Page 6 of Devil Black

“Yes, Father, I will.”

“Good girl.” Such praise, rare enough from Gerald’s lips, should have made Catherine smile. Strangely, her lips turned down instead.

“May I go now, Father?”

“Certainly.”

Catherine padded away in her soft slippers and climbed the stone stairs to the room she and Isobel would share this night.

“Well?” Isobel asked as Catherine climbed into the bed.

“You were right.” Swiftly, Catherine burrowed into the warmth of her sister’s presence. “Father professes himself too busy to accompany me on my wedding journey.”

Isobel snorted. “When has he not been too busy for us, since Mother died? All to the good. When do you leave?”

“A week, only.”

“Ah, it is short time for planning. Never mind. He will send his most trusted retainers for the journey, and they know us very well. This will take some care. I am thinking you shall have to affect a cold and remain swathed in your wraps the while.”

“He will send a maid.”

“He will. Bethan, most like. She can be bought.”

“Think you so?”

“Bought and kept in Scotland, after. She need not return to face Father’s wrath.”

Catherine shivered. “Can we fool the MacNabs?”

“I see no difficulty there. Bertram and his father have not laid eyes on us since we were children, and besides, we are as like as may be in appearance. And it does not matter, does it? If the ruse is discovered, it will be too late for them to do much about it. You and Thomas will be long gone.”

“And you will take the brunt of everyone’s anger, all round.” Catherine threw a protective arm over her sister. “It is too much! I cannot let you!”

Isobel lay silent in her sister’s fierce embrace a long moment and then said, “Cat, you are closer to me than anyone in this world. Dearer to me! I would give my very life for you. Besides, do you know what my future will be, if I stay here, a fixture of Father’s house, always shamed and shunned?”

“Never say you wish to go and wed MacNab?”

“I am not eager to wed him, no. But to go from here might be a fine thing. By the time our ruse is discovered, Bertram MacNab and I may well have come to terms.” She breathed softly into the darkness of the room. “There is scarcely a man on this earth I cannot tame.”

“I believe you are right. And I almost feel sorry for Bertram MacNab.”

Chapter Four

“I almost feel sorry for Bertram MacNab,” said the Devil Black in a tone that indicated he felt no such thing, “finding his bonny bride stolen away beneath his long, skinny nose.”

“You are assuming she will be bonny,” said Lachlan MacElwain, hiking his coat up round his ears. Another foul night full of snaking wind and wet surrounded them, containing demons that played on the mind.

But Dougal MacRae rarely suffered from those kinds of demons.

He laughed. “You must admit, Lachy, ’twill be worth a bit to see his reaction when the news reaches him that his betrothed has been snatched on the road not ten miles from his door.”

“This plan is accursed,” Lachlan stated dolefully, “and you are mad. I always suspected it. Now I am sure.”

Dougal laughed, and his laughter contained genuine mirth. “Come, Lachy! Was it not yourself told me to obey the King’s command and find myself a bride?”

“Not like this. And not some milk-white, simpering miss of MacNab’s choosing.”

“You underestimate the fine Bertram. She is no doubt an heiress.”