"How do ye feel now?" she asked.

"Better. I canna think what made me so sick. It's the third time it's happened in the last week. Do ye think that perhaps something has gone rotten in the larder?"

"Mistress Cat!" Ellen was exasperated beyond all. "Ye be wi child! He's put his bairn in yer belly, and now we can go home!"

Cat's leaf-green eyes widened. "No," she whispered. "No! No! No!"

"Aye! Yer ripening! There's no doubt about it. The earl will be so happy!"

Catriona turned angrily on Ellen. "If ye dare to tell him, I'll cut yer tongue out! Do ye understand me?"

"My lady!"


Cat closed her eyes for a moment. Opening them again, she spoke calmly and quietly. "I will tell my lord of my condition, Ellie, but not yet. The moment he knows, he'll rush me down to Glenkirk. I dinna want to leave A-Cuil yet. Please. I canna be very far along. There is time."

Ellen was soft-hearted by nature. The thought that her young mistress wanted a little more time alone with the earl appealed to her sense of romance. "When was yer last show?" she asked.

Cat thought a moment. "Early May," she said.

"Ah, sweeting, yer a good three months along," said Ellen, "but we can wait a week or so before his lordship must know. The wee laddie will be a winter child."

"No hints, Ellie. No arch looks. I would surprise the earl."

And she might have told him, and gone meekly home to Glenkirk, had not Patrick himself spoiled it. Kept at Glenkirk for three days and nights by a foolish problem, he arrived back at A-Cuil as randy as a young stallion in first heat.

Cat had decided to tell him, and she ran joyfully to greet him only to have him sweep her up in his arms and carry her to their bedroom. Swiftly, without preliminaries, he tore his clothing off, shoved her down on the bed, pushed her nightgown up, and thrust into her. Cat was outraged.

Satisfied for the moment, he sat up against the pillows and pulled her back against him. He had always loved her breasts, and now he fondled them hungrily. Beginning to swell with her pregnancy, they were sore, and his touch irritated her. He further annoyed her by chuckling, "I think these sweet little titties of mine are growing bigger, Cat." He squeezed them playfully. "A man's loving care can work wonders, eh, love?"

He should have been warned by the ominous silence, but his mind was on other things, and his body was hungry for her again. He took her once more. Then, pushing her from their bed, he patted her buttock and asked for his dinner.

She descended to the kitchen. Ellen was long since in her bed, so Cat loaded a tray with half a roasted bird, a small cold game pie from the larder, bread, butter, a honeycomb, and a foaming pitcher of brown ale, to which she added a pinch of dried herbs. The earl was going to have an excellent night's sleep.

She served him sweetly, and almost felt guilty when he said, "You are going to be the most beautiful countess Glenkirk's ever had. Lord, sweetheart! How I love you!" The drugged ale was beginning to work on him. Climbing into their bed, he fell asleep.

From childhood Cat Hay had been able to wake herself on command. It was still dark when she rose and dressed herself in riding pants and a linen shirt. She packed a small bundle and, picking up Glenkirk's warm cloak, slipped out of the room and down the stairs. It was fully three hours till dawn. Cat crept softly into the stable. Above, in the loft, Ellen was snoring. Conall, she knew, was sleeping with his mistress of the moment, about half a mile away. Quietly she saddled Dearg. Putting a lead rein on Conall's Fyne, she led both horses from the stable.

She walked them a good quarter-mile from the house. Then, mounting Dearg and leading Fyne, she galloped off in the direction of Greyhaven. She planned to get there before even the servants were awake. Once in the house she would gather a few more clothes, her jewelry, and some gold from her father's cache.

Achieving her objective, she headed for the high road, but not before first releasing Fyne with a swat on his rump. He'd go straight to his stables at Glenkirk. Munching oatcakes, she rode along, chuckling to herself. She had outwitted Patrick! He had been so kind and loving in the last weeks that she had almost believed he accepted her as an equal. Last night, however', had told her the truth of the matter. It was as he had said. She was his possession, something for him to breed sons on. Well, she would soon teach him the folly of taking her for granted. She was nobody's slave.

She kicked Dearg into a gallop. Had Patrick really believed that by taking Bana from her she couldn't escape? If he had taken the time to learn as much about Catriona Hay the woman as he had taken learning about Catriona Hay's body, he would have known that there wasn't a horse bred she couldn't ride. It would have given her great pleasure to know that, at that very moment, Patrick Leslie was learning just that.

He had awakened with a headache and a funny taste in his mouth. Reaching out, he discovered that Cat was gone. A frantic knocking on the door tortured his head. "Come in, damnit!" he shouted. Both Ellen and Conall tumbled into the room, talking at once. "Silence!" he roared. "One of ye at a time. Ellen, you first."

"She's gone, my lord. Mistress Catriona has gone. She's taken both horses, and run away."

"When?"

"Sometime in the night. I am sorry, my lord. I sleep like the dead till six each morning. I never heard a thing."

"Where were ye?" said the earl, turning to Conall. "Nay. Dinna tell me. Ye were off sticking it in yer little shepherdess. Jesu!" he swore. "When I catch her this time she'll not sit down for a month!"

Ellen rounded on him. "Ye'll nae lay a hand on her. My little lambie! She's more than three months gone wi yer bairn. She planned to tell ye when ye returned from Glenkirk. What did ye do to her to make her flee ye, my poor Cat? Ye must hae done something."

Patrick flushed.

"So!" pounced Ellen. "Ye did do something!"

"I only made love to her," Patrick protested. "I'd been wi'out her for three days!"

"If only you Leslie men thought more wi yer heads and less wi yer cocks! So ye 'made love' to her? I can see it now." Her scornful glance swept the room. "Having come home, and wi'out so much as a by-yer-leave, ye fucked her. Was it once or was it twice? Then I'll wager ye demanded yer dinner." The earl looked shamefaced, and Ellen snorted. "God, mon! Where's yer sense? If ye'd been an Englishman or a Frenchie I'd expect stupidity, but a Scotsman knows that a Scotswoman is the most independent of creatures! Well, she's got a good start on ye now, and ye'll nae find her easily this time."

"She canna have gone far," said Patrick. "She's run home to her mother, mark my words on it."

Ellen shook her head sadly at him. "Nay, my lord. If she's run home to Greyhaven, 'twill only be to get her jewels, and perhaps steal some gold from her father. But where she'll go to hide, my lord, I dinna know. She's never traveled out of the district before."

"I thought her jewels were at Glenkirk."

"Nay, my lord. When Mistress Cat fled ye in February I brought them back to Greyhaven, and she knew it."

For a second Patrick Leslie looked stricken. Then, swinging his legs over the bed, he stood up. Without another word, Ellen handed him his breeches and left the room.

He spoke to Conall. "The nearest horses?"

"In the valley. Gavin Shaw has the nearest farm."

"Get going," said the earl. "I'll meet ye there."

Conall nodded and left. Patrick finished dressing and went down to the kitchen. Ellen handed him a large sandwich of bread and ham. "Ye can eat as ye walk," she said.

He nodded his thanks. "Pack everything up here for for me, Ellie. I'll send someone up for ye by afternoon at the latest. Will ye stay at Glenkirk until I find her? She's going to need ye more than ever now."

"I'll stay. Her apartments have never been properly refurbished, and there's the nursery to prepare."

Flashing her a smile, he left A-Cuil and began his walk down to the Shaw farm.

Several hours later Patrick Leslie knew that Ellen had been right. Cat was not at Greyhaven, and a check revealed that her jewelry and a generous portion of her father's household gold was missing.

He rode to Sithean, and stopped at Ruth's house in Crannog. Cat was not in either place. At Glenkirk his lovely mother berated him for a fool and demanded, in a voice he had never heard her use before, that he find Cat, and her expected grandson.

"James," she said, "can run the estate for ye while yer gone. Adam and Fiona are, unfortunately, in Edinburgh. They are going to France to visit our cousins."

"Mother, I dinna even know where to look for Cat."

She looked at him pityingly. "Ye hae a bit less than six months to find her, my son. Else the next rightful Glenkirk will be born a bastard."

Groaning with despair, he left the room. Cat Hay would have been terribly happy to see the desperate * look on the earl's face.

Chapter 8

FIONA Leslie pulled her hood over her beautiful face. Looking around to be sure she wasn't followed, she slipped into the Rose and Thistle Inn. "I seek Mistress Abernethy," she told the landlord.

"Up the stairs, to the right," came the answer.

Fiona mounted the stairs. She had no idea who this Abernethy woman was, but when the urchin had shoved the note into her hand, curiosity had overcome good sense. She knocked on the door. Hearing a voice bid her enter, she did. The woman by the window turned. "Cat!" she gasped.

"Shut the door, Fiona, and come sit down."