Seduced by a Rogue (2 page)

F
or the reader’s convenience, the author offers the following aids:

Caerlaverock = Car LAV rock

Dunwythie Hall = “the Hall,” the fortified house at Dunwythie Mains

Ebb tide = falling or receding tide

Flood tide = incoming or rising tide

Forbye = besides, also

“Herself” = in this book, Arabella Carlyle (née Bruce), Lady Kelso

Kirkcudbright = Kirk COO bree

Low tide (or low water) = lowest point of the ebb

Mains = the primary seat of a lord (from “demesne”), as in Dunwythie Mains

Neap tide = minimum tide, tide of minimum rise, when rise and fall show least change; occurs generally during first and third
quarters of the moon

Nithsdale = NEETHS dale

Spring tide = tide occurring at or shortly after the new or full moon; tide of maximum rise, occurs twice a month

Stem up = begin to flood (at Annan, about three hours before high water; at Kirkcudbright Bay, about five hours before)

Thole = busy

Tocher = Scottish term for dowry

Dunwythie Mains, Annandale, 8 March 1375

P
eering through new green foliage into a large field that the surrounding woodland sheltered from winds that could roar up
the dale from Solway Firth, Will Jardine said, “What if Dunwythie catches us here?”

“He won’t,” twenty-five-year-old Robert Maxwell, Laird of Trailinghail, replied as they dismounted in the dense woods. “My
lads saw his lordship ride north with ten men just after dawn.” Looping his reins over a handy branch, he added, “He will
be gone till at least midday, Will. And we have every right to be here.”

The younger man’s eyebrows shot upward. “Have we?” he said dryly. “Most Annandale folk would dispute that, including me own
da, were ye daft enough to put your brother’s impertinent demands to
him
.”

“Alex’s demands are hardly impertinent, since he is Sheriff of Dumfries.”

“Aye, but
only
o’ Dumfries,” Will retorted. “Nae one here in Annandale heeds or needs the man, least of all Lord Dunwythie.”

Unable to deny Annandale’s defiance or Dunwythie’s, Rob kept silent. He was watching where he put his feet as he and Will
strode across the field toward a dozen or so men working on the far side. It would not do to give the recalcitrant Dunwythie
more cause for complaint by trampling his tender young shoots.

“God bethankit for His gifts!” Will exclaimed. “What d’ye think can ha’ brought the two o’
them
here?”

Rob looked up.

Emerging from woods north of them onto a narrow path down the center of the field were two riders. Although they were nearly
a quarter mile away, their gowns, fur-lined cloaks, and fluttering white veils proclaimed them noblewomen. Their figures and
their supple dexterity with their horses declared them youthful.

As they drew nearer, Rob saw that one was so fair that her hair looked white against her dark green cloak. The other was dark-haired,
and both wore their hair in long plaits that bobbed enticingly on their breasts as they rode. They were watching the workers,
and he was sure neither had yet realized that he and Will—in their leather breeks, jacks, and boots—were not simply two more
of them.

A few puffy white clouds floated overhead but did little to block the sun. Its light glistened on the dewy green field and
gilded the fair rider’s plaits.

“I’m glad I came with ye,” Will murmured with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

“They are noblewomen, you lecherous ruffian.”

“Hoots, what noblewomen would ride alone here as those two are doing?”

“Dunwythie’s daughters would do so on their father’s land, a mile from his castle, amidst his own loyal workmen,” Rob said.
“Behave yourself now.”

“I’ve nae wish to frighten off such tasty morsels,” Will retorted, chuckling.

Rob grimaced, knowing his friend’s reputation with women. Glancing back at the two riders, he saw the fair one frown.

Clearly, she had realized they were intruders.

“We’ll go to meet them,” he told Will. “And you
will
behave.”

“Aye, sure. Wi’ such toothsome lassies, I’ll behave right charmingly.”

Rob sighed and altered his course to meet the two, hoping he could avoid trouble with Will. Old Jardine being the Maxwells’
only ally in Annandale, Rob could not afford to anger the man’s best-favored and sole remaining son. But neither would he
let Will make free and easy with Dunwythie’s daughters.

“Who are those two men?” the lady Fiona Dunwythie asked, pushing a dark curl away from one long-lashed blue eye to tuck it
back under her veil.

“I don’t know,” nineteen-year-old Mairi Dunwythie replied. Wishing—not for the first time—that she knew more people in the
area near her father’s largest estate, she added, “They stride toward us like men aware of their worth.”

“Then where are their horses?” Fiona demanded. “In my experience, men who know their worth rarely walk far.”

“Doubtless they left them in the woods behind them,” Mairi said.

“Then they’ll have come from the south,” Fiona said thoughtfully. “I wonder if they might be Jardines.”

That the two strangers might be members of that obstreperous family had already occurred to Mairi. However, although she had
begun her life at Dunwythie Mains, she knew few of its neighbors by sight.

Three years after the lady Elspeth, her mother, had died at Mairi’s birth, Mairi’s father had married the lady Phaeline Douglas.
Learning soon after their marriage that the Jardines to the south of them and the Johnstones to the north were engaged in
longstanding, nearly continuous warfare, Phaeline had demanded that her husband remove his family to the house near Annan
town that represented the primary part of her tocher, or dowry.

At the time, Phaeline had been pregnant with Fiona, so her lord had readily complied. Thus, Fiona was born at Annan House,
near the mouth of the river, and Mairi had lived there from the age of four, with only occasional brief visits upriver to
Dunwythie Mains.

Whether the two men striding to meet them were Jardines or not, Mairi knew her father would expect her to welcome them, albeit
with no more than cool civility.

Discerning eagerness now in her sister’s posture, she said in her usual quiet way, “Prithee, dearling, do not be making much
of these men. If they
are
Jardines, our lord father will not want us to encourage more such visits.”

Tossing her head, Fiona said, “Certes, Mairi, Father would not want us to be discourteous, either. And they are both gey handsome.”

Mairi had noted that fact as well. Both were large, dark-haired men with well-formed features. The one in the lead was narrow
through hips and waist, had powerful looking thighs and shoulders, and stood inches taller than his companion.

He also looked five or six years older and displayed a demeanor that suggested he was accustomed to command, and to doing
as he pleased. He had worn his leather breeks and boots often enough that they molded themselves snugly to his form. The shirt
showing beneath his dark green jack was snowy white.

As they drew nearer, she saw that his boots were of expensive tanned leather, not rawhide. He also wore a fan brooch of three
short reddish-brown feathers pinned with a small but brightly sparkling emerald in the soft folds of his hat. Sunbeams painted
similar reddish highlights in his dark brown hair.

The younger man had black hair, a lankier body, and looked nearer her own age. He was eyeing Fiona in a way that made Mairi
think of a hawk eyeing a tasty-looking rabbit.

Clearly oblivious to the predatory look, Fiona smiled flirtatiously enough to make her sister yearn to scold her. But Mairi
held her tongue and shifted her gaze back to the two visitors.

“Well met, my ladies,” the younger one said as the women drew rein. “What are two such bonnie lasses doing, riding amongst
these rough field men?”

Stiffening, Mairi put up a hand to silence Fiona just as the older man clamped a hand to the brash one’s shoulder. Her own
gesture failed of its aim, for Fiona said pertly and with an arch look at the younger one, “But who are
you
, sir, to address us so rudely? And
what
are you doing in our barley field?”

“Pray, forgive us, my lady,” the larger man said, looking at Mairi with long-lashed eyes of such a clear ice-blue that she
could almost see her reflection in them. His voice was deep and of a nature to send strange sensations through her, as if
its gentle vibrations touched every nerve in her body.

Still looking right at her, he said, “I am Robert Maxwell of Trailinghail. This unmannerly chuff with me is William Jardine
of Applegarth. I expect you must be Dunwythie’s daughters, are you not?”

Mairi nodded, touching Fiona’s arm as she did in a hope that the gesture would silence her, at least briefly. Then she said,
“You must know that you are on my father’s land, sir. Have you reason to be?”

“Good reason, my lady,” he replied. “I am Sheriff Alexander Maxwell’s brother, here today as his sheriff-substitute.”

For a wonder, Fiona kept silent, perhaps as captivated by the man’s low, purring voice as Mairi was.

“But why do you come here?” Mairi asked, although she could guess. Her father had spoken often of the sheriff.

“Why, to determine the exact amount your lord father will owe the Crown in taxes this year,” he said. “Sithee, one determines
the figure by counting everyone on the estate, measuring its size, and estimating its likely crop yield.”

Mairi knew that. Her father had recently been teaching both of his daughters about running his estates, as protection against
the possibility that his lady wife might fail to give him a son to inherit them. Phaeline had been pregnant many times during
their sixteen-year marriage, but so far, she had produced only Fiona.

Dunwythie had long agreed with his lady that, in due time, God would grant them a son. But, at last, urged by Phaeline’s elder
brother, he had decided to teach his daughters what each would need to know if she should inherit his estates.

The estates’ crops being a primary source of his lordship’s wealth in a region where few men had any, he had brought Mairi
and Fiona to Dunwythie Mains to observe the progress of the early plantings there.

Despite her recently acquired knowledge, Mairi was reluctant to cross words with the sheriff’s brother. Just meeting his gaze
made her feel dangerously vulnerable, as if without effort he had melted her defenses and would as easily demolish any position
she might take in trying to persuade him to leave.

As she sought tactful words to tell the two men they would have to wait and deal directly with her father, her outspoken sister
said, “Surely, the two of you should not be prowling here for
any
reason without my lord father’s consent.”

“Did ye no hear him, lass?” William Jardine said, leering. “Rob acts for the sheriff. And the sheriff, as even such a bonnie
lass must know, has vast powers.”

Tossing her head again, Fiona said, “Even so, William Jardine, that does not explain what right
you
have to trespass on our land.”

“I go where I please, lassie. And as I’m thinking I shall soon give your wee, winsome self good cause to ken me fine, ye should
call me Will. Nae one calls me William except me da when he’s crabbit or cross.”

“Enough, Will,” Maxwell said as he met Mairi’s gaze with a rueful look in his distractingly clear eyes.

Despite her certainty that he would soon clash with her father, Mairi’s heart beat faster, radiating heat all the way to her
cheeks.

Robert Maxwell smiled, revealing strong white teeth. His eyes twinkled, too, as if he sensed the inexplicable attraction she
felt toward him.

Was he as arrogant and sure of himself, then, as his friend Will Jardine was?

Noting her reddening cheeks and the quizzical look in her gray eyes, Rob felt an immediate and unusually powerful reaction
that he could not readily define.