Page 8 of Highland Fire

The ride to the shieling was sheer torture.

Though Caitlin practically stood in her stirrups for most of the way, it was inevitable, given the rough terrain, that she would be jolted against the saddle from time to time.

Whenever that happened, she let out a stream of curses that would have reddened the hardened ears of the fishwives of Aberdeen.

There were no words black enough or foul enough to describe the Randal.

Only a monster would have used a poor defenseless boy so.

She would not allow that there had been provocation.

He would not listen to her, would not give her time to get her breath before he had set upon her and whipped her to within an inch of her life.

And what galled her the most was that he had relished every minute of it.

When she screamed, he had laughed. There ought to be a word to describe a man who enjoyed inflicting pain on his defenseless victims.

It would be days before she would be able to sit with any degree of comfort.

And for what? They had not harmed anyone.

Their target had been Lord Randal’s trunks and boxes.

So…all his lordship’s fine clothes were dumped in the river Dee, and the dandy would be hard pressed for the next week or two to turn himself out with his usual sartorial elegance.

Was that any reason to hunt a boy down and inflict the punishment she had been made to endure?

Again, she would allow no excuses. Any sane, ordinary man would have apprised himself of the damage to his property before meting out justice.

But there had not been the time for the Randal to ascertain the fate of his carriage as well as set out in pursuit of his assailants.

He must have been lying in wait for them, must have seen through their stratagem and then singled her out, a mere boy, as the weak link in the chain.

It was a grave mistake, she reflected, to underestimate the English laird.

She could almost hear David chuckling and whispering, “I told you so,” and she could not prevent the old resentment rising up in her.

David had always spoken of his cousin with such awe.

He’d put him on a pedestal, and that had made her itch to topple him in the dust.

“What do you think of when you think of your cousin?” she had once asked David. She had been gazing at the mountains far off in the distance.

Without hesitation, he had replied, “Good fortune smiling. You know, all the planets in the right conjunction; signs and portents, and all of them favorable—that sort of thing.”

“In other words, he’s had a charmed life?”

“Everything has always come easily to Rand,” he agreed.

“Mmm. Sounds like a prig.”

This had startled a laugh out of him. “You are determined to dislike him.” After a moment, he went on in a more serious tone, “I wish you had allowed me to invite him to come riding with us. He is not always in his cups and chasing after skirts.”

But Caitlin couldn’t see it. She’d come face to face with the Randal a time or two, and what she had seen she did not like.

The man was an out and out roué. Not that he had given her so much as a second glance, except when he was in his cups.

In point of fact, he had looked through her as if she were invisible.

It wasn’t feminine pique, however, which prompted her antipathy.

She knew his type. People like him, cosseted from the cradle, had no knowledge of the sufferings of lesser mortals, and if he did know, he was indifferent, as his methods in managing his estates proved.

David had known nothing of recent events at Strathcairn, when the estate had been turned into a chase, and she wondered what arguments he would put forward in his cousin’s defense if he could be with her now.

“There is no defense for the Randal,” she told the back of her pony’s head. “Everyone and everything must be subordinated to his pleasure. In all probability, he assumes that is how Providence has ordained things.”

A mile from home, she dismounted. Her bottom was burning but not half as fiercely as her temper.

As she hobbled through fords and navigated stone dikes, she eased the wound to her dignity by going over in her mind all the little “surprises” she had in store for the obnoxious English laird and his equally obnoxious English friends.

One way or another, she would have her revenge for tonight’s work.

Daroch was waiting for her at the bottom of the pasture.

Even in her pain, she couldn’t help smiling.

She was thinking that there were a score of lassies from Ballater to the Braes o’ Mar who would give their eye teeth to have the young laird o’ Daroch wait upon them.

At two-and-twenty, he was the most eligible catch on Deeside, not counting the Randal, and Caitlin never counted the Randal if she could help it.

Douglas Gordon was a romantic figure in the Celtic mold—finally drawn features, dark hair, and eyes as gray as the waters of Loch Morlich.

Caitlin had seen him only intermittently in the last number of years, and had come to know him as a friend only in the last several months.

Daroch had spent a good part of his time in Aberdeen where he had received his education, first at the Grammar School, then at King’s College.

Having graduated from university, he had been in no hurry to return to the ancestral home.

Since Aberdeen wasn’t so very far away, tales of young Daroch’s duels and his fancy women had filtered back to Deeside. Shocking was the general verdict, and Daroch’s credit had risen by several notches in the eyes of modest young maidens who ought to have known better.

Though Caitlin had a fondness for the young laird, she was never is any danger of losing her heart to him.

He was too impetuous, too hotheaded. And reckless, as tonight’s episode proved.

It wasn’t a desire to right wrongs that motivated Daroch to neglect his own estates and involve himself in the affairs of Lord Randal’s tenants.

It was the lure of danger. He enjoyed taking risks.

Though Caitlin would never have admitted to it, there lurked at the back of her mind the picture of a youth who had yet to win his spurs.

Daroch was only a year her senior, but she felt much older than he.

The thought was a disloyal one, and she crushed it.

As she came up to him, he dismounted. “What kept you?” he asked softly.

She wasn’t going to tell him everything, or he might take it into his head to pick a quarrel with the Randal. Daroch was very protective of her. He and David had never met, and she could not help thinking that David would not have approved her choice of friend.

“My pony picked up a stone in her shoe,” she said at length.

“Is that all?” He sounded relieved. “There was no sign of the Randal and it occurred to me that a man of his abilities might have seen through our trap and set one of his own.”

When they were alone, with no one to overhear them, they spoke the cultured English of the educated Scot. When they lapsed into Gaelic or broad Scots, it was done unthinkingly. Their language always suited the company in which they found themselves.

She didn’t appreciate the inference that the Randal might be too clever for them.

At the same time, she felt that Daroch should know the mettle of the man she regarded as the “arch enemy.” Compromising, she said, “You were right. He was lying in wait for me, but I soon lost him. How did you fare with the coach?”

As they conversed, they walked their mounts toward a stone cottage which lay in a clearing in the dip of a small incline.

Though Caitlin was one of the Randals of Glenshiel and lived on the estate, she did not live in the big house with her grandfather as did her beautiful cousin, Fiona.

This two-roomed thatched dwelling was where she had been born and raised.

It was enclosed by a dry-stone dike which was typical of the area.

Both house and yard were as spanking as a new pin.

There was a time when Caitlin would have sold her soul for an invitation to join her grandfather’s household.

She and her mother had been virtual outcasts.

In the villages, people whispered about them behind their backs.

Bastard was a word that Caitlin had come to know at a very tender age.

On the death of her mother three years before, relenting, Glenshiel had finally issued the invitation that once would have made all the difference in the world to Caitlin. It had come too late.

“I never in all my life saw so many fine clothes,” said Daroch. “Och, it was a terrible waste.” He was laughing.

Caitlin led the way to the back of the cottage, to a lean-to which served as a stable.

A huge deerhound, six feet from nose to tail, its head as high as Caitlin’s waist, rose from its haunches and came forward to nuzzle her hand.

By this time, Caitlin could hardly breathe without wincing.

She did not see how she could take care of her pony without betraying herself.

“No one was hurt?” she asked.

“No. I’m thinking that the troopers recognized me. Well, they know there would be no more Deeside uisge-beatha for them if they arrested Douglas Gordon o’ Daroch. Lass, you look as though you are fainting on your feet. Here, you go on inside and I’ll finish up out here.”

She tried not to sound too eager. “It has been a long night. You’re sure you don’t mind, Daroch?”