I’ll leave you in the next village, and you can find your own way from there.’
Panic seized Katrina as the meaning of his words sank in. Her gaze darted over the man standing before her, took in the handsome features and the physical handicap that he couldn’t hide. She recalled the dark shadows of suffering she’d glimpsed at in his eyes, and a wave of sympathy swept over her.
He had shown her kindness, had saved her life.
The need to repay the gift by easing his pain swelled in her heart.
Beneath her silent scrutiny, the stranger’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. ‘I’m not going to change however long you keep staring at me. I’m only half a man, and always will be.’ He shuffled his weight on his infirm leg. ‘Well, what’s it to be? Are you accepting my offer or not?’
Katrina flinched. His angry tone told her more clearly than eloquent words might have done that Rothmore needed affection, the comfort of a woman’s touch. She expelled a long sigh as the choice took shape in her mind. She had fled her father’s estate to avoid an unwanted marriage to a man she despised. Being burned on the stake would have been too high a price to pay for her freedom, but becoming another man’s mistress was not.
‘Yes,’ Katrina said. ‘I’ll come with you.’
Chapter Two
Wrapped in an itchy wool blanket that reeked of manure, Katrina rocked across Rothmore’s lap on his black stallion. His left arm around her shoulders secured her in place, and his right hand held the reins. She’d been acutely aware of him while he lifted her on the horse and mounted behind her, and the sensation had escalated during the ride out of the village, where people had gathered by the roadside to stare at them.
The witch is Rothmore’s whore, she heard someone shout.
Whore. Mistress. The words pounded in her head. Was there a difference?
By nightfall, she’d be a sinner, in the eyes of God and man. At least her father would never find out. For the first time, there was consolation in the fact that illness would finally take him before the month was out. And then, she would be alone. She would be the Countess of Glenstrachan, the lands and knights and tenants and servants her responsibility.
Katrina stole another glance at Rothmore.
His face was like granite, but a dull stain of colour darkened the crest of his high cheekbones. Was he thinking of the coming night, of what he would do to her? Would it hurt? How long would he want her? Would he tire of her soon, and discard her to deal with her fate alone?
Or...could he become the protector she needed?
‘Why have you not taken a wife?’ she asked without preamble.
‘How do you know that I haven’t?’
Her heart gave a hard thump in her chest. With a jerk of her spine, Katrina straightened in his lap. She hadn’t realised that she’d leaned into him, her body seeking the shelter of his. Tears of humiliation gathered in her eyes as she realised that like a weak woman, she had instantly seized upon the dream that a man could be what she needed him to be.
‘I just...assumed,’ she muttered.
‘You thought that a married man has no use for a mistress?’
Her head inclined in a nod of agreement.
‘I’m not married,’ Rothmore informed her. ‘And never will be.’
He tipped her over his arm so he could study her face. A shiver shook Katrina when she saw his fierce expression. She guessed that the heat that burned in his amber eyes came from anticipation of how she would fulfil her duties as his mistress.
‘There’s no need to look so frightened,’ he remarked bluntly. ‘I’m taking you to my house and to my bed, not to the gallows.’
Katrina gasped. She sought for something to say, some means to fight back, to prove her courage, but she came up with nothing. Beneath her, she could feel Rothmore shifting in the saddle, attempting to get more comfortable. Conscious of the fact that her buttocks bounced against his thigh on every gait of the big stallion, Katrina tried to ease her body away from his.
‘My leg doesn’t suffer from your weight,’ he told her curtly. ‘But your wriggling is testing my patience.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I feel awkward, the way I’m trapped inside the blanket.’
‘I won’t let you fall. I can control the horse with one hand.’
‘I’m aware of your skill as a rider.’
‘You know how to ride?’ His voice betrayed surprise.
‘Yes,’ she replied, and looked straight ahead, lapsing into a silence that would discourage further questions. From the first, when she had fled from Glenstrachan Castle, she had tried to avoid lies. Not telling the entire truth wasn’t nearly as great a sin as voicing an outright falsehood, and so far she had managed to protect her immortal soul.
She had referred to the man whose cottage she had occupied as Grandfather, and the villagers had assumed they were blood kin. Katrina had felt no need to explain that the man had been related to her maid, any more than she had felt compelled to correct anyone when they misheard her family name, McLeod, which she had deliberately mispronounced.
At the thought of her heritage, worry clouded her mind.
She needed one man, only one, but he had to be a man of great courage, someone she could trust with her life and the lives of those who depended upon her for protection. That man would have to be willing to defy the King’s command by marrying her, even though she had been pledged to another.
For a few fleeting moments, she had hoped the stranger could be the one.
He had confronted the officials at the witch trial with valour, and something about him had convinced her that once he gave his loyalty, he would never waver. She was drawn to him, in a way she had never been drawn to a man. Her eyes kept straying to his broad shoulders and stern features, and the golden eagle eyes beneath the level dark brows. Heat flared to her face as she admitted she didn’t expect a night in his bed to be a hardship.
But...being a wife would be much better than being a mistress.
The man had sworn he would never marry, but according to Katrina’s experience, every groom she had congratulated at a wedding feast had said those words at some point in his life. She would wait, keep her secrets while she learned more about her rescuer, and then she would decide if she should confide in him and seek his help.
Rothmore.
She recalled the name from the lessons with her father, before he became too ill to teach her. One of the most powerful vassals of King James, Baron Rothmore commanded more than two hundred knights. And the late Baron Rothmore, who had died two years ago, only had one son—born with a club foot.
I’m no longer Baron Rothmore. Whatever had happened to the handsome man with eyes that were filled with too much suffering, he had lost his title and his lands.
‘Are you no longer pledged to fight
