The Spitfire (58 page)

The Scots encircling him snickered, and his pride pricked, Sir Jasper said, “‘Tis unfair. When I kill you, your men will kill me. I’ll not fight you, you damned Scot! You’ll have to kill me dishonorably.” He smiled smugly at Donald Fleming.

“If
ye can kill me, and I doubt ye can, my lord, then my men will let ye be on yer way,” Donald said.

“How do I know I can trust the word of a Scots bandit?” Sir Jasper replied insultingly.

“Ye can trust my word far more than I would trust yers, SirJasper Keane, murderer, ravisher of helpless women,
thief,”
Donald said softly. “
Are ye a coward as well, man?”

With a howl of outrage Sir Jasper leapt forward, taking Donald Fleming offguard and pricking his shoulder so that it bled slightly.

With a pleased grin Donald recovered and went on the attack. For several minutes the two men battled back and forth, but it was quickly obvious that the Scot was the superior swordsman. Slowly, methodically, he drove his English opponent from side to side of the circle in which they fought, amusing himself as Sir Jasper’s terror grew. And then finally, seeing the horizon beginning to glow red with the impending arrival of a new day, he ceased toying with the man and, thrusting cleanly and swiftly, put an end to their battle.

“I told ye, man, that ye’d nae see the sunrise,” Donald Fleming said matter-of-factly.

“Why?”
Sir Jasper Keane managed to gasp.

“Why?” Donald repeated as his opponent began to sink slowly to the ground, his hands clutched at the bloody blade that pierced him.”Why, for my brother’s honor, and, though I should never hae thought I would say such a thing,
for Arabella Grey.”

A look of total surprise appeared in Sir Jasper’s eyes even as the life fled from them and he collapsed to the ground. Donald Fleming pulled his sword from the man’s chest, and wiping his blade carefully on the Englishman’s doublet, replaced it in his scabbard. His hand went again to the scabbard as he remembered, and then looking at Arabella, he said dourly, “I’ve brought the body back for ye to see, lady, to ask ye what ye would hae us do wi’ it.”

“Where is it?” Arabella demanded harshly. Like Tavis, she was somewhat angered not to have been in on the kill, and yet she felt relief that Jasper Keane was dead and Tavis Stewart unharmed.

“In the courtyard,” came the brusque reply.

Arabella Grey moved quickly through her hall and out into a surprisingly bright and sunny morning. Above her the sky was a flawless blue and there was not a cloud to be seen, the storm having blown itself away at long last. She descended the steps from the hall but halfway when she saw him. In fact, she almost tripped over him, for Donald had laid Sir Jasper Keane’s body out upon those same stone steps. His sightless brown eyes stared up at her, a look of total surprise and yet terrible fear upon his face.

Arabella stared down on Jasper Keane’s body. What had even made her think that he was handsome, she wondered? Did death always render a body so insignificant, or had Jasper Keane always been insignificant? Her father had looked as noble in death as he had in life. Perhaps even more so.

“What do ye want done wi’ the body, lady?” Donald Fleming asked her.

“Show it through the border, both sides, sir, that all may know this cowardly outlaw and his band are dead,” Arabella said. “They will never again prey upon the helpless.” Turning, she went back into the hall. Just before she reentered the building, however, she swung about and said quite distinctly, “Thank you, Donald Fleming. You have done me a good turn, and I am now in your debt. Should you ever need a favor of me, you have it without question.”

Donald Fleming stared after her open-mouthed as she disappeared from his view. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, and then he grinned broadly.

“Ye surely will be damned for this day’s work, little brother,” the earl said grimly, looking as if he’d like to hit his sibling again.

“Gie over, Tavis. Our mam is right. Ye hae nae the freedom to get yerself killed until ye sire a legitimate male heir on a wife. I’ve done more this day for Dunmor than ye’ve ever done.”

“Go home, Donald,” the earl said wearily.

“Are ye nae coming, man? The fighting is over, though God knows ‘twas no real fight at all. Just a wee bit of butchering.”

He peered closely at his elder brother. “Yer going to hae a black eye, Tavis,” he said.

“So are ye,” the earl noted dryly, and then he grinned at Donald. “Are all yer teeth still there, laddie?”

Donald Fleming gingerly felt about his jawline. He spit once or twice, and then he replied, “Ye’ve loosened two or three of them, man, but I think they’ll hold. Why aren’t ye coming home now? Not that damned English spitfire still?”

The earl’s grin faded and he glared darkly at his younger sibling. “I want to see my daughter,” he told him, daring him to refute his explanation.

“Hummmph,” Donald said. “Will ye be wanting me to take all the men wi’ me?”

“Aye, take them all. I’ll be home in a few days’ time, and there’s none fool enough to attack Tavis Stewart, though he rides alone.”

Donald Fleming departed with his brother’s clansmen, leaving the Earl of Dunmor to his own pursuits, although Donald didn’t believe for a minute that Tavis’ chief reason for remaining behind at Greyfaire was the little dark-haired lassie who was his niece. The earl remained behind because of that pale-haired English vixen with a temper bigger than she herself was. His brother hadn’t been able to bring Arabella Grey to his bridle before. Donald wondered what had changed that Tavis thought he could bring the wench to heel now.

The earl watched his forces leaving, and then he turned back into the hall.

“Father Anselm would say a Mass of thanksgiving before we break our fast,” Arabella told him, and he followed her to the little family chapel which was off the Great Hall. There was no church now, for the little Greyfaire church had been one of the first things Sir Jasper Keane had destroyed when he had turned outlaw. The chapel was crowded with all the remaining Greyfaire folk. Many were elderly, but there were some young men, and a few women with children. Despite the happiness of the occasion, it was, the earl thought, a pitiful gathering. FitzWalter was right, though Arabella had not yet faced it. Greyfaire was dead.

Afterward in the hall they sat together at the highboard and he was served a hearty breakfast of oat porridge, fresh-baked bread with sweet butter, a honeycomb, and a good brown ale.

“You have sent your men away,” she said to him.

“Their job is done, madame, and besides, I realize that ye dinna hae the means at the moment to feed such a great troop,” he answered her.

“Thatwas kind, Tavis,” she replied, using his name for the first time since he had arrived at Greyfaire. “In another year or two I shall have Greyfaire back to its old self, and my hospitality will not be so niggardly.”

“Will ye be able to restore your estate, lovey?” he asked her, slipping without even realizing it into his old form of address.

“Aye! Of course I will!” she insisted.

“How will ye go about it?” he persisted.

“There is no hope of a harvest this year,” she began seriously. “It is simply too late in the summer to plant another crop, but we can clear the fields back again so they will be ready for plowing in the spring. I will replant the orchards then too.”

“How will ye live through the winter? Yer people will need to be fed,” he said.

“I’ll buy grain and flour in York,” she told him. “We’ll dry the grasses we weed from the fields to feed the livestock we have, and then in the spring I’ll buy another flock of sheep to replace those that were stolen. There’s deer and rabbit in the hills that are mine to hunt. We’ll manage, Tavis.”

He wanted to tell her that it was all madness. That she should never again be able to rebuild Greyfaire, for she looked at her lands through sentimental eyes. In the best of times it had never been a rich estate, and the times were not particularly good now, but he did not tell her. She would not have accepted his word in the matter, and it would have driven a wedge between them just when he believed there was a chance of his winning her back. Arabella might be proud and stubborn, but she was no fool. Eventually she had to come to her senses. So he listened, and he nodded, and he held his peace, mindful of FitzWalter’s approving eyes upon him, and somehow the captain’s silent compliance in the matter was comforting.

He remained at Greyfaire for several days, avoiding any serious confrontations with Arabella, remaking his daughter’s acquaintance and pretending to himself that they were once again a family. He stood as witness with Arabella at the wedding of his clansman, Fergus MacMichael, and Lona, assuring the young couple that there would be a place for them at Dunmor whenever they decided to return. Finally, however, he could no longer deny that Dunmor and his own obligations as its earl existed. He departed Greyfaire, promising to return as soon as he could.

He came as often as he dared during the autumn months, always arriving with some gift to help her. Several stags, dressed and ready for hanging. A few casks of wine. Bushels of apples and pears, enough to last until the spring. He knew that she shared her bounty with all of her people, and they did not starve, although their rations were certainly not generous. In February the storms came and he could not go to Greyfaire at all. Penned within his own castle, he lashed out in his frustration at anyone who dared to approach him, for he feared for Arabella’s safety, as well as that of their daughter.

“Will it nae stop snowing?” he demanded of no one in particular one winter’s evening.

His mother, who had been caught at Dunmor by this most recent storm, replied calmly, “It will cease snowing when God wills it, Tavis, and nae a moment before. Do sit down. Yer behaving like a spoilt lad.”

“There was barely enough firewood the last time I was there, Mam,” he told her. “What if they could nae get it cut in time? They’ll freeze to death!”

“Then they will, Tavis, and yer fretting about it will nae change a thing, laddie,” came the calm reply. Lady Margery had finally given up any hope of marrying her eldest son off to some good Scots lass. He would rewed Arabella Grey, and no one else, she realized.

When the weather broke, he rode pell-mell across the border to find that they had, indeed, survived the serious weather quite comfortably.

In the early spring sickness struck Greyfaire. Several children and half a dozen elderly souls died of the White Throat. Arabella lived in terror that Margaret would catch the disease, but she did not. The Spotting Sickness followed, however, and here Lady Margaret Stewart did not escape. She fell seriously ill, to the great fright of her mother, who, though she nursed her daughter lovingly and with all of her skill, could not seem to make the child well. In terror Arabella Grey sent for the Earl of Dunmor, who arrived posthaste, looking haggard, and closely followed several hours later by Lady Margery Fleming, bringing her own remedies for her granddaughter, convinced that her greater experience in these matters would prove successful.

Margaret’s little body was covered in a great red rash. She burned with fever and complained that her eyes hurt her. They cut her dark curls so that her hair would not sap her waning strength, but it was all to no avail. Lady Margaret Stewart died in her weeping mother’s arms just two weeks after her fourth birthday.

In her immediate grief Arabella tried to throw herself from Greyfaire’s battlements, but was prevented from doing so by Tavis Stewart. She then fell into a stupor from which she could not be roused for several days, by which time her child was buried next to her maternal grandmother in Greyfaire’s churchyard.

The earl mourned, although to a slightly lesser degree, the death of his only legitimate child. It was not that he had not loved wee Maggie, for he had, but in truth he had hardly known her as Arabella had taken her away from Dunmor before her second birthday. He would always remember the dark-haired and winning little girl he had come to know these past few months; but he and Arabella would have other children. Other sons and daughters. In the meantime his chief fears were for the woman he loved.

“We must take her back to Dunmor,” Lady Margery insisted. “This wee keep of hers is a damned pesthole, Tavis. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see the plague breaking out here before long. I can nurse her better at Dunmor.”

“Nay,” the earl replied. “She will never forgive me if I take her from Greyfaire now. She must want to come wi’ me of her own free will, Mam.”

“She’s grief-stricken, Tavis,” Lady Margery replied impatiently. “She dinna know what she wants, poor lassie. Ye canna know the pain a woman feels when she loses her bairn.”

“Ye must trust me in this matter, Mam,” he told his mother. “I hae nae known Arabella all these years nae to understand her. I want her back, but I’ll nae get her back if I take her away from Greyfaire against her will again. She must gie up this dream of hers, nae because she hae failed, or because a woman canna make such a dream come true, but because she can honestly face the fact that Greyfaire is gone. It hae nae been an easy burden she hae been shouldering—being the last of the Greys—and she has nae to be ashamed of, Mam. No man could have done better. If I am patient, she will come to accept of her own free will that the battle is lost. And when she can face that loss, she will come home. I dinna care how long it takes. I will be here for Arabella because I love her. Together we will mourn our daughter’s loss, and together we will rebuild our lives.”

“Yer a damned romantic fool,” his mother said tenderly. “A foolish, romantic Stewart! I only hope that Arabella Grey, when she comes to this great understanding, will also appreciate what a good man she hae in ye.” Lady Margery gave her son a hard hug and a motherly kiss. “I’m going home, Tavis. There is nothing more here that I can do for either ye or for poor, wee Arabella. God bless ye both, and for heaven’s sakes, man, remember Dunmor! Ye canna linger here forever!”

When he had seen her safely off, he returned to Arabella’s chamber to find her awake at long last. She was very pale and there were huge, dark circles beneath her light green eyes. Sitting upon the edge of her bed, he took her little hand in his, kissed it and said, “How do ye feel, lovey?”