following morning began to comb the district.
But Cat had apparently vanished from the earth. No one had seen her.
St. Valentine's Day came, and Adam Leslie wed his widowed cousin, Lady Stewart. The guests chuckled when they heard the earl and his bride-to-be were suffering from the measles. Wasn't it lucky, they laughed, that the Leslies had another betrothed couple ready and waiting so the festivities would not go to waste.
It was a wonderful party, but the new Lady Leslie looked tired and subdued. Fiona, looking out at her guests from the head table, wondered what they would think if she told them the reason for her pallor. For the last three nights she had been tied to a chair and forced to watch Adam making love to a very pretty and obviously insatiable peasant wench. She had tried closing her eyes, but the sounds from the bed were too tantalizing. She watched fascinated, as Adam's enormous cock plunged in and out of the writhing girl. As her own desire grew, she suffered severe pain of both a mental and physical nature, and by last night she thought she would go mad.
This morning, however, he had told her that her punishment was over. Fiona swore never to cause her cousin hurt again, and promised that when Cat was found she would apologize and tell her the truth. Adam smiled, satisfied. He knew how to handle his wench.
But Cat couldn't be found. February gave way to March and March to April before word came. Ellen, home in Crannog to see her parents, discovered her mistress living with them! Cat, fleeing Glenkirk, had gone directly to Ruth and Hugh More-Leslie. Ruth, now in her sixties, had immediately agreed to hide the girl. Hugh, retired and in his seventies, hadn't been sure. But Ruth convinced him that her long dead mistress would have approved. Ellen was amazed.
'Surely the neighbors are suspicious,' she said.
'Why should they be?' said Ruth. 'They never see her. She rides her Bana an hour each night for exercise, but other than that she never leaves the house.'
'She canna stay here forever, mother. Did she tell ye why she ran away?'
'Aye! That wicked Fiona! I knew when she was a child she would grow up bad.'
'She did, mother. Very bad. So bad that she sent Mistress Cat off in this rage. What Fiona said, however, was a lie, and Mistress Cat was wrong to run off before asking my lord of Glenkirk to defend himself. He is hurt that she thought so little of him. Yet he loves her, and still wants to make her his wife.'
'Well,' said Ruth, with the wisdom of her late mistress, 'then we must arrange for him to find her. But not here.'
'There's A-Cuil, mother. Her grandmother, Jean Gordon, had it as part of her dowry, and now it belongs to Mistress Cat. It is small and secluded, set in the hills above Loch Sithean.'
'How big, and in what condition?'
'Stone wi a slate roof, and put back into shape because of the wedding. There's a kitchen, and a parlor downstairs, and a bedroom on the second floor. There's also a small stable wi two loft rooms. That's about all there is to A-Cuil.'
'It'll do,' said Ruth. 'How long a ride?'
'A good hour up into the hills,' replied Ellen.
Ruth smiled. 'I shall convince Mistress Cat to go there, and then I will go to Glenkirk, and tell the earl. In a quiet place, away from the rest of the family, they'll settle their differences.'
Ruth was as good as her word. Persuading Cat that she would be happier if she could get outdoors more, now that summer was coming, and assuring her that A-Cuil was a good distance from Glenkirk, she sent the girl off. Ellen had been sent on to air the house and bring in food supplies. She had begged her young mistress to allow her to accompany her. Lonely, Cat had agreed.
A-Cuil was set high in a pine forest on a cliff that gave a view of Glenkirk, Sithean, and Greyhaven far below. It was hidden and quiet. For several days Cat prowled, restless, through the woods around her. At night she slept deeply in the big bedroom. Ellen, in the trundle, slept by her side. They had been there ten days, and Cat was beginning to feel safe.
With a bad storm about them that night they retired to the bedroom. Building up the fire, they ate a supper of toasted bread and cheese, and drank slightly hardened cider. Neither minded the lightning that crackled ominously about them, or the rolling peals of thunder. Suddenly the door flew open. Ellen gave a shriek of terror. The earl strode in.
'Yer brother's in the kitchen, Ellen. Is there a place ye both can sleep?'
'The lofts over the stable, m'lord.'
'Run along, then.'
'No! Dinna leave me wi him, Ellen.'
Ellen looked helplessly at her young mistress. Gently, the earl took the serving woman by the arm and escorted her to the door. 'Dinna come near this room unless I call you. Do ye understand?'
'Aye, my lord.'
The door closed firmly behind her, and she heard the bolt slam home. Padding down the stairs, she found her brother and led him off to the loft rooms in the stable. 'Is he very angry wi her, Conall?'
'Aye,' said her brother calmly. 'He's going to beat her.'
'Never!' gasped Ellen. 'He's mad for her!'
'Still,' replied Conall, 'he's going to beat her, and a good thing too. She's a wayward lass to have run from him like that. If he's nae the master in his own house from the first, he'll always have trouble wi her. That's no marriage for a man.'
'If mother and I had known that he'd hurt her, we'd nae have let him find her.'
'Sister,' said Conall patiently as if explaining to a child, 'he's not going to hurt her. He's just going to gie her a wee beating to help her mend her manners.'
Ellen shook her head. She knew Cat Hay better than all of them. After all, she'd raised her. The earl was about to find out that beating his bride would never tame her.
Chapter 6
CAT Hay angrily faced the Earl of Glenkirk. Carefully he spread his wet cloak over the back of the fireplace chair and removed his damp linen shirt. He sat down. 'My boots, Cat!' They were the first words he'd spoken to her.
'Go to hell!' she spat at him.
'My boots!' His green-gold eyes narrowed and glittered dangerously.
Her heart pounding wildly, she knelt and drew his boots off. I'm not afraid of him, she thought. But why was her heart beating so quickly? Standing up, he caught her by her long hair. Wrapping it around his hand, he drew her face to his. Grasping the top of her shift with his other hand, he ripped it from neck to hem and pulled it off her. 'I warned ye once that if ye ever defied me I'd beat ye!'
And before she could protest, he'd pushed her onto the bed and brought his riding crop down cruelly on her buttocks. She screamed her pain and outrage at him and tried to escape. But, holding her down, he raised several angry red wheals on her bottom before stopping. Tossing the crop away, he raged at her. 'Ye've led me a fine chase these last months, madame! Had Adam not been willing to wed immediately we would hae been embarrassed before every family in the district. Does it please ye to know that Fiona held the place of honor at
Turning over, she gingerly sat up and faced him with a defiant, tear-stained face. 'You bastard!' she shrieked at him. 'What ye put between my legs, ye put between hers also! I'll nae forgie ye that! Never!'
'Little bitch!' he shouted back. 'How could ye believe her? Never did I lie wi Fiona. Once she waited in my room, but Adam was wi me. He'd been hot for her for years, so I slept in his room that night while he took his pleasure of her. Never have I slept wi that she-devil!'
'Why should I believe you? Yer bastards are scattered from one end of the district to the other! Fiona said she could have any man she wanted, and then proceeded to describe your bedroom accurately. What was I to
