Border Fire (21 page)

“’Tis chilly out here,” he said. “We’d best get you inside, lass, and warm you up.” Looking away, apparently unaware of how warm she felt already, he said to one of his followers, “Get the lads in and tell someone they’ll want food.”

“What o’ yourself, laird?”

He hesitated, then said, “Tell someone to send food and wine up to my chamber.”

Feeling as if the exchange had released her from a spell, Janet looked around, searching the teeming throng of men and horses to find the tall man who had carried her cat for her. Sir Quinton had insisted that she would be safer if she could keep her mind on her pony, and she had not argued. “Where is Jemmy Whiskers?”

“Yonder,” he said, gesturing. “Hob the Mouse has got him. He’ll carry him to the kitchen, and someone there will feed him.”

“I want him,” Janet said firmly. “He always stays with me.”

“Not tonight, lassie. I do not want to share you with your cat.”

“You need not share me, sir, but he does not know this place. If he cannot find me, he may try to return to Branxholme or even to Brackengill. He is accustomed to follow wherever I go.”

He looked annoyed, and for a moment she feared that he would forbid her to keep the cat with her. If he did, she would resist obeying, but she knew that his will would prevail. He was the master of Broadhaugh. She did not even have a servant of her own. Indeed, it began to look as if she were the only female there.

On the thought, she said, “Have you no maidservants?”

His eyebrows shot upward, and encountering a flinty look, she knew that he thought she was trying to divert him from the subject of her cat and decided that perhaps she was, at that. Then she saw him relax, and the moment passed.

He said, “It would not have been seemly to keep maids here before now, lass. No man wants his daughter serving in a castle full of men, particularly the sort of men who collect at Broadhaugh to follow me.”

“Well, I shall require maidservants, sir.”

“Aye, I know, and I’ve made arrangements for several to begin working tomorrow. You may choose one to serve as your personal maid. You won’t require one tonight, I promise you, and I’ll protect you from my men.”

She was not afraid of his men, but she began to wonder who would protect her from him.

“Let’s go in,” he said again, pressing a hand against her back to guide her.

She dug in her heels. “Jemmy Whiskers,” she said again. “I want him.”

He sighed. “Very well.” Then he shouted, “Hob, where the devil are you?”

“Here, laird,” a voice shouted back.

“Bring the damned cat. Her ladyship wants him.”

Her ladyship.
Janet savored the words. No doubt others had called her so after the wedding or during the subsequent feasting and dancing, but she had gone through those festivities in a fog as dense as any blinding Border mist. In any case, she was certain that Sir Quinton had not called her so before.

The huge, shaggy-headed man so astonishingly called Hob the Mouse came quickly to hand her a closed wicker basket containing a loudly protesting Jemmy.

“He wants oot,” Hob said with a grin.

“I can hear that,” she said, smiling. “Thank you for taking such care of him. I am very grateful.”

“Nae need, m’lady,” he said, touching his cap. “He didna fratch wi’ me.”

She opened one side of the basket, stroked the little cat’s head, and murmured soothing words. At the sound of her voice, Jemmy settled down, and raising the basket close to her ear, she heard his rumbling purr.

A nudge from the hand touching her back recalled her to her duty, and she went with her husband up a flight of stone steps into the castle, seeing at once that its layout was similar to Brackengill. The entry was not at ground level but at the floor above, and at one time, she knew, the stairs probably had been wood, so that during an attack the inhabitants could burn them to prevent the enemy’s entry.

The heavy wooden main door was ironbound, so that if an enemy tried to burn it, the iron strapping would keep them out. Instead of directly entering the stairwell, however, as one did at Brackengill, one entered Broadhaugh’s hall. Though not as large or grand as the hall at Branxholme, its appointments were nearly as modern and it was comfortably furnished with benches and tables. Its walls were bare above the wainscoting, but at some time, someone had expended effort on the place. Despite its masculine residents, it looked generally more civilized than Hermitage.

“I’ll take you over the place in the morning,” Sir Quinton said. “The lads will be wanting their supper now, though, so we’ll go on upstairs.”

“The kitchens are downstairs, I expect.”

“Aye, there is a kitchen and a bakehouse below the great hall, as well as a scullery and a few rooms that can serve as quarters for your maidservants when they come. We go this way,” he added, guiding her toward a circular stairway set into the back left corner of the hall. “I’ll carry that basket for you now,” he added. “You’ll fall if you try to manage it along with your skirts on the stairs.”

Without protest, she handed him the basket containing the cat.

As they made their way up the stairs, Janet saw that an arched window in the wall overlooked the hall below. One could easily see who was there without being seen in return. From there, the hall looked warmly inviting. A number of men had entered and were eagerly taking their places at a long table. Seeing servants already passing platters of food, she realized that she was hungry.

An arched doorway with its door ajar revealed another, smaller hall at the next level, and she realized that, like Hermitage, Broadhaugh boasted a master’s hall. It was not as colorful, however, and its furnishings looked dull. Here, then, was where Sir Quinton hoped to benefit from a woman’s touch. She had no time to examine the chamber, however, for he said quietly, “We go to the next level, lass.”

Aware of his presence behind her as she had been aware of no man before, she hurried on, holding up her skirts, watching where she set her feet, and making use of the rope banister looped into iron brackets on the outer wall. The last thing she wanted was to miss a step and fall. As tired as she was, she might easily do so, and she did not want the most lasting memory of her wedding day to be an image of herself falling against him and tumbling the pair of them to the bottom of the stairs.

The image produced by that thought made her chuckle, and behind her, he said, “What’s so funny?”

“Only a foolish thought,” she said, wondering if he would expect her to share it. She did not know much about what men expected from their wives. Indeed, other than what she had gleaned from a few short, formal visits to households other than her own, she had little knowledge whatever of married folks’ habits or customs.

Whenever she had asked questions about such things, the common response had been that once Hugh married, his wife would tell her all she needed to know. But Hugh, having successfully evaded his guardian’s numerous attempts to arrange a marriage for him before his majority, had found no one to suit him since then. She wondered if he would be more likely to do so now that he no longer had a competent sister to run his household for him.

That thought had not occurred to her before, but before she could consider it at any length, she reached the next floor. The door there was shut.

“It is not locked,” he said. “Just turn the ring, and it will open.”

She obeyed, pushed the door open, and stood still on the threshold to gaze at the room beyond.

The first thing she noted was that some thoughtful soul had lighted a fire in the fireplace. The scent of burning wood, and the merry crackling of the fire did more to make her feel welcome than had any of the men’s polite comments. She entered, stripping off her gloves and gazing around with interest.

Even in the dim light, she could see that the arras cloth covering two-thirds of the long wall needed a good shaking and sweeping. But the Turkey carpet near the bed looked as if someone had recently brushed it, and the embroidered blue bed curtains looked as if they had been shaken if not taken down and thoroughly cleaned. The plain blue counterpane was smooth, and the room was as tidy and warm as anyone could expect it to be.

“No window curtains?”

He smiled as he set the cat’s basket on the floor just inside the door. “It is not as if anyone can look in at us.”

“Perhaps not,” she said, “but they would keep in the warmth from the fire.”

“Also the smoke,” he pointed out. “That chimney is temperamental.”

“Doubtless it needs cleaning,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Cleaning? Do you know where that chimney sits?”

“Do not concern yourself, sir. I will see that someone attends to it.”

“Without sending them crashing to the stones below?”

“Aye, I know how it can be done safely.” She watched warily as he turned and shut the door, noisily throwing the bolt into place.

He turned back, saw her watching, and said with a smile, “Tip, the lad who serves my personal needs, thinks this room is as much his as mine. Until he learns to recall your presence, we will throw the bolt when we want privacy.”

“What of the food you ordered?”

“I’ll let them in, never fear. Art hungry, Jenny?” He stepped toward her.

“Aye,” she said, stepping back. “It has been some time since our wedding feast, and I…I do not even remember what, if anything, I ate.”

“You ate enough for three women,” he told her, chuckling. “Stand still.”

Although it took effort to obey, she did. She liked the way his eyes twinkled when he was happy. His smile was irresistible, drawing one from her in return, but hers faded when he reached for the clasp on her cloak. “I can undo it,” she said.

“I am sure that you can, but I want to do it,” he said, catching her hand with his. He still wore his leather gloves, and her bare hand felt swallowed up in them. He drew it closer till her fingertips touched the rough material covering his chest. With his free hand, he reached again for the clasp and flipped it open. Releasing her hand, he lifted her cloak from her shoulders. “I do like that dress,” he said.

“It is beautiful,” she said. “I do not know that it was proper for you to have bought it for me, however. My brother should have paid for my wedding dress.”

“We won’t think about your brother,” he said softly. “I did not mind buying the dress, for I rather like knowing that I own every stitch and bone of you, Jenny.”

Stiffening at the thought of being owned like a mare, yet knowing that in truth that was the way of things, she said, “I told you before, sir, my name is Janet. No one calls me Jenny.”

“Now someone does,” he said. “I like the sound of Jenny better than Janet.”

“Well, I do not,” she said evenly. “Jenny sounds like a little girl.”

“Nay, then. Jenny sounds like…like a soft and gentle lassie, one who wants above all things to please her husband.” As he talked, he touched her shoulder lightly. Then, slightly frowning again, he paused to take off his gloves.

Stepping away while he was thus occupied, she turned to face him. “I know that it is my duty to please my husband, sir, but you should know that I have not been raised like other girls. I have run a household that is perhaps even larger than this one, and although I have lived with a temperamental man—”

“I said that I don’t want to talk about your brother,” he said. He unfastened his cloak, flinging it aside and moving toward her again.

Janet stepped back, saying firmly, “This is not about Hugh, Sir Quinton. This is about me. You must not enter this marriage thinking that I will be like other women, for I am not. I am sorry if that disappoints you, but I cannot alter the fact.”

His smile vanished and a stern look took its place. “From what I know about Sir Hugh Graham, you did not run everything at Brackengill, Jenny, my lass. For that matter, I doubt that you won many battles with him. Did you not tell me once that he affords rough treatment to anyone who displeases him?”

“Aye, and so he does,” she admitted, “but he rarely paid heed to what I did with regard to the household. It was only when I interfered in realms that he considered his own that we crossed swords.”

“Crossed swords?”

“’Tis purely a figure of speech,” she said, adding with a sigh, “Not that I shouldn’t like to learn how to wield one. It is most unfair that only men can have weapons. I nearly always carry my—”

“Females are not suited to bearing weapons,” he said. “Not that lasses don’t wield certain weapons of their own, mind you. Some of those are harmless enough, like a smile or the twitch of a fine pair of hips, but I have seen fingernails long enough and sharp enough to claw a man’s eyes out. Come to think of it, I have not examined yours to see if they require trimming. Mayhap I should.”

She put her hands behind her. “Please, sir, I do not jest.”

“Let me see your hands, little wife.”

Keeping them safely behind her back, she retreated another step, saying with frustration, “Why do men never listen?”

Gently he said, “Jenny, lass, if one of my men ignored a command the way you are ignoring mine now, I would swiftly teach him never to do so again.”

Cocking her head, she said, “What would you do to him?”

He grimaced. “The point has not arisen in years, but I would do whatever I thought best. In any event, what I would do to a man who owes me allegiance and what I’ll do to a wife who owes me obedience are scarcely one and the same.”

“Are you threatening to beat me if I refuse to show you my hands?”

“Jenny, this is our wedding day. I do not want to quarrel with you. Why do you keep backing away from me?”

“Because I do not know you,” she said. “Because I want to know you better, and I do not want you to believe that by changing the name you call me, you can change my nature. If you do not want me as I am, you ought to have said so from the start. If you enter upon our marriage believing that you can mold me to suit some image you’ve got of a Jenny, I would remind you, sir, that she is as like to be a jenny-ass as to be a jenny-wren.”

“Very pretty speaking,” he said. “Do you mean to defy me at every turn?”