Border Storm (12 page)

“Oh, Laurie, can you?”

“Of course I can. Now, dry your tears. We’ll have more immediate trouble to deal with if anyone has discovered our absence, so think about that instead.”

May gulped and brushed a hand across her eyes. “What will become of me?”

“One day, whether I marry or not, you will find a man who is worthy of your love, my dear. Then, you will marry him and bear his children and live happily ever after,” Laurie added, hoping she spoke the truth.

Bangtail Willie admitted them at the postern gate, and they slipped into the yard without incident.

“Bridget’s back,” Willie murmured the moment they were inside the gate.

“Good,” Laurie said.

“Aye, her dad brung her straight back when she told him she didna have her ladyship’s permission to go.”

“Did anyone see her?” Laurie asked.

“Nay, then, I dinna think so. No one who would speak of it, any road.”

He seemed surprised to see a third horse, but he accepted Laurie’s glib explanation of finding it roaming free beside the burn. Folks living along Tarras Burn, like those in Liddesdale, often spoke of mysteriously acquired horses, and children learned from the cradle not to ask many questions about them.

May and Laurie each took one of the heavy sacks from the black. Hefting hers, Laurie knew that Bridget had to have helped May carry them.

No one challenged them in the yard before they reached the safety of the tower, however. And when they had succeeded in returning the gold and jewelry to Sir William’s strongbox, Laurie felt confident that her father and stepmother would not learn that May had been outside the wall, let alone that she had run away in the hope of marrying a villainous Englishman.

Leaving May at her bedchamber door, Laurie went quietly to her own room. Pushing open the door, she walked in to find glowing coals on the hearth and her stepmother dozing on the bed with a coverlet pulled over her. Faint orange light from the coals colored her cheeks. Her ruffled cap had slipped to her eyebrows.

Moving cautiously, Laurie took off her cloak, gloves, and boots and put them in the wardrobe. Then, slipping her feet into lambskin slippers and drawing a deep breath, she tiptoed to the fireplace and bent to lay a fresh log gently atop the hot coals. Blowing on them, she waited until flames leapt merrily around the log before she went to the bed and gently touched Blanche’s shoulder.

“Madam, wake up. Why are you sleeping in my bed? Were you looking for me? Is aught amiss with my father?”

Blanche started at her touch, then glowered at her. “Where have you been? If I learn that you have been consorting with one of the servants, I swear that I will order you soundly whipped, Laura.”

“I have consorted with no one, madam,” Laurie said. “I could not sleep, so I went outside for a short time. How long have you been here?”

Blanche looked around. “Not long, I expect. Something woke me, and I got up to see what it was that I’d heard. I had someone make a fire, so I must have dozed off quickly, for it has scarcely died down at all.”

Laurie nodded but said nothing.

“If you must know,” Blanche said, “I looked out a window and thought I saw someone riding down the hill. I… I came to see if you knew who it might be. When you were not here, I assumed that it must be you, and I waited to see if you would return.”

Laurie suppressed a sigh, knowing despite her stepmother’s matter-of-fact tone, that it was unfortunately more likely that Blanche had hoped she would not return. Had she really believed that the rider was Laurie, she would surely have roused the men to search for her.

She would at least have awakened Sir William. However, since it was far more likely that she had hoped Laurie was running away, Laurie knew that Blanche had doubtless intended to give her a good head start before alarming anyone. For that, May would be grateful if Laurie was not.

She said evenly, “I must apologize, madam, if I gave you concern by leaving my chamber.”

“You had no business to leave it,” Blanche said curtly, getting to her feet. “You would be well served should I order you to keep to your bedchamber tomorrow as punishment.”

Laurie kept silent.

“I will speak to your father of this,” Blanche said, moving haughtily to the doorway. “It would behoove you to mind your manners, Laura.”

“Yes, madam.”

When she had gone, Laurie shut the door and leaned against it with a deep sigh, wondering what it would be like really to run away. Even Isabel would not miss her for long, she thought. Sir William would profess to miss her, but she doubted that he would try very hard to find her. His life, after all, would be more comfortable without her around to stir Blanche so frequently to anger.

These thoughts, although dismal, did not particularly distress her. She had thought the same thoughts before, many times, and had felt the same feelings.

She supposed that other people were happier in their lives than she was in hers. Indeed, she knew that many were, for she could see as much for herself whenever she visited Davy Elliot and his family. Davy’s Sym, during the good times, was as merry a child as one could know and loved his family dearly.

Thinking of Sym turned her thoughts to Tarras Wood and an image flashed to her mind of the Englishman with the red curls. Would such a man be married, she wondered. Doubtless, he would. Would he have many children?

She tried to imagine herself married—not to him, of course, but to any man. There were times when she thought that, since marriage would take her away from Aylewood and Blanche, she ought to marry the first man who wanted her. But she had seen little to make marriage seem appealing.

How had her father come to marry Blanche? How did people so mismatched end up together? The answer, she knew, was that marriage had to do with property and with little else. Men married women who could provide them with more property than they had previously possessed. It was generally just that simple.

Sir William was a man of some wealth and would provide each of his daughters with a respectable dowry, but like most Borderers, he preferred to display what he had by bedecking his wife in jewelry. He did not give anything away easily.

Had he owned vast acres of property, Laurie knew that men would be demanding her hand even without seeing her or knowing a thing about her. She was his eldest daughter. They would expect a great landowner to dower his eldest well.

Gentlemen were not beating down the doors at Aylewood, although over the past five years she had received numerous offers. No man had offered enough to make Sir William order her to marry, though, and she had not seen anything in any suitor that made her want to accept his offer. It occurred to her now that she might have felt differently about a man who had persisted despite her lack of interest. Surely, no woman leapt by choice into marriage with a man she scarcely knew.

Even as that thought flitted through her mind, though, she knew it was foolish. Her own sister had not only been willing to leap into marriage, she had gone through dark of night to meet a man she hardly knew and had intended to ride off with him to a foreign country. May would have married Sir John without a qualm and without the support or approval of her family.

Laurie sighed and went to find her bedgown. She did not understand May, but clearly she herself was at least partially responsible for May’s flight and, thus, for the cost of that flight. She had promised to protect May from the consequences, and so far, she had managed to protect them both. She did not know how long she could do so, however, and just the thought of what might lie ahead made her feel dismal again. Altogether, she decided, it had been a dismal day.

Then she thought about the English raid and the people who had died. There were many, many people whose lives were much sadder just now than her own.

Mentally scolding herself for thinking too much about her own life and not enough about the lives of others, she undressed, said her prayers, and went to bed.

Morning would come soon, and the sun was bound to make everything look much more promising.

But when morning came, although the sun shone with August brightness, nothing seemed to have changed for the better. Many of the men and women who worked at Aylewood received word of deaths in their families, all at the hands of the hateful English.

Agreeing that such loss and sorrow demanded attention, Blanche did not question Sir William’s decision to do everything they could do to help the people of Liddesdale and its environs recover from the devastation. She insisted, too, that their daughters do what they could to help.

Laurie and Isabel were perfectly willing, and when May realized that neither of her parents was aware of her escapade, she quickly recovered her customary good spirits and agreed to ride out with her mother and Laurie to visit tenants and see what could be done for them.

Sir William still had much to do to prepare for the forthcoming Truce Day, but he encouraged tenants to approach him with their needs, and he met those needs whenever he could do so. Many people insisted that he file a grievance against Scrope for the terrible invasion, but he soon had other things to think about.

Four days later, Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch returned to Hermitage and declared his intent to “shake the bones out of that pestilential malt worm, Scrope.”

Thou bold border ranger,

Beware of thy danger.

Brackengill Castle

“S
HALL I JUST INFORM
any of your men who ask about you that you intend to return shortly, my dear Sir Hugh?” Lady Marjory asked ten days after the raid, as Hugh pushed the remains of his breakfast away and stood up.

An increasingly familiar tension tightened his jaw. He said evenly, “You need not concern yourself so with my comings and goings, madam. My men will not ask you about them.”

“I suggested it only because I would be of service to you, my dear sir. You must make good use of me whilst I am here.”

“I would be unwise to become too dependent upon you, madam, for I doubt that you will want to stay through the winter. Life at Brackengill cannot be what you are used to. You will soon miss your London comforts.”

“Ah, but I cannot bemoan them when I see you living like this,” she said with a sweeping gesture. “Brackengill needs a woman’s touch, sir. Anyone can see as much. And if there is one thing at which I excel, it is in being a woman.” She fluttered her eyelashes in a way that made him want to run from the room.

Suppressing the impulse, he said, “Your comment makes me wonder why you did not come to us after my father died, madam. You never accompanied your husband, for that matter. Nor did either of you see fit to remove my sister to London or to provide a gently reared female companion to look after her here.”

“Oh, my dear sir, if only you knew how I longed to come to you then! But Brampton would not hear of it. Only recall, if you will, how volatile this region was! You were but twelve, and your sister, Janet, some years younger than that, so I did suggest that he bring you both to London, but he refused to do that.”

“Perhaps because duty demanded that I stay here and look after Brackengill,” Hugh said crisply. “My uncle made annual visits to us afterward until I came of age. Otherwise, he left me in the hands of my steward and tutor, and Janet in the hands of local women who would serve in a castle that lacked a proper chatelaine. It was no upbringing for her, or indeed, for any girl of her rank. If you were willing to care for her, surely my uncle would have taken her to you.”

“He did suggest bringing Janet by herself,” Lady Marjory admitted. “But I could not allow him to separate her from you, my dear sir. Only think how miserable she would have been, carried off to live with two cousins and an aunt whom she had never so much as clapped eyes on before!”

“Aye, well, she might not have liked it, but it would have done her good,” Hugh said grimly. “Had she lived in London, ’tis unlikely that she would have married across the line as she did.”

“You cannot know that, dear sir, and you should bethink yourself instead of her certain misery in London. She is practically Scottish, after all, living as close to them as you do here. And I must tell you, Londoners are not always as charitable as they might be. I try to rise above such common prejudice, of course, so you need not bother your head about me. Once we have improved Brackengill a trifle, I believe I shall be quite comfortable here.”

“I have done much to modernize the place over the years,” Hugh said stiffly.

“Oh, and indeed, my dear sir, anyone can see that. Pray, do not take offense! Why, that Meggie woman in the kitchen told me that she remembers when the castle wall was naught but an enclosure of timber posts! And when I tell you how ruthless I had to be with myself during my journey to keep from recalling things Brampton had told me about Brackengill—for I was determined to sacrifice all, if need be, to see to your comfort… But…”

She fell silent, clearly struggling to reclaim her train of thought. Then, brightly, she added, “You must tell me what foods you enjoy, Sir Hugh, so that I can see to it that your people serve them to you often.”

“I care little what I eat, madam.”

“Oh, that cannot be, for gentlemen, in my experience, care a great deal about such things. They just do not realize that they do if their people take proper care of them. And that is just what I mean to do for you.”

“Thank you,” he muttered, despising the apparent weakness that made it impossible for him to send her packing. Despite the strong interest she took in his household and his need for a good housekeeper, he did not like her. But that only made him feel guilty, since she clearly cared about his comfort.

“You need not thank me,” Lady Marjory said earnestly. “And, indeed, sir, if you do not wish to make a list of your favorite foods just now, perhaps that Meggie can tell me what they are. I do not mean to plague you with questions. But where are you going?” she added on a note of surprise when he turned away. “We have only just begun our little chat.”

“I have work to do,” Hugh said curtly, feeling desperate again and wishing again that he could just tell her to take herself back to London. He knew perfectly well that generally he was capable of such ruthlessness. He even smiled a little when he realized that his sister, if she were to hear of his problem, would wonder at it. Nevertheless, to order the fragile-looking, well-meaning Lady Marjory back to London less than a fortnight after her arrival seemed heartlessly cruel.