Tamed by a Laird (40 page)

Hugh woke to gray light through the tall, narrow window. As it faced west, he could not tell if the grayness was dawn twilight
or sunlight obscured by clouds.

His head ached, but the ache was dull. Lucas had assured him the night before that his assailant had not broken it, and the
dullness of the pain reinforced that fact. But it was going to be a long day.

Jenny slept soundly beside him on her stomach as she had the past three mornings. At least, this bed was large enough, so
she had not kicked or kneed him.

Waking her at last but with the same difficulty he had had every morning, he recalled how quickly she had wakened the night
before and wondered if she had had some sixth sense that there was trouble. If that were the case, perhaps the reason she
slept so soundly otherwise was that he was with her. The thought was a comfortable one for him, but he smiled as he imagined
what she would think about it.

Despite his headache, he’d have welcomed a brief interlude with her. But since Archie wanted to be away early, he did not
suggest it. In any event, the long, narrow-eyed look Jenny gave him as she climbed out of bed suggested that she would have
been too concerned about his aching head to enjoy it.

He noted the same appraising look many times during the morning. He saw it as they broke their fast and in the courtyard as
they mounted their horses. He saw it so often as they rode alongside the river Dee that when their large party stopped to
eat the dinner packed for them at Castle Mains, he took her firmly aside.

“See here, lass,” he said. “I am not made of glass. My head aches and I’m tired because I did not sleep well. But I won’t
fall off my horse or die in the saddle before we reach Threave. My temper is a mite uncertain, though, so let be.”

“Aye, sure,” she said, dimpling. “I must be acting like a mother cat with one kit, but I did not realize I was vexing you.
Sakes, but it would vex me, too!”

He nodded, satisfied that she would keep her word. It occurred to him then that she often agreed with him. Although he had
learned that he could make her angry, she was ever quick to agree with his rebukes. Then experience reminded him that she
was nonetheless capable of doing exactly as she pleased afterward.

Recalling that his sister Phaeline had often accused him of doing the same thing—listening, agreeing, and then doing whatever
he
had decided to do—he found himself for once agreeing with Phaeline. It was a damned annoying habit!

As they rode, he watched the other riders, wondering which, if any of them, had struck him. He had no memory of the event
other than that he had been walking up the spiral stairway… until Lucas had spoken his name.

Hugh was no stranger to violence. No knight of the Scottish realm was a stranger to violence, death, or destruction. He had
cultivated an inbred sense of self-preservation that had served him well in battle and tournament, and had seen him safely
through his extensive travels and a few very dangerous adventures.

Yet he had sensed no danger beforehand, had heard no sound of warning or marked anyone who seemed to take particular note
of his presence. Such details, he decided, strongly indicated someone with experience to match his own.

That eliminated Reid as a suspect, although Hugh had never seriously considered him. Doubtless, Jenny suspected Reid though,
and perhaps Lucas did.

Reid and Dunwythie had both chosen to ride to Threave, leaving the Dunwythie ladies to travel by boat with Joanna Douglas.

Noting that Reid seemed friendly with several other men, none of whom Hugh recognized, he was conscious of another stirring
of guilt. Since Ella’s death, thanks to his grief or a disinclination to associate closely with the rest of his family, he
had ignored his duty to the lad. To be sure, he had also been busy with Thornhill and lingering obligations to Archie. But
those were just excuses.

He was still considering the wide demands of duty when they topped a rise and the massive, square, battlemented splendor of
Threave loomed into view.

Inside a high, nearly finished curtain wall with watch-towers at all four angles, and rising magnificently above a surrounding
flat, watery landscape, the immense symbol of Douglas power dominated an islet formed and protected by the river. All around
it, colorful pavilions and tents of visitors decorated the driest patches of ground much as wildflowers might adorn other
fields.

Threave’s forbidding majesty silenced the party as its members drew rein.

If Archie intended to awe the residents of Galloway and all forthcoming visitors, Hugh thought he would succeed beyond his
dreams.

J
enny saw the man as they were fording the river Dee— alongside an observably temporary, narrow timber footbridge—to Threave’s
islet.

At first, she thought only that the man looked vaguely familiar and wondered if he might be someone she had met at Easdale
before her father died.

She and Hugh were entering the ford as the group she had noticed emerged onto the islet, so the man who had drawn her attention
provided only his profile.

He looked every inch a nobleman, elegant of garb and arrogant of demeanor. He had one of those faces that look much the same
from middle age to later years, but she judged him to be some years older than Hugh, yet younger than Dunwythie.

Reid rode behind the man but urged his mount up alongside the other’s as their horses stepped onto the islet. Jenny realized
then that she had seen the nobleman with Reid earlier, in the hall at Castle Mains.

She glanced at Hugh. If Reid knew the man, perhaps he did as well.

Hugh was looking straight ahead, minding his horse, a nervous animal that, even after a tediously slow eight-mile ride, still
tended to start or rear at perceived obstacles or enemies. Hugh managed him deftly enough but without his usual look of being
at one with the animal. She knew he was tired, but after his earlier rebuke, she would not ask him if his head still ached.
However…

“Sir, do you know that man with whom your brother is riding?”

He began to shake his head but visibly thought better of it. “Nay, lass,” he said then. “Why do you ask?”

“I feel as if I should know him, but I cannot place him.”

“Aye, well, doubtless you saw him at Castle Mains. Or do you imagine he may be one of the villains we seek?”

“I don’t know who he may be,” she said. “I did see him with Reid at Castle Mains, but something else about him is tugging
at my memory. I warrant it will come to me later.”

“Well, do not waken me with it in the middle of the night,” he said with a slight smile. “Archie still seems to think I’m
going to enter the tourney.”

“You cannot mean to joust!”

“Nay, not to joust, Jenny. One pays a fee to enter a tournament and may joust if challenged. But few enter merely to joust
one against another. There will be large parties of men competing, party against party. Whether I participate is something
I must decide before this evening. But I am not daft, lass, nor am I in practice for tilting or running at a quintain.”

“I do not know precisely what those things mean,” she admitted. “I have never watched a tournament.”

“Tilting is riding a horse full speed down a course, holding a lance that one is to put through a small ring dangling from
a spring at about the level of the rider’s eyebrows. Jousting is horseman against horseman with lances, spears, or swords,
and a quintain is a man-shaped target that one hits horsed or afoot and which
can
hit back. But you will see it all, and I’ll explain anything you do not understand.”

With that, she had to be content. She hoped, though, that enough men would take part in the events to make it unnecessary
for Hugh to do so.

They dismounted in the bailey and followed Archie up a steep timber stairway to the entry of the huge keep and, from there,
into its great hall.

“The kitchen lies beyond that wall at the far end,” he said. “Storage cellars, dungeons, and a well lie beneath it, and the
main stairway ascends through the west-corner angle wall. The garderobe tower in the south angle serves every level.”

“Can you house everyone who will come here?” Jenny asked.

“Bless me, my lady, most will set up their own tents and pavilions, just as they do for any tournament. Many have already
done so, as doubtless you saw. Those who hang their helmets and arms on the front of their tents show they mean to compete.
We’ve already laid out courses for the contests, and we’ll soon be moving the boats anchored or beached in our harbor upriver,
so we can set up our water quintain where spectators will have a good view of the water contests.”

“How many boats will compete?” Hugh asked.

“Two only at a time, and each with no more than eight oars,” Archie said. “Small boats don’t need as much room to move about
as large ones do, but they’ll still give us good sport. We’ll set the quintain post in the midst of the channel. I saw such
a contest on the Firth once. That was grand, although with the tide running as fast as it did then, that contest was more
dangerous than ours will be.

“As to your quarters, Lady Easdale,” he went on with a smile, “as my kinsmen, you and Hugh will stay here in the keep. If
you find aught that stirs your displeasure or concern, tell me straightaway. I want my guests to be comfortable.”

She smiled and assured him that she would, but as she had little knowledge of fortresses, she doubted she would offer criticism
of his. Kind though he had been, criticizing someone called Archie the Grim seemed unwise.

Glancing again at Hugh, she wondered if he had found opportunity yet to mention the knot on his head to Archie. The thought
had only to express itself, however, for her to realize that she knew the answer.

Hugh had
not
sought such an opportunity, nor would he thank her for mentioning his injury to anyone—or the attack that he had suffered,
come to that.

She thought she was coming to know her husband.

Hugh was tired, and his head ached. He would have liked to go straight to bed and sleep, but a man could not do that in the
middle of an afternoon.

What he ought to be doing was to refresh himself and change from his riding attire into clothing more appropriate for supper
in the hall. Or, in view of Archie’s expectation that he would take part in a tourney, he should walk or ride out to survey
the competition that had already arrived.

By the time a minion showed them to their chamber on the fourth level, his head was pounding. Lucas followed them with lads
carrying their baggage, and as the latter scurried to and fro, stowing things under Lucas’s direction, Hugh felt an impatient,
uncharacteristic urge to order them all to get out and leave him in peace.

Meeting Jenny’s shrewd gaze, he held his tongue and walked to the window instead to look out to the northwest. There, pavilions
and tents covered the higher west bank of the Dee even more densely than they covered the soggier east bank. He had not seen
them all before, because the castle’s bulk had concealed them. But he knew they would fill every field before the tournament
began the next day.

“I’m going out to walk about,” he said, turning from the window. “I should see who is here and mayhap talk more to Archie
about the tournament.”

“An excellent idea, sir,” Jenny said, smiling. “I can go downstairs and seek out other ladies who are here. I saw none in
the hall as we crossed it, but they must be somewhere. The steward will know, or I can find Joanna and—”

“Nay, lass, you ought not to wander anywhere at Threave. There will be few women here today—few altogether, come to that,
compared with the number of lusty men. You will stay here where you can bar the door and keep safe.”

“But there is naught to do here,” she protested. “I did pack things to occupy my hands or idle hours. But I thought we would
be busy seeking mischief-makers. Surely, it would be better for me to mix with people, to look for—”

“Jenny, you will obey me,” he said firmly. “If there is mischief afoot as you suspect, it must include the minstrels. But
they do not even seem to have arrived yet. They are not camped in the bailey as they were at Lochmaben—”

“At Castle Moss we did
not
camp inside the wall,” she said. “We camped in the woods just as we did near Dumfries. And we did see nearby woodlands as
we approached this castle. You could take me to see—”

“Not now, and I forbid you to ride out alone—or walk out, come to that.”

She glanced at Lucas, still busy with his helpers, and held her tongue. But Hugh knew she had dismissed the danger and doubted
he could trust her to stay put.

Tempted to extract a promise from her that she would obey him, he turned to Lucas instead. “When you have finished here,”
he said, “I want you to keep an eye on this door to see that no one disturbs her ladyship.”

“Aye, sir,” Lucas said, casting a doubtful look at Jenny.

Hugh turned back to her, determined to make her understand. But, to his surprise, she was smiling, showing her entrancing
dimples.