Border Fire (7 page)

“I no longer mean to hang him on Wednesday,” he said evenly.

His grim demeanor made her breath catch in her throat, but she managed to reply just as evenly, “I hope that means that I have made you see reason, sir.”

“Rabbie Redcloak will hang at sunrise tomorrow,” he declared. Looking at the man near the doorway, he said, “Do you hear me, Ned? I want a gallows built for that scoundrel, and I want it built before I return from Bewcastle. See to it!”

“Hugh, please.”

Menacingly, he put his face close to hers again and growled, “If you do not go to your room, you will feel my hand on your backside next, lass.”

Unable to believe that she had failed so miserably, Janet hesitated, but when he straightened and reached for her, her courage vanished and she fled.

“Herself would watch you all the day

Her maids watch all the night….”

F
IGHTING TEARS OF HELPLESS
fury, Janet went straight to her bedchamber, only to meet the kitchen maid, Sheila, on the landing outside her door. Pulling herself together as she had done many times in the past under similar circumstances, Janet said quietly, “What is it?”

“Beg pardon, Mistress Janet, but Matty would know where ye will eat your supper when it’s time, bein’ Sir Hugh has said he means to sup at Bewcastle.”

“Godamercy, I’ve only just eaten my dinner.” Realizing that the maid was attempting to assure her that, despite Hugh’s orders, they would somehow provide her with her supper, she smiled ruefully and said, “Someone can bring some warm bread and milk to me here, Sheila. I doubt that I shall want anything more.”

The girl nodded, her eyes still fixed on Janet’s face. Her sympathetic expression made it clear that she wanted to say more.

Janet returned the look directly, and the maid’s gaze dropped.

“I’ll tell Matty,” she said, bobbing a curtsy.

Janet knew that Sheila was concerned about her and had wanted to say as much but that the maid knew it was not her place to do so. Although grateful for the kindness, Janet was even more grateful that Sheila had held her tongue, because overt sympathy would only have made her feel worse than she already did. She was glad, too, that the exchange had helped her recover her composure. Her stomach still felt as if it contained a pair of wrestling shrews, and her eyes still burned from tears she had neither shed nor quite managed to suppress, but she was quickly regaining her customary composure.

Entering her bedchamber and shutting the door, she looked at the cold, well-swept hearth and debated whether to light a fire, knowing that she would soon have to send someone to fetch more wood if she did. Generally, a servant would not light a fire in this room until after supper, giving it just enough time to lose its chill before Janet prepared to retire. The stone chamber was chilly—nay, ice cold—now, but she had no wish to see anyone else until she could be certain that she had herself under control again.

Hugh could stir her emotions like no one else. He enjoyed wielding power over her. Indeed, he probably enjoyed it the more knowing that she resented his male authority to order her about. She knew that if her parents had lived, her attitude might be different, and that she might even accept her lot the way other women did. She could not know one way or another, however, for her parents had not survived her early childhood. She barely remembered them. What she remembered most was their voices—one soft, the other booming loud like Hugh’s.

Remembering that booming voice now, she decided that she probably had answered her own question. Hugh was his father’s son, after all. The late Sir Harold Graham probably would have beaten any rebellious daughter into proper submission to her God-ordained lot in life. That Hugh had not been able to do it was no evidence that Sir Harold must also have failed. Her mother’s portrait over one of the hall fireplaces depicted a pale, pretty woman with downcast eyes. That should be proof enough of Sir Harold’s domineering ways. She could not imagine allowing anyone to paint her own portrait to display such waxen meekness.

Since glass was prohibitively expensive, the only window in the chamber was unglazed. Nevertheless, its shutters stood open to the wintry outside air in order to admit light. Walking across the stone floor to look out, she stared at the gathering gloom. The wall below formed part of the castle’s curtain wall, joining with the new stone wall of the stockade that Hugh had finished the previous year. Windows on the floors below were no more than arrow slits, but the one where she stood was nearly two feet wide and arched gracefully at the top. She felt the cold, standing there, but the wonderful view calmed her as it always did.

The sun was low in the sky, but the days were growing steadily longer. To the east, still aglow in the waning light, the landscape formed a patchwork of sun-gilded, snow-dappled farmland set against rolling hills, dotted with isolated farms and hamlets with stone- or slate-roofed cottages. Narrow stone bridges crossed fast-running becks that divided vast, snowy fields punctured from below by coarse dark grass and by the reeds and rushes of scattered bogs.

Moaning, ever-present wind blew out of the west, sculpting the trees into queer, surrealistic shapes. In the distance she saw a shepherd striding across a field with his flock, and as always, watching his dogs work the sheep stirred a brief fascination. They darted, dropped low, then darted again, moving the muddy sheep as quickly as they would go, driving them from whatever pasturage they had managed to find to the shelter of their pens. The sheep were reluctant, but the dogs urged them on, needing to get them to safety before the increasing chill turned wet ground to treacherous ice. It occurred to her then that ice would force Hugh to travel more slowly than usual when he returned from Bewcastle late that night.

Gray and white predominated everywhere she looked, but soon spring would visit the Borders again, and wildflowers would paint the rolling landscape with color. Rabbie Redcloak would never see the flowers, though. He would be dead.

She rubbed her hands together, suddenly aware of their icy chill; but rubbing did no good, for the chill had spread to the rest of her. Remembering the way the reiver had made her feel, the way her body had warmed to his lightest touch, she wondered what it would be like to have him touch more than just her fingertips.

Unfamiliar, surprisingly erotic feelings stirred deep within her, in places that she had not known could stir so.

Looking over her shoulder, fearing that such wantonness might somehow reveal itself to a watcher, she saw only the cold, empty bedchamber. She had known that she was alone, of course, and had looked only because her guilt at such wicked thoughts had momentarily overwhelmed common sense. In the way of such things, however, the moment she reassured herself of her solitude, memories of Rabbie Redcloak swept back—warming, then chilling, then warming her again, as if blocks of ice floated on the hot blood coursing through her veins.

Only too easily could she imagine herself alone with him again. Only too easily could she recall the radiant warmth of his hand, the way his deep, melodious voice had touched her soul, and the memory stirred feelings and fantasies that she had never before experienced but which she instantly recognized as wicked, or at least carnal. She remembered the way his fingers had caught hers, the way he had drawn her nearer before Geordie’s voice broke the spell. She knew from the way the reiver had touched her that she had stirred something in him, too. Could men be wanton?

That he would live only until sunrise made her want to cry, and her sorrow made her wish she could touch him just once more before he died.

In his cell, the prisoner had decided from what little he had seen of Janet Graham that she was a bonny lass but a bit of a fool. Remembering the touch of her slim fingers when she had given him the mug and taken it back again gave him some pleasure in his otherwise dismal solitude, though. He hoped again that if Sir Hugh had learned of his sister’s bold defiance, he had not been too harsh with her.

The reiver had spent most of the time since her visit thinking about her, giving his imagination free rein so long as it pictured him with her and did not dwell on images of a gallows rope. He found it easy to close his eyes and imagine himself with her. He could imagine her in his bed at home. He could imagine stroking her smooth skin—surely, it was smooth and unblemished, rosy and clean. He wondered what color her eyes were. They would be blue, he decided, a soft, true blue.

She was proud, and he liked proud women.

The door at the top of the stone steps crashed open, shattering his reverie. The flood of fading daylight from outside seemed as bright as the noonday sun. He heard the unmistakable sounds of hammers, hammering nails into wood.

“Ye hear that, ye thievin’ reiver?” The guard’s voice echoed down the stairs, reverberating off the stone walls, a roar of sound in the hitherto oppressive silence. “That’s your gallows they’re a-building, reiver. What do ye think o’ that?”

The door crashed shut again, and again blackness closed around him.

Scratching sounds at her door sometime later diverted Janet’s thoughts to more practical matters. She did not bother to command the visitor to enter, for she knew that to do so would be useless. No servant’s hand caused the noise. She went to open the door, then stood back to let Jemmy Whiskers enter.

The small orange cat strolled in, tail high in its usual stately, silent fashion, as if its size and weight were ten times greater than the reality. Studiously ignoring her, the cat padded to the hearth, where it halted and gazed at the cold stones for a long, silent moment. Then, glancing over a shoulder, it made a brief inquiring noise.

“Very well, I will light the fire,” Janet said, shutting the door and going to fetch the tinderbox. “I have had more important matters to think about, and it will not grow warm straightaway. If you are cold, you may jump onto the bed.”

She had passed the intervening time aimlessly, her mind seeming unable to grasp any thought and hold it. Her fury with Hugh proving pointless, she had tried to think of her duties, of tasks that remained undone or that should be accomplished in the days ahead. But, although the minutes passed, they did not pass with any speed. She was not a sedentary creature by habit, and the time that had crept by had shown her that long periods spent so would surely drive any sane person mad. That thought had led her inevitably to think of the prisoner again.

Kneeling to light the fire, she coaxed it patiently, aware of the cat’s intense supervision. When it was well started, she closed the shutters and drew forward a small, low bench of the sort known as a cracket. Sitting, she watched the flames, letting her thoughts take what course they chose. When the cat jumped onto the cracket beside her, she touched its head, stroking lightly.

Jemmy Whiskers purred, turning his face up into her palm and pushing against it. She stroked under his chin with a fingertip, glad of his company as her thoughts lingered on the tall, broad-shouldered man in the dark dungeon cell.

She could not doubt that Hugh would keep his word. Though he did not always believe himself bound by rules others had made, he did pride himself on being true to his word when he had given it. It shocked her, therefore, that he could so easily disdain a law that he had sworn to uphold. How dared he reduce a solemn oath to a mere quibble!

Border laws had been hammered out over the centuries to protect everyone on both sides of the line. Although the clans had occupied much the same land over that time as they did now, the line itself had changed numerous times. Even Brackengill had once been on the Scottish side—as had all of Cumberland—as part of the kingdom of Strathclyde. Four long centuries had passed since then, and throughout that time men had labored to produce the laws under which all Borderers now lived. For Hugh to ignore one of the most powerful of them was a measure of his fury with Rabbie Redcloak and his Bairns.

She wondered again what Scrope would think of Hugh’s decision to hang the reiver; however, since she could think of no way to bring the matter to his attention and stir him to act before the horrid deed was done, she rejected that line of thought as unproductive. She wondered next if anyone nearer than Carlisle could change Hugh’s mind, but soon discarded that thought, as well. If she could not persuade Hugh to do the right thing, no one could. Nothing could save the reiver now.

Unless…

She looked thoughtfully at Jemmy Whiskers. “Could I possibly do it alone?”

The little cat’s eyelids had been drooping, but they opened in response to her voice. Taking her words as an invitation, Jemmy murmured sleepily and climbed into her lap, nudging her hand with his head, encouraging her to go on stroking him.

She complied, finding it possible at last to bring order to her thoughts. He would need a horse—preferably his own if she could identify it and provide it for him—and he would need food, in case he had to hide out for a time before he could get safely across the line. He would also need to know the safest route to take. First, however, he would have to get free of the dungeon, free of the guards, free of Hugh.

It occurred to her that by now someone might have told Hugh about her visit to the prisoner’s cell. He clearly had not learned of it before their discussion in the hall, but it was only a matter of time before he did. If he had learned of it, she would know soon enough, and she would have no chance to get near the dungeon.

He had been in a hurry to get to Bewcastle, though, and she doubted that he would have concerned himself with his captive before leaving. She did not think that Geordie would have volunteered the news of her visit, in any event. Someone else would have had to do so, and most of the men liked Geordie and would have been reluctant to subject him to a tongue-lashing or worse. If Hugh had not known before leaving, she had at least a small chance of success, for he would not return until late. She had to make the attempt.

Providing the reiver with his own horse was possible if she could identify it, and the food would present little difficulty, since there was plenty left over from dinner to provide supper for the household and still leave some for him to take with him. The great problem was the guard at the dungeon entrance and anyone else who might still be awake in the stable or the bailey at an hour suited for whatever plan she decided to attempt. The middle of the night would be best insofar as the castle was concerned, for all but the rampart guards would be asleep then; however, Hugh and his men might return by midnight, and anyone moving about after that would look suspicious. She would have to act sooner.