over, clutching their sides. Before their mother could reprimand them, Morgan bolted the garden, leaving the Cameron standing alone before the gate.

“Boy! Boy!” Sabrina called. If the MacDonnell disliked Brian and Alex, perhaps he would not disdain her simply for being a girl.

Without a word of explanation, she ducked through the hedge and scrambled over the wall after him.

“Sabrina!” Elizabeth cried out.

The Cameron caught his wife’s arm. “Let her go. If anyone can charm a heathen MacDonnell, ’tis that one.”

Finding a niche in the ivy that twined along the wall, the laird of Clan Cameron heaved himself up and watched the two small figures race across the meadow only a length ahead of the gray, scudding clouds.

“God go with you, princess,” he whispered. “I fear you’re going to need all his wiles and your own as well.”

“Boy! Wait, please, boy! Wait for me!”

Sabrina’s chubby legs pumped up and down. Her cries deepened to gasps. The sun had dipped behind a mass of roiling clouds and the boy was already a dark speck melting into the forest. She mentally added running well to his list of talents before falling flat, burning her knees on the stubby bracken. Spurred on by the scent of the approaching rain, she scrambled up and plunged after him into the murky gloom of the towering oaks. A root twisted around her ankle, sending her tumbling.

She landed on her rump and cheerfully deduced she was lying at the bottom of a ditch with her skirt over her head.

“Are all you Camerons cursed with both stupidity and stubbornness?”

Sabrina poked her head out from under her skirt. Morgan MacDonnell stood over her with arms crossed, staring down his nose at everything that was supposed to be tucked safely beneath her smock.

She pushed down her skirt and offered him a hand. “Hello, boy.”

He pulled her up, then wiped his hand on his grubby tunic as if her touch had soiled it. “My name is not Boy. I am—”

“—Morgan Thayer MacDonnell,” Sabrina intoned solemnly, “son of Angus MacDonnell and heir to the chieftainship. You serve only MacDonnell and hate all Camerons. And I am Sabrina, the daughter of Dougal Cameron.”

“There’s no denyin’ that.” Morgan’s voice was choked with bitterness. “You’re the devil’s own image.”

Sabrina frowned, searching her mind for some common ground where they might meet. “Do you like worms?”

“No.”

“Beetles, perhaps?”

“Warriors have no time for such nonsense.”

Her frown deepened. Brian and Alex had time for worms, beetles, and the spiders they delighted in putting in her bed. Perhaps she should ask him if he really did have tufts of hair growing on his feet. But the grim set of his jaw discouraged her. Thick, sandy lashes veiled his eyes.

“What do you like, then?”

“Fisticuffs. Swords. Guns.” His sulky lips parted to reveal a row of straight white teeth, not a fang among them. “Winnin’.”

Sabrina felt slightly dazzled, as if the sun had crept out from behind a stubborn cloud. Emboldened by his smile, she laid her hand on his arm. “There now. I do believe we shall be friends. I like you most fiercely already.”

He stared down at the pudgy little fingers stroking his arm. Morgan had never known anyone in his life
but clan and enemy. An array of emotions flickered through the lush green of his eyes. Shock. Fear. Uncertainty. Longing.

He wrenched his arm away from her. “I ain’t your friend. And I don’t like you.”

Her smile flickered but did not fade. “Why, of course you like me! Everyone likes me. Papa says I could charm the whiskers off a wildcat.”

Morgan’s eyes darkened. Sabrina took a step backward. “Have you no understandin’ of anythin’, lass?” he asked. “I don’t like you. I don’t like your brothers. And I sure as hell don’t like your Sassenach mother and your filthy-rich bastard of a da.”

Sabrina’s eyes welled with tears. The adoration she had received all her life had not prepared her for his rancor. His words held none of her brothers’ good-natured teasing.

He flung out his arm in a gesture of contempt. “Go ahead and cry. I’d expect no better of a silly wee babe!”

“I am not a babe! I am six years old!”

He advanced on her. Sabrina held her ground until he reached out and gave her chest a slight push. She sat down abruptly in the leaves. Tears spilled from her eyes.

She scrambled to her feet, rubbing her eyes and sucking back sobs. She started up the slope, choking out each word. “Papa won’t like it that you pushed me.”

Morgan’s mocking laugh rang out behind her. “I dare say he won’t. Run to your papa, princess. Tattle on me. Tell him the rude boy pushed you down and bruised your precious pride. Perhaps he’ll toss me in his dungeon to rot as his father did to me own grandfather. Or have me beheaded as old Eustace Cameron did to Lachlan MacDonnell.”

Sabrina stopped. Her back straightened. Drawing every inch of dignity she could muster into her tiny frame, she faced him, sniffing furiously. “Oh, no, Morgan MacDonnell. I’m not a babe and I’ll not tattle on
you. There’s nothing you could do to make me tattle. And I swear to you, you’ll never make me cry again. Not if I live forever will I shed a tear for such a wicked boy. You—you—” Her limited trove of insults did not contain a word vile enough for him. “—MacDonnell!”

She marched the rest of the way up the slope, digging in her toes and grasping at exposed roots to keep from sliding back down at his feet. She scrambled over the rim of the ditch, chased by a flood of Gaelic curses she was better off not understanding.

The first fat raindrops pelted her as she broke into a run. A rumble of thunder drowned out the broken noises that rose from the ditch as Morgan MacDonnell, heir to the chieftain of MacDonnell, wrapped his thin arms around a tree and cried, his bitter tears mingling with the rain.

Dougal Cameron was toasting his toes in front of a crackling fire when his daughter burst into the drawing room. Dripping all over her mother’s precious Oriental rugs, she flung herself into his lap.

“Caught in the storm, were you, lassie?”

She nodded, her head bumping his chin. He cradled the small, damp bundle to his chest and waited for her shivers to abate. At first he feared it was sobs that shook her, but when she lifted her eyes to him, they were dry and bright with anger.

“You should have boxed his ears, Papa. He’s a very naughty boy.”

“Aye, that he may be. But the MacDonnells are a rough and tumble lot, princess. I fear the lad needs a bit of love and understanding more than he needs his ears boxed.”

Her little face screwed into a terrible frown. “I do not wish to displease you, but I shan’t love him.”

The Cameron chuckled. “ ’Tis just as well. I suspect that face of his will earn him love enough in the years to come.”

She hooked her arms around his neck and
pressed a kiss to his beard. “I love you, Papa. I will always love you best.”

Dougal buried his chin in her silky curls, torn by his desire to spare her the mortal pains of love and living. “ ’Tis not so, princess,” he said softly. “But ’tis a pleasant thought. A pleasant thought indeed.”

SCOTLAND, THE HIGHLANDS
1730

“The MacDonnells are a-comin’! The MacDonnells are a-comin’!”

The cry shot like cannonfire through the sleepy village of Cameron Glen. The villagers raced madly through the cobbled streets, not knowing whether to hide their livestock or their children. One cynical crofter tipped back his chair, took a long, slow draw off his pipe, and announced dourly that sheep or daughter would do just as well to a MacDonnell in an amorous bent of mind.

The few who could afford the luxury of curtains jerked them shut. Hammers tapped in frantic rhythm as boards flew up over windows and doors. The Camerons and the MacDonnells had been feuding for so long that no one could remember the cause. To the villagers their laird’s foes were still more myth than men.
For decades they had done their thieving and ravishing in stealth. If a village lass returned from a mountain walk rumpled and dazed, knowing whispers would greet the subsequent swelling of her belly and the birth of her tawny-haired babe.

Kneeling in the road, a withered old man gathered a group of awestruck children around him. “I was but a wee lad meself, but I’ll ne’er forget the last time the MacDonnells marched through Cameron Glen. Giants they were, o’er eight feet tall wi’ thighs as wide ’round as tree trunks.” A freckled little girl hid her trembling face against his leg. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “And ’round each o’ their waists hung their turrible trophies—the severed heads o’ the Camerons.”

The children squealed in delicious horror. Caught up in his own lurid tale, the old man cast the manor house on the hill an ominous look. The stone tower of ancient Cameron Keep sprouted from its timber-framed wings like an embattled mushroom. He knew the MacDonnells had been invited to Cameron not to battle, but to banquet. But why would Dougal Cameron invite his enemies to his home when he knew they were more inclined to eat the family than the feast?

His palsied hand absently smoothed a boy’s cowlick. “Daft,” he muttered. “Our own laird’s gone as daft as a rabid hare.”

At that precise moment, the occupants of Cameron Manor might have agreed with him. The drawing room had been thrown into chaos by an army of servants and helpful Camerons. Caught up in the pervasive atmosphere of terror and glee, Sabrina rushed back from the old buttery, where she had hidden her mother’s silver tea service. She tripped over the small, grizzled dog curled up in front of the hearth. He bared his one remaining tooth and snapped at her.

“Sorry, Pugsley,” she murmured, pausing to straighten his jeweled collar.

“I won’t have those ham-footed Highlanders
stomping my rugs to death,” Elizabeth Cameron announced. Heedless of her silk skirts, she dropped to her knees on the bare stones and began to roll up a plush Persian carpet.

“No worry, Mama.” Brian lounged on an overturned Louis XIV gilded armchair, ignoring Alex’s obvious grunts for help beneath the weight of an ornately carved Elizabethan chest. “The MacDonnells will never make it this far. We’ve been at peace for almost a month. Without our throats to cut, they’ll be cutting their own by now. I predict extinction in”—he drew a gold pendant watch from a ruffled pocket—“three hours and seventeen minutes.”

“I’m surprised they haven’t extincted themselves already with all that inbreeding,” Alex gasped, letting the chest drop dangerously near the polished toes of Brian’s shoes. “I’ve heard they share women like other men share—”

“Alex!” Elizabeth cleared her throat, jerking her head toward Sabrina’s avid face.

Her elder son lapsed into silence. He might tower over his mother by half a foot, but he knew when to curb his tongue. Beneath her willowy slenderness lay a spine of fine English steel. The coils of gray in her fiery hair had yet to soften the temper that accompanied it.

Sabrina affected a sophisticated shrug. “Don’t scold on my account, Mama. Why, only this morning I learned a new song from one of the kitchen maids.” She locked her hands at the small of her back as she’d been taught to do when serenading guests and primly sang:

“Sabrina!” Her mother gasped a warning.

“—tempers?” she hastily warbled.

Alex choked back laughter and applauded. “Carry
down your clarsach, Mum! My baby sister can entertain our guests after we sup tonight.”

“If I’ve my way, she’ll be bolted safely in her chamber until those lascivious rogues are gone,” her mother said grimly.

Sabrina knew that if her mother had her way, she’d be bolted safely in her chamber until her journey to London in the spring. It was her mother’s fondest wish that Sabrina’s jovial uncle Willie introduce her to some eligible country parson who couldn’t find the Scottish Highlands on a well-marked map.

“It seems our MacDonnells are known for more than just their fighting prowess,” Brian said dryly.