The Highlander's Promise (Highland Brides, #6)

by Lynsay Sands

“Ye did no’ mention yer sister was yer twin. She seems much different than you.” “Oh aye,” she muttered, distractedly. “We are twins in countenance, not character, as Mother used to say.” “So she is no’ like ye?” he asked carefully. “Oh nay,” she said on a laugh, tipping her head farther back to look at the cloth. “We are like night and day. Cat was always chatty and charming while I was quiet and more reserved. Mother used to say Cat was a peacock, and I more a—oh,” she said softly.

Turning away then, he left the room before she could ask any more questions.

Secret passage! Alick’s ‘dream’!

“Cateline.” The name was a whisper on her lips as her memories were instantly all back. They did not suddenly come rushing into her mind like water into a cup. Instead, it was as if a veil had been lifted and everything was just there, where it had always been. And it wasn’t the appearance of her sister that did it. It was the old nickname Cat had used. Sorry, a bastardization of her true name that she’d always hated. Probably because it was usually followed by the taunting, “Sorry Sorcha, such a sorry creature.”

This time there was no aching head with the memories, but then she wasn’t having to struggle to try to find them. They were all there: her full name, her home at Fitton, her childhood, her parents and this woman, her twin sister who was as different from her as darkness was from light.

Straightening her shoulders, Jetta glared at her sister. “What are you up to now, Cat?”

“Finishing what I started,” Cat said emotionlessly. Jetta narrowed her gaze. “I told you, you and Father cannot make me marry your betrothed. I am already married.” “Father cannot make you do anything,” Cat said idly, beginning to toy with a knife she held that Jetta hadn’t noticed until she now began to turn it between her fingers. “Why is that?” Jetta asked warily. “Because he is dead,” Cat said as if announcing that the sup was ready.

It had suddenly occurred to her that Cat may be behind the attacks here at Buchanan. She had no idea why that had not occurred to her before this. Perhaps because she had been too surprised that she was even here.

That hardly suggested she was here to apologize for what she’d done in the past, and hoped for a closer relationship now that their father was dead. Come to that, neither did her attitude, Jetta thought grimly. Cat had always been a selfish, spoiled brat, but at least prior to this she had tried to camouflage it somewhat behind simpering smiles and batting eyelashes. There was none of that now. The woman before her was cold and bitter and so filled with rage . . .

Where Jetta had always just found her exasperating and even infuriating. The Cateline before her now was actually a bit terrifying.

“Father apologized prettily to me, but explained everything would be lost if we broke the contract. We had done our best, but he had to send me. When I protested, he had me bound and gagged, and laid over the back of the Captain’s horse to send me to the man you had managed to elude.”

And each time it had happened, her head had crashed against the hard wood behind her, eventually leaving her dazed, confused and aware only of pain and the struggle against drowning. And then she’d woken to calm. The storm was over and she’d opened her eyes to see Aulay’s face above her with a bright blue sky overhead. Jetta had thought him the most wondrous thing she had ever seen.

Feeling guilty about her having to coax the kiss out of him, it was no light peck in parting. Aulay gave her one of his full-on, deep, hungry, devouring, suck the meat from between your teeth kisses. Apparently, Jetta hadn’t been expecting that, for other than sag against his chest and wrap her arms around his neck as if he were the only thing holding her up, she didn’t really respond.

“Ye kissed her?” “Ye kissed the attacker?” “Ye kissed yer own wife’s sister?” “Are ye mad?” Wincing at the cacophony of questions, Aulay said dryly, “Well, I did no’ ken it was her at the time.

“He’ll check the know-holes first to be sure ’tis safe to enter.” “The what?” Aulay asked with bewilderment. He had been intending on just barging in. “The know-holes,” she repeated, her brow knitting as she took in his expression. “The spy holes? Ma called them know-holes when she showed them to me, because they let ye know what’s happenin’ in the rooms.” “We ha’e spy holes?” he asked with disbelief.

“There are spy holes in the passages at Sinclair?” Cam asked with amazement. “Aye. Your mother showed them to me after we married,” she announced. “What?” he asked with disbelief. “Why did she or Father never tell me about them?” When Jo shrugged her shoulders helplessly, Dougall suggested,

“Mayhap they’re waiting until yer an adult and can be trusted no’ to look.” Cam stiffened, but then nodded solemnly. “Aye. And no doubt that is why yer parents ne’er told ye ere they died, and why ye’re uncle still hasn’t.”

Jetta peered at her, wondering what she was thinking. Now that she had her memories back, Jetta suspected she had never really known her sister and that much had been hidden under all her fluff and flounce.

The woman before her was not the sister she’d thought she knew growing up. This woman was empty and cold and really rather scary.

“Well, frankly by that time I was so battered and bruised and appeared so weak, no one even imagined that I had anything to do with his falling down the stairs and breaking his neck on the way back to our room.”

She was certain she now understood Cat and what she was doing a little better. While her sister had been selfish and spoiled before, she was now broken . . . and she suspected very, very dangerous.

Jetta forced herself not to react, but inside she was thinking, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God. Cat was more than broken. She was completely and utterly mad if she planned to go about killing everyone she even imagined had done her a wrong.

Jetta closed her eyes on a sigh, but then stilled as it suddenly occurred to her that Cateline had known all along that she hadn’t bribed the captain, or escaped the ship. Cat knew the mast had ripped away, taking her with it. It seemed she needed to blame her for her woes in whatever way she could find.

“Besides, he was not drinking himself to death as I expected once you were gone. In fact, he was hardly drinking at all anymore. Where Mother’s death made him drink, news of your so-called death seemed to sober him up.

I lay awake each night here, imaging what I would do to you with it.” “We are sisters, Cat,” Jetta said desperately. “More than sisters—twins—and yet you hate me and—”

“God,” Cat sneered. “Now you will try to claim God saved you? Where was he when I needed him, then? Why did he not kill my husband ere I had to marry him? Or ensure I was betrothed to someone else to begin with? Someone young, strong, handsome and virile?” “Perhaps he did try to give you a husband who was young, strong, handsome and virile,” Jetta argued.

“It occurs to me that had you not connived to make me marry the marquis in your place, and had you been on Le Cok the first time instead of me, it would have been you on the mast that tore from the ship and floated up to shore near Aulay’s lodge. And had that happened, it might now be you married to him and enjoying the benefits of a young, strong, very handsome, and incredibly virile husband who is also kind and would never even think of hurting you.

“I like his face and find him handsome,” Jetta said unperturbed. “To me he is the most beautiful man I have ever met.” “Of course, you would think so,” Cat said with derision. “You always preferred the flawed to the flawless.

“Why would you kill Aulay?” “Because he gave you pleasure while I suffered,” Cat said furiously, and then shrugged that fury away like it was a pesky fly that had landed on her shoulder, and added, “It only seems fair that he gives me some of that pleasure too before I punish him.”

I tried to get him to bed me, but even drugged and brainless, he had too many scruples and would have naught to do with bedding his brother’s wife.”

Twas probably for the best. I do not think it would have worked anyway. I learned from the few kisses I managed to coax out of him that he is a sloppy kisser.

“And that is when I realized the only chance I probably have of experiencing that pleasure Aulay gave you was with Aulay himself.” “You are not sleeping with my husband,” Jetta said grimly. Cat laughed and taunted her, “Oh come now, sister, do not be so greedy. Mother always admonished us to share our toys.”

“Aulay is not a toy. He is the man I love and my husband.” Aulay swallowed. It felt like his heart was swelling. He would never again doubt her love for him.

“Over my dead body,” Jetta growled. “That is the plan, sister. Literally,” Cat said on a laugh. “I plan to kill you first and, since I cannot move you until things settle down, shove your dead body under the bed. Your husband will literally be giving me pleasure right over your dead body.”

“Jetta,” Cat said with disgust. “Her name is Sorcha, or Sorry, as I like to call her. But it is not Jetta.” “It is now,” Aulay said unperturbed. He’d noticed Jetta’s wince at the unkind nickname, and vowed if he ever heard anyone call Jetta that, he’d beat them into the ground himself.

“Surely we can come to some kind of arrangement?” he suggested in bored tones. While he was desperate, it wouldn’t do to let that show. Predators fed on fear.

“Tell her,” Cat said confidently. “Tell her you want me more than her. I know you do. I could tell when you kissed me.” Aulay almost said “aye,” just to please the woman, and hopefully, use the lie somehow to save Jetta, but then his gaze slid to his wife and he saw the worry and uncertainty in her expression. She truly feared he might prefer her sister, and for a moment he was flummoxed at the thought. How could she not know her value? How could she not know he loved her? That last was a bit startling. Love. Did he love her? The answer was easy: aye. He loved her with both his body and soul.

Her words had painted a perfect picture for him of Jetta’s past. Jetta, quietly doing what she could to ease her mother’s suffering and prevent her father from drinking himself to death while Cat, he was sure, concerned herself with little more than fashion and flirting with the soldiers.

“I remember,” he assured her solemnly. “And I remember walking away, wondering why kissing who I thought was the woman I loved felt so lacking.”

How can you love me when I have caused you nothing but unpleasantness and worry since you pulled me out of the ocean?” Aulay had to bite back a smile at the question. She had almost howled it with despair. “I do no ken,” he said with a smile. “Mayhap because ye’re brave, and smart, and bellow at me like a fishwife when I try to get ye to do something fer yer own good. Or mayhap because I see ye everywhere I look. I see yer skin in the clouds, yer eyes in the grass and yer hair in me horse’s tail.”

“I do not need flowery words. Your love is all I need. ’Tis all I want. You truly are a gift from God to me, husband. You are my own personal angel, a savior sent for me to love.” Aulay closed his eyes again, savoring the words. He’d never thought to have a woman feel that way about him, not since he’d been scarred so horribly. But his sweet Jetta did. She might think him her savior, but the truth was Jetta was his savior. She’d saved him from a long, lonely, and no doubt bitter life thinking of himself as a monster too ugly to be loved by any but his siblings.

Opening his eyes again, he met her gaze solemnly and said, “I’ll keep ye safe and love ye till me dying breath, Jetta. I promise. And ye ken I keep me promises.”

The moment they started away up the hall, Aulay began to move again, carrying Jetta toward the stairs. “Where are we going?” Alick asked suddenly, on his heels. Aulay glanced around with a start, a scowl claiming his face when he saw his entire family as well as Jo and Cam were following them.