Highland Savage. Hannah Howell

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СКАЧАТЬ weeping. She still felt stunned by his accusations, but she refused to let him know how deeply they had hurt her.

      Her stomach rumbled, demanding food, and she knew she would have to return to the hall to get something to eat. That meant facing Lucas again and she dreaded it. The pain was still too fresh. So, too, she realized, was the anger his accusations had stirred within her. It was clear that all his sweet kisses, his passion, had been false or he never would have condemned her so. A little doubt she could understand and forgive, but not this cold condemnation. He did not even give her denials a moment of consideration. Katerina doubted that even showing him the many scars she had gathered that day would sway him. She would have trusted him with her very life, but it was now clear that he had never trusted her at all.

      The problem was what to do now, she mused as she poured herself some wine. Sipping the wine, Katerina paced her small bedchamber and thought about the best way to handle Lucas. Her first inclination was to just ignore the man, to cut him from her heart and treat him as a complete stranger. It was a good plan, if only because she knew it would annoy him to be completely ignored, but Katerina decided she would not be able to hold to that plan for very long. She had never even been able to ignore Agnes for long and no one angered her as her half-sister did.

      That left her with the choices of spitting his anger and mistrust right back at him or trying to convince him that he was utterly wrong in his suspicions. The former might relieve her of any bile stirred up by being thought so poorly of by the man she had given her heart and innocence to, but it would make life very difficult for her men. The latter sharply stung her pride. Why should she have to convince him of the truth just because he was too witless to see it? Of course, when he did finally see the truth, she would have the pleasure of gloating. Men did so hate to be wrong, she thought, and suspected Lucas would suffer even more because of what they had once meant to each other.

      “And that is something it would be wise to forget,” she muttered.

      Especially since she may well have been utterly deceived in what she believed they had shared, she thought, and felt like weeping all over again. She ruthlessly buried the pain and tried to face the truth. The love she had thought she and Lucas shared may well have been a lie. Katerina knew she had loved him, and still did, fool that she was. However, what she had thought she had seen in Lucas may well have been no more than passion and they had certainly given in to that, short and glorious as it had been. Yet, even if she had discovered that Lucas did not love her and would soon leave her, she still would never have had him murdered and Lucas should know that. The fact that he could know her so little after what they had shared hurt, if only because it put all of his soft words and heated kisses into doubt, the memories of which she had treasured in the vain hope of easing her grief.

      “Curse it, I but go round and round and make no decision,” she snapped and abruptly finished off her wine.

      Before she faced Lucas again she definitely needed a plan, however. Proving him wrong and having him have to apologize was a good plan but it was really not enough. After all, that left her with no plan for what to do after he had groveled in abject remorse. The battle against Agnes, Ranald, and their minions might not be over and she and Lucas might still have to deal with each other as well as the lust they had shared.

      She still loved the fool, still wanted him, and she could not ignore that or try to lie to herself about it. Although she could no longer trust in her judgment about what Lucas felt for her, Katerina was certain that the hurt he had dealt her had not killed her love or desire for him. She had the chilling feeling that she was incurable. Even now a part of her hoped it was all some horrible mistake and when she met with Lucas again he would apologize and take her into his arms to kiss away the pain.

      “Fool,” she muttered and glared in the direction of the hall.

      Then again, in his arms was where she truly wanted to be, she admitted to herself. If he finally saw the truth and gave her a pretty apology, there was no reason why she could not enjoy the passion they had shared so briefly once again. After all, she was no longer a maiden.

      Katerina nodded and started out of her room. If Lucas came to see the truth and displayed an appropriate remorse, she would allow him to become her lover. She hesitated in her walk to the hall long enough to silence that fearful voice in her head that whispered that Lucas might no longer desire her. There was a year’s worth of unsatisfied hunger in her and she wanted it fed. Katerina also knew that she still wanted Lucas to be so much more than her lover. It would just take time to see if she could trust in him again, in his passion, and in all his soft words of desire. It would also take time to trust in her own judgment again and to forgive him, she decided as she entered the hall and met his narrowed gaze.

      The man was too handsome for any woman’s peace of mind, she decided crossly as she approached the hearth and sat down next to William. A faintly ragged scar ran over his right cheek but it only added a touch of danger to his looks. He was still tall, lean, and strong despite the stiffness in his left leg that she had fleetingly noticed during the escape from Ranald and his men. The only real difference she could see at the moment was that there was no warmth in his silvery-blue eyes as he looked at her and no beguiling smile curved his sensuous mouth. When she realized she was staring at his slightly full bottom lip, thinking of how she would like to nibble on it, she gave herself a mental slap and scowled at him.

      “Why are ye still here?” she demanded, accepting the bowl of rabbit stew William served her and refusing to acknowledge, even to herself, that she would have been devastated if Lucas had left while she had been indulging in self-pity and grief.

      Lucas scowled right back at her and helped himself to a bowl of stew. It annoyed him that upon seeing the faint evidence that Katerina had been crying, he had immediately wanted to take her into his arms and comfort her. If her guilt and shame troubled her it was none of his concern.

      “It appears that ye and I have the same goal this time,” he replied. “We both want Ranald dead.”

      Katerina inwardly winced at that blunt truth. She loathed the fact that she wanted a man dead, but could not deny that, in many ways, she did. The only way to be safe from Ranald was to bury the man. Ranald was not the sort of man to meekly accept any loss and, when she won the battle against Agnes, Ranald lost. The man liked the power he now wielded far too much to give it up without at least seeking revenge upon the ones who took that power away from him.

      “True. If there is to be peace in Dunlochan again then Ranald must be slain.”

      “Because he betrayed you? Who does he obey now?”

      “The same one he has always obeyed—Agnes. ’Tis because of her and all of her plots that Dunlochan is now under siege and we must hide inside this hill.”

      “Ye expect me to believe that Agnes has kept ye and your men running and hiding for a year? That lass hasnae the wit to do that. The only thing that lass can think about is men and gowns.”

      “Agnes rules Ranald and the two of them are cunning and cruel.” Katerina shook her head. “I suspect my father thought as ye do, that Agnes was naught more than a witless girl whose only thoughts were for teasing and luring men and spending too much of his coin on gowns. To be certain, Agnes does spend far too much of her time pondering such useless things, but she is also cold and cruel. There is a hard, cold viciousness in Agnes that she hides weel from the men she seeks to enthrall. Her husband was bewitched for a while but he finally saw her for what she truly is. Sadly, it took the death of a maid he had flirted with to open his eyes.”

      “He saw Agnes kill a maid?”

      “Nay, but he had nay doubt it was her doing. He hadnae e’en been unfaithful, had just exchanged a few smiles with the maid and a jest СКАЧАТЬ