The Tweedie Passion (10 page)

'I am just a man,' Hugh replied.

This time I did not allow him to back away. 'No, Hugh,' I said. 'You are a man of daring. In truth I have never met a man like you before.'

Hugh frowned. 'There is nothing special about me…'

I took hold of his arm, unsure how I felt. I know I was angry but there were other emotions there also, some of them that I did not want to admit. 'There is a lot special about you.'

He pulled his way clear, not as gently as I would have liked. I took hold of him; determined not to let him go. 'Hugh,' I said, 'I am paying you a compliment.'

'I know you are!' Hugh did not attempt to free himself.

'Then allow me to say nice things about you!' I stood up, holding him by the forearm. It was as hard as iron and so thick I could hardly span it with both hands. 'You have saved me in a dozen different situations. Every day you do something that surprises me, from not spying on me when I am washing, to bringing me new clothes or not blaming me when I nearly got us both killed.' I was talking quickly now, not sure what I expected to happen but certain that I intended something.

Hugh eased his arm away. 'You freed me first,' he said.

'You saved me second, and third, and fourth and fifth,' I stood back. The standing stone was hard at my back. I thought I could feel some power surging through it, some elemental force that I could not understand. Or perhaps the power came from me and I transmitted it to the stone. I do not know. I only know that I was very aware of some sensation that I had never known before.

'You are the gentlest man I have ever met,' I told him.

'A gentle man who kills people,' Hugh took another step away from me.

'Don't you like compliments?' I asked him. 'Don't you like people being nice to you?' I lowered my voice lest half the outlaws of Liddesdale heard us and climbed up to listen to a conversation that I suspected was about to become quite heated. I stepped closer and raised my face to his to emphasise my point.

'No,' Hugh said softly. 'No I don't.'

'Why not?' I finally lost my temper with this frustrating, lovely, capable, maddening non-ugly man. 'Why don't you like me complimenting you, damn it?'

'Because, dear sweet Jeannie,' he obviously kept his own temper with something of an effort, 'I have fallen in love with you.'

'Oh.' I stepped back again. 'Oh.' I did not take my gaze off his face. That was the last thing I had expected to hear.

'And you have your Robert,' Hugh said. 'You do not want me.'

Did I not want him? I touched the stone once more. Did I want him? I felt that same sensation surging through me again and I searched inside myself. I thought of Robert and how we had promised ourselves to each other many years ago and had remained faithful ever since. I thought of the years we had spent growing up, the experiences we had shared in childhood and youth. I remembered the promises we had made to each other and which we had renewed year after year, making rings of grass and twining them around our childish fingers as tokens of our love.

And then I looked up at Hugh as he stood beside me with his uncertain, rugged face and all the past washed away in a flood of recent memories and feelings. I thought of his constant care, his capability and, perhaps most of all, of that half hour or so when I had stood behind a tree and watched him at the waterfall.

'Yes I do,' I said, so softly that I hardly heard my own voice. 'Oh yes I do want you.'

Suddenly that wanting exploded inside me. It had lain dormant, waiting its opportunity since those first few minutes in the dungeon when I heard Hugh's voice. Now it was like a torrent of desire. My mother had warned me of the Tweedie Passion that lay volcanic within everybody of our name, and now I had my first experience that I was not immune. I was a Tweedie, with my full measure of the Tweedie Passion.

Hugh turned slowly toward me, with that ugly-handsome face sharing my torment. Ignoring the rain, I peeled off the outer layer of my clothing as I stepped toward him. 'Hugh,' I said, and put my hands on his face. He was rough-skinned, a day unshaven so the bristles rasped against my palms: the feel of a man.

'Jeannie…' I heard the tension in his voice and saw the shadows flitting across those normally-steady eyes.

I kissed him, full on the mouth. One soft, lingering kiss with my mouth closed as I pressed my lips against his.

He pulled back with his eyes wild and his breathing ragged. 'Jeannie…'

I do not know what he was going to say. I did not want to know what he was going to say. It was not a time for words. The Tweedie Passion was upon me, urging me on, forcing me to act. I suddenly had no wish to control my actions; I acted out of instinct. Stepping back, I stripped off my clothes as we stood there within the circle of ancient stones, releasing my hair so it flowed dark as my own midnight around my shoulders and down my back so the end kissed the upper curves of my buttocks in a faint hint of the pleasures I wanted.

The expression of Hugh's eyes altered. The shadows merged together so his eyes darkened, the pupils dilating until they dominated. His breathing became as ragged as my own as he reached out for me.

His hands caressed, cupping my face and moving down to my shoulders, smoothing my skin, and then he slid them down to my breasts. His breathing roughened more until he was almost panting.

My hands were shaking as I reached forward, unfastening the ties of his jack, pulling it from his chest and stomach, dropping it heedlessly on the ground. His shirt was next, the stiff linen no obstacle as I hauled it over his head so his face emerged, tousle-haired, ready for my next kiss.

The Passion took over my tongue as I thrust it within his mouth in untutored lust. His teeth were even, his own tongue eager to meet me, his chest hard against my breasts, his stomach cobbled with muscles as we pressed against each other, man to woman and woman to man, each equal in passion and desire.

Untaught, I gyrated my hips, pressing hard, feeling the swell and bulge of his manhood against me as I swept my hands down his shoulders and over his back and around the swell of his hips, to urgently unfastened his breeches. I eased them down, manoeuvred them less than carefully over the essential part of him and allowed them to drop around his ankles.

His buttocks were taut and hard as marble with skin surprisingly smooth. I dug my fingers in and pulled him to me, feeling his desire eager against me.

We sunk to the ground together, uncaring of the dangers all around us. His mouth sought mine, his hands were on my bottom, caressing, fingers gentle yet urgent, my legs apart, opening, welcoming him within as his mouth dipped, his teeth nibbled at the breasts that I proffered for his attention.

There was a moment of welcome pain as he penetrated me and I felt him within, warm and welcome as my body took control. The Tweedie Passion had me in its grasp and there was nothing I could do to resist. I had no thoughts of Robert or of anybody else. Only salacity, desire, carnality, fervour; call it anything you wish, but you cannot capture the urgency with which I embraced that, my first taste of love. I knew it was wrong; I knew that I was breaking my decade long promise to Robert and I cared not the fraction of a whit.

At that moment I wanted Hugh's body more than anything else and I would have my desire whatever the church, God, Mother or the Laws and customs of the Border ordained. Something was in control that was far more fundamental than any man-made or God-ordained stricture, something over which I had as much control as I had over the passage of the Moon or the ordering of the tides. It was the nature of Woman, the eternal search for reproduction and the lust for a man: it was the Tweedie Passion that controlled me and at that moment I was utterly determined to enjoy every last second of what I was doing and to hang with the consequences.

I lay on my back as he thrust within me. I rose to meet each movement of his hips, my hands on his buttocks, nails digging deep, demanding more and more, and he met each demand with skill and energy. Then I was astride him, laughing, shrieking with joy as my hair descended to his face like a damp curtain over which the rain wept tears of pleasure. His face was mine; his body was mine; his pleasure was mine as I was his as we united in a union surely blessed by the Gods of Love or at least the Gods of Passion.

I explored him with my mouth as he did the same to me, probing every curve and cavity, every indentation and protuberance with tongue and hand and lips and nothing but joy and intense stimulation as the rain failed to cool our desire and the circle of ancient standing stones retained our energy, enhanced it and watched silently as we lost ourselves to everything but sensual pleasure; or perhaps to love.

Until all energy was spent and we lay there, side by side on the rough, damp grass, watching each other as the sweet madness eased and the panting slowed with the hammer of our hearts.

And sanity returned together with a realisation of the awful, incredible things that we had done.

'Oh dear God,' I said softly as I sat up, belatedly trying to cover all that I had revealed with such abandoned glee.

'Oh Jeannie…' Hugh stared at me. 'Oh Jeannie: I should not have…'

We stared at each other. Now I knew what Mother had meant by a full woman and now I knew what she meant by a full man. I was woman now; no longer a girl and Hugh was undoubtedly a man. Of that I had incontrovertible proof.

'I have broken my oath,' I backed away in a half crouch, covering my womanhood as if that would help. 'I have betrayed my trust.' For a second I hated Hugh and sought ways of blaming him for what had happened. I knew that was unfair and wrong. The fault was not with Hugh. The fault was with me, with the Tweedie Passion.

Hugh did not cover himself. He stood naked in the rain, looking at me through those very clear eyes. 'I allowed this to happen,' he said. 'You are in no way to blame.' He bent down, unsheathed his sword, reversed it and handed me the handle. He placed the point against his chest, directly in line with his heart. 'If you believe I have wronged you, then I invite you to press the blade home.'

Still as bare as any new-born baby, I took hold of the handle. It was rough in my fist, with the yard long blade heavy. I held Hugh's life in my hand and he was a willing participant. Life or death; I had the power. I pressed slightly, holding his gaze as the point of his sword bit into his skin.

'Push if you will,' Hugh did not flinch as a tiny drop of blood appeared at the tip of the sword. Rain water diluted it to a pinkish fluid that dribbled down the blade, spreading out as it neared the guard. 'I have only one thing to add. I regret any insult or damage I have said or done to you. I do not regret what happened between us. It was a sweet, joyous experience that I will remember for the rest of my life, whether that be one minute or one hundred years.'

I could not press the point home: I had no desire to take revenge on Hugh.

I dropped the sword with a clatter.

'I cannot kill you, Hugh,' I said, wiping away the blood that seeped down his chest.

'If your Robert seeks retribution.' Hugh said, 'I will meet him willingly, wherever and however he wishes.'

I took a single step back. The sky was beginning to lighten with the promised onset of dawn. I could see the circle of stones plainly now, thrusting their message of mystery to the mourning clouds above. I would fain have blamed them for my weakness and forgotten this whole sorry episode if I could, but I knew my own hot blood had been the cause. I could not escape that. Nor could I escape my feelings.

I looked across at this naked man.

'Hugh,' I said quietly. 'It was equally as joyous and sweet for me.'

'Oh…' his mouth dropped open. I think that was the first time I had surprised him. 'Now I think it best that we get our clothes on, don't you?' I forced a smile that I hoped was sweet. 'I for one am getting cold standing here in the rain and if we are to get up this cursed valley we should move soon.'

He nodded, once, and put out his hand, but dropped it before he touched me. 'Let us get on then,' he said, with his gaze not faltering. He stooped to lift his sword and slid it into the scabbard with an audible hiss. 'If things were different between us,' he said, 'I would not be walking away from you.'

I watched him dress, with my eyes savouring every movement of his body and limbs. Despite my guilt, I could not control my feelings and had no desire to do so.

'Put this on, Jeannie.' Hugh opened the second bag he had brought with him and passed open a pair of male breeches and a protective jack. 'A woman riding astride will attract attention wherever she goes. A young man dressed like everybody else will hardly merit a glance.'

'Thank you.' I had never worn men's clothing before. They were loose nearly everywhere, yet not uncomfortable. I placed my own clothes in the bag and tied that to the back of my saddle.

'Follow me,' Hugh said. He passed over the steel helmet he must have stolen on his earlier visit. 'Your hair is too obvious. Pile it under this.'

'I will look out of place wearing a helmet when I am just riding through.'

'You will look more out of place as a man with hair down to his…' Hugh changed the word quickly, 'hips.'

I smiled. Most of the men in the Lethan, including Robert, would have used a much more graphic term. 'Thank you,' I said, referring to Hugh's gentlemanly language rather than the loan of the helmet. I stacked my long hair on top of my head and fitted the helmet on top. It was heavy and uncomfortable.

'Ready?' Hugh's eyes wandered down me. 'I wish…' he said, turned his horse abruptly and walked it away.

'You wish?' I probed.

He did not finish his sentence.

LIDDESDALE
SEPTEMBER 1585

We rode down from the Nine Stane Rig where my faithfulness to Robert had been tested and my passion had emerged victorious, and we rode up Liddesdale in full view of everybody.

Now, you may not know that in the Borderland all the major people were known to each other and were recognisable by sight and by name. Despite the size of the area and the number of people, it was really quite a close community, so when we walked our horses down from the ridge and stepped boldly up the valley, I felt certain that somebody would realise we were strangers and shout out a challenge.

What I had not reckoned with was the nocturnal nature of the Borders. It was an elemental mistake I made. Hugh had not made the same error. With so many of the men engaged in night-time reiving, only women, children and ordinary farmers were abroad in the early morning. That, added to the shifting, uncertain light of autumn and Hugh's iron nerves, worked in our favour.

I was inclined to rush, to try and pass through the valley as quickly as possible so pushed in my spurs to hurry things along.

'Slow down,' Hugh's voice was calm as his hand rested on the bridle of my horse. I could not resist the temptation to touch it. 'We are ordinary men going about our business. There is no need to rush.'

He was right of course. Respectable travellers, even in such an extraordinary locality as Liddesdale, did not rush. They move at a steady pace, as Hugh insisted we do, and nodded to people they passed, even taking the time to remark on events to whosever they met on the road.

'Well met, fellows!' The cheerful call took me by surprise so I nearly jumped up from my saddle.

'Well met,' Hugh responded with a lift of his hand as the small group of people reined up in front of us to pass the time of day. I looked up briefly from beneath the brim of my helmet. There were five in the company, two women and three men.

'Are you bound for Hawick, friend?' The leading man seemed inclined to speak. He was a young looking man with a neat beard and an air of obvious authority.

'Hawick and points north,' Hugh said. 'Peebles if we can get there by night-fall. And yourselves?'

The bearded man laughed. 'Hermitage Castle for a night or two,' he said, 'and maybe some sport.'

'There is ill sport in Liddesdale,' Hugh responded.

I was less interested in whatever sport this gallant young blade intended than in the attention that both women in his train were paying in me. Perhaps men believe that they can spot a pretty woman a mile away, as many of my Lethan boys claimed, but it is a fact that women are more perspicacious than men. These two were studying me and whispering together behind raised hands and with wondering, calculating eyes.

'Ill sport?' The gallant man asked. 'Why is that, pray?'

'Why, sir,' Hugh said with a laugh. 'We passed by the Castleton and Whithaugh yestreen and the whole place was astir. There were horsemen and riders galloping all around the place, beacon-fires a-burning and great bands of horsemen all calling havoc and murder on the land and on the Scotts in particular.'

Now that was a blatant lie. At no time had I heard anybody crying for murder on the Scott family. The Armstrongs and the others had been intent only on the two of us. However I saw the bearded man stiffen in his saddle at Hugh's words. 'Were they indeed?'

'That is what I heard,' my brazen liar said. 'Why, Wild Will himself was there, shouting that he would capture the Bold Buccleuch in person and hang him naked from his rooftree, him and his women and all his household.'

I said nothing, merely lowered my head from the acute examination of the two women as the bearded gallant touched a hand to the long blade he wore at his saddle. 'We'll see about that,' he said in a voice that was suddenly grim with menace. Whoever this man was, he was no earl spoiled with fur and ermines, not with that determined thrust to his jaw. Any sane man or coward would have turned back at the news that Liddesdale was riding, while this forward man signalled to a flaxen haired youth who sat his horse two strides behind the women.

'Sound the horn,' the bearded gallant said. 'Bring our lads in closer. It seems that we shall be hunting before we reach Hermitage this day.'

As flaxen-hair lifted the horn to his lips, one of the women walked her horse to the gallant man. I held my breath as she spoke to him, nodding toward me, and then the horn sounded a long, wavering note that rose to the sky and brought a host of wild geese rising from the grassland nearby.

'We shall bid you farewell, my Lord,' Hugh touched a hand to his head.

'You know me, then?' Yet it was to me the gallant looked and not to Hugh.

'Why yes, My Lord, you are Walter Scott of Buccleuch.' Hugh touched spurs to his horse and walked on, with me a hands-breadth behind him with my heart in my mouth. The gallant was Walter Scott of Buccleuch himself: the Bold Buccleuch, the man who led the mighty Scott family, able to call up three thousand Border lances at a lift of his little pinkie. And as I watched I realised why Hugh had made up his tales about the Armstrongs. All along the ridges on both sides of us, men appeared, carrying their lances in their right hands.

'Ride on,' I said, 'quickly.'

'Save journey to you, friend,' Scott of Buccleuch, lifted a hand to Hugh. 'And to you, my lady.' His smile to me was entirely conspiratorial. Suddenly my disguise did not seem impenetrable in the slightest and my thoughts that men were not as perceptive as women also seemed wide of the mark. I mustered a half-hearted smile, kicked in my spurs and rode on, feeling very vulnerable and just a little humiliated.

'We need no longer worry about the Armstrongs,' Hugh said. 'With Scott of Buccleuch and his men riding through Liddesdale they will have enough to contend with.'

I nodded. Until that moment I had been more concerned with discovery than anything else but now more personal matters came once more to the fore. I thought what had I had done and how it altered my entire perception of myself. I had allowed my baser instincts to take over. I had betrayed Robert. I had failed myself and my family.

How could I face him? We had been friends all my life. We had made an agreement to wed and we had been faithful to each other until I gave way to my own weakness and my own passion. How could I tell him? What could I say?

'You are quiet,' Hugh said as we negotiated a pass between long green hills. I heard the call of a yorling and remembered that laughing, enigmatic man who had begun this whole adventure. Whoever he was, he had started a long train that led to my downfall, and personal discovery.

'I am thinking,' I looked sideways at him.

'About what we did last night?' Hugh asked.

'About what we did last night.' I said no more.

'I will come with you if you decide to tell Robert,' Hugh said. 'If he decides to kill me then the world will be rid of an ugly man. I will die knowing that my world could never get any better than it was with you.'

I did not say that my world would also have been the poorer if I had not experienced the previous night. I was learning. Instead I nodded. 'It is kind of you to say that.'

'It is no kindness,' he snapped that, which pleased me although I could not say why.

'I do not wish you to be there if I tell Robert. You are at feud with us; my Tweedies would kill you as soon as you appeared near the Lethan.' That was only the truth. It was another reason that I was confused for if I admitted that I had bedded a Veitch I would be even less thought of.

'You do not have to tell him,' Hugh said. 'That would be the simplest solution. Or perhaps…'

'Or perhaps?' I hoped for a solution to my problem.

'You do not have to return to the Lethan,' Hugh spoke quietly. He reached across and took hold of Kailzie's bridle. 'There are other valleys just as sweet, other towers as comfortable as Cardrona and other men who want you as much as Robert Ferguson does.'

I shook my head. 'I have given my word,' I said. 'And there is more.'

'What more is there?'

We reined up there, with that evil valley of Liddesdale behind us and ahead the ragged road leading us home to Peebles-shire and the Lethan Valley. The sun had risen, casting our elongated shadows long and dark over the autumnal heather until they merged together at the head. I faced Hugh and told him what I nobody else knew except my mother.

He listened in silence until I had finished. 'You saw yourself with Robert in a vision?' He asked.

'Every year on my birthday.' I waited for the inevitable ridicule. People who have not experienced such things tend to mock, either through fear or scepticism, which is one reason that I did not tell anybody. My other reason was through fear of being called a witch.

Hugh neither mocked nor called me a follower of Satan. 'I have never met anybody with such a power before.' If anything, he sounded sad rather than doubtful. Releasing the bridle of my horse, he began to move again. 'When I heard your voice in the dungeon I knew that you were above the common set of people and as soon as I saw your face I knew you were a most noble piece of work, a paragon.'

'I am none of that,' I told him. I did not tell him of the ache in my heart every time I looked at him, or the lust in my loins. Some things are better left unsaid when one is riding alone with a vibrant man in the stark hills of the Borderland. Nor did I tell him of my sense of desolation when I compared him to my Robert. That, I decided, must remain for ever unsaid and only admitted to myself.

'You have given your word,' Hugh seemed to have accepted my visions without a qualm. 'It is a sign of wonderful woman to keep your word after so long.'

My hurt made me turn on him with some heat. 'Is it sign of a wonderful woman to bed a strange man within the Nine Stane Rig?'

His silence was eloquent of the pain my words caused him. I know that men have the ability to hurt women with their physical strength. I did not then know that the best of men are vulnerable to equally deep hurt by the words of women for whom they care. We are a careless sex with our tongues, injuring sometimes without consideration and driving pain deep within the hearts of those we love and who love us most. Sometime a wise king may pass a law protecting women from the hands of men. It will need to be a wiser queen to pass a similar law protecting men from the tongues of women.

I do not know how long our silence endured but we were many miles from Liddesdale before Hugh spoke again. He continued our conversation as if there had been no gap.

'Am I still that strange a man? I find it unlikely that a woman such as you would bed a man she thinks a stranger.'

I had also been thinking. 'A woman such as myself has a hot desire,' I said, still tart, 'and perhaps that desire will overcome any objections to the strangeness of the man I happen to be with.' Although the words were mainly directed toward myself, Hugh visibly flinched. I had hurt him again. I learned again how easy it is to hurt a man who loves you. It is the ones you hurt that matter most, always. If they did not care, they would not feel the wounds our tongues create. We do damage to our loves by such behaviour and wonder why our men seek solace with others with gentler words and comforting bodies. A woman's tongue is too potent a weapon to be misused.

'So I was just one among many then,' Hugh had been stung to retaliate and I did not like his response. 'A woman of your ardent desire must have bedded many men, strange or not, in her lifetime.' It may have been chance that he rode an arms-length away rather than with our knees near touching but I rather fancied that he was pulling away physically as I lambasted him verbally.

Hurt by his words, I responded by inflicting more pain, hating myself while searching for venom. 'You are just one,' I told him. 'A man I met while on a journey, a male body on which to slake my lust. Nothing more.'

I could not have wounded him deeper, or said words that were further from the truth. He turned away from me, a man who had sought grace from a graceless face and found vindictiveness when he hoped for a spirit as generous as his own. I should have apologised then; I should have withdrawn my barbed words and thrown myself on my knees to beg mercy from the kindest and most noble man I had ever met. Instead I tore the helmet from my head and threw it into the rough heather at the side of the road, allowed my hair to flow freely down my back and kicked in my spurs so I cantered ahead of him. Let him see my back, I thought, and the set of my shoulders. Insufferable man!

We rode like that, with me forging the path northward to Tweed-dale and Hugh two horse-lengths behind. I nursed my wrath, keeping it warm as I told myself that Hugh had wronged me with his words and he deserved my scorn and vituperation, while all the time feeling the desolation of loss fighting the anger I stoked. Behind me, I did not know how Hugh felt. Sometimes I wished that he would spur forward, tip me off my horse and drag me into the heather to treat me as he had done so well within the Nine Stone Rig. I did not know, then, that good men did not act so. Good men gave their women respect and love; they did not act in such an ungentlemanly manner. I wished for Hugh to turn into a brute beast while still retaining his essential kindly qualities. Such things do not happen: Hugh was a gentleman in all the best meanings of the word. He remained behind me, silent, perhaps brooding and despite my gnawing temper and the lingering sting of my words, I knew that he would look after me if a mishap occurred on the road. There was a word for that; a word that I dared not say although within me I knew what it was.

That word was love. Hugh had voiced it and I had rejected it, yet my rejection had not nullified the reality, only pushed it aside. I knew that Hugh loved me; men like him did not say such things without consideration and thought. I also knew that I loved him.

That was a love that could never be admitted if I wished peace of mind. It was a word that turned itself over within my mind and tore great holes in my heart. It was a forbidden love that had caused me to react with such venom. I hated that love for destroying the certainty of my life and because I rejected that love I also rejected the cause and fountain of it. I hated Hugh for making me love him. In that confused oxymoron of emotions I rode along that damp track through the stark green hills of the Borders with my mood becoming fouler by the mile.