Devil Black (2 page)

“If you think her a child,” Isobel retorted heatedly, “you have no business sending her off like a bundle of high-priced goods.”

She could see her father struggle to keep his patience. “The MacNabs are a fine family, with ample lands. It is a grand match for her, secure and stable. Randal MacNab is an old friend of mine, and his son, Bertram, a worthy husband.”

“Catherine does not even know him!”

“She met him years ago. Lord Randal and Bertram both came to your mother’s burial service.”

“When Catherine was seven and Bertram nearly twenty. He is too old for her, Father.”

“Nonsense. She is of an age to wed, and men often take brides younger than themselves.”

“His first wife—”

“Bertram’s first wife was a delicate specimen who did not survive childbed. I have promised that whatever else my daughters are—wild-headed and hasty-tongued at times—they are strong women able to bear many sons. I am hoping the MacNabs, being themselves Scottish, will overlook the heedless tendencies your mother’s Scots blood has lent both of you. All my children have suffered for their heedlessness: John, too impetuous in battle, James insisting upon riding that half-broken stallion, you—”

Gerald broke off and fixed Isobel with a hard stare. “You complain to me, daughter, of the fact that your sister will be wed before yourself, when it is you who ruined your own chances?”

Heat raced to Isobel’s cheeks, yet she met her father’s eyes unflinchingly. “I have accepted blame for my sins, Father, and paid for them.”

“Have you? I dare say you will continue to pay, all your life. MacNab wished his son to wed you, and not your sister. I had to put him off with Catherine—hinting at, though not admitting, the truth. Should I admit your shame to even so dear a friend?”

“Is it such a shame?” Isobel could not help but challenge.

Now Gerald’s gaunt face flushed. “I am surprised you can ask that, and it proves, perhaps, what a woeful job I made of your upbringing in your mother’s absence. I should have married again, given you and your sister a gentling influence. Your downfall—”

Isobel bit her lip in an effort to contain her simmering anger. “My downfall, as you call it, cannot be laid solely at my feet, Father. John’s friend was seven years older. He seduced me—”

“You allowed yourself to be seduced! And by the kind of man to whom no sane father would see his daughter wed. A rapscallion, a ne’er-do-well. John, God rest him, should never have brought the blighter here. But make no mistake, my girl. It is your fault you fell victim to him.”

Such had always been his opinion. Isobel sought words to refute without angering him. She had meant to speak on Catherine’s behalf, not her own.

“Send me to MacNab in Catherine’s place,” she asked.

“Do you not think I would, if I could? MacNab wants a virgin. Daughter, must I speak more plainly than that?”

“Bertram MacNab need not know that I…that I am damaged goods. Once we are wed—”

“Marriage is a contract. And the man is no fool—it will be his second wedding night. He knows full well what to expect. Catherine must go.”

“And what of me?” Isobel asked, miserable and humiliated. “Am I to live out my days here as a spinster, unloved and unwanted?”

Her father’s expression softened slightly. “Not unloved, Daughter, nor unwanted. You will make yourself of help to me running our household.”

“And the lands? Will those go to MacNab, with Catherine’s hand?”

“We shall see. I may see fit to settle the estates on Catherine’s son, should she have one. For now, I do not plan on surrendering them to anyone.”

“Of course not.” Isobel looked ahead through years that suddenly seemed stunted and blighted as a barley field after the frost. Was her life as good as over, at nineteen?

Making one last bid, she lowered her voice to something approaching meekness. “Father, I beg you—Catherine and I have been so close since Mother died. Inseparable! Do not send her away from me.”

“It is not like you to be sentimental, Isobel. It will do Catherine good to be away on her own, taking up the life of a woman grown. Were you not always trying to defy me, you would see that. I am, as always, doing my best for my children. This is a good match for her, within the safety of a good family.”

“The MacNabs? I hear they are engaged in clan feuds half the time, virtually at war with their neighbors.”

Gerald shrugged. “What Scot refrains from raiding and feuding? My old friend Randal assures me Catherine will be the gem of their household. Now go and speak to your sister, Isobel. It will make things easier for her in the long run if she makes up her mind to this match.”

“Yes, Father,” Isobel murmured as she turned away and left the room. But beneath her breath she muttered, “Make her mind up to it? Never!”

Chapter Three

“Never!” Catherine Maitland wailed like a she-raven crowing on the battlefield. “I will never wed Bertram MacNab, Isobel! Will not! Cannot!”

No surprise there, Isobel thought ruefully, sprawled upon her sister’s bed while Catherine paced the room. Neither Isobel nor her sister had made a habit of meek obedience, and at the moment Catherine looked like a wild woman—chestnut hair flying, blue eyes wide and desperate.

She looks like me, Isobel reflected with grudging admiration.

“Father’s mind is set,” she warned. “I offered to go in your place, but he would not hear of it.”

That made Catherine quit pacing and stare at her sister. “You would sacrifice yourself so, for me?”

Isobel, suddenly unable to face the look in her sister’s eyes, stared at the embroidered counterpane that covered the bed. “In an instant.”

“Oh, Issie!” Isobel suddenly found herself enveloped in a hard hug. From earliest youth she remembered such embraces, Catherine’s strong arms clutching at her in gratitude, fear, or pure love.

Tears rushed to her eyes, and in order to combat them she said wryly, “It is no good. MacNab insists on a virgin.”

Catherine released her and sat back on the bed. The strangest look Isobel had ever seen came to her face.

“Ah, well,” she said ruefully, “then the fine Bertram MacNab will not want me, either.” She concluded in a whisper, “I gave myself to Thomas three months ago.”

Isobel gasped. Her sister had been childhood playmates with the son of their father’s bailiff, and over the past year, seeing each other secretly, their friendship must have grown into love. Gerald Maitland disapproved the friendship, saying quite openly he did not feel it appropriate. He relied heavily on his bailiff, John Hewett, but none of the man’s five sons could be considered a suitable match for either of his daughters.

I should have seen this coming, Isobel told herself now, should have stepped in and done more to protect her, dissuade her. Though how did anyone reason with a lass so headstrong as Catherine?

Reading Isobel’s expression, Catherine said, “There is nothing wrong in it. I love him! Should I rather save myself for some man—a stranger—I despise?”

“Father will go mad. His reputation rides on this. And I have already let him down in this regard.”

“Not your fault,” Catherine began, but Isobel cut her off.

“You promised me, Cat, this relationship between you and Thomas was platonic. I confess, I expected better of him—he seems a young man of high scruples and considerable restraint.”

“He is. In most regards.” Catherine had the grace to lower her glowing eyes. “But, Issie, we are in love!” Catherine’s flawless complexion grew rosy. “I suppose it is a blessing in disguise. Once I tell Father, that will be the last I hear of marriage with Bertram MacNab.”

“Tell Father?” Now it was Isobel who jumped up and began pacing. “And what do you expect him to do then? Make excuses to his good friend Lord Randal? Swallow his humiliation and wish you and Thomas well? He will have the skin off Thomas’s back, for starters. I would not be surprised if he has him killed.”

The color drained from Catherine’s face as swiftly as it had come. “No!”

“Oh, yes, my girl. If you think Father is not serious about this match, you are much mistaken. At the very least he will deprive Thomas’s father of his living, send them away—”

“I cannot live without Thomas! We wish to wed.”

Isobel stared at her sister with a mixture of pain and aggravation. “I am sure you do.” John Hewett’s youngest son had been blessed with the kind of good looks not unusual here in the borders, a direct legacy of Viking settlers many years gone. Long of limb, knit with slender strength, Thomas had hair the color of ripe corn and a smile of singular sweetness. He even possessed a sense of humor. Isobel could not say she disliked him, but that, she feared, lacked relevance in the present situation.

“You are mad,” she told her sister in a steady whisper. “Father will send him away and ruin his family. You have to end it.”

Defiant tears flooded Catherine’s eyes. “I cannot!”

“My darling, I know you fancy yourself in love—”

“It is no fancy! I cannot go to MacNab!”

“I agree it will be difficult—”

“More than that, it is impossible. I am carrying Thomas’s child.”

That set Isobel back on her heels. She felt the breath rush from her lungs and a chill fill her limbs. “You cannot be. Catherine, you must be mistaken.”

“No. I believe it happened the first time we lay together, for my visitor has not arrived three months running,” Catherine confessed in a whisper. “I do not think there can be any mistake.”

“My God! What shall you do? Father will go wild. Nothing will keep him from flaying Thomas alive.”

“I will keep him from it! Listen to me, Issie. Thomas and I mean to run off together. We will go north, across the border to Gretna Green, and be wed. For weeks we have talked of it. We wish to wed anyhow. The babe will just force us to act more quickly than planned.”

“You cannot tell Father.” Gerald Maitland possessed a temper of considerable intensity. In truth, his daughters had inherited the trait, Isobel more so than Catherine. Gerald seldom unleashed his ire on his children, and when their mother was alive she had acted as a buffer between them. Yet a few incidents stood out in Isobel’s mind, youthful misdeeds Gerald had punished with a heavy hand.

And this—this was no small misdeed. Catherine might well lose her child before Gerald finished with her.

Isobel’s protective instincts rose in a rush. Catherine might be wrong in this, and mad to think she could get away with it, yet Isobel had to take her part.

“And what do you suppose you will do after you are wed?” she asked incredulously. “How will you live? Certainly there is no room in the Hewetts’ little cottage.”

“Thomas has written to his cousin in Bristol, who has just taken over his father’s shipping office and is in need of a clerk. It is a good opportunity and a real chance for us.”

“Bristol!” Isobel’s eyes widened. It might as well be the far side of the moon instead of the far side of the country. And yes, it might be a fine opportunity for Thomas, a rare one, but scarcely the station in life that Gerald Maitland demanded for his daughter. “And you think Father will accept that?”

“I think, by the time he catches up with us, it will be too late. Time will make it obvious I am carrying Thomas’s child. His anger will fade.”

It would not, Isobel knew, no more than had his grief over the loss of his wife and sons.

Catherine went on, her firm voice belying her desperate expression, “You see, this whole business of a match with MacNab has precipitated things. Thomas has been trying to save for the journey. We had hoped to go the month after next, when my condition became evident. But if Father insists I go to MacNab at once—”

“He does.” Isobel thought furiously. “The whole of your plan will fall apart, I fear, before you ever begin—unless we are very clever.”

Catherine’s eyes lit. “You have a plan?”

Isobel scowled. No more than a half plan struggled into formation in her mind. Suicidally dangerous, it nevertheless might just give Catherine time to be away and wed before Gerald Maitland even knew.

She put her head close to her sister’s. “Listen now to me—”

****

Some time later, Catherine Maitland took herself before her father with submissively bowed head and defiant eyes and agreed to travel to Scotland in order to become the wife of Bertram MacNab. Gerald Maitland should, perhaps, have been more suspicious about his daughter’s sudden acquiescence. But, preoccupied with matters of his estate, he proved well satisfied to have the matter settled.

“I am glad your sister succeeded in talking you round to a sensible point of view,” he declared. “This is a very good union that will see you well set for life. The situation in Scotland is, aye, unsettled at present, but I have faith decent landowners like MacNab will outlast the unrest and prevail against the rabble that presently infests the north.”

“Will you travel with me to Scotland, Father?” Catherine peered at him from beneath her lashes.

Sir Gerald grunted. “I regret I cannot. Affairs here demand my presence. But we will arrange a visit for the New Year, perhaps in the spring. By then you may have glad news to share with me. MacNab is very eager for an heir.”

“Yes, Father.” It was now October, and the idea of a six-month separation should have been devastating. Catherine tried to look crushed.

“As I say, Daughter, you will be in good hands. Your husband will inherit a significant holding in Central Scotland and is a favorite of the King. You should be grateful.”

“I do realize that, Father. When will I be sent?”

“You will leave a week hence. You must begin your preparations.”

“Yes, Father, I will.”

“Good girl.” Such praise, rare enough from Gerald’s lips, should have made Catherine smile. Strangely, her lips turned down instead.

“May I go now, Father?”

“Certainly.”

Catherine padded away in her soft slippers and climbed the stone stairs to the room she and Isobel would share this night.