from the hall, Catriona. Your mother and grandmother have gone to the solar. We are to join them there.”
Relieved, Catriona curtsied and politely bade Rothesay goodnight.
As she arose, he leaned toward her with a merry smile and said, “I’ll excuse you for now, lass. But I will look forward to seeing you again tomorrow.”
Knowing that she was blushing furiously, and taking care not to look toward the men again lest she see her father’s angry frown as well as Ivor’s, Catriona linked arms with Morag and urged her to some speed.
“What were you thinking to let him flirt with you so?” Morag demanded as they headed for the main stairway.
“Sakes, one does not let the heir to Scotland’s throne flirt with one, Morag. How would you suggest that I might have stopped him?”
“Why, by walking away when he takes liberties, of course, as one would with any impertinent young man.”
“Is that what you would do?” Catriona asked her.
Morag opened her mouth as if to insist that she would. Then an arrested look told Catriona that her good-sister’s thoughts had at last caught up with her tongue.
“You would not be so rude to any member of the royal family,” she said.
“But James would say—”
“I ken fine what James would say and what Ivor will say as soon as he finds opportunity. But if they are so concerned about our safety, they ought to stay closer to us when we are in the hall. Rothesay is a prince of the realm, after all.”
“Aye, he is, and I think the plain truth is that you were just flattered by his attentions. He is the sort who expects all females to swoon when he enters a room, and I have no patience with such. Thank heaven James is not like him.”
“That is certainly undeniable,” Catriona replied. Glancing over her shoulder as they reached the archway into the stairwell, she saw that while her father was talking with Ivor and James, Fin was looking at her.
He did not look angry, but nor did he smile. He looked stunned.
As Fin dwelt on a clear image of himself wringing Davy’s neck, it abruptly dawned on him that he cared much more about Catriona than he had let himself believe. That he had no right to care so strongly struck him even harder.
He had concluded that he could not kill Shaw and that it would not be fair to tell her he had ever believed that he must. But to act on his feelings and leave the fact of the bequest unspoken would be the same as living with a lie between them.
What she would call his daft sense of honor would drive him daft under such circumstances. Even if he could tell her and make her understand, and if her family would allow him to court her, he would still have to face his own family’s outrage.
That he had fallen in love with a Mackintosh might pale in minds reeling from the fact that of all the Cameron champions at Perth, he alone had survived, and only because he had fled the field. But surely, they would still forbid such a marriage.
There was also Catriona’s likely reaction. She had made it plain that she did not seek marriage and would resist one that threatened to take her from Strathspey. Although she clearly accepted him as a friend, after seeing her smile at Rothesay, he suspected unhappily that she might have been flirting with him, too.
His fertile imagination suddenly presented him with a picture of how he must look as he stood staring at the now empty archway, transfixed by his own thoughts. He had no notion how long he had stood so, but when he looked for Rothesay, he saw that he was talking with the Mackintosh and Alex Stewart.
Donald of the Isles stood some distance away near the fire, looking grim as usual, and conversing with the two nobles who had come with him to the castle.
Shaw stood with James behind the Mackintosh, and Ivor was striding toward Fin, looking grimly rueful. Recognizing the look, Fin knew that Ivor was still angry.
“I think she’s in for a warm few minutes with my father,” Ivor said with satisfaction when he was near enough.
“I’ll wager he did not spare you either,” Fin replied.
Ivor grimaced. “He reminded me that royal blood courses through Rothesay’s veins and… well, he suggested that I should cool my spleen lest I try to let some of that blood and find myself on a