Jennifer Roberson Read Online Free PDF Page B

could not guide it himself.
    “Why?” Cat asked sharply. “Why does he summon you?”
    He drank. She asked out of wariness, of anticipation; out of a desire to protect him, not to accuse. But he could not tell her. He could tell no one. He could not form the words that would adequately explain what he had done.
    “Why?” she repeated.
    Harshly he said, “Go to bed.”
    It shocked her. “ Fa ther—”
    Protest, or plea for an answer. He did not know which. He had never struck her, to cause her to flinch; he rarely shouted at her, though her brothers were more deserving. He tolerated her with something akin to bemused if distant affection, though he was not a demonstrative man, because she was so unlike other girls, and he was not a man who understood women of any age. He dealt with his daughter as he dealt with his sons; it was far less taxing than to recall there were manners a woman should be trained to. His wife would be appalled, but Helen was dead. It was his task to do; he had raised all five of them in his offhand, wary manner, finding it far simpler to let Cat mimic her brothers than to look for another wife.
    There were women to sleep with. He need not marry them. No more than his heir would wed with Mairi Campbell.
    Steadily he said, “There will be Robbie to answer to. He’s a man grown.” Cat’s mouth twisted. He cut her off before she could frame a retort. “And the others, as well.”
    Cat set her teeth. “I’ll answer to myself.”
    He took his mouth from the cup. “Whose blood is that on your chin? Yours?”
    Startled by the incongruity, Cat touched her chin and found the crusted smear. Her mouth twisted briefly. “Colin’s.” She saw his expression and fired up in abrupt defiance. Her Scots broadened perceptibly. “He said I’d a face like a moudiwort, then called me a muckle-headed, pawkie bizzem—so I skelped his for him!” She picked the crust away, satisfied. “I mashed his nose.”
    Abrupt depression commingled with disgust. He thumped down his cup with a crack. “Go to bed, Cat—and wash your face. I’ve enough of this foolishness. You prove you’re no’ but a child with behavior such as this.”
    It cut her, he saw, but she did not permit herself to bleed. She flashed him a glance of purest scorn, then turned sharply and marched out of the room, jerking the door shut behind her. It rattled on its hinges.
    Glenlyon waited. A moment later he heard the echoing thump as her own door was closed, and the click of its latch. She did not cry easily, except from anger or frustration; if she meant to now, if the cause were enough, she would take precautions so no one could see it, least of all her brothers.
    Glenlyon’s mouth twisted. “Least of all her father.”
    The room was cool, but he sweated, staining the linen shirt beneath his plaid. Robert Campbell ignored his physical discomfort and stared at the door. Cat was gone, but he saw her. He saw her face before him, the rigid body beneath as she asked, but did not beg.
    A thin, plain, awkward girl too tall for her age, with prominent knees and elbows, feet and hands nigh as large as a boy’s “—and an unfettered, unmannered, overbusy tongue!—” and an unwavering predeliction for acquiring layers of blood, scabs, and grime—some her own, some not—that did her no other service but to hide the corpse pallor of her flesh, where the blood surfaced like bruised grapes in eyelids and elbows, in wrists, and the backs of her knees.
    He was Glenlyon. A man might marry her—if the dowry were enough. But he had gambled away her dowry. He had gambled away everything. He had even gambled away the coin paid him by Breadalbane to make good on his debts. And now I owe more . . .
    And Breadalbane summoning him.
    Despair engulfed him. A shaking hand recaptured the cup and carried it to his mouth. He gulped down the rest of the whisky in hopes it would dull the fire, but the coals burned steadily in the wreckage of his spirit. They would