Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy 2] (9 page)

“Aye, sure, Jamie, but sithee—”

“When they do come,” Douglas went on relentlessly, “I mean to show the Earl of Northumberland, his damned son Hotspur, and the English king that they challenge me at their peril. I’ll need daring men and fast horses, and I’ve been counting on you for both. But now you’ve played me a trick that could endanger all.”

He did not raise his voice but went on at length, his words and tone blistering. Wat stood there silently to hear it, aware that his father still leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest, awaiting his turn.

Resentment flared when Douglas said he wondered now if he could trust him or his judgment. But as sorely as Wat yearned to defend himself, he knew better. He knew, too, despite the voice in his head urging him to fight back, that he had earned every lashing word. Had he stayed home, he would not be enduring this now. He had known from the moment Murray’s men rose out of the concealing heather that he had only himself to blame. Even so, hearing Jamie Douglas say so was nearly as painful as was knowing that his own father agreed with every word.

But when Douglas said that perhaps Wat ought to stay behind when they next engaged the English, Wat said, “No, my lord. It is my duty—”

“Be silent,” Douglas said, rising swiftly to put his hands on the table and lean closer. “You will hear all I have to say to you. Afterward, I
may
let you try to persuade me that you are
not
a hotheaded sapskull and can control that damned temper of yours well enough to follow my orders. If you cannot, by God, you will stay home until I give you leave to do otherwise. Do you understand me?”

“Aye, my lord,” Wat said. But Jamie’s usually dark complexion had paled when he had risen so quickly, and his color had not returned. Beads of sweat lined his upper lip, and despite Wat’s wariness, he eyed his old friend with concern.

“Forgive me, my lord,” he added then. “Are you unwell?”

Douglas shook his head, but as he did, he drew in a long breath. “In troth, I ate something that made me sick yesterday and was weak as a kitten afterward. I felt better this morning, though, and thought the sickness had passed.”

“We’ll have supper as soon as we’ve finished here,” Buccleuch said. “I trow you’ll feel better after you eat something.”

“Aye, sure,” Douglas said. As he took his seat again, he looked back at Wat. “I hope you won’t disappoint me like this again.”

“I won’t,” Wat promised.

“As to this curst marriage of his,” Buccleuch said, “I don’t doubt his account of it, Jamie, and I know you don’t either. Murray forced the marriage on him and doubtless on the lass as well. I’m thinking we can lawfully demand its annulment.”

The two exchanged a thoughtful look. But although Wat had briefly hoped that one or the other might demand an annulment, since Scottish law forbade any marriage performed under duress, he said, “I can’t let you do that. I promised Murray I’d marry his daughter if he freed my men. He did, so I must keep my word.”

“Aye, you must,” Douglas agreed just as Wat recalled what else he had promised Murray. “This is no time to be making demands of the Kirk,” Douglas went on. “Moreover, even the suggestion of an annulment now could stir Murray to outright betrayal. His lands are more at risk than most, and men of Elishaw have switched sides before.”

“As have many others,” Buccleuch said. “I hold my lands, and you hold many of yours, including Hermitage, because of just such expedient decisions.”

“True,” Douglas acknowledged. He turned back to Wat. “You do have every right to file a grievance against Murray for your kine. Demand that he return all of your beasts or pay for them, and demand as well that he provide his daughter with a proper dowry. But you must do it properly at the next wardens’ meeting.”

“I will, my lord,” Wat said. Then, before he could lose courage, he said, “I also promised that I’d not take up arms against Murray and will ride to his aid if he sends for me, as long as you or my father are not the ones attacking him.”

To his surprise, Douglas nodded and said, “’Tis a common promise to exact in such a case.”

Profoundly relieved, Wat added, “I’m sorry about the lady Fiona, Jamie. I’d not want to think I’d hurt her with this unfortunate business.”

Douglas grimaced ruefully. “You can put that fear out of your head. She told me you were the last man on earth she wanted for a husband. Too hot at hand, she said, and would try to rule everyone in your ambit. She’d have married you, of course, because I’d ordered it. But you’d have had your hands full, my lad.”

Wat sent a prayer of thanks heavenward, but his ordeal had not ended.

Buccleuch said, “I’ll have someone show you to a chamber where you can rest before we sup, Jamie.” When Douglas shook his head, he added, “Humor me, my lord. You outrank me, but by agreeing, you will spare me the necessity of asking you to await me in the hall. I’ve some few things of my own to say, and I want to say them whilst he still burns from your rebukes. He would doubtless prefer that you not bear witness to it, and although he deserves no such forbearance . . .”

“Almost do you tempt me to stay,” Douglas said with a slight smile when Buccleuch paused. “In troth, though, a nap does have some appeal.”

“Mayhap you should spend the night,” Buccleuch said.

“Nay, though I thank you for the invitation,” he said as he got to his feet again. “I mean to ride to Teviothead tonight and on to Hermitage in the morning.”

Wat noted that he stood more cautiously this time. Apparently, Buccleuch noted it, too, for he said, “I’ll show you to that chamber myself, my lord. The small one just off the next landing will serve. You wait here, Wat,” he added curtly.

When they had gone, Wat decided he’d be wiser not to sit while he waited. If Buccleuch were to return and find him taking his ease . . .

The vision that rose to mind was one that had repeated itself over the years, and it still had power to make him wince. He had time to remember a number of other such scenes before the click of the latch announced his father’s return.

Wat faced him. They were of similar height, but Buccleuch was heavier. He still rode like the devil’s own, though, and was as fierce a warrior as any Wat knew, saving Douglas and mayhap himself. A flashing memory of Douglas taking
him
to task for
his
temper nearly made him smile, but he did not let it show.

“What
were
you thinking?” Buccleuch demanded as he shut the door.

“I was not thinking at all, sir,” Wat admitted. “When I learned that my herd was gone and Murray was the likely thief—” Fury stirred anew at the memory, and he added recklessly, “Faith, sir, you’d have followed them yourself in the old days.”

“These are
not
the old days, and your liege lord has forbidden such behavior until we have routed the English.”

Wat held his tongue then while Buccleuch gave free rein to his and proved that Douglas had not said nearly half of what there was to say about the matter.

His father’s lengthy reprimand made Wat glad again that he was too old for skelping. When he finally escaped, he felt nearly as wrung out and humbled as he had in earlier days after such a session.

Under orders to make himself presentable before he joined his mother and the others for supper, he went to his bedchamber and entered without recalling the likelihood that he had acquired a roommate.

He stopped short at the sight of his wife standing near the hearth in her shift. Her arms and feet were bare. Her hair hung in thick, lustrous waves to her hips.

Meg heard the latch and managed not to jump at the sound. She was glad she had not, because she suspected that Avis, the young chambermaid Lady Scott had sent to assist her, would prattle of what she saw or heard to any willing audience.

Avis had been chattering since she had come in. To her credit, she had tidied the room and found places to stow Meg’s things in kists and on pegs. She had also fetched hot water and, when Sir Walter walked in, she had just helped Meg take off her riding dress so she could wash away the worst of the dirt from her long ride.

Like most Border women, Meg was a good horsewoman, but it had been a long, tiring day and was not over yet. Lady Scott, having said she would send someone to tell her when supper was ready, had left her and taken Amalie to a bedchamber of her own elsewhere.

Meg had welcomed the respite between their departure and Avis’s arrival, because it gave her a chance at last to think only of herself and how the day’s events had affected her. To be sure, she had pondered these things during their journey, but with Sir Walter and Amalie so near, and Amalie making desultory conversation, she had done so only intermittently and with a sense of guilt.

She had expected a second respite after Avis left, but that was not to be.

A second look at her husband inspired her to say, “That will be all, Avis, thank you. I can manage on my own now.”

“Aye, sure, m’lady.” The girl bobbed a curtsy in Sir Walter’s direction without really looking at him and hurried from the room.

“You needn’t have sent her away,” he said. “Douglas is resting, so I doubt they’ll call us for supper straightaway.”

“I thought the Douglas never slept. So the tales go, at all events.”

His smile was tired, but at least he smiled. “Those tales are true. But he said he must have eaten something bad yesterday, because he has been sick ever since.”

“Poor laddie,” she said. “I was sick like that once. ’Tis a dreadful thing.”

“Aye, well, he’s not foundering yet.”

She eyed him shrewdly, suspecting that what he would have liked to say was that illness had not diminished the Douglas’s ability to express himself. However, she said only, “You seem a little tired yourself, sir.”

He grimaced. “I don’t know that I’m tired, though I should be, I expect, after all the riding I’ve done in the past twenty-four hours and sleeping on your father’s dungeon floor. I’ve had a damnable headache all day, too. But if I look wretched, ’tis because I’ve been hearing my character shredded by two of the best.”

“They are truly angry about our marriage then.”

“One might put it even more strongly than that,” he said. “They are not blaming you, though, lass,” he added with a shrewd look at her. “They’ve put the blame on me, where it belongs. Is that steam I see rising from yonder basin?”

“It is. Avis brought up hot water so that we might wash before supper.”

“I warrant Avis never gave a thought to me,” he said. “Have you taken advantage of it? I won’t use it yet if you have not.”

“Don’t be foolish, sir. I can attend to my needs with this damp cloth. You must use the rest as you please.”

“You are kind, lass. Take care that you don’t turn me into a tyrant. Some already think I seek to rule all in my ambit.”

He turned away as he spoke, and she wished he had not. He truly did look wretched, and she nearly suggested that he lie down and rest as the Douglas had. She bit off the words, though, deciding that he would not appreciate any further mention of his weariness.

She suspected that his interview with the earl and Buccleuch had been more of an ordeal for him than he had admitted. But he would certainly not share his feelings about that with her. Her experience with her brothers, especially Tom, told her that young men were often more sensitive about things than they admitted.

Therefore, she said no more, performing her ablutions with quiet dispatch and donning a simple pale-green cotton kirtle with a front-laced indigo bodice and a surcoat of the bluish-gray color called perse.

There was one thing she could not do by herself, though, not if she was to appear before Lady Scott without drawing her ladyship’s censure. So, after she had stepped into her soft shoes, she turned hesitantly to her husband.

He had stripped off his jack and shirt and stood bare-chested at the basin.

The light through the long, narrow window nearby had dimmed so that he was little more than a gray form, but the muscles of his shoulders and arms looked as hard as marble, rippling as he moved. Deciding that she did not want to disturb him just yet, she watched appreciatively as he scrubbed himself.

As if he had felt her gaze, he glanced at her a moment later. “What is it, lass? You look sore perplexed.”

“’Tis my hair,” she said. “I cannot put it up smoothly enough or tightly enough by myself to put on my coif, but I can ask Amalie to help me if you can tell me where to find her. Your mother took her to another chamber but did not say where it lies or even if it is in this tower.”

“She’ll be in this one,” he said. “This is the family tower, although my younger brothers both have apartments in the one that you’ll see to your left, or to the north, as you walk out the front entrance. My father’s men-at-arms occupy the other one, as does the bakehouse and a few other sundry chambers.”

“Do you know where I can find her then?”

“Nay, not exactly, but Avis will know. That lass knows everything. Stay, though,” he said, cocking his head. “Did you bring a net with you?”

“Of course I did,” she said. “But surely—”

“My sister Jenny often puts hers in a net with a plain veil over it. Supper is no formal meal here at the Hall, and won’t be tonight, even with the Douglas here. He does not stand on ceremony, and nor does my father.”

“But your mother—”

“Nay, lass, do not fear her. I told you, she is kind. It may take her a day or so to warm to you, because I’ve disappointed her. I think she must have set more store by that Douglas marriage than I knew.”

“Are you sorry about that, too?” she asked before she could stop herself.

He shook his head, and even in the dimming light she saw that his eyes danced. “If there is one thing I am sure of in all of this, it is that I am well out of that. Now, if you would please your husband, do something to your hair so you can stuff it into a net, and I’ll help you fasten your veil myself.”

After that, with no more to say about it, Meg arranged her hair in two long plaits, twisted them round each other at her nape, and confined the result in a gold net under a white cambric veil. As she did, she encouraged her husband to talk.