Fair Border Bride (2 page)

Harry grabbed a cloak from a stall, converged on the animal and raced alongside as it pounded by. The great head turned, horns flicked in his direction. With the heat and miasma of several hundred pounds of bovine horn, bone and muscle assaulting his senses, he strained to keep up as the beast thundered across the cobbles.

Somehow he flipped the cloak open to its full extent and tossed it over the sharp horns.

The beast bellowed, fearful of the dark cloud settling over its head. The cloven hooves splayed as it skidded to a halt.

Harry raced over the last few yards as the bull tried to free itself from the enveloping folds of heavy velvet. He leapt onto the platform of the nearest cart and skipped across to the corner where Alina huddled between two solid wooden wheels.

“Give me your hands!”

White as bleached linen, she gazed at him as if she did not understand plain English. She looked back at the bull with the cloth flapping about its head.

“Alina, give me your hands!” Harry bawled. “The cloak could fall at any moment.”

She flinched, stretched out one hand towards him. Harry seized it. “Your other hand as well.”

She shook her head. The smart velvet bonnet fell off into the mire underfoot. “I can’t.”

Harry glanced at her hands. “Put the blasted cat in your pocket and give me your hand!”

She opened her mouth to remonstrate, then thought better of it and eased the kitten into a pocket. Scowling, she put one foot on the wheel hub, raised her hand and let him swing her onto the cart.

Harry ignored her annoyance. At least now she was moving. Gripping her elbow, he hustled her from one cart to another until they reached the church wall. Harry hoisted himself onto the top of the wall, and leaned towards her.

“Once over the wall, we’ll be safe.” Harry glanced over her head to the snorting, bellowing bull. “Give me your hand again.”

This time Alina made no complaint. With a swift tug from Harry’s strong arm and an agile twist of her own, she sat on the sun-warmed stones beside him.

Breathing hard, Harry watched the farmhands surround the heaving animal and pull the blindfold tighter. There was a flurry of movement beside him, and he turned to find Alina sitting on the grass of the churchyard.

“We’ll be safer still here.” She was not looking at him. Carefully, she extracted a tiny bundle of grey fur from her pocket and held it in her two hands.

Harry looked around. All seemed peaceful beneath the shade of the big sycamore tree.

“I’ll take it home. It had lost its mother, and we need more cats. Uncle Reynold hates them, so there’s only one and it can’t keep down all the mice and rats.”

Her breathing was back to normal. Harry liked that, for it suggested she must be an active person. He liked the fact she was calm, too. Some girls would have been fainting or throwing hysterical fits after facing an angry bull. Harry slid off the wall and joined her on the grass. He gazed at the kitten’s round blue eyes and short stub of a tail, and then back at the girl.

“It’ll never be big enough to catch a rat. It’s the rats will be chasing that ball of thistledown.”

She ignored him and murmured soothing nonsense to the kitten. Close to, her skin reminded him of cream on the top of the milk, and something in the sharp curve of her lips tugged at his senses. An urge to pull her into his arms and hold her close ran through him.

He couldn’t, of course. She was no village girl to fondle behind a convenient byre. She wasn’t married, or her hair would have been hidden beneath one of those fancy pieces of headgear women liked so much, but there was likely an affianced gentleman somewhere in the offing.

Harry looked up as a fracas beyond the gateway caught his attention. Farmhands led the bull away and an irate stallholder followed them, anxious they should not disappear with his expensive merchandise.

“Hey! Who’s to pay me, then? That’s a good velvet cloak, that is! Fit for a gentleman, and ruined on that brute’s horns!”

The last farmhand, clutching a bloody thigh, stabbed a red finger in the direction of the churchyard. “Ask ’
im
, he took it.”

Their moments of privacy were numbered. Harry looked at Alina. “Where’s your mother?”

“In church.”
She coaxed the kitten, and received a yawn and a blink in response.
“Talking to Lady Alice.”
Her mouth turned down. “She’s probably making plans for my wedding. It’s bound to be soon. Father’s been grousing about it lately.”

Well, she wasn’t married yet, but it looked as if she soon would be, and wasn’t too keen on the prospect. Harry opened his mouth, heard the rattle of the iron sneck and looked round.

“Here, you!”
The stallholder, a sacking apron tied around his ample form, waddled through the churchyard gate and glared at Harry from bulbous eyes. “
Ye’ll
be paying me for that cloak, then?”

Harry laughed, and put a hand under Alina’s elbow to help her to her feet. “What cloak? Do you see a cloak about my person?”

Alina’s elbow nudged Harry’s ribs in rebuke. She shook her head at him then turned and smiled at the angry merchant.

“Good day, Master Rutherford. I shall pay for your cloak, since it saved me from being gored to death. Pray tell Joseph how much I owe you, and he will bring it to you later in the day.”

Muttering and grumbling Rutherford trundled back out into the market place. Alina looked up at Harry, her brown eyes sober.

“It was a brave thing you did, sir. I am in your debt much more than Master Rutherford. Is there a way in which I may repay you?”

When she raised her chin, the white ruffle of her chemise framed the line of her jaw and enhanced the purity of her complexion. He caught his breath at the sight. She was beautiful. He thought for a moment of demanding a kiss as payment, and immediately rejected the idea. She would never allow it, and besides, there was something about this maid he wanted to cherish.

“You did not have to do that.” Harry spoke more sharply than he intended. “I will pay the man. As your lady mother said earlier, I have coin enough.”

Regarding him with amusement, she nodded. “Aye, Mama can be severe when she has a mind to be. But we cannot let you save my life
and
pay for the cloak. That would not be just, or fair.”

Harry let out a faint snort of laughter. “My father always says life is unfair and the sooner I realise it, the better off I’ll be.”

“That is a hard maxim.” She tilted her head and gave him a warm, considering glance from beneath long black lashes. Her gaze slid from his eyes to his mouth, and lingered there before returning to his eyes. One of her eyebrows tilted, as if questioning him. “But I suppose it is true, especially in these parts.” She lifted the puny creature and let it rest on the soft swell of her bosom where the chemise disappeared beneath her green gown.

The kitten’s pale claws flexed against the rounded curve of her breast. The court ladies wore stomachers of wood to give a straight line to their expensive gowns, but not so this girl. Harry swallowed. She must be aware of the effect she had on him.

“A stallholder warned me I may lose my life on the road to Edinburgh. Are things so bad in the Borders?”

Alina’s smile faded. “Yes.”

“I must go,” he said. “The journey is one I…it is important.”

She sighed. “Then go if you must, but it is a bad road and you must take care.”

“Then I shall take another road.”

Her smile held condescension. “Whichever road you take through the Borders will be dangerous, sir.” The kitten, tucked in beneath her chin, stared at him, too; both pairs of eyes so serious Harry couldn’t help smiling. “That creature’s probably got fleas, you know.”

“Will you tell me your name?”

“Harry Scott at your service, lady.”

A fine gold chain supported a gold cross at her throat, and it twinkled in the sunlight as she sucked in a sharp breath. “Your family name is Scott?”

He had chosen the surname at random. Why did she look at him as if he was an enemy? Perhaps he should have chosen a decent English name like Smith or Wilson.

He nodded, determined to make nothing of it. Scott was a common enough name, after all.
“And your name, lady?
I may pass this way on my return.”

“My name is Alina Carnaby. I live at Aydon Hall now. But before you visit, you should know that my father hates every member of the Scott family. So much so that he may kill you the moment you declare your name.”

‘Stay till night comes
ower
the ground,’ the packman said to Harry over a meal of ale and ham.
‘Tis
safer that way, lessen o’ course the Armstrongs
be
ridin
.’

‘Good advice,’ Harry said, reaching for his ale pot. He spent an hour with the man, who regularly walked the route to Edinburgh and back with naught but a pack pony and a sack of knick-knacks for company.

The packman left for his bed, birds sought their roosts and the clear day sank to a cloudless evening. When the moon rose over the hills to the south, Harry set out, shifting comfortably in his saddle as he headed up the gentle rise to the old Port Gate in the Roman Wall on the ridge behind Corbridge.

A hundred paces from the tavern, he left the cots and cabins behind and rode on between high hawthorn hedges. Moonlight showed him the dried mud of the track slanting gently uphill.

The gentle huff of wind from the ridge failed to disguise the burble of water flowing across the track. The mare hesitated. Harry looked east. A dark mass of trees reached out across the hillside and swallowed up the stream. This must be the Ay burn that led to Aydon, Alina’s home. He hesitated and then turned Bessie to the east.

‘A quick look won’t hurt,’ he murmured, and allowed the mare to pace slowly along the grassy bank.

The trees swooped in from the slopes around him. In no time at all, he and Bessie walked through woodland, and he had to duck now and then to avoid a low branch. He pressed on over last year’s leaf fall, moving slowly and carefully between tall, fat-girthed trees.

The land rose swiftly on his right and rapidly became a cliff face to which trees clung with roots like gnarled hands. Moonlight fought its way through the summer foliage, and showed him where a small tributary dashed in from the left. Following it up the slope, he reached smooth meadows that ran up to a dark bulk of a building. Aydon
Hall,
perched above the ravine.

No lights showed at the windows. Harry grinned in the dark.

Father would call him a romantic idiot for this. Father excelled at strategy, in confusing his enemies, in always being in the right place at the right time, and despised pointless excursions that brought no reward. Harry’s talents veered more in the direction of seizing opportune moments and following gut instinct.

He shifted in his saddle, clicked his tongue and urged Bessie on. This diversion wasn’t romance, but sheer nosiness. He drew rein and stood beneath Aydon Hall in the darkest half of the night.

After two years of boredom confined in the stuffy, tension ridden rooms of King Henry’s court, where the heady mix of perfumes and fright made a man’s head ache, what could be better than being out in the cool night air, with an adventure about to begin? No hanging about at court waiting for greedy men to decide if they should petition the king before dinner, after it or wait until morning.

Harry looked up at the hall. Imposing, but not overlarge, and crenelated. Marauding Scots and greedy English reivers had pushed the owner into building a parapet; something to hide behind while he aimed arrows at his attackers.

He hoped to own something grander than this one day. With a good education behind him, a strong physique and his father’s support, he should manage it before he was much older, and he was prepared to risk his neck to get it.

Urging Bessie up the slope, he wondered if there would be guards peering through the crenels. He didn’t want an arrow in his back. Suddenly wary, he studied the parapet. The length of the wall ran away from him into the darkness of the forest on the other side of the ravine.

Not a guard in sight. He rode on, and halted Bessie before the massive gateway. A beast bellowed in the byre behind him, and another answered.

He looked around. All was in shadow but for moonlight hitting the rounded curve of a high drum tower midway along the wall. He could learn nothing more about Aydon or its young mistress tonight.

‘Come, Bessie.
Time to move on.’

Probably just as well. Charming as Alina was, she was not the rich heiress of his dreams. Foolish whimsy had brought him here. He rounded the corner of a farm hind’s cottage. Shadowy grey in the moonlight, the lane stretched away into the distance, heading to the ridge where the Romans built their wall so long ago.

A muted cry reached him, and another.

Harry pulled his horse to a stand. Frowning, he looked around.

He caught the faint sound of hooves thudding against the earth, then the moan and bellow of disturbed beasts.

Harry scanned the fields, and found the moving black dots trotting diagonally towards the wall. The words of the packman resonated in his mind. ‘Lessen o’ course the Armstrongs be
ridin
’.’

It might not be the Armstrongs, but somebody was riding tonight. Was a raid taking place? Fascinated, he watched six or seven men round up the beasts and chivvy them into one dark, moving mass.

He ought to rouse the owner of Aydon Hall. He turned Bessie and urged her back to the gateway. Strangely reluctant to obey, she pranced on the spot. “Come on, Bessie!”

The mare made up her mind and lunged towards the castle. Harry looked over his shoulder. The moving black circle was much further across the hillside now. Pushing Bessie into a canter, he covered the half mile back to the hall, rounded the corner of the hind’s cottage and ran smack into a bunch of horsemen and cattle blocking the lane.

Bessie flung up her head and stopped of her own accord. Harry scanned the group warily. In the shadows, faces were no more than grey blobs but Harry was certain of three men, though less sure of the cattle that milled around him. The wide door of the byre stood open behind them and the sweet sour odours of penned cattle drenched the night air.

“Get ’
im
, Will!”

The order was given in a whisper, but it sent a chill down Harry’s spine. The whine of steel drawn from a scabbard assaulted his ears. Abruptly he wheeled Bessie and threw her into a gallop back along the dusty lane. He heeled sharply around the hind’s cottage, saw a fence looming and set Bessie at it.

Christ! This was madness! He had no idea what lay on the other side of the fence. But he had a short start while his adversary forged his way through the cattle, and wasn’t about to present himself as a clear target for the man’s knife. Bessie landed in what looked like a cabbage patch. Ten feet ahead lay the barrier of a dilapidated fence; all that stood between him and open fields. Bessie snorted, cleared it with ease and ran on. Harry glanced back and saw his pursuer’s shaggy pony leap nimbly over the rails.

Thank the Lord for moonlight. Bessie skidded down the incline. Harry hunched over her shoulders as she stumbled and steadied at the bottom, and then urged her into a gallop. The mare would surely beat the pony on level ground.

The trees of the ravine were not far ahead.

He looked back.

The rider came on. The pony covered the ground at an amazing speed. The rider’s arm drew back, something silver flashed in his hand. The knife streaked past Harry’s shoulder and buried itself in the turf to the left of Bessie’s front hooves. Quicker than thought, she shied to the right. Harry flew out of the saddle.

He sucked in a breath but there was no time to cry out. He hurtled through the air, crashed into the tree and dropped to the ground.

***

Alina lounged against the cold stone merlon, tipped her face to the early morning sun and thanked the Lord that no one could read her thoughts. If Harry Scott’s dancing blue eyes had run through her dreams all night long, no one knew of it. In spite of the upheaval of raiders and stolen cattle, thoughts of the handsome stranger still filled her mind.

He had put his own life in danger to save her. The memory of his athleticism struck a pang through her innards, and she wished for the thousandth time his name had not been Harry Scott. She doubted she would ever see him again. When she told him of her father’s hatred for the entire family Scott she’d not seen a moment’s distress cross his face.

Opening her eyes, Alina stared at the fat pigeons hugging the Aydon roofline. By now he would be riding through the Borders, and who knew where he would go after that? Better if she forgot all about him and concentrated on settling down to be a good wife and mother.

It was a sobering enough thought.

The chosen bridegroom would likely be John Errington. As children she and John had played together on fair days and at local gatherings, but once he left home to begin his education, she’d forgotten him. Her father, she suspected, considered John ideal husband material because his family connections were good.
Lots of links to the lords of Langleydale and Allendale.

He would undoubtedly keep her in comfort for the rest of her life.

But did he own the quickness of mind to save her from a charging bull? She doubted it. Would her stomach tighten at the sight of him walking through the courtyard?
Probably not.
Yet the thought of Harry did exactly that and made her heart pound as well.

“Look! They’re ready to go.”

Her brother’s voice sounded odd. Roused from her daydreams, Alina glanced along the length of the allure and clicked her tongue in annoyance. Lance and Cuddy, like most boisterous lads of thirteen and seven, were fascinated by weapons and warfare. They lay belly down across the grey stones of the battlements so they could peer into the outer yard where all the activity was taking place.

In spite of the danger, the sight of two pairs of brown woollen hose and sturdy boots made her smile and shake her head. Moving swiftly, she grasped the Cuddy’s belt for fear he’d disappear headfirst over the wall and crash to the ground sixteen feet below.

His bright seven-year-old face beamed at her. “They’ll soon catch the reivers and bring our cows back, won’t they, Ally?”

“I hope so, Cuddy.”

Keeping a tight grasp of his belt, she leaned over Cuddy’s shoulder and looked through the crenel into the outer courtyard. Her father, astride his sweating gelding, held the reins in one hand and an eight-foot lance in the other. His steel cap and coat of plate reflected the sunshine in a dazzle of light as he twisted and turned in the saddle to view his motley collection of followers. Impatience jangled through every line of his hard, stocky body.

He opened his mouth and roared.
“In line!
In line
behind
me, you idiots!”

Pigeons took off in a clatter of wings from the roof ridge. Alina bit her lip to hide a smile as the troop tied itself in knots trying to form a double line behind her father. It was unfair to laugh, for the men were farmers rather than soldiers.

“There’s Lionel!” Lance yelled from the other side of the merlon.

Alina followed Lance’s pointing finger. Lionel was eighteen, the eldest of the Carnaby boys, and wearing his new jack today.

“If he doesn’t watch out,” Lance said with a snigger, “
Matho’ll
have pride of place behind Father.”

Alina watched them jockeying for position. Newly conscious of his status, Lionel would be mortified if the head stockman’s son beat him to the front of the line. Matho had always been the undisputed leader of the gang of children who fought and played together among the scattered farms, cots and cabins that composed the Aydon Township. Three years older than Lionel, he usually found it easy to grin and shove the younger boy out of the way, but now Lionel was catching up fast. She hoped the old friendships would not change too much as Lionel came of age and took on more responsibility alongside his father.

Panting at the unaccustomed exertion of mounting the many stairs to the wall-walk, Margery Carnaby let out a gasp of horror.
“Alina!”

Her mother gestured toward Lance’s boots, waggling so high in the air. “What were you thinking
,
to let them lean out like that?”

“I have a firm grip of Cuddy, Mama.”

Mistress Carnaby hauled Lance back to a safer position, kept her grip of his tunic in spite of his wriggles and grunts of annoyance, and peered over his head into the grassy courtyard below.

“Dear Lord,” she murmured, gazing on her husband. “How does he think to pursue raiders with but fourteen men, none of them with any armour?”

Cuthbert Carnaby, unaware of his wife’s worries, chose that moment to brandish his lance in the air. Face flushed with heat and excitement, he roared out an order, then, with a final flourish in the direction of his family, wheeled his horse and headed for the gateway. The ragged column of riders followed.

“They are strong and healthy, Mama. All will be well.” Alina waved and saw Lionel glance back as he rode out under the stone arch with Matho seemingly resigned to third place. A fierce grin stamped her brother’s lean, craggy face. He knew his own importance now.

As the last horse trotted beneath the stone arch, Lance wriggled out of his mother’s grasp and tugged his tunic down over his long woollen hose. “Can we follow them, Mama?”

“You may go no further than the gate.”

Alina helped Cuddy shuffle back down to the allure and once his boots hit the stone, both boys raced towards the narrow doorway that led down to the inner courtyard.