Border Storm (6 page)

Scrope considered himself an exception to the standard, because his father had served as warden before him. But Scrope was a gambler who enjoyed little respect among his peers, let alone among those he served. Hugh knew that Thomas Scrope had gained little insight from Scrope senior, because Thomas had grown up in Nottinghamshire and married there. He still spent more time there and in London than he did in Carlisle. No matter what he thought, he was an outsider.

Scrope’s chief land sergeant, Martin Loder, was also an outsider. Although Loder had married locally and well—twice, in fact—Borderers still regarded him as an interloper. Although Loder wanted to be Scrope’s deputy, Elizabeth and even Scrope recognized that a warden needed a deputy who enjoyed the respect he lacked. Thus, although there could be little doubt that at least a few Grahams had taken part in the raid on Carlisle, Scrope would require more cause than that and his personal dislike to dismiss Hugh.

“Be these your lads coming now?” Scrope demanded.

“Aye, that’s Rowan leading them,” Hugh said.

“Then all the stragglers are here,” Scrope said. “I’ve sent Loder and two other land sergeants on ahead with their men, so we’d best get this lot moving, too.”

“Aye,” Hugh agreed. “We cannot count on the men at Hermitage to dally there much longer.”

Scrope shrugged. “I doubt they’ll move without Buccleuch to lead them.”

“You’d be wiser not to depend on that,” Hugh warned. “You’ve killed a number of their kinsmen today and burned out untold numbers of others. My men forced Buccleuch’s to keep their heads down till now, but with my lads away, they won’t wait long to follow. Indeed, if we don’t get moving, we’re like to find ourselves in the midst of pitched battle, and our lads are tired. They lack the strength of purpose that the Liddesdale lot will have.”

Scrope apparently saw wisdom in his words, for he signaled his lieutenants to gather their men. In minutes, the army of two thousand was riding for England.

Although war banners waved and the men seemed cheerful, Hugh thought their pace more that of retreat than victory. They took their tone from Scrope, who kept looking back, clearly fearing that the Scots could still mount an attack.

Hugh had counted on the Scots’ fiery reputation to get Scrope moving toward home. But he knew, too, that the Liddesdale men were canny enough not to challenge so large an army. What they were more likely to do—and what he feared most—was attack some area in England as unsuspecting as Liddesdale had been. And they would leave just as much devastation in their path.

Buccleuch might be in ward, but everyone knew that James of Scotland had been reluctant to put him there, and if James was looking for an excuse to release him, Scrope’s massive raid had provided it. In the time that it had taken Scrope to raise an army of two thousand, Buccleuch could raise three thousand.

Sir Hugh held no brief for Buccleuch. On the contrary, he had a score of his own to settle with the man, because it was Buccleuch who had arranged his sister Janet’s marriage to Sir Quinton Scott of Broadhaugh.

Sir Hugh was well aware that his connection to Buccleuch was like a stone stuck in Scrope’s craw, although Scrope himself had had more to do with arranging the marriage than Hugh had. They had requested Hugh’s consent, of course, since he was Janet’s nearest kinsman, but the two wardens had given him no choice. They had worked the details out between them after Sir Quinton had supposedly rescued Janet from a reiver, admired her beauty, and expressed a desire to marry her.

Elizabeth and James had supported the marriage, expressing the joint hope that it would help bring peace to the long-riotous Borders.

Hugh had not attended the wedding, but if he still harbored resentment over the connection, it was due mainly to his loss of an excellent housekeeper. There were certain details about the whole business, however, of which Scrope remained blissfully unaware, details that Hugh hoped would remain buried forever.

Although Scrope knew that Hugh and his men had met the Carlisle raiders and had tried unsuccessfully to prevent their return to Scotland, he clearly did not know that Hugh had fought single-handedly against the erstwhile prisoner. Nor did Scrope know that Hugh’s sister Janet had been present at the time.

Even now, months after the raid, Hugh knew that Scrope wanted nothing more than to connect him to the Carlisle raiders and to punish him for it. If the scathing letter that he had written Hugh soon after the raid had not made it plain, the abandon with which he had ordered the arrest of suspect Grahams did. Although Hugh had done all that he could to prevent the raid’s success, Scrope had only to learn that Janet had been among the rescuers to order his arrest.

In the meantime, Hugh was certain that the massive, murderous attack on Liddesdale could only escalate strife in the Borders. It was only a matter of time before Buccleuch would retaliate.

There was an old man, and daughters he had three….

“What are you doing, my fair lady?”

S
HORTLY BEFORE FIVE O’CLOCK,
freshly bathed, smelling of roses, and dressed in a modest gown that she knew became her, Laurie went in search of Sir William.

She found him in the hall, still at his table, still surrounded by documents. Servants bustled about, setting up trestle tables for supper, and she did not know how he could concentrate. But he seemed to be completely absorbed.

“Forgive me for interrupting your work, sir,” she said when she stood in front of him. His scribe was no longer at his side.

Sir William had not so much as glanced up at her entrance, but he did so now with a frown, saying, “Is it time for supper already?”

“Aye, sir, nearly.”

“I do not know where the afternoon went,” he complained. Pushing away the document he had been reading, he sat straight and stretched his spine. Then, adjusting his cap, he looked at her more narrowly and added, “I like that dress.”

“Thank you.”

His lips twitched. “You know that I like it, lassie. I’ve told you so before, more than once. Hoping to soften me up, are you?”

“Aye, sir,” she said frankly. “I’m hungry, and I would like to take supper with the family.”

“You’d like to avoid a whipping, that’s what you’d like.”

“Aye, that too.” She had not known what to expect, but now she relaxed. He might still punish her, but she knew from his light tone that he would not thrash her.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” he said, as if he had read her thoughts. “What were you thinking, lass, to slip off and go to the Elliots? You know how much your mother dislikes such visits.”

“Davy and Lucy are my friends,” she said simply. “I thought if I went early, before anyone here was up and about, I could see them and get back before anyone knew I’d gone. I did not know that the English would raid Liddesdale.”

“It was that perfidious Scrope,” Sir William said. “It was a foolish thing to do, too, because James will not like it. He may well release Buccleuch now, and Buccleuch will exact his revenge.”

“Do you think the King really will release him?”

“Aye,” Sir William said with a sigh. “He’ll soon be on his way back from Edinburgh to Hermitage to begin plotting what he will do. But he should not. It will only make Elizabeth angrier than she is now.”

“Aye, sir.” Laurie did not think it wise to add that, whatever the cost, she hoped that Buccleuch would make the villainous English pay heavily for what they had done. She was in enough trouble already without stirring more.

Instead, she said, “Will you stop being warden if Buccleuch returns?”

He shook his head. “King James thinks me less warlike than Buccleuch and thus more likely to bring peace to the area.”

Impressed, she said, “Can you?”

“God knows I prefer peace to war,” Sir William said with a rueful smile, “but I’m no peacemaker. I’ll be less so if Buccleuch comes back, too. I lack the power to fight him. If James wants peace, he should persuade Buccleuch to impose it. He could if he chose, but I doubt that any other man could.”

A noisy group of men-at-arms entering the hall to take their supper drew his attention just then. He pushed back his armchair and stood up.

“You may come with me now, Laura,” he said.

Laurie felt a prickle of fear. “Am I not to sup with the family then, sir?”

“Aye, you may, but your mother chooses to take supper in the ladies’ parlor today. She’s taken a notion into her mind that it is not suitable for your sisters to sup in company with my men.”

“Not suitable? But why?”

“’Tis acceptable at noon, she says, when everyone is in a hurry and no one talks much. But, at supper, she says, the men tend to become more boisterous and to say things that are not suited to young girls’ ears.”

Sir William extended a forearm as he spoke, and Laurie rested her right hand upon it as she considered his words.

Supper was certainly a more relaxed meal than dinner at Aylewood, just as it was in most households. Nonetheless, since Laurie and her two sisters had dined and supped with the men since childhood, she thought it more likely that Blanche had noticed May’s recent inclination to flirt with any man who looked her way.

At fifteen, the elder of Laurie’s half sisters was eager to marry. Thus, she tended to look upon any man she met as a potential mate. Moreover, despite Blanche’s continued insistence that her daughters were perfect, Laurie was sure she had to know that May, at least, was nothing of the sort. May was flighty and headstrong. She was perhaps not as likely as Laurie was to slip out unattended, but she frequently managed to do as she pleased and count the cost later.

To her credit, Blanche did punish May for her misdeeds, albeit not so harshly as she demanded that Sir William punish Laurie. May’s punishments were light, so light, in fact, that they rarely deterred her impulses. She knew that she enjoyed her mother’s favor. That it had taken Blanche as long as it had to notice the flirting was rather remarkable, however. Laurie wondered if Blanche had said anything to May about it, and she decided to ask May as soon as a good opportunity arose.

As she and Sir William left the hall and crossed the gallery to the ladies’ parlor, she gave his arm a squeeze, welcoming his escort. Blanche would be less likely to aim acid remarks at her in his presence.

She was not yet out of the briars, however.

“You must mend your ways, lass,” Sir William said quietly.

“I will try, sir.”

“You will do as I bid you,” he said more sternly. “You set a poor example for your sisters when you disobey me. I won’t allow anarchy in my household.”

“But it is not fair to forbid me to visit my friends in the dale,” she protested. “I do not have many friends elsewhere, after all.”

“Your mother prefers that you behave in a more proper manner, Laura, and after seeing the state you were in this morning, I cannot disagree with her.”

“But I had to hide in the tree!”

“Aye, perhaps, but you did not have to leave Aylewood—and certainly not without so much as putting shoes on your feet, lass. She did not like your coming home without your cloak, either.”

“Well, she will not want me to return to Davy’s to collect it,” Laurie said. “She does not approve of anything I do, sir. You know that she does not.”

He looked at her, and his grim expression told her that she had crossed the line of what he would accept.

Hastily, she said, “Pray, sir, forgive me. I should not have said that.”

“No, you should not,” he said. “You must learn to curb your tongue, daughter. I am in no mood to play the harsh parent, for I believe that you had some cause to act as you did this morning. But you must not count on my continued leniency. Should your mother have further cause for complaint, you will suffer whatever consequence she deems appropriate. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Laurie said dismally.

He said no more, and they entered the parlor to find the rest of the family ahead of them, gathered near the fireplace, talking quietly.

Blanche wore a gown of her customary, elegant, dove-gray silk. Decked as usual with an abundant array of expensive jewelry, she sat in a straight-backed chair with her feet on a blue velvet footstool. Even the French hood covering all but the smoothly combed forepart of her hair boasted fine pearled embroidery.

Ten-year-old Isabel stood beside her with one hand on the back of her chair. Isabel wore a modest milk-and-water gown similar in style to her mother’s, with a stiff, smooth bodice and flaring skirts. Her light brown hair fell in a shiny curtain to her waist, held away from her face by a plain white coif, the strings of which tied neatly under her softly rounded chin.

Since May was talking and stood with her back to the doorway, when Laurie and Sir William entered, the other two saw them first.

Blanche nodded regally, and Isabel curtsied, whereupon May stopped talking and turned to face them, quickly making her curtsy to Sir William.

Her dress was the bluish-green color known as popinjay and was much less modest than those of her sister or mother. May’s tightly laced corset pushed her plump bosom so high that when she curtsied, her breasts threatened to spill over the low-cut bodice. The narrow lace edging of her chemise peeped over the bodice edge but barely covered her nipples. A ruff around her neck matched the chemise lace, but it was so narrow that, in Laurie’s opinion, it looked more like a necklace than a part of her gown. Laurie noticed, too, that May had reddened her lips and cheeks and had darkened her eyelashes.

Indeed, she thought, May looked almost as though she had expected to dine in company.

Even Sir William noticed, for he said heartily, “You are looking very fine tonight, May.”

May blushed, and Blanche said, “She does look well, does she not, sir? One can easily see that she will benefit from taking more care with her appearance.”

“Aye, that she would,” he agreed.

Blanche smiled archly. “I believe we should take her with us next month when we visit Fast Castle, for she is old enough now to show herself more in company.”

“Well, as to that—”