Sins of a Highland Devil Read online

  She’d donned a voluminous cloak, its woolen folds hiding her lusciously curved body. But briskly as she walked, a fool could imagine how her breasts must be bouncing with each quick footstep.

  James envisioned her naked. He knew how she looked walking toward him unclothed and with her breasts jigging delightfully, her braids undone so that her sun-bright tresses spilled over her shoulders to swirl about her hips with each provocative move she made.

  The image made him hard, tightening his loins with an urgency he’d never felt for another woman. Furious, he tugged at his plaid before Alasdair—or anyone—could notice how she affected him.

  Unfortunately, she chose that moment to look his way. She stared at him as if she’d sensed the moment his damnable body decided to add more smirch to his tarnished honor.

  James glared at her.

  She flashed him the most fleeting of smiles, then marched on toward her escort.

  But as she went, she flipped one of her braids over her shoulder, and James was sure a tantalizing whiff of gillyflower sailed past his nose on the cold morning wind. When she glanced back over her shoulder, her deep blue eyes triumphant, he knew he wasn’t mistaken.

  She’d wanted him to scent her.

  And he had, by God!

  One of the older squires standing near James stared after her, his lips forming a low whistle.

  James shot the lad a sharp glance. “She’s a lady, you lackwit. Mind your manners lest I have you scrubbing the cesspit rather than tending horses.”

  Alasdair’s lips twitched. “I doubt she noticed him, Cameron. Her gaze was on you.”

  “Humph.” James started forward, hot on that wafting drift of gillyflower.

  “James, wait! She’ll no’ be thanking you—” Alasdair’s warning was cut off by hoots of laughter from the gawking squires.

  Even some of the older men, the patrol guards looking down from the wall-walk, loosed a chorus of their own guffaws and whistles.

  James ignored them all.

  Especially Alasdair, who’d obviously guessed his intent.

  Not that James cared.

  As her host—she was still within his castle gates—he’d be remiss in his hospitality if he didn’t help her onto her garron. It’d be her fault entirely if, when doing so, he gripped her waist more intimately than if she hadn’t once again provoked him.

  “Catriona!” He quickened his strides, not missing that she’d increased her own at his approach. When he reached her, he bent a quick knee. “Let me assist you mount—”

  “No need.” She flashed him a blinding smile as she sailed past him, moving so quickly she must’ve fastened wings on her ankles.

  Before he could blink—or even lower the arms he’d extended with such a flourish—she hitched her skirts and put her foot in the stirrup, swinging herself into the saddle, sitting astride like a man. As quickly, she tossed her head and then clicked her tongue, sending the horse trotting right through the open castle gates.

  This time she didn’t glance back.

  Such an air wasn’t necessary with the ramrod straightness of her back showing everyone what she thought of him.

  James glared after her, livid.

  He felt his face darkening, the hot color spreading under his skin. “Vexatious hell-cat.”

  “Aye, she can be.”

  James hadn’t noticed Alasdair’s approach but now whipped around to find him standing at his side.

  “It matters no’ a whit to me.” James dusted his plaid, feigning indifference. “I couldn’t know she’d leap onto the horse like a cloud-riding Valkyrie.”

  Alasdair shrugged, showing his perceptiveness at last.

  When he spoke, his voice didn’t hold a trace of mockery. Even more surprising, his clear blue eyes were sympathetic. “I tried to warn you. Our father taught her to ride before she could walk.

  “Truth is”—he glanced after her, his words edged with pride—“she sits a horse better than any of us, though it pains me to admit it.”

  “Then let us join her before she rides through the Lowlanders’ encampment on her own.” James started for his own horse.

  His concern was real.

  In recent days, the number of the pitched tents crowded along the castle sward and beside the newly erected battling ground had swelled to the size of a large village. Some of the makeshift lodgings even encroached into the wood. And the scores of spectators pouring in from the south weren’t all men of the noble class. Several that he’d seen even appeared to be shifty-eyed miscreants, come in the hopes of pinching a few coins, or worse.

  Catriona riding alone through their midst was unthinkable.

  Her sire might have made her a fine horsewoman, but he intended to know her safe.

  Even if the right wasn’t his.

  And that was a damnable shame, because, after last night, he couldn’t imagine a life without her.

  “Were my cook’s honeyed bannocks no’ enough to fill your belly this morn, or do you have a taste for fresh-off-the-griddle oatcakes?” James glanced at Alasdair, riding close beside him as they wound their way through the tents and cooking fires that covered every inch of ground between Castle Haven’s curtain walls and the wood beyond.

  “I do favor oatcakes.” Alasdair kept his attention on a cook stall where a stout, red-faced woman shouted the tastiness of her griddled oatcakes.

  James studied Alasdair’s profile, noting the hard set of his jaw. Alasdair had hardly touched Cook’s oatcakes, surely the finest in the land. A sudden fondness for them struck James as unlikely.

  But he was curious.

  Alasdair kept glancing at the traders’ carts and food stalls set among the maze of colorful tents. His watchful eyes took in everything they passed. His gaze darted left and right, scanning the clusters of Lowlanders who filled the narrow spaces between the tenting or scurried about, some tending cooking pits, a few huddling near a supply wagon playing dice, while others hawked wares as if at a market fair.

  An air of celebration hovered over the makeshift settlement, the jollity offensive, considering they’d gathered to witness men cut each other down.

  Yet there was no disguising the festive mood.

  And the deeper James and Alasdair led their party into the encampment, the more raucously their eyes, ears, and noses were assaulted by the revelry. The din was unceasing, a cacophony of voices, laughter, and shouting, spiced with the occasional barking of dogs or whinnying and snorts of horses. Smoke from the cook fires hung in the air, bringing the mouthwatering smell of roasting meat, while the steam rising from dozens of simmering cauldrons competed with the equally tempting aroma of well-seasoned stew.

  Several tumblers and jugglers had drawn a crowd to their left, their antics reaping cheers. Closer by, a buxom young alewife with a quick laugh and merry eyes served ale from large earthen ewers to a handful of Lowland knights who appeared more interested in her boldly displayed charms than her frothy libations.

  And—James noted with interest—all of them earned Alasdair’s assessing stare.

  Just now Alasdair slowed his garron to narrow his gaze on the red-cheeked, heavyset woman flipping oatcakes at her cook stall.

  “We can stop if your belly’s rumbling.” James cast a look over his shoulder at the MacDonald men-at-arms riding in a tight column behind them. Catriona was wedged in the middle of them, a precaution insisted upon by her brother and one that—given the fierce glint in her eye—didn’t suit her.

  But as soon as she noticed James’s stare, the annoyance vanished from her face and she assumed an air of ladylike calm, though she did lift an eyebrow at him. She did so quickly and subtly, before anyone else could see.

  James let his own brows snap together, too irritated to care if she saw.

  He saw more than he wished.

  In the night, she’d taken his breath and his body. Here, in the open, and beneath the wild, roiling sky, she came near to capturing all of him. The morning breeze riffled her cloak, molding it to her c
urves. And her braids were beginning to loosen, the gleaming strands tumbling about her shoulders. It was a becoming dishevelment, more lovely than if she’d undone her plaits and arranged the glossy red curls with the sole intent of tempting him.

  Almost, he believed she had.

  Especially when he tore his gaze from her, only to find Alasdair no longer watching the stout woman at the cook stall, but eyeing him, with sympathy.

  James scowled. He didn’t want commiseration from a MacDonald. However much he was secretly coming to like and admire the lout.

  So he did the only thing he could do, drawing rein beside his damnably congenial foe as Alasdair had already halted his own steed.

  “Thon oatcakes you were eyeing do look good and”—James gestured to another cook stall a few paces beyond the stout woman’s griddle offerings—“those sausages and meat pasties smell equally fine. I am no’ in haste to return to my hall, if you wish to try something. Perhaps your sister will welcome a pause? She might appreciate refreshment before you ride on the Blackshore.”

  “You surprise me.” Alasdair’s lips twitched. “I’d think you’ve seen enough of her by now to know she’d sooner eat a bowl of salted peat than take one bite of Lowland food. Leastways”—his voice hardened—“victuals served up by Sir Walter’s camp followers.

  “Though I’ll own she has a ravenous appetite.” He threw a glance at her, looking quickly back to James. “She hungers for many things. A few that are no’ good for her.”

  James felt himself flush, gently reprimanded. “I’ll no’ be pressing my attentions on her if that’s your concern.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Alasdair’s acceptance of his protestation stung. “She could tempt the devil with the crook of one finger. And I do know she favors you.”

  “I vow you mistake.” James struggled against the urge to glance at his feet. He was sure he’d felt them turn into hooves in the stirrups.

  “It scarce matters one way or the other.” Alasdair signaled his men to halt and then swung down from his saddle. His smile flashed when he looked back at James. “You’re a Cameron. And if that isn’t a bad enough taint, chances are you’ll also be a dead man very soon.”

  “And so will you.” James jumped to ground, telling yet another lie.

  He didn’t know when or how it’d happened, but he was fairly certain that if it came to it, he wouldn’t wield his steel on Alasdair.

  To his surprise, Alasdair grinned. “I’d have words with you.” He strode forward to grip James’s arm. “There, in the trees beyond the food stalls.”

  “And the others, will they no’ wonder what we’re about?” James noted that Catriona and the guardsmen had already dismounted.

  “We are men.” Alasdair’s voice held a spark of humor. “They’ll no’ wonder if we slip away for a moment. All men do when nature calls.”

  James wasn’t so sure.

  He glanced again at the MacDonalds, his body beginning to stir when his gaze lit on Catriona. Amid the men’s jostling and leg-stretching, she stood cool as spring rain, lightly caressing the ambers circling her neck. The stones shone in the watery morning sun, a perfect complement for her richly burnished hair.

  She caught him looking at her and dropped her hand as if the ambers burned her. Pink bloomed across her cheekbones, but then she turned away to bestow a dazzling smile on one of the guardsmen.

  James felt a rush of annoyance that almost choked him.

  But when a small group of Lowland knights strode past her and the MacDonald men-at-arms, her smile vanished, replaced at once by a look of disdain, a surge of admiration welled inside him.

  “She is bold, too much so at times.” Alasdair tugged on James’s arm, urging him toward the nearest cook stall. “Come now, lest she turns her eye this way again. She’s as quick-witted as she is daring, and I’d no’ have her guess what I must tell you.”

  James jerked his arm from Alasdair’s grasp. “I’ll no’ be dragged anywhere.”

  He did walk with Alasdair into the trees, keeping pace with him as they moved deeper into the wood. The trees were great Caledonian pines, thick-trunked and growing closely together, their red-barked girth and the soft morning mist hiding them from curious glances. But when Alasdair made no move to pause, James stepped around in front of him.

  “We’ve gone far enough.” He folded his arms. “If we stray any farther, no one will believe we had a natural reason for nipping into the wood.”

  He’d expected Alasdair to laugh—the lout had been in high fettle all morning—but now he pulled a hand down over his face, his levity gone.

  “We can speak here, to be sure.” Alasdair’s voice was terse. “I wanted you to know that I wasn’t fooled by Catriona’s tale about Birkie. I knew the wee dog wasn’t missing. I’d seen Maili, one of our laundresses, sneaking two bowls of rib meat and watered oats up to Catriona’s bedchamber.

  “I followed Maili and”—some of the twinkle returned to Alasdair’s eyes—“I heard yipping behind the door. Birkie and his brother, Beadle, were both ensconced like fur-clad kinglets in Catriona’s antechamber, their own maid seeing to their every whim.”

  “Yet you went along with Catriona’s story?”

  “I did.” Alasdair swatted at a thread of mist sliding past them. “And at the cost of having you think she’d hoodwinked me again. I would’ve told you sooner, but there wasn’t an opportunity.”

  James waved a hand. “I ne’er thought—”

  “You did.” Alasdair’s gaze met James, good-naturedly. “It was writ all o’er your face, though I’ll no’ be holding that against you. I’d have thought the same. How could you know it served my own purpose to do as if I believed her?” He hooked his thumbs in his sword belt. “I wished to come to Castle Haven. Catriona gave me the chance.”

  He paused. “I also didn’t want Sir Walter to suspect my reason for calling.”

  “That craven! What does he have to do with it?” James felt his nape prickle.

  Alasdair rubbed the back of his own neck, looking uncomfortable. “I cannae say he’s involved, though I have suspicions. See you, one of the kitchen laddies at Blackshore came to me upset that he’d seen a monster creeping along the lochshore just before sunrise. The boy claimed the apparition was slinking around our beached galleys. “And”—his voice hardened—“those ships moored within wading distance to the shore.”

  “You think the boy saw Sir Walter?” James frowned. “He hasn’t left my hall, save to prance about thon tents like a peacock. I’ve set men on him, good men who haven’t let him from their sight.”

  “I expected no less.” Alasdair glanced over his shoulder, as if the trees and mist had ears. “Nor would Sir Walter risk such foolery. Himself. Such men have minions to do their bidding. I believe it was one of them that young Scully saw at our galleys. When I pressed the lad for a description of the monster, I knew he’d seen a man. He spoke of a tall, dark-cloaked figure.”

  “Like the man I saw here, the morning I caught Catriona in the wood.”

  “So I wondered.”

  James drew a long breath. “The boy couldn’t have erred? Perhaps he had a fearing dream or”—he didn’t believe this himself—“saw bog mist?”

  “Bog mist doesn’t gouge holes in the hulls of galleys.” Alasdair’s voice was grim. “I, too, thought the lad might’ve conjured beasties from sea haar. Or that a bard’s tale frightened him. But when I took a party of men to the lochside, we found a number of ships damaged.”

  James stared at him. “That bodes ill.”

  Alasdair nodded. “Now you see why I needed to speak with you. The man Scully saw knew what he was about. The holes were small and well hidden between the strakes. Yet their purpose was clear.

  “Who’er the black-cloaked figure is”—he paced a few steps and then swung round—“he wanted us to board the galleys as e’er, and then—”

  “Sink beneath your feet.” James finished for him.

  “Just so.”

  �
�Someone means ill with this glen.”

  “Or with us.” Alasdair took a leather-wrapped flagon from beneath his plaid, pulling the wooden stopper before he handed the flask to James. “I’ll ride to speak with Kendrew Mackintosh after Catriona is safely returned to Blackshore. Perhaps the Mackintoshes have seen a dark-cloaked stranger slipping about the dreagan stones beneath Castle Nought?”

  James bit back a snort. “You think Kendrew would say if they have?”

  “We have dealings now and then. But”—Alasdair rolled his shoulders, then cracked his knuckles—“if he isn’t in a friendly mood, I’ll persuade him, whatever.”

  James tipped the flagon to his lips, welcoming the burn of the uisge beatha as the fiery Highland spirits slid down his throat.

  He thrust the flask back at Alasdair, then dragged his sleeve over his mouth before speaking.

  “Could be Kendrew is behind this?” James didn’t trust the man. “He’s e’er at mischief. Perhaps the cloaked figure is his man?”

  Alasdair shrugged. “My gut tells me otherwise.”

  James’s did, too. But he loathed Kendrew Mackintosh enough not to admit it.

  Mackintoshes were worse than MacDonalds.

  And more worrying than either foe were the icy chills racing up and down his spine, the tight coil of alarm snaking around his chest. Memories flooded him of the night before, the brief bliss with Catriona, and how—even now—he wanted more of her. And it wasn’t just the wonder of sinking into her tight, womanly heat, or the feel of her body naked and trembling beneath him. He’d kill a man for the pleasure of tangling his tongue with hers, sipping her breath. And he’d face an army if doing so would vanquish the dangers that would shadow her if he made her his own.

  If other perils—a dark-cloaked man or a craven like Kendrew Mackintosh—threatened her, he’d break each one in pieces.

  He shoved a hand through his hair, thinking.

  “If no’ those rock-climbing Mackintosh goat-men, then—” Trumpet blasts and the earthshaking thunder of many approaching hooves cut him off as the air filled with cheers and shouts, the scurry of running feet. The din—and the sharp reek of sweat-drenched leather and winded, hard-ridden horses—came from the encampment beyond the trees.