Page 38 of Stealing Sophie
Chapter 12
“Katherine, then,” Connor said calmly. He had a sudden uneasy feeling. “Or Katherine Sophia, if you prefer.”
Huddled in her cloak, she watched him, wide eyes colored like the sea, hair gloriously mussed about her shoulders, bare toes peeking out below her shift. She clutched the china cup so tightly he thought its handle might crack. “Do you think I am Kate?”
His stomach sank like a stone. He set down the tray, turned to study her in the pale light that leaked between the curtains. Months ago, he had seen Kate MacCarran in the market square at Crieff. Her hair, he remembered, was strawberry gold.
Not this flaxen color. Dear Lord. She was not Kate MacCarran.
“Your hair,” he blurted. He sounded like a dimwit. “Is it powdered? Bleached?” He dreaded the answer.
“My hair has always been this color. Do you—did you think you were stealing Kate MacCarran last night?”
He frowned, considering.Devil take it.“I did.”
“So you thought you were wedding—and bedding—Kate?”
“Aye,” he murmured. He felt thunderstruck. Yet stayed still, utterly calm.
The cup rattled in her hands. She sucked in another breath. Then suddenly, swiftly, threw the cup across the room. It smashed against the fireplace, tea dripping.
She gave a single desperate sob, eyes flashing anger—and hurt, too, he saw. He said nothing, made no move. She went to the hearth and knelt to pick up the shards, placing them in the saucer, hands shaking. His heart pounded. He stood utterly still.
She set the saucer down and stood again to glare at him. “I am not Kate.”
“Then who are you?” He snapped it out. “Katherine Sophia MacCarran. Is that not your name?”
“Katherine Sophia is my given name. But I am Sophie. Kate’s sister.”
He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, staving off rising panic. “But Duncrieff wrote that name in his letter. I took it to mean Kate. He did not correct me.”
“He knows the difference! I am Katherine Sophia,” she repeated. “Kate is Marie Katherine.” She lifted her chin. “He should have told you that.”
Connor blew out a breath, spun away, spun back. He pressed his thumb and fingers against his eyelids. Swearing under his breath, he looked at her.
“Why in blazes are you both named Katherine?”
“You need not swear. Our grandmothers were both called Katherine. We each use our second names. Kate and Sophie. It has always been easy, until now.”
“Jesu.” Duncrieff had misled him. Had that been a mistake, or intentional? “What the devil are we to do now? Find the priest and demand an annulment? Throw you back like a wee fish, and search out the bride I was told to marry?”
“So you did mean to steal Kate and marry her!” She fisted her hands on her hips.
He nodded, frowning. “I—think so,” he said. Pushed fingers through hair, rubbed his bristled jaw. “I believe your brother spoke of Kate. She was betrothed to Sir Henry.”
“No,” she said. “That was me. Oh, God,” she added in a whisper.
“Your brother said nothing about the names. Nor would I have recognized either one of you. I have never seen you until last night. I saw Kate, but only from a distance.”
“Am I expected to believe this is a simplemistake?” Her voice squeaked.
“You are. It is.”
She folded her arms, whirled away. Connor rubbed his face, thinking frantically. He had seen Kate MacCarran last summer, when he and Duncrieff and Neill Murray had brought a few cattle, stolen from Kinnoull pastures, back to the marketplace at Crieff to sell them. Duncrieff had pointed out his sister, who was with other MacCarran kinsmen. He had gone off to greet them, while Connor stayed with the cattle, keeping his distance, maintaining his ruse as a Highland drover in a tattered plaid and a scruffy beard.
Knowing something of Kate MacCarran’s secret Jacobite activities, he knew it was safer for all concerned, considering his rebel sympathies, if he kept his distance. He recalled a lovely young woman, slender and neatly made, in a brown cloak and blue gown, with a lacy cap perched on her hair, which was ruddy gold.
Not Sophie’s sunlit color. But he had not seen the difference in last night’s fog and darkness. And he had no reason to doubt that she was the MacCarran sister he had been sent to take.
