Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy 2] (14 page)

Wat glanced at his father, understanding his irritation. Clearly the messenger had refused to say why he had come. Buccleuch had honored the man’s insistence that he speak only to Wat, but doing so had
not
pleased him.

Chapter 10

“Oh, Master! Ye ken how the Murrays have grund you . . . Rough Iagan o’ Eli’s grown doited and silly . . .”

W
ho is besieging Elishaw?” Buccleuch demanded.

The man bowed low before he replied, “I dinna ken, me lord. All I ken o’ the matter is me captain rousted me out o’ me bed and told me to come here straightaway. When I said I didna ken just what I should say, he told me the master said that if Sir Walter be a man o’ his word, I need tell ye nobbut that he needs aid. He said I could remind Sir Walter o’ his bond and promise but I shouldna ha’ to.”

Wat was on his feet. “I won’t have as many men as usual with me if I have to go at once. I should have eight days to gather my men, should I not?”

He glanced at Buccleuch, who nodded, but the messenger said anxiously, “’Tis haste that’s required, sir. Me captain said even thirty men riding under the Scott banner would show them besiegers that other lairds ken what they’re about and mayhap send them off to threaten someone else.”

“Right, then,” Wat said, mentally listing the men he could gather quickly. “I can be ready to ride in two hours. Wait for me in the great hall and have something to eat if you like. I’ll find you when I’m ready.”

He turned away, thinking only of how he might most quickly gather his men.

Someone cleared her throat noisily, and he turned to see his sister gazing at him with eyebrows raised. She gave a slight nod toward Meg.

Recalled to domestic duty, Wat said, “Forgive me, lass, but I must hurry. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Jenny, how long do you mean to stay?”

“Just another few days,” she said. “Rand grows impatient when I am away.”

“I’d like to have talked with you more, but if you must go, you must,” he said. “Mayhap you can come again soon.”

He strode from the great chamber, deciding which men to send where, and what to say to encourage them to gather as many others as they could. Some would ride with him, and others could follow. As he left the room, he heard his sister say, “Is it not just like a man to assume that one must come to him to be seen?”

Behind him, Buccleuch said, “I’ll ride with you if you want me.”

“Thank you, sir, but if it is all the same to you I’ll do this myself. I can always send one of my lads back for reinforcements if I need them. I’m guessing it may be nobbut a band of Hotspur’s ruffians letting Murray know they want him to side with England when the conflict comes.”

“Likely you’re right,” Buccleuch said. “But I’ll let our lads know to spread the word that you may need more men at a moment’s notice. They’re eager to ride with Douglas, but they do expect to get their eight days before they need join him.”

Meg watched her husband’s departure with mixed feelings. That his thoughts had turned so swiftly to the duty he owed her father did not surprise her. Men, in her experience, always believed their duty to other men came first. Duty to their families came second. That was just the nature of men.

Even so, a twinge of disappointment, even annoyance, had stirred when he moved so quickly toward the door without a word to his mother or to her. However, she had read nothing in Lady Scott’s expression except interest in the conversation.

She had been glad when Jenny had stopped him by clearing her throat. She was likewise aware, due to the excellence of her peripheral vision and Walter’s reaction, that it was Jenny who had drawn his attention to her. Meg wondered now if he would have stopped if she had been the one who cleared her throat so noisily.

His comments, however, had irked her so much that anyone might have seen it in her face, just as she had noted Buccleuch’s irritation with the messenger.

When Jenny said that men always expected others to come to them, Meg said, “That is not really true, you know. Men and women both tend to visit their parents more often than their siblings, I think. My brothers visit Elishaw two or three times a year, and I’ll wager that your brothers all come here, just as you do.”

“Aye, sure, but my parents also come to visit me at Ferniehurst. The only time Wat comes is if he has business with Rand, and neither John nor Andrew has ever visited me there. They just expect me to come here to the Hall when they do.”

Hearing it put that way, Meg realized that while Tom might come to visit her, Simon would not. But Simon would certainly expect to see her at Elishaw when he visited their parents. He would pretend to take offense if she were not there. She did not think he cared a whit about her, though, or about anyone except himself.

Tom was different. He would visit her, and Amalie, too. If he did not come as soon as he learned where they were, then he would do so as soon as he could.

“What are you going to do now?” Jenny asked Meg.

She spoke with such an innocent air that Meg hesitated before she said, “Do? What do you mean?”

“Only that I think you should decide whether you want to be at Wat’s beck and bay all your life or be able to exert yourself occasionally to do as
you
please.”

“Jenny, mind your tongue,” Janet Scott said. But her tone was one of amusement rather than warning.

Leaning forward enough to look past Jenny, Meg met Janet’s twinkling gaze.

“Do not let her lead you into mischief, my dear,” she said. “That is, not into any mischief you find objectionable or that may lead to fearsome consequences.”

Jenny’s eyes danced. “You know what you want to do, Meg. Do it.”

Meg grimaced, glad that Buccleuch had gone with his son and the Elishaw messenger, and hoping servants still there would not prate of what they heard.

“What are you talking about?” Amalie asked, entering the conversation for the first time that morning. “What does Meg want to do, my lady?”

“Faith, Amalie, do call me Jenny,” Jenny pleaded with a laugh. “By continuing to address me so formally, you make me feel like a dowager.”

“Very well, but what
are
you suggesting?”

“Meg knows,” Jenny said. “Moreover, it is her choice to make. So although I may be urging her to make it, you should not.”

“But how could I if I don’t even know what you mean?”

“You take my meaning now well enough,” Jenny said, giving her a look.

“Jenny, heed your own advice,” Janet Scott said, the warning note clear now.

But Jenny turned with her bright smile and said, “Mother, you know I am right. If a female does not stand up for herself in this family, she might as well go out in the yard and lie down so the menfolk can walk all over her. You
know
it!”

“That is a great exaggeration, but even if it were true, you must not interfere between your brother and his wife,” Janet said mildly. “It is unfair, for one thing, because whilst you will have wreaked the mischief, Margaret will have to pay the price for your . . . your—”

“Say it,” Jenny urged. “Wat calls it my meddling, Meg, just as I told you last night. But if one does not meddle, other people wait too long to do as they know they must. Then the problem grows worse.” She chuckled. “Why, I’ll wager Father told him I was here when he rode to Raven’s Law last night, and Wat came here today just so that he could intervene if I did meddle.”

“He arrived last night,” Meg said. “I remember you telling me that your father had ridden somewhere. But you did not say he’d gone to Raven’s Law.”

“I didn’t know,” Jenny said. “But Wat must have ridden back with him then, and that is a very good sign, I think.”

Meg did not agree. She had a sinking feeling that Buccleuch had ordered Walter to come. If so, it had not been his idea to see Jenny or to see her. Jenny was right about something else, though, and that was Meg’s right to be at Raven’s Law.

“I’ll go,” Meg said. “That is, I will if I can make arrangements to do so.”

Looking pleased, Jenny turned to her mother. “You do agree with me, do you not? If Meg waits for Wat to arrange Raven’s Law exactly as he wants it before he lets her move there, she will live here at Scott’s Hall until she is in her dotage.”

To Meg’s astonishment, Janet said, “She is right, my dear. I dared not say it for fear you would think you are not welcome here. I promise you, you are both very welcome and have every right to stay as long as you like. Buccleuch might say something to Walter in time, but it will be much better if you manage the matter yourselves, between you. I must warn you, though, that Walter will not be pleased if you take the bit between your teeth. You must prepare yourself to deal with that.”

“Pish tush,” Jenny said. “I have meddled, just as you say, so if anyone should have to face Wat’s temper, I should. Therefore, I’ll go with her. In any event, he is most unlikely to beat me whilst I carry Rand’s son and heir.”

“Sakes, would he beat you?” Meg exclaimed, wondering if she ought to expect similar treatment.

Jenny laughed. “Bless you, he’s threatened to do so often, but he never has yet. He did smack me pretty hard on the backside once when he was twelve. Sithee, I was seven and I’d dared to sass him. But he has never done more than that.”

“Nevertheless,” Janet said more sternly than Meg had yet heard her speak. “You will not interfere further if Meg decides to move to Raven’s Law.”

“Is that what you want to do?” Amalie exclaimed. “Oh, Meggie!”

“I’m going with her,” Jenny said firmly. “Nay, madam, do not fret. Recall that Elishaw is besieged, so Wat will be gone for days if not weeks, and I won’t stay there above a night or two. I’m perfectly fit, and as I am the one who suggested it, I mean to help Meg settle in. It will do her no good to be wallowing in filth there, feeling miserable, when Wat returns. She must look efficient and in command of the place. I can help with that, and I mean to do so.”

Meg held her breath and watched her mother-in-law. She knew she could manage a household, for she had learned from one of the best. But she had never tried to run one full of men, or to turn such a household into a home fit for a family. Nor did she think she could do so now without more help than Amalie’s.

She need not have worried, for Jenny won the day without a tussle. Janet just said mildly that they’d need the help of a number of menservants and housemaids.

“Take those you need from here,” she said to Jenny. Then, to Meg, she said, “Many of ours live nearby and have younger siblings who will want positions, my dear, so you will easily find some who can come to you daily. You won’t want a lot of new servants who would need to sleep there, for the tower won’t accommodate them. And heaven knows if any of the outbuildings can do so.”

After that, things progressed swiftly.

Announcing that Scott’s Hall servants could pack Meg’s baggage and Amalie’s and deliver it to the tower, Jenny ordered horses for them and for the servants who would accompany them. An hour later, they were ready to depart.

Sym rode near Meg, and they had not gone far before she noticed that he had attached a pouch of sorts to the rope he used to hold up his baggy breeks.

When the pouch moved, she said, “What have you got in there, Sym?”

“Just Pawky,” the boy said as the kitten’s head popped through the pouch opening. “She’s gey content in her sack, and I couldna leave her.”

He stroked the kitten’s head gently with two fingers. A few moments later, it disappeared back into the pouch, and the pouch was soon still again.

Amalie expressed both pleasure and excitement as they forded the tree-shaded Rankilburn and followed a track through the forest, into the Buck Cleuch. The foliage was denser in the cleuch, the track narrower and visibly less traveled.

Although little sunlight pierced the dense canopy, birds sang merrily in the trees. The smaller burn babbled as it flung itself over cascades in its downhill haste to join the Rankilburn. The air was still and rich with moisture and woodland scents.

Meg began to relax. Buck Cleuch was a peaceful place, a place she could love.

Her sister’s chatter continued until they reached the peel tower. But as they turned uphill toward its barmkin gate, Amalie fell silent.

The square, five-story, gray-stone tower sat on a rise above the burn, near the head of the cleuch. The steep ravine walls were nearly a hundred feet high there, and they could hear the rushing of a waterfall in the distance.

“Godamercy,” Amalie said. “Is this it?”

“Aye,” Jenny said cheerfully. “What do you think, Meg?”

“I can’t see enough of it yet to tell you,” Meg said. She saw only that the tower was thirty or forty feet on a side and looked strong. Its wall was of stone, though, not timber, and she knew that was good.

“Those walls are nine feet thick,” Jenny said. “So it is not as large as it might appear. It was a family residence once, though, so it should not be too difficult to turn it into one again. That was Wat’s intention when he came here, but without a family, and living only with men . . .” She shrugged. “But here we are, and they’re opening the gate. With his stock gone, I did fear he might have locked everything up and taken all his men with him. Then we’d have been at a standstill.”

They dismounted in the yard, and Jenny led them into the tower through a short tunnel and a vaulted chamber that looked like a stable or byre, which Jenny called the pend. A heavy wooden door in one of its corners, protected by a heavy framework of iron, led to a spiral staircase.

The first landing opened into a chamber with a huge fireplace occupying most of one wall and surmounted by an equally vast chimney tapering to the ceiling. Windows on either side bowed out to accommodate stone window seats.

“The kitchen and a small dining hall lie yonder,” Jenny said, pointing to the opposite side of the hall. “But come; I’ll show you the bedchambers upstairs.”

At the next landing, she unlatched and opened the door on her left. “You might like this one, Amalie.”

“There is no fireplace there.”

“Do you have fireplaces in every bedchamber at Elishaw?” Jenny asked.

“Of course not,” Amalie said. “But I wish we did.”

“Well, there are no fireplaces above the main hall here. The master’s chamber does share a wall with the hall chimney and is usually warm, Wat says. A chamber on the next floor also shares that wall, if you don’t mind more stairs.”