Page 15 of Love with a Scottish Outlaw
He locked his gaze with hers, as if sizing her up. Catherine let him look his fill, and looked back, telling herself he was just a man, a man with secrets he had to protect. Though he had all the power right now, those secrets made him vulnerable. Perhaps he knew that and didn’t like it, and used all this bluster to hide it.
Or perhaps he was just a man who needed to have his own way.
She hoped her memory returned soon, so she didn’t have to linger and find out.
Catherine spent the morning preparing vegetables for the midday meal, cauliflower, cabbage, and onions. It was far easier than the butchering Mrs. Skinner was doing. Catherine eyed the bloody mess uneasily, where it was skewered above various fires. None of this seemed familiar to her.
But something did seem familiar—telling others what to do. More than once, she had to bite her tongue before sending one of the women off to fetch something for her, as if she wasn’t capable of getting it herself. It was simply natural for her to give orders. That might be appropriate in whatever life she had—scandalous or proper or otherwise—but it wasn’t her place here.
Mrs. Skinner occasionally said something to her in Gaelic, then rolled her eyes and sighed loudly when Catherine didn’t understand. When Maeve was absent, a timid young woman named Janet translated. When Catherine smiled her gratitude, the woman only blushed and ducked away, as if afraid to be seen with a Sassenach.
All morning, Laird Carlyle returned occasionally to the cave and just looked at her—which didn’t help her popularity. Did he think she was going to use the tiny dirk and threaten her way out of the cave? He had to know she had nowhere to go.
A young clansman came near the cooking fires and stole a bannock and then a kiss from the young woman who must be his sweetheart.
Catherine didn’t realize she was still watching them until Maeve said softly, “Janet and Angus only married earlier this year.”
The girl was so thin and petite, Catherine wouldn’t have thought she was old enough to marry. She gathered the pile of turnips together and eyed Maeve. “She followed him . . . here?”
Maeve shrugged. “They wished to be together. ’Tis not quite the same with Sheena.” She gestured with her chin toward the other woman, more buxom and full of confidence. “She’s here because her da wouldn’t leave her behind.”
“I imagine Laird Carlyle allowed it because the women help keep his men fed,” Catherine said.
“As if the men don’t know how to feed themselves? Ye assume much, mistress,” Maeve chided gently.
Catherine sighed. “Forgive me. I don’t like being accused of lying, and it makes me irritable.”
“Ye don’t like not being trusted. ’Tis how we all feel.”
Catherine couldn’t help staring at the two young women who now spoke to each other quietly as they worked. Though one was married, Catherine felt older than they were. Could she herself be married, or a spinster? Or might she have chosen not to marry, because she wouldn’t settle for less than love? There were so many kinds of women she could be, and to not know herself was incredibly frustrating. As she cut vegetables, she thought hard about marriage, tried to picture the image of a man at her side, a man in her bed, someone to share a discussion of the day, someone who understood her. She was annoyed when Laird Carlyle flashed into her brain, and she immediately shoved that thought away. She was only thinking about him because he’d saved her life, and now he controlled everything she was doing.
But her brain seemed a vast emptiness, where no faces surfaced except those she’d met since she arrived at the cave. She would keep trying to find a memory somewhere within her.
When the laird returned the next time, it was with all his men. They were a rough bunch, their clothes well mended, their hair needing to be brushed, their beards untrimmed. Most carried wood to be stacked against the wall.
Many looked at her with both curiosity and skepticism, but she was growing used to it. She wasn’t to be trusted, she understood that, but at least the women had tolerated her while she helped them. Even gruff old Mrs. Skinner had made a point of showing Catherine how to arrange the mutton pieces on spits over the fire.
When all the men were seated at the tables, talking loudly, Janet and Sheena serving ale from pitchers, Mrs. Skinner handed Catherine a full plate and gestured toward their laird. So now Catherine was to serve this man who thought her a liar.
But Catherine had wanted to be of use. And this is what women did, served their men, much as she chafed at the role.
He wasn’t her man—none of them were. And by the distrust on many of their faces, they were glad of it. Did she have a man somewhere who was desperately searching for her? Or parents who feared she was dead? For a moment, she tried to imagine a childhood, tried to see a mother and a father standing over her. Were they stern and strict, or might they have been tolerant of a little girl’s foibles? Had she been held on her mother’s knee at night—and now that woman might think her dead? The grief of losing such memories threatened to overwhelm her.
Mrs. Skinner snapped her fingers in Catherine’s face and gestured impatiently at the chief. It was obvious “Himself”—as she’d heard more than one of the clan refer to Laird Carlyle—was to be served his meal first.
All the men watched her approach, including the laird.
He searched her face as she set the plate before him. “Should ye be working so hard? Ye don’t look recovered.”
She didn’t want him to be able to see the grief that had been so hard to suppress. “Maeve told me I have two black eyes.”
“That’s only one of the colors,” he said. “I thought ye’d just hit your head, but could ye have been beaten?”
Her lips twisted. “I don’t think so. Nothing feels bruised but my forehead.”
Then to her surprise, he reached up and touched her upper cheek with warm callused fingers. After a shocked moment, she ducked her head away. Why had he touched her in front of all of his men?
“Did that hurt?” he demanded.
