Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy 2] (12 page)

Only when Meg could trust herself to speak calmly did she say, “Who? Who dared to steal your maidenhood, dearest? I know you would not have given it away, so was it one of Sir Walter’s men? You’ve only to tell me, because if it was—”

“Oh, no! Oh, please don’t think that. They are the only ones here who have been kind to me. All the men here treat me just as they treat her ladyship or you. Some of them flirt a little, but that’s all, I swear!”

“Then for heaven’s sake, who was it?”

“I can’t tell you,” Amalie said, looking away. “I
won’t
tell you. It doesn’t make any difference now, for you must see I cannot go home. Mother would soon have the secret out of me, and she would make my life miserable. This renders me ineligible for the sort of marriage she has always planned for me. But I don’t want anyone here to know either, so can’t we just go somewhere else?”

Meg’s wits had re-collected themselves. She said, “If it was no one here, then it must have been someone at home. But, really, Amalie, I’d have thought all the men there must be too afraid of our mother to take such base advantage of you. This is difficult for me to understand. Are you sure that is what happened?”

“Of course I’m sure. Men find ways when they want something, Meg. If you don’t know that by now, you’ll learn it fast enough now that you’ve got a husband.” Bitterness coated her words. “If I cannot stay with you . . .” She spread her hands.

“Don’t be absurd,” Meg said. “You’ll stay as long as you like. As to living elsewhere, as soon as Sir Walter makes Raven’s Law habitable we can move there. Until then, though, we shall have to be patient.”

Amalie did not look patient, but she allowed Meg to help her off with her clothes and put her to bed. Bidding her goodnight, Meg left. As she reached the turn of the stairs, she heard voices below and recalled that Sym awaited her.

To her surprise, the other voice was female. Even so, she did not expect to find Lady Jenny sitting beside the boy, dangling a string for Pawky, and hearing in dramatic detail about Sym’s great adventure and near hanging at Elishaw.

Heat flooded Meg’s cheeks until Jenny looked up at her with a grin and said, “My father rode off somewhere, and my mother needed an early night. So I came up to talk more privately with you. In your absence, Sym has been describing just how your marriage came about. What a thing that must have been!”

“Yes, wasn’t it?” Meg said dryly. “Sym, where have you been sleeping?”

“Cook gave me and Pawky a pallet by the kitchen fire,” the lad said.

“Then if you would please me, seek it now and get a good night’s sleep. I shan’t go anywhere but to my bed before morning.”

“Are ye sure ye’ll ha’ nae need o’ me?”

“I’m sure.”

“That’s fine then. A man can always use a good night’s rest.”

Jenny turned and rose in one swift movement and pushed open the door to the bedchamber, looking back only after Meg had entered behind her and shut the door. “Forgive me for rushing ahead,” she said then, eyes twinkling. “But if I had not, I would have burst into laughter. How did you find such an amusing, devoted slave?”

“Your esteemed brother provided him. My father said he would free Sir Walter’s men only if they would agree to serve me, so they all swore to do so, including that young scamp. Then Walter, doubtless to keep him from landing in the suds again, saddled me with him.”

“Well, he may come in handy,” Jenny said. “But why, if Wat takes such care to provide a bodyguard, did he leave you here instead of taking you to Raven’s Law?”

When Meg did not answer at once, Jenny added, “You should know that I already asked my parents why he left you here. My father snubbed me. He said my brother’s relationship with his wife is none of my affair.”

“I see,” Meg said, amused. “Are you always so disobedient?”

Jenny grinned. “When I want to know something, I ask. If the first person won’t tell me, I ask another and another until I learn what I want to know.”

“You know, I think Sym said something much the same once. The pair of you ought to get on quite well. Perhaps I should gift him to you.”

Jenny laughed. “You and I are clearly destined to be friends as well as sisters. So, as we’ve settled that, do tell me why Wat left you with my parents.”

“I am only surprised that your father did not explain it to you,” Meg said. “Raiders have stolen wood and livestock from the Forest, so Walter prefers that we live safely here until he can make Raven’s Law more suitable for females.”

“That’s a wheen o’ blethers, that is—as I heard your Sym say.” With a gurgle of laughter, Jenny added, “It also explains why my father did not offer that excuse to me. Sakes, Meg—I may call you Meg, may I not, as Amalie does?”

“Aye, sure,” Meg said. “I’d like that.”

“And you must call me Jenny, just as everyone does. But, Meg, that is all rubbish. Sithee, Raven’s Law is only a mile or two from here.”

“A mile!” Meg exclaimed, having envisioned many miles between them.

“Aye, for the Hall sits a half-mile from where the two burns meet. The Rankilburn is the larger and flows from Ettrick Water, seven miles west of us. The Clearburn flows from the north, beyond the Buck Cleuch. It spills over the head of the cleuch to run through it, then joins the Rankilburn southeast of here.”

“The Buccleuch?”

“The
Buck
Cleuch,” Jenny repeated, enunciating the separation more clearly. “’Tis how the name came to be, though. They say that in the time of the third Kenneth, a hunted buck ran into that cleuch. It is a very steep ravine, and when the buck turned at bay, a young stranger to the district scattered the dogs and seized it by the horns. Swinging it onto his back, he carried it up out of the ravine and laid it before the King. Kenneth was so delighted with the man’s strength and courage that he made him Ranger of Ettrick Forest. The cleuch was named Buck Cleuch as a result, and the man’s heirs have been Scotts of Buccleuch ever since.”

“Is that really true?” Meg asked suspiciously.

Grinning again, Jenny shrugged. “’Tis the tale I’ve heard, and as one of my father’s titles is Ranger of Ettrick Forest, there must be some truth to it. In any case, Raven’s Law is at the head of the ravine and nearly impregnable, because one cannot sneak up on it. And, with Scott’s Hall so near, help is always at hand if Wat needs it.”

“But then how could my father have taken his cattle?” Meg asked.

“They generally graze in the Forest, in a clearing by the Rankilburn a mile west of the cleuch, rather than in the cleuch itself,” Jenny explained.

“I see.”

“Good, then as to the tower’s fitness for females, Wat may be right. But who has a better right to improve it than his wife? You should put that question to him, Meg. If you don’t, he will just cast orders at you and expect you to obey. No, listen to me,” she added when Meg frowned. “Scott men do
not
like meek women.”

“I don’t want to be a bad wife,” Meg said, feeling most uncomfortable at the thought of stirring conflict with her reluctant husband.

“In this family,” Jenny said with a toss of her head, “a bad wife would be one who let her husband trample all over her as he went his own way with everything.”

“I suspect he won’t thank you for saying that to me,” Meg said.

An impish smile lit Jenny’s face. “He’d not thank me now. But believe me, Meg, you will both thank me one day. Sithee, I’m glad he married you. I think you will make him an excellent wife, but Wat is not easy. He can be kind, and he is fair, so he doubtless thinks of you as being as much a victim in this as he believes he is. He is not one, of course, because he brought it on himself with his stupid raid on Elishaw. But he knows that, too. And now,” she added, stretching her body as a cat might, “I have dispensed all my good advice for tonight, so I am going to bed.”

“You must be tired after riding to Hawick and back, and now here.”

“Blethers to you again,” Jenny said rudely but with another smile. “I’ll admit that when I do reach the end of my string, it happens abruptly, but I’m over the constant fatigue I felt at the beginning. All I wanted to do then was sleep. I hadn’t a notion what was amiss either, so I’d cry if Rand even raised his voice. But that is all in the past now. By morning I’ll feel fully rested again.”

She stood, opening her arms as she approached Meg.

“I’m so glad you came,” Meg said, warmly welcoming the hug.

“Me, too,” Jenny said as she stepped back. “I’m a meddler, though. I won’t deny it, but I am going to like having a sister at last. Rand had two, but both died young and I never had one till now. So if I meddle too much, just tell me to stop.”

“I will,” Meg said, as she saw her to the door.

As Meg prepared for bed, she realized that, meddler or not, Jenny had given her much to think about. And as she snuffed the candles and climbed into a bed that she thought far too large for one slender woman, she found herself wondering what her husband had been doing since he had left her at Scott’s Hall.

Wat was sitting before a pleasant fire in his tower’s great hall, drinking ale with Tammy and Gib amid the usual clutter of men and equipment. These included weapons and assorted vestments cast aside or being polished or otherwise tended. He lent but half an ear to the jests and tall tales that the men shared as he tried to decide between riding into the Forest the next day to search for raiders—a task that had so far proven fruitless—or going to the horse races again.

Dod Elliot got up to put another log on the fire. Looking over his shoulder as he poked it into place, he said, “D’ye hear aught of our Sym, Master Wat?”

“I do not,” Wat said with a chuckle. “And I see that as a good thing. He’s unlikely to find mischief whilst my father is at hand. So, what do you think, lads? Do we keep after those damned elusive thieves or ride to Langholm again?”

“We didna enjoy the aftermath last time,” Tammy reminded him.

Wat was about to assure him that such a disaster was unlikely to happen again when one of his lads ran into the hall, saying urgently, “Riders, sir, and a horn. And, sir, it be Himself’s hornsman a-blowing it. I ken his notes fine.”

“My father?” Wat leaped to his feet and cast a critical eye over the hall. “Stow those things and quickly, lads. Buccleuch is coming.”

“D’ye think summat happened at the Hall?” Dod asked anxiously.

“Stop fretting about Sym and think,” Wat said curtly. “If there were trouble, Buccleuch would send a messenger, not come himself. Sakes, he’s scarcely set foot in this tower since I moved in. He sends for me when he wants me.” The words did nothing to reassure him. “What the devil has brought him here now?”

No one heeded him, because his men were scurrying like children, scooping up their own things and anyone else’s that came to hand, and disappearing up the stairs just as Wat heard quick sounds of booted feet coming upstairs from the yard.

Looking around once more and taking a breath, he went to meet his father.

Buccleuch entered, looked around, and said heartily, “You look well, lad.”

“Thank you, sir. You do, too. May I offer you a mug of this ale?”

“Aye, sure,” Buccleuch said, moving to hold his hands to the fire’s warmth. “’Tis a brisk night. The wind was fierce round the Hall when I rode out, but in the cleuch one hears only the burn murmuring and the rush of its falls.”

As Wat filled what he hoped was a clean mug with ale, he said, “It has been long since you’ve honored me with a visit, sir. I hope naught is amiss at home.”

“What could be amiss?” Buccleuch said, using his foot to nudge a joint stool that one of the lads had abandoned closer to the fire, and sitting on it with his mug in hand. “I just thought I’d come enjoy a pleasant word with my son.”

Wat’s instinct for gauging his father’s moods was as keen as it was for survival. Already alerted by Buccleuch’s unexpected arrival, it shrieked warning now.

Turning the back-stool on which he had sat before to straddle it, he rested his forearms on the back and eyed Buccleuch warily.

Buccleuch stared into the fire.

When the silence continued until Wat could stand it no longer, he said, “Are you vexed with me, sir?”

Turning his head just enough to look at him, Buccleuch gently raised his eyebrows and said, “Vexed? Why would I be?”

“Prithee, my lord, have mercy,” Wat begged. “You are asking your questions as if I ought to be able to answer them. It makes me feel as my tutors used to make me feel when I did not know my lessons.”

“Then I suspect you know the answers to your own questions if you would but give your mind to them.” Buccleuch turned to look around the great hall again.

As he did, Wat saw it with a more critical eye. The lads had whisked away the worst of the clutter, but compared with the well-managed Hall . . .

“What have you done to prepare this place for your wife?” Buccleuch asked.

“We’ve been searching for the raiders,” Wat said. “There is no sense in bringing the lasses here until the Forest is safe again, after all. And, too, we may shortly be facing battle with the English.”

“That would seem to leave little time for you to see to matters here.”

“They’ll be safer at the Hall if we have to be away.”

“Perhaps, but you have been here nearly a sennight,” his father pointed out. “One wonders if you’ve forgotten your duty to your wife and to your name.”

“She is quite safe with you, is she not?”

“She is.”

“Then of what duty . . . ?”

“It is the duty of every good husband to produce an heir, lad. You should be doing all you can in that regard, lest you fall in battle. If you do not mean to bring the lass here, you should spend more time at the Hall. Oh, and our Jenny has come for a visit. You will be glad to see her, I trow.”

He would, indeed, for he liked his sister very much. But as that thought crossed his mind, another jumped in.

Left to herself, Jenny would soon be meddling.

Chapter 9

Her shape it was slender, her arms they were fine, Her shoulders were clad wi’ her lang dusky hair . . .

M
eg dreamed pleasantly that she was wearing new earrings that Amalie had given her. Her sister had been smiling and laughing when she presented them, but then, oddly, she had vanished. When Meg reached to touch the new earrings, one of them had disappeared, too.

Both ears began to hurt, and as she touched the one that still bore an earring, she heard rushing water. The sound grew louder, filling the woods— No, now she was in a dark chamber. When had she come hither, and why?

Golden light flickered, steadied, and grew brighter. She heard a thump.

She stirred, half-awake, uncomfortably aware that one entire bared leg had grown icy cold. As she drew it back and reached to pull her coverlet higher, she realized the light was not glowing only in her dream.

Opening her eyes, she saw her husband standing near the hearth, wearing breeks, boots, and a dark, thigh-length, heavy cloak. He held a lighted candle in one hand. Another, also alight, stood on the nearby candlestand.

She blinked hard, twice, but Walter and the candles were still there.

Pushing hair off her face, she knew that her plaits had come undone and she must look dreadfully untidy. Aware, too, that although the hour was late, it was not nearly morning yet, she propped herself on an elbow and said, “What’s amiss?”

“Nowt,” he said, the abrupt sound low in his throat. That sound and the fact that he looked at her with an intensity she had not seen before made her feel oddly vulnerable. He cleared his throat and said, “The fire was nobbut dying embers. So I lit a candle and put on some logs. This room was gey cold.”

Reacting to surging guilt similar to that which overcame her whenever her mother or father noted a fault, she said, “I’d have put more wood on, but it seemed wasteful just for me. I did not know that you would come.”

“Sakes, lass, you’ve no need to freeze in here,” he said.

“But I don’t! In the mornings, Avis comes and lights a fire before I waken. Indeed, I’m surprised I didn’t think you were she and go right back to sleep.”

But she had not thought he was Avis. And the way he was watching her was sending waves of heat through her that she could not define.

He did not comment on the unlikelihood that she could mistake him for Avis. Nor did he look like a man who had come to his bedchamber to sleep. He looked like a man with a purpose. And the only purpose she could imagine that might bring him to her at such an hour and make him look at her so was . . .

Suppressing the image that leaped to her mind’s eye, she said, “Are . . . are you planning to sleep here tonight then?”

“I suppose I shall, eventually,” he said softly.

She swallowed hard. She could not doubt his purpose now.

Wat continued to gaze at her as she straightened more in the bed and tried to rearrange her shift, which seemed to have tangled itself up around her waist.

He had come into the room as quietly as he knew how and, after shutting the door, had stood inside to listen to the wind outside soughing across the closed shutter as if it sought entrance through some crack or other. When he and Buccleuch had emerged from the deep cleuch into Rankilburn Glen, the wind had hurled itself at them. Buccleuch, however, had assured him that it was not as strong as it had been.

It still blew in occasional fierce gusts, but they were diminishing. And when the noise eased for a moment, he heard her soft breathing. When he opened the door, he had caught a brief glimpse of her shape in the bed. But with only the faint light from a low-burning cresset across the landing, he had noticed nothing more.

His attention had shifted instead to the hearth, where the last embers were vanishing fast. So he’d taken twigs from the basket, placed them strategically amid the brightest of the still-glowing coals, and stirred the fire to life by the simple expedient of blowing on it. When he had flames, he added more twigs and sticks, then lit the candle on the candlestand with a flaming twig. He took time to coax larger pieces of wood to burn before lighting a second candle for himself.

Turning with candle in hand, he saw that one bare, very shapely golden-skinned leg had escaped the covers, from its dainty arched foot to its hip.

He held the candle higher to get a better look.

As he did, she murmured in her sleep and the leg slid back under the covers.

He was stepping nearer when one of the larger pieces of wood shifted with a loud thud, stopping him in his tracks.

She opened her eyes.

Then she shut them and looked again, twice.

In the candlelight, with her long, dark hair tousled round her face and draped like a dark sheet over her shoulders—and her eyes looking like large, dark-lashed golden pools as their gray depths reflected tiny twin images of his candle’s flame—he wondered how anyone had thought her homely.

She looked like a fascinating creature from another world.

He had meant to come to her, do his duty, and sleep. But the thought of stroking that shapely golden leg stirred his cock quickly to life. As he stepped closer to the bed, equal measures of lust and the anticipation of fulfilling it surged through him. He wanted to touch her skin, to taste its golden smoothness.

Those amazing, beautiful, long-lashed eyes widened. Her full, soft-looking lips parted invitingly.

“I hope you don’t mind that I woke you,” he said.

“Oh, no, for I was having the strangest dream,” she said matter-of-factly.

This time,
he
shut his eyes.

Meg did not know what demon had made her mention her dream. When she saw his intent, her body had begun tingling from its center outward with unfamiliar, radiating heat. But when he moved nearer, asking in that low, sensuous voice if she minded, she had felt panic and sputtered the first words that came to her.

Now, as he stood gazing down at her, still holding the candle high, she nervously dampened her lips with her tongue, then clamped her teeth on her lower lip when he smiled. She wondered what he expected her to do or say.

When he licked his lips, too, she felt a new jolt of the tingling heat, lower down, as if her body knew what he meant to do and was eager for it.

His gaze had locked on hers. She doubted she could evade it if she tried.

She could not think of one word to say.

He turned to set the candle in a small bowl provided for the purpose, taking his time. He spilled wax into it first, then pressed the candle onto it.

Then he poured water into the bowl from the washstand ewer, so the candle would go out if it fell over. When he moved toward her again, his cloak swung wide and she saw movement of another sort at the front of his breeks.

Heat flooding her cheeks, she looked up to meet his amused gaze and a teasing sort of smile. It was as if he knew what she had seen.

“Tell me about this dream of yours whilst I take off my clothes,” he said.

“It was nothing,” she said hastily, knowing how silly such a dream would sound to a man. “Don’t you want help? I could put away your cloak for you.”

“Nay then, stay under the covers until I get in with you to keep you warm,” he said. “It is too cold out here for a lass still warm with sleep.”

Lowering her eyes at the thought of him warming her, she saw him stir again.

She squeezed her eyes shut then until he said quietly, “A man has a right to know what his wife dreams.”

She recalled Jenny saying he liked to have his own way, but unable to think of any reason not to tell him, she said, “In troth, the dream was naught to discuss, just strange. I was in a wood, and Amalie had given me earrings. I’d lost one.”

“What was strange about that?”

“When I found I’d lost it, I was no longer in the woods but in a dark room with a sound like water rushing through it. Then I saw an eerie orange light.”

“That was nobbut the wind outside and me lighting candles, I expect,” he said. “What did Amalie have to say to you about losing the earring?”

Meg nibbled her lip, feeling as if she were nearing a precipice, although she could not imagine why. She said, “Amalie had disappeared, and my ears hurt.”

“Do they hurt now?” he asked, sounding concerned.

“No, only in the dream,” she said. But the thought of him being concerned for her imaginary pain made her feel warm again. She smiled at him.

He smiled back at her before it struck him that he had never seen her smile before. He had even asked her once if she ever did smile, and once he’d thought she nearly had. But he was certain this was the first smile he had received from her.

Her even white teeth glinted in the candlelight, and if her mouth was wide, so was her smile. The sight of it made him feel much as he’d feel coming upon a newborn fawn in the woods on a fine spring day. It stirred other feelings, too.

He tossed his cloak to the end of the bed and sent the leather doublet he wore to the floor by the window. Then quickly unlacing his shirt, he pulled it off and sent it after the doublet, dealing next with his boots and breeks in the same manner and with equal speed. As he jerked off his netherstocks, he glanced at her and saw that although the smile had faded, the twinkle lingered in her eyes.

As he moved toward her, she said, “Did you come all this way at such an hour just to see me?”

He nearly told her the truth, but some lingering sense of what he decided must be self-preservation stopped the words on his tongue.

Instead, he said, “I heard my sister Jenny had come. It seemed a good excuse to tear myself away from Raven’s Law to visit my wife.”

“Surely, you do not need an excuse to visit me,” she said. With a little gasp, she shifted nearer the wall when he put his knee on the bed to get in with her.

“Surely, madam,” he said, mimicking her as he leaned over to kiss her lightly, “I came because I wanted to come.”

He loomed over her, and Meg’s body responded to his nearness in ways she had never known it could. She imagined where he would touch her and how he would touch her, and what he would do next. She remembered the pain from the first time. But the thought that it might prove painful again did not disturb her.

She was glad he had come to her.

“I want to look at you,” he said. “But tell me if you get cold.”

“Aye,” she said, swallowing hard again as he lifted the coverlet off her and began to deal with her shift. She helped him until he whisked it off over her head, exposing her body as he cast the shift after his own tumbled clothing.

He smelled pleasantly of leather and horses, and his hot breath when he kissed her smelled slightly of ale.

He leaned closer, propped up on one elbow, and she trembled. When he cupped her left breast with his free hand, her breath caught somewhere between her lungs and throat. But when he brushed his thumb across her nipple, she gasped and a moan escaped. When it did, his mouth came down on hers, hard.

While he held her lips hostage, his body shifted over hers. The hand that had been idle before found her hair, and the other toyed with her breasts. It stroked one moment, teased a nipple the next. As the thought flitted through her mind that he had been the first man to touch her hair, let alone to tangle his fingers in it, the hand that teased her breast slid lower. It caressed her midriff, then her abdomen, then toyed with the curls at the juncture of her legs.

When she stiffened, his tongue thrust itself between her lips.

She was so soft, her skin velvety one moment and smooth as silk the next. He wanted to taste it, to run his tongue from her breasts right down to what his fingers explored now. But the last thing he wanted to do was frighten her.

She seemed willing, even seemed to enjoy his touch. Since a willing wife could only be an asset to a man, he marveled that he had once believed he’d never want to fondle or kiss her, let alone to lie naked with her.

Yet here he was, so eager to couple with her that it was all he could do not to bury his quhilly-lillie up to its cods in her tirly-whirlie, as common folk might say.

He strove to prepare her, using his fingers to part her nether lips and stimulate her juices. But when she stirred against him, her body eager, her moans increasing in length and volume, he could contain himself no longer.

He moved atop her and entered her eagerly. When her body clamped around him as if it would suck him straight into her fiery core, he forgot about being delicate or taking things slowly and let instinct take over.

Soon he was pounding into her, driven to frenzy by the soft sounds she made as she arced toward him. She seemed determined and eager to meet every thrust.

His climax came quickly. When he collapsed atop her, she was breathing as heavily as he was.

After several moments, he realized he was probably crushing her. She was a foot shorter and at least five stone lighter than he was. He eased himself off onto his side, propping himself on an elbow again to look down into her face.

She looked content, although he doubted she had reached her peak. He smiled then, remembering the first time he had realized women even attained peaks. That had been with a most willing chambermaid years older than himself.

He had been seventeen. He thought her name was Sal.

“Why do you smile?” she asked.

“Am I smiling?” he replied, knowing better than to tell her why. He could not remember what Sal looked like, or if Sal had even been her name.

“You are.” Her eyes gleamed in the candlelight. “I did not know that this could feel the way it does,” she said. “No one ever told me.”

“Did you like it?”

“The feelings are . . . They are indescribable,” she said after a moment’s thought. “Is there aught I can do to pleasure
you
so?”

“What we just did pleasured me,” he said, but he was looking at her mouth as he spoke. Just looking at her full, soft lips and wide, “muckle” mouth, he felt his cock stir again, suggestively. He stifled the thought.

He had not bathed since Elishaw, and she was too new to pleasuring to take his cock’s enticing suggestion as aught but perversion. He would wait and see how matters progressed. It occurred to him that he could simply command her, that husbands did so all the time. Some even bragged of it.