Seduced by a Rogue (6 page)

“I should be back at Trailinghail by then easily,” Rob said. “Fin Walters will have work for you there in any event.”

Bidding the knacker a safe journey, Rob strode inside. He was not looking forward to his interview with his brother, but he
rarely put things off merely because they would be unpleasant.

Even so, when the elderly porter informed him that Alexander Maxwell wanted to see him at once, Rob felt his stomach clench
just as it had so often in his youth under similar circumstances. The reaction was brief but annoying.

“The master be in his wee chamber off the hall, Master Robert… sir, I should say,” the old man added with a smile. “Mind how
ye go now.”

“You sound just as you did when I was twelve and Alex was in rare kippage, Edgar,” Rob said, clapping him on a shoulder. “I’m
gey old now for skelping.”

“Aye, sir, and too big, I’m thinking. And much too skilled wi’ a sword, come to that,” the porter added dryly. “I just meant
ye should avoid the solar. Herself and Lady Maxwell be a-talking in there.”

That information drew a smile from Rob. The servants referred to only one person as “Herself,” and that was his maternal grandmother,
Arabella, Lady Kelso. “I’ll go in to them after I see my brother,” he said.

“Herself will be that glad to clap eyes on ye, aye. As for the master…” He spread his hands eloquently and left it at that.

Rob nodded and thanked him, although he had needed no further warning about the state of his brother’s temper. If anything
was likely to exacerbate it, it was the presence of Lady Kelso with her ever-sharp tongue.

Outspoken as she was, she was Rob’s favorite kinswoman. When he left the porter, the knowledge that she was home acted on
him as it always had when he was younger, too. It made him smile, knowing what she would say to him if she knew that Alex
was in a temper and wanted to see him at once:

“Then you probably deserve the rough side of his tongue. And if you dare to lose your temper when he’s lost his, my lad, you’ll
deserve every lick you get.”

As he crossed the great hall, where servants were setting up trestles for the midday meal, he drew a breath to ease his returning
tension and resolved to keep
his
temper whatever Alex said to him.

Since Alex could not yet know what the Annandale report was, Lady Kelso or Alex’s lady wife, Cassandra, had likely stirred
his temper before Rob’s return. Not that it mattered what or who had stirred it. Rob would have to deal with it.

He had faced many such occasions in the past, and his own temper was ever uncertain. Although he had rarely dared to give
his anger free rein with Alex, it had happened more than once. Worse than that was the fact that he had rarely bothered to
restrain it with others then unless someone like Lady Kelso forced him to do so.

Keeping his temper in Alex’s presence to avoid the additional consequences of losing it had been about all he could manage
in those days.

Alex was a good man at heart, but he was also a man who knew his duty, and he’d believed strongly that he had a duty to raise
Rob properly. Their mother had died when Rob was four, and their father had followed her three years later, leaving Alex as
Rob’s guardian when the former was barely one-and-twenty years old.

He had reached the door to the chamber Alex used as an office. With a single rap on the door to announce himself, Rob entered.

Alex sat in a two-elbow chair behind the long table on which he dealt with the castle accounts and business of the Sheriff
of Dumfries. He was in his fortieth year and his dark hair showed gray at the temples with a salty scattering of gray and
white throughout. He had put on weight over the past few years and would have jowls and a second chin before many more had
passed.

He looked up and frowned at Rob’s entrance. His blue eyes were a few shades darker than Rob’s, his complexion paler.

“You’re back,” he said.

“I expect you knew I was, since Edgar said you wanted to see me at once,” Rob said, shutting the door. There being no other
chair or stool in the small room, he stood facing the table, trying to read his brother’s expression. Although Alex was clearly
annoyed, Rob could not tell if he was annoyed with him or something else.

Alex said, “I did not expect you back so soon. Did the undertaking prosper?”

“No more than either of us expected it would.”

“Damnation, Rob, Dunwythie is one man, whilst you had the authority of the Sheriff of Dumfries to insist that he comply with
our demands. Meeting him face to face, as you did, you ought to have persuaded him easily.”

“He paid my demand no more attention than he paid the warrant you sent him last spring or the second one you sent just before
winter set in hard.”

“He pretends I have no authority to issue my warrants, which is absurd,” Alex said. “The man claims to hold to ancient ways
of the stewartry. But such ways have no place in proper government today.”

“The only dale in Dumfriesshire that agrees with that is Nithsdale, and it has long been a sheriffdom,” Rob reminded him.
“The others pay their taxes through a steward or directly to the King.”

“Aye, but I mean to exert my full authority as sheriff over all Dumfriesshire. So any area that continues to resist me will
quickly learn its error. I expected
you
to teach Dunwythie that lesson straightaway if he continued to defy me.”

“How?” Rob demanded. “You did not want me to take an army with me.”

“I’d have had you do whatever was necessary,” Alex replied icily.

“That is not an answer to my question,” Rob said, meeting his gaze. “We have enjoyed peace in the Borders long enough for
men to grow crops again, after decades of cross-border strife. Now you suggest the Maxwells should stir conflict with our
own Scottish neighbors? Do you
want
war with Annandale?”

“Don’t act the dafty,” Alex said irritably. “‘Tis ever your way, Rob, to make outrageous comments rather than deal as you
should with the matter at hand. You needed only to show our strength. I told all those lairds, in the formal writ I sent out
last spring, that they had no lawful choice but to submit. Letting Dunwythie so easily defy my authority is just further proof
of my own error in having entrusted you with such an important task. I had hoped the responsibility of managing Trailinghail
had improved you. But I fear you are still the same scapegrace you always were. Or perhaps, having inherited land in Galloway,
you no longer think of yourself as a Maxwell of Dumfries.”

Gritting his teeth to keep from uttering the angry words that leaped to his tongue, Rob wondered if his brother would ever
stop flinging perceived errors of the past in his teeth. Aware that Alex often read him more accurately than he could read
Alex, Rob said, “Mayhap you have forgotten how fast the men of Annandale can assemble
their
army. Having an English garrison in their midst at Lochmaben has given them much practice in acting swiftly.”

“And so they might have reacted had
I
led an army into Annandale,” Alex retorted. “Did I not explain that
that
is why you were to take only your men with you, and none of mine? My writ of authority should have been enough to show Dunwythie
that
you
meant business without an armed host. Were I to lead even my normal tail of twenty men into Annandale, it could stir the
natives to a clash. Nevertheless, if they force me to summon an army of Maxwells to my banner, be sure that I will take enough
with me to end
all
the impudence in Annandale.”

Rob said, “I cannot imagine, nor could I from the outset, how you expected me to persuade a man of Dunwythie’s stamp to submit
to your authority with only a half dozen men. Nor have you yet told me how. As it was, Old Jardine warned that I should not
take any of
his
men along other than Will, lest
I
stir conflict.”

“Mayhap you should have ignored him and used your own judgment.”

“He is our ally, Alex, and he knows the dale. He pointed out that Dunwythie would not allow so many enemies inside his wall
and that they would be useless outside it, and might even ignite trouble with others in the dale. He made good sense, so I
took only my own men. At least, his lordship heard me out.”

“Aye, sure, and then dismissed all that you said to him,” Alex said.

“Surely, you are aware that he looks upon Maxwells as lesser creatures who, in the past, have twice sided with the English.
He flatly denies that he owes you either his submission or his fealty.”

“Dunwythie is said to be a man of peace,” Alex said, as if he were explaining something simple to a child. “You had only to
explain to him that the law supports my authority, that his grace the King supports it—and explain my right of seizure.”

“You’ve just said that your warrant explained all that,” Rob said.

“Perhaps the man cannot read.”

With Dunwythie’s image still strong in his mind, Rob smiled.

“Do you find humor in my words?” Alex demanded, frowning.

“Dunwythie is an educated man,” Rob said. “He knows his worth, and he wields great influence. Even Old Jardine respects him.
In troth, from all I could learn about him, his influence extends far beyond Annandale. I’m telling you, if you threaten him,
most of the other barons of Dumfriesshire will rise to his defense. And do not forget that the Douglases are kinsmen to his
wife.”

“Do you dare to try teaching
me
about kinships, my lad? You would do better to have carried out my orders. Instead, you return with nothing accomplished
and excuses on your tongue.”

“By God, Alex,” Rob said, bristling. “I am no longer twelve years old, nor am I dependent on you or subject to your constant
authority. You are my brother and a man to whom I owe familial duty, but I am
not
your lackey. Nor do I have to stand here and listen to this like a misbehaving—”

“Och, aye, I forgot,” Alex interjected, his tone scathing. “
Now
you are a great landowner, the Laird of Trailinghail. And as that fine estate lies across the river Nith,
now
you count such small things as loyalty to your clan and loyalty to Nithsdale, to Dumfries, and to
me
as nowt.”

“If that is what you believe, we’ve
nowt
to discuss,” Rob snapped.

“Aye, sure, lose your temper. It is ever the same with you. The minute someone calls you to account for your actions, or their
lack—”

“No more,” Rob said curtly.

“Nay, then, although I’d hoped you had learned to use that stubborn head of yours to prove yourself a worthy member of our
great clan. But you are still the hot-tempered, impatient… Damnation, Rob, I’ve no doubt now that you angered Dunwythie as
much as you are angering me now. If you
were
still a lad—”

“Aye, ye’d skelp me blue. But you’d soon find yourself at a standstill, trying anything so daft now,” Rob said. “If you need
someone to treat again with Dunwythie, you will doubtless find a more competent man quite easily.”

“Fiend seize you, Rob. I’d hoped…” He sighed. “God kens I’d hoped you had grown out of these ways of yours. But I should have
known you had not.”

“Good-bye, Alex,” Rob said. “I’ll not impose further on your hospitality.”

“Och, aye, run back to Trailinghail,” Alex said with acid dripping from his tongue. “’Tis ever your way. I’m told your people
there think highly of you. One can only pray that you do not disappoint them as you have me.”

Rob turned and left, striding back across the hall toward the stairway so angrily that men moving toward tables stepped hastily
out of his way.

“Sir! Master Rob! Hi, there, an ye please, sir!”

The high-pitched voice interrupted his streaming thoughts, and Rob turned, wrathfully meaning to tell any gillie insolent
enough to shout the length of the hall at him how much in error such behavior was.

The black-haired, blue-eyed lad looked only nine or ten years old. He met Rob’s scowl bravely.

“What the devil do you mean by shouting at me like that?” Rob demanded.

His pointed little chin thrusting boldly forward, the lad replied, “Herself did say I should shout the house down if I must
to keep ye from leaving. That’s why.”

“Oh, she did, did she?”

“Aye, she did.
And
she said ye’d look as red as raw beef, too. So she kens ye well, Herself does. And she tellt me never to mind your temper.”

“You mind your tongue. Is that all she said to tell me?”

“Aye! Well, no the bit about raw beef… no to
tell
ye that bit, any road. But she did say to stop ye,
and
to say ye’re no to go afore she talks wi’ ye.”

Rob looked past the lad to the dais, where his sister-in-law, the lady Cassandra Maxwell, stood near the high table gazing
myopically at him. Apparently realizing he had seen her, she smiled warily.

Movement in the open doorway behind her—which led to the ladies’ solar—diverted Rob’s eye as his grandmother, Lady Kelso,
stepped into the opening.

She gestured imperiously.

“I see Herself now,” he said to the lad. “You can go, but I do thank you.”

“Aye, sir. Ye’d no want to put her in a temper.
Nae
one would,” the lad said with the emphasis of unhappy experience. “But she’s a fine old trout, Herself is.”

“Old
trout
?”

“Aye, ’tis what me da called me own granddame sometimes. Means he liked her, he said. I like Herself gey fine, too, mostly.”

His sense of humor tickled by the boy’s earnest candor, Rob bent nearer and said confidingly, “So do I, lad, mostly. But don’t
let me hear you call her an old trout again unless you want to stir
my
temper to the point where you
will
mind it.”

“Nay, I won’t, then. But ye’d best get a move on ye, sir. She’s looking a bit umbrageous already, t’ my way o’ thinking.”

“So she is,” Rob agreed, pressing a coin into the lad’s willing hand before striding to the dais and across it with a nod
of greeting to his sister-in-law.