Lady Of The Glen Part 41

1692.

One.

Glenlyon discovered his daughter was nothing as he recalled-not the Catriona of old, not the child, the la.s.s, not even the burgeoning beauty, but a grown woman of fierce, luminous will and a full understanding of how to employ its power in any circ.u.mstance.

Nor did she spare it now as he came up to the house MacIain's son had indicated, when asked for direction. Glenlyon had seen the shuttered expression in Alasdair Og's brown eyes, the stilling of his body, the tension in his mouth, but he had given direction politely enough and Glenlyon had taken it.

Now he paused before that house, marked the woman in its door. By G.o.d, I bred this . . . no one else may claim it!

She did not trouble to hide her shock, or the inflexible contempt of her tone. "Why are you here?"

Glenlyon forced a laugh. "Have you no better welcome for your father?"

Her expression did not change, nor her question. "Why are you here?"

He drew himself up very straight of spine, summoning what small measure of dignity he could still occasionally lay claim to. "Duty," he announced succinctly. "We're to be quartered here until the weather lifts, and then we'll be about punis.h.i.+ng men like Glengarry, who scorn the king's generosity." And then, with blatant disdain-mostly hoping he might shake her out of such edged self-possession, "D'ye think I've come to take back a woman who's exiled herself from my house?"

Clearly she was unshaken despite his attempt; her wide mouth twitched briefly, as if she found the word ironically amusing. "Aye, exiled; and I've a better home now."

"Not a better house. "

"But mine."

"Och, aye? I thought 'twas MacDonald-built."

"And Campbell-inhabited."

"So." The initial skirmish was done. "I see he hasna softened your tongue."

"Did you think he would?"

"I hoped." That startled her. He smiled indulgently and reset his wind-billowed plaid, adjusted the steel gorget at his throat. Let her see what I have become in the king's own army . . . a man to be respected.

She lifted quizzical brows. "I wouldna have said that was your first thought, my tongue, on getting Colin's letter."

" 'Twasn't," he agreed. "My first thought was verra much as you might expect."

Now she was amused. And satisfied. Glenlyon was not certain if either set well with him. But he was adamantly curious.

"Did you do it to fash me?" It would be like her. Exactly like her. And thus he found it convenient to recall her mother had bred her as well, so he need not blame himself.

She laughed aloud, a glorious, unfettered sound that rang through the trees. "I did it without a thought for you at all! "

And he knew then he had lost her entirely. No more the la.s.s, my Cat . . . Nor any more wholly his daughter. The surrender of her maidenhead troubled him not in the least, but with that shedding of virginity had come a new resoluteness, a fierce self-confidence that pierced him like a claymore.

She had always defied him, even from girlhood, depending on steely stubborness and a quick, agile tongue, but now she was collected, confident, much less driven, as if she, now an adult, a.s.sessed and knew his weaknesses, named them, accepted them-and dismissed them out of hand as wholly unimportant. He no longer mattered enough to make her angry.

And that made him angry. "Have you no hospitality to offer me? MacIain does, and has."

"Then accept it," she suggested.

Somehow she reduced him. Diminished him. In martial glitter and glory, in command of two companies of the king's own soldiers, he was as nothing before her, a dissolute, empty man, wholly deflated of worth as a cast-off bagpipe of air; a f.e.c.kless, weak-spined man who had wagered away all of Glen Lyon's fortunes save a single house, and that house she had left to live with the enemy's son.

She castrated him, did his daughter, with no more than her contempt, a clear comprehension of what and who he was despite his best efforts to be something-and someone-more.

Glenlyon felt a painful quiver deep inside. "Have you no whisky?"

Winter was in her mouth. "Fetch it for yourself."

Astonished, he watched her walk away; watched her walk by him and down along the track snooving through the glen, winding up to tiny cl.u.s.tered settlements scattered along the river, such as MacIain's Carnoch, or Inverrigan and Achnacone. Her stride was long and unhurried, steady and unflagging, taking her away from him until he saw no more.

Diminished. Dismissed. Not worth another thought. Castrated-His belly cramped. The house lay before him, offering empty welcome. But he accepted it nonetheless despite its cold comforts. He wanted the whisky, to wash away the bitterness left by an ungrateful daughter.

He was Robert Campbell, fifth Laird of Glenlyon. He would give himself welcome unto his daughter's household if she would not do it for him, nor the man who bedded her, whom he himself had hanged on Rannoch Moor less than a year before.

Glenlyon drew himself up and walked into the house. Such things no longer mattered. MacIain had offered the hospitality of Glencoe, and such trust was inviolable.

Cat had no destination save to be away. She could not bear another instant in his company, nor spare a moment to listen to pawkie excuses. He was as he had always been, but less as well as more: less because he was so much the same and that not much of a man; more because now she understood his flaws, the singular weaknesses that made him, in her eyes, far worse than merely a weak man but also a worthless father.

She walked with unerring aim away, going nowhere, until she found herself near the ma.s.sive rock at the elbow of the river beneath the looming Pap. She halted, transfixed by the stony splendor so much older and stronger than she.

Helplessness overwhelmed her. "If there is whisky in h.e.l.l, he will surely drink it dry!"

"Cat."

She knew the voice, loved the voice, but it eased nothing of her fury. She did not even turn but glared balefully at the rock. "I hate that man. I despise him."

He came up beside her but did not touch her. It was enough to have him so close. "You dinna."

"I do."

"You love him, Cat."

It burst from her painfully, like a harp string wound too tightly breaking abruptly from its peg. "Love that?"

He let a moment go by before he answered. "You want him to be perfect because he is your father. Were he just another man, you wouldna care, aye?-but he is more than that. He sired you, he is in you, he helped to shape you. And you want him to be perfect so he doesna reflect on you."

In her silence she heard the wind slicing through the trees. Angry tears welled up. "How can you ken that? You've no cause to feel the same."

"No cause?" He smiled as she glanced at him. "I have a father, aye?"

It was preposterous. "But-he is MacIain."

"And no' so perfect himself." He touched her then, moved behind her and settled hands upon her shoulders. He began to gentle them, working the tension away. "You have grown up all at once, aye? It takes a man so, and some women . . . one day you dinna back down but stand your ground-not because you mean to fash the other, nor to spite him, but because you must. Because in that moment you realize you believe wholeheartedly in what you feel, and you willna allow the other to demean or diminish it. It doesna matter so much what the other thinks of you, but what you think of you. And if it pleases you, what the other thinks or says no longer carries weight. It doesna hurt anymore."

She stared very hard at the ma.s.sive stone. "Then I am not grown-up."

He leaned his cheek against the crown of her head, looping both arms around her shoulders from behind. She felt his body against her own. "Och, aye. If it hurts, 'tis because you realize you're no more the child. You are the adult now, and 'tis for adults to make the bairns feel better. So, you are doubly taxed: you want him to make you feel better, because he is your father and 'tis what fathers do; and you want to make him feel better, because he is in many ways the bairn himself, desiring succor from you. And you ken it. And it hurts."

She pulled free and swung to face him. "He hanged you!"

Dair nodded as his hands fell to his sides. "But he isna my father. I am free to hate him."

"But you willna allow me the same favor!"

"Och, if you wish to hate him because he hanged me, I willna say you nay." The smile came but pa.s.sed quickly, and never reached his eyes. "But that is a reason, aye? You canna hate a man merely because he is weak."

"Why not?"

"Not everyone can be as you are."

Cat made a rude sound. "The world will thank me for that!"

"The strong should never despise the weak. Cat-" Abruptly he caught her and held her tightly, hooking an arm around her shoulders as she pressed herself against him. "I ken it, I ken it . . . it hurts deep inside, aye? You want him to be everything you believe a father should be, but he is only a man . . . a weak man, forbye, and overfond of his whisky-but not a bad man."

She clung to him tightly. "He hanged you." It was the only thing she had on which to peg her anger; he diminished all the rest.

"I was on his land to lift his cows, and I was a bluidy MacDonald, one of the Gallows Herd. No doubt there are a dozen men who would care to do the same."

And so he diminished that, too. She laughed briefly and painfully into the folds of his plaid, feeling the hard cold edge of his brooch against her chin. "Dinna say that."

" 'Tis true. We've lifted our share of cattle from other men's braes, and raided their homes. We are none of us so perfect, aye?-and I hope your father doesna drink all the whisky in h.e.l.l, or there will be none left for us."

The worst had pa.s.sed. Cat drew away, smiled into his face, then turned and tucked herself in next to his body. "I thought he would order me home."

"And are you disappointed that he didna?"

She thought about that. "A little," she confessed after a moment. "I thought he would, and he didna-and so I thought he didna care. And that made me angrier."

" 'Tis easier to fight a true enemy than a man who doesna care," Dair agreed. "Takes all the fire out of your belly, and you're left to deal with the coals. 'Tis unpleasant, forbye."

Cat sighed. After the anger, the outburst, she felt weary and listless. "So, I am grown up at last?"

"In all the ways of a woman . . . as well I should ken." He held her tightly and stared at the rock as she had moments before, as if he could not bear to look at her. "Do you want to go back to Glen Lyon?"

It shocked her. "I do not!"

Now he did look at her. "Then why greet over it? You have made your choice, aye?"

"Women greet," Cat retorted. "We greet, because men give us reason."

"Ah. 'Tis my fault, now." In all seriousness.

"Often."

"Oh, aye. I ken that. Now." In equal and elaborate seriousness.

Cat scowled at him suspiciously. "Dinna poke a stick at me, Alasdair Og."

His teeth shone whitely. "And here I was thinking you were fond of my stick . . ."

She lurched away and struck him with a fist. "Dinna be rude! 'Tis daylight!"

"Ah. Well, then, I will save it for tonight."

Cat begged to differ, and did so. "Tonight you and John will sit up in MacIain's house swilling whisky with my father, and dicing, and playing backgammon and chess, and telling blithe lies and half-true tales, wrestling one another with naught but words-as mean do-and by the time you come to bed you will have naught on your mind save sleep."

He was laughing. "Will you wager on that?"

"I will not," she said. "But my father will. He wagers on everything."

"Ah, Cat." He pulled her close and planted a kiss on her forehead. "Dinna fash yourself over him. He is what he is, aye?-but you will go verra much farther."

"Och, aye? Glencoe isna so far, you ken."

"From Glen Lyon?" Dair laughed. "Oh, my Cat, think again on that. 'Tisn't measured in miles, the distance you've travelled, but in years and years, all the way back to Sommerled, and the Lords of the Isles."

"MacDonalds," she said sourly. "Aye, well, I didna come to Glencoe to sleep with history. I came to sleep with you."

Dair glanced up a.s.sessively. "Clouds come in," he said. "And if we shut the door and dinna light the lamp, 'twill seem like night within. Then my rudeness willna matter."

"And will you swear to me MacIain willna send for you at the worst possible moment?"

Dair sighed. "Aye, well . . . I didna say he was perfect, did I? 'Twas you."

Cat thought it over. "Then I've changed my mind about him."

"I thought you might."

"But we could try. . . ."

"I thought we might."

Cat scowled at him. "Houd your gab, MacDonald. Dinna look so smug."

He laughed at her. "I am as you have made me."

"Och, no . . . I willna take blame for that!"

He bent his head against hers. "But you will take blame for what is beneath my kilt."

Cat blushed fiery red. She could not help it. It was new, all of it new, and she did not as yet know how to deal with it. She had no ready response.

Dair did. "Come with me," he said. "Come home with me to my house."