The Border Lord's Bride (18 page)

Adair chuckled. "You are well matched, you know. My brother-in-law is a very sensible and practical fellow."

"We hardly know each other," Ellen admitted. "Though I spent all last winter here, I kept company with Maggie. Duncan was at the board in the evening. Sometimes we played games or listened to music, but he and I had little to say to each other."

"He is an easy man to know," Adair assured Ellen.

"And he is kind and thoughtful too," Murdoc chimed in. "Why, he brought me to Agnes Carr himself my first time." Then he blushed beet red, realizing what he had said to his new sister-in-law.

"Murdoc!" Adair scolded the younger man. "Agnes Carr is not a subject to be discussed with an innocent bride." She turned to Ellen, briefly explaining. "Agnes is the village whore. She‘s actually a nice lass, but a lad‘s whore is not something to be spoken of in a lady‘s hall. You know better, Murdoc. You had best learn to guard your tongue if you truly mean to be a priest."

But Adair was smiling slightly as she spoke. Murdoc, the youngest of the siblings, was still very ingenuous in his manner.

"I do beg your pardon, Ellen," the young man said, and his look was contrite.

"We had a whore at Lochearn, but I wasn‘t supposed to know about her. She taught me how to darn a sock and mend a hem," Ellen said with a twinkle.

Her companions laughed, and both the visitors from Cleit silently decided that the laird of Duffdour had not gotten a bad bargain in his new wife. Ellen was distressed to learn that Duncan had gone raiding with his brother, but Adair told her bluntly that it was simply a way of life in the borders.

"You will have to get used to your man riding off," the lady of Cleit said.

"Are you used to it?" Ellen asked.

Adair shook her head. "Nay, I have never gotten used to it, but what can I do?" she said. "At least the Bruces of Cleit do not raid or plunder until provoked to it. The English came and took some of our cattle and three village lasses the other night. You never know if a borderer is going to sell the woman or use her for his whore. Conal and Duncan retrieved both the cattle and the women. The English were out raiding, and no one was left behind to guard their hidey-hole, for they thought it well hidden. Of course, now they may come raiding again, or not. It is a vicious cycle here in the borders, and men are not apt to cease their warring until forced to it by a higher authority." She sighed. "It is so difficult to raise the bairns under such a constant threat." Then Adair smiled at Ellen. "Are you with child yet?" she asked pleasantly.

Ellen blushed to the roots of her red-gold hair. "Nay," she managed to say.

"You‘re certain?" Adair continued. "Do you know the signs?" she queried.

"We are but newly wed," Ellen protested faintly, and her cheeks were hot.

"Still and all, it can happen the first time, you know," Adair continued.

"It hasn‘t," Ellen squeaked, wishing she were anywhere else right now. How could she admit that she and Duncan hadn‘t yet coupled? Her husband would be publicly embarrassed if the fact that he hadn‘t consummated their marriage became known. A man was expected to do his duty on his wedding night, and devil take the hindmost.

"Well, it will," Adair said cheerfully. "Conal‘s gotten five bairns on me so far, though one died at her birth. And I‘ve heard it said that our young priest-to-be has fathered at least two wee ones on Agnes Carr, though she will not say who the father of those bairns is," Adair continued with a chuckle. "But then, perhaps she doesn‘t know, although there was a time when Murdoc plowed that mare exclusively, wasn‘t there, little brother?"

"Adair enjoys being outspoken," Murdoc said quietly to Ellen. "I hope she has not shocked you.

We excuse her because she was born English, don‘t we?" he teased his brother‘s wife wickedly.

Adair swatted him fondly. "If you mean to deny yourself the pleasures of a woman‘s body, Murdoc," she said, "it cannot harm you to at least know those pleasures before you take your vows. A cock is a cock, even beneath a holy cassock. Agnes‘s wee lads look just like you, and will always be taken care of and considered Bruces, as you well know. But the woman is too old for you. She never before allowed herself to conceive a child. I think she just wanted her own bairn and chose the best sire. She is honorable in her own way too, as she did not point a finger,"

Adair concluded.

While a trifle shocked by her sister-in-law‘s frank speech, Ellen was relieved to have had the subject changed from herself. "I‘m so glad for your company," she told her visitors. "While we wait for the others to return you will tell me all about Duncan, for there is not a great deal that I know of him except that he is honorable and brave."

"Aye, he is!" Murdoc responded with a warm smile at Ellen. He had guessed her secret, although he would never say it. Still, it was like his oldest brother that he would give his bride a chance to become comfortable with her situation and her surroundings before bedding her. The startled look on her face when Adair began prying had given Ellen away, although Adair had been far too curious to notice.

"He has a grand sense of humor," Adair noted, "and as I have previously said, he is the most sensible of the three brothers, isn‘t he, Murdoc?"

"He is," Murdoc agreed, not in the least offended.

"He is intelligent and extremely clever," Adair continued. "Of the three brothers he is the wisest.

‘Twas he who figured out how to marry me to my Conal when I had said I would not until the man admitted his love for me," she recalled with a smile. "Duncan could serve the king well if he chose."

"He is too canny to involve himself with the king and his court," Murdoc noted. "He remembers the king‘s late father, and with whom he chose to surround himself."

"I don‘t understand," Ellen said.

"Old James, the third of his line, preferred useful and artistic companions to the great lords, who became jealous of those favored few and at one point rose up, slaying the former king‘s friends,"

Adair said.

"I had heard our king‘s father was deviant in his liking of other men," Ellen murmured, a blush suffusing her pale cheeks.

"Perhaps he was, and perhaps he wasn‘t," Murdoc replied. "He did his duty by Scotland and sired several children on his queen. And when she died he was devastated and mourned her deeply. Who knows what the real truth of it all was?"

"James the Third lost his father at a young age, and his mother was a great influence on him and on his life," Adair explained. "She was an elegant lady from a cultured court, a niece of the Duke of Burgundy. It was from his mother that James the Third gained his love of the arts. He was only nine years of age when he became king."

"What happened to his sire?" Ellen wanted to know.

"King James the Second had a love of gunnery. At the siege of Roxburgh he was supervising the firing of a canon when it exploded and killed him instantly. When she learned of it, the queen immediately hastened to Roxburgh with her oldest son. Once there she urged her late husband‘s commanders onto a victory, which they accomplished, and a week later King James the Third was crowned at nearby Kelso Abbey, his reign begun with a victory. Then a long-term peace was made with my father, King Edward the Fourth."

Ellen gasped, surprised. "You are a king‘s daughter?" she asked.

"A king‘s brat," Adair replied, "for all the good it did me. It‘s a long story for another day, Ellen."

"Then tell me more of this history of which you know," Ellen said, somewhat taken aback by the casual way in which Adair referred to her birth. "Though I lived at court for well over a year, actually almost two, little is spoken there of the past. The women gossip endlessly on men and fashion. Only my mistress, the king‘s aunt, spoke on more important matters, for she is very wise, but she rarely spoke of her brother, the late king. All her efforts went into aiding her nephew, our young king. She is devoted to him. Tell me more of our king‘s father."

"The queen was a great influence on her eldest son, and it is said that he looked more like her, with his dark eyes, olive skin, and black hair. Like her he was pious and loved the arts, a knowledge that she imparted to him. But she died when he was twelve, and two years later his mentor, the wise and beloved bishop of St. Andrews, also died. The king was seized by the Boyds of Kilmarnock, who forced him to approve their coup d‘état. They sought to secure their power over the king by marrying Lord Boyd‘s son to his sister, Princess Mary. And when he was eighteen years old, they arranged for James the Third to marry King Christian of Denmark‘s daughter, Margaret. But once he had the love of a good wife, King James the Third came into his majority, as his father before him had done. He punished the Boyds for their presumption in seizing his person, and attempting to rule through him, as his father had chastened the Livingstone family who had controlled his minority. Lord Boyd and his son fled Scotland, dying in exile. Others in the family were executed, or penalized with fines and the loss of their lands,"

Adair said. "Kings love excuses for confiscating other people‘s lands. They use them to bribe others," she said with a grin, and then continued. "Queen Margaret was a good queen, a good wife, a pious lady. She gave her husband three sons. But the king was more interested in the arts and acquiring paintings and musicians than he was in ruling. His extravagances cost the people.

And what could not be forgiven was the fact that he chose his close friends and advisers from among those who, like him, had a passion for beauty. They were not men from great families.

The great lords were offended, and they more often than not bridled against him. This king of theirs could not ride well, could speak French and Italian but not the language of the Highlands, and disliked hunting and carousing." Adair chuckled mischievously. "Scots do love their wine and their hunting."

Ellen nodded in agreement. "What happened next?" she asked.

"As our King James grew older," Adair went on, "the lords rallied about him until several years ago a battle ensued between the father and the son, the result of which was that the old king was killed, and James the Fourth ascended to the throne of Scotland. I have often wondered just how involved in that business our king really was. He claims he did not wish to depose his father or see him dead, but any sensible person knows that a country can have only one king," Adair concluded.

"King James is an honest man," Ellen defended the monarch. "He would never have had any part in the murder of his father. But tell me, how is it that you know so much?" Ellen asked.

"I was raised at my father‘s court, and am well educated," Adair told her. "You cannot grow up in a royal court and not listen to what is being said or see what is going on about you. And if you are wise you say naught, but retain what you know to use when it can be of help to you." She smiled at Ellen, realizing the girl was intrigued by her words and her manner.

"Can you speak foreign tongues?" Ellen inquired.

"I can," Adair admitted.

"I can speak my Highland tongue, French, and church Latin," Ellen said. "I learned to speak as you southerners do when I lived at court. I wonder if I am the proper wife for a man like my husband. What if one day he decides to offer his services to the king?"

"Duncan will not leave his lands without very good cause," Murdoc told Ellen. "The king once hinted to him that he would be welcome at court, but my brother refused. His name is not a powerful one; nor does he have the resources to make a career at court."

"And you would appear to be just the kind of wife he should have," Adair said. "You are pretty.

You know housewifery. Your servants, I can see, already respect you. You are, I suspect, loyal.

Give Duncan heirs and you will be perfect," she teased the younger woman, laughing.

During the next few days that followed, Ellen learned enough about her new family to realize that she was going to get on well with them. Her sister-in-law, the beautiful Adair Bruce, was proud but kind, if outspoken. Her brother-in-law Murdoc Bruce was a gentle young man with a tender heart. And then the laird of Cleit arrived to join them, and Ellen was at first startled by the resemblance between her husband and his younger half brother. She remarked upon it.

"We favor our mother," Conal Bruce said. "Murdoc looks more like our father." The laird of Cleit looked his new sister-in-law over carefully. She was a very pretty lass, with her gray-blue eyes and her red-gold hair. He was amazed that Duncan had sheltered her for several long winter months and not even attempted to seduce her. That round little figure of hers was extremely tempting. But listening to Ellen speak of Donald MacNab, her grandsire, and Lochearn, Conal Bruce suddenly understood the depth of honor Duncan Armstrong had exhibited. But he was her husband now. How long did he intend to remain away from such a delicious treat?

And after a week had passed during which Ellen had fed them, and housed them, and ridden out to hunt with them, and they had spoken at length on a variety of subjects, the laird of Duffdour returned home to be greeted by his relations and his young wife, the latter of whom welcomed him sweetly with a kiss on his lips.

"I have a tub ready for you, my lord," she said, smiling.

"A tub?" He was surprised. Why would she have a tub? He was hungry and wanted a hot meal.

He was tired and wanted his bed.

"You have been gone for some days, my lord," Ellen said. "I will bathe you myself, as I was taught by Lady Margaret at the court. But first come to the table and eat." She led him to his high board, where his servants hurried to bring him several dishes steaming hot from the kitchen.

There was a bowl of freshwater mussels with a mustard sauce for dipping; a large rabbit pie, its flaky pastry oozing a rich brown gravy; a fat roasted duck, its skin crisp and black; warm, fresh bread; sweet butter and cheese.

Duncan Armstrong ate greedily, noticing as he finally slowed the pace of his chewing to drink half of his wine-filled goblet that his guests were happily consuming the contents of the bowls and platters too. There was more than enough food. He couldn‘t remember since he had come to Duffdour as its laird his table being so well laid, and he realized at once that the credit belonged to Ellen. He turned to her with a smile and, taking up her little hand, kissed it. "Thank you," was all he said, but she fully understood him, and smiled back.