by Faris, Fiona
He remembered Mairi’s pun about the selkie and its seal-clothes and realized how apt it was in relation to the mystery and allure of Elizabeth Bryce.
* * *
As Duncan Comyn was picking his way warily down the zigzagged cliff path to his lodgings in Cruden Bay, Elizabeth lay awake in her chamber, unable to sleep. Beside her, wee Nicholas lay curled in the innocence of his slumber, his small angelic face shed of its sealskin of nonsense and mischief.
She could not get the thought of Duncan out of her mind. Her nerves thrilled at the very sound of his name as it rang over and over in her head. She thought of his wit and gallantry during their impromptu pique-un-niche beside the clifftop path, his gentlemanliness, the regard and consideration he showed her. She felt valued for herself alone, and not for what lay between her legs or the ‘potential’ she showed for social advancement. He had appeared to enjoy her company for its own sake and not for some ulterior motive.
She also thought of the courage and resourcefulness he had shown in plunging into the tumultuous sea to rescue her when she had been cut off by the tide and the storm that had so suddenly engulfed her. He had risked his own life for her and not given up, even when his first attempt had almost ended up in disaster for himself. Her mind also drifted to him sitting by the hearth in the Cullen’s cottage, on the far side of the flames, and the flash of his strong, gleaming thighs and broad muscled chest beneath the plaid he had flung across his naked shoulders. At this memory, she felt a vague but pleasant stirring in her groin.
But his name was ‘Comyn’. Did this signify that he belonged to the party that had supported the Comyn claim to the Scottish crown? If so, this could raise a difficulty with her patron and protector, Margaret Hay. Margaret’s husband, Sir Gilbert, was a staunch defender of the Bruce party. Could they countenance Elizabeth ‘walking out’ with a man whose loyalties lay with their mortal foes? She doubted they could or would. Could she keep her rendezvous a secret? No doubt she could, but it pained her to think of being deceitful to the woman who had rescued her from destitution and abuse and taken charge of her education as a lady, the woman who had promised to use her influence and standing to find her a noble match.
And what of Duncan himself? What would he think of her were he to discover her history, that she was not the pure and innocent maiden he no doubt assumed her to be, but instead, a ruined scullery drudge whom men had handed around and used like a toy? She imagined he would run a mile from her in disgust.
Could she keep her provenance a secret from him? However, that would involve her in still more deceit, and she was loath to lie to Duncan, as she was to Lady Margaret and her husband, the Earl.
Perhaps, though, she need not actually tell a lie. Perhaps, if the matter never came up, her secrets would remain undiscovered.
As the moonlight crept across her blankets, Elizabeth resolved to carry on as she had been doing, without telling any lies, but without volunteering any information of her own accord. If she were to commit a sin, it would better that it was a sin of omission rather than a sin of commission.
Duncan must, for the moment, remain a secret until she could discover the lie of the political landscape between him and the Hays.
And, as far as Duncan himself was concerned, she would have to remain the enigmatic mystery he evidently found so alluring.
If the truth came out… well, then she would just have to deal with that eventuality as and when it arose.
Chapter Ten
The Fells Above Cruden Bay
Three days later
Elizabeth ambled up the drove road. All around her, the heather bloomed in an endless patchwork quilt of soft pinks, lavender, copper, green, gold, magenta, rust red, and speckled white. Ahead, in the middle distance, the fells began to rise steeply, the heather giving way to undulating grassy knowes that were spattered with patches of bright yellow gorse and the occasional wind-stunted rowan or birch. Beyond the fells, misty blue in the distance, the rugged Grampian Mountains towered into an unblemished azure sky. The turf was soft and springy beneath her feet, giving a lightness to her step, but her heart was fluttering nervously in her chest. Her mind was a battleground of anticipation and trepidation at meeting Duncan again, this time quite on purpose and not by happy accident. A delicious shiver ran down her spine. She struggled against the temptation to turn around and run away back down to the safety and soundness of Slains Castle again.
She steeled herself and continued on. A light breeze whispered in the heather and the nodding clumps of spret grass. The swifts wove their susurrating cries as they skimmed the moorland, gathering insects for their fast-growing young. She inhaled the woody, mossy fragrance of the heather, a male musky scent which caused her stomach to tingle. She warmed at the memory of every detail of Duncan’s face and form, his strong regular features, his dimpled chin, the broad shoulders, and muscled chest beneath the fabric of his shirt, his narrow waist, and firm, powerful thighs. But a hollow chill gripped her when she contemplated the prospect of being found out as the ruined scullery maid she really was. She offered up a wordless prayer, beseeching the Almighty that her secret might never be discovered.
After another hour’s walking, she spied the shieling nestled in a hollow in the distance. It looked like it had lain long unused. Its turf roof had fallen in, and the unmortared stones at one of its low gables had tumbled across the grass. It was a simple, windowless structure, barely high enough for a man to stand up in; a temporary shelter for the louns who tended the beasts when they were turned out for the season on the high summer grazing. The lonely weep of a solitary lapwing cried out in the air and echoed in Elizabeth’s soul. Her heart was in her mouth, weighing like a stone. Her palms were damp, and her knees threatened to give way beneath her. It was a lonely place, perfect for a secret lovers’ tryst. And yet it was also far from anywhere; there was nowhere to which she could run to hide her shame if it all turned out as badly as she feared it could. She gritted her teeth, squeezed her hands into tight fists, and stepped out bravely towards the hut.
She spotted Duncan when she was still a few hundred yards from the building, sitting on a boulder by the broken gable of the shelter. He was dressed in a Lincoln green knee-length tunic and amber hose. The shirt beneath his tunic was snowy-white, his brown calf-length boots buffed to a dull shine. His brown curly hair fell over his cheeks and brow and stirred in the breeze. An almost unbearable yearning rose in her breast. He was so handsome, she realized, more so even than she remembered.
I could not bear to lose him, she thought to herself; I would almost prefer to turn away now than to win him only to lose him again. It would break my heart.
He looked up and saw her. He did not smile, she noticed; rather, he gave her a sad, pensive look. She faltered in her step, then hurried on towards him.
He placed his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet to receive her. He stretched to his full height and drew his hands down the front of his tunic as if he were smoothing out some creases. He held himself stiffly as if he was troubled by some awkwardness.
Elizabeth’s scalp prickled with alarm. That is not like him, she thought. Both times she had encountered him before, he had appeared so confident and self-assured. She slowed and approached him more cautiously.
“Lady Elizabeth,” he greeted her formally, with a curt little bow.
She detected a note of acerbity in his voice.She bridled inwardly with annoyance.
“Master Comyn,” she replied mockingly, giving a full courtly curtsy.
He smiled thinly. Elizabeth could see a coldness in his eyes.
He let the silence that had dropped between them linger.
Her annoyance turned to apprehension. Something had changed, she realized. What had he discovered?
“What is wrong, Duncan? Has something happened?”
His smile grew thinner still. He shook his head slowly, almost sorrowfully, but his eyes retained their coldness.
“Only that I find myself trysting w
ith a Hay and not a Bryce,” he said.
He raised his eyebrows, inviting her response, challenging her to gainsay him.
For a brief moment, the world swayed around her. The distant mountains receded like a wave racing down a beach, then flowed back again. She felt confused, bewildered. What was he talking about?
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What do you mean, ‘a Hay’?”
He barked out a single laugh and took a few steps away before turning back to her. He was looking at her in disbelief.
She had heard the brutal sarcasm in that laugh of his, and she was suddenly frightened, scared of him, of what he might do to her, there, the two of them alone on the fells. Tears sprang to her eyes. He had changed so suddenly. He was not the same Duncan that she had met three days earlier, on the clifftop path; not the same man that had plucked her from the sea.
“Please,” she pleaded. “I don’t understand. Don’t tease me so cruelly!”
He looked at her pityingly.
“I almost admire your audacity,” he said, “in trying to maintain your deceit even after it has been found out.”
She could not believe her ears.
“Audacity?” she repeated. “Deceit? I-I really don’t know what you mean.”
He sighed as he quickly lost patience with her.
“A little bird has told me that you are not a lady’s maid to the Hay bitch at all but are for all intents and purposes a daughter of the house.” He sneered. “Did you think it a pleasant diversion – good sport, perhaps – to rub salt in the wounds of a gullible Comyn? Did you think it would be an amusing tale to tell the Earl and Countess, how you duped a kinsman of those whom they usurped? Did you think to make a fool of me, Elizabeth Hay?”
Laughter bubbled up in her throat. Though she recoiled from the insult to her mistress as from a slap to her face, Elizabeth felt a sudden flood of relief. Duncan had somehow gotten hold of the idea that she was the Errols’ daughter and not Lady Margaret’s favorite.
“No, no.” She smiled. “You have the way of it wrong…”
“Oh, have I now?” he said through gritted teeth. He pulled himself up to his full height as if affronted. “Do you deny, then, that the Errols have taken you into their household as an act of charity, or whatever the arrangement is, rather than thirled you to their service?”
The smile froze on her lips.
“Well, yes, that is the way of it, but—”
He cut the air with his arm, dismissing whatever else she had to say and indicating that their interview was at an end.
“That is all I have to know,” he declared quietly.
She heard the finality in his voice. Her heart melted in grief, yet she also felt a stab of anger and resentment. He was not going to let her explain herself.
“But that’s not fair,” she said. “You have not given me the opportunity to defend myself.”
“There is nothing more to be said.” He shrugged, turning towards the drove road. “The Hays are my sworn enemies, and you are one of them. Good day, Lady Elizabeth. I don’t ever want to set eyes on you again.”
She watched in stunned disbelief as he strode off along the drove road, back down towards the coast, his head high, his shoulders squared, and his whole bearing inflexible.
The lapwing’s lonely cry wept distant in the hollow sky. Tears of frustration and heartache burned her eyes. Her shoulders sagged forlornly, and her limbs felt suddenly drained of all their strength.
She gazed after him longingly, feeling utterly bereft, as his figure receded into the distance and was swallowed up by the folds in the land.
* * *
Ewan Sanderson shifted behind the gorse bush on the crest of a hillock overlooking the old shieling. A few hundred yards below him, he could see Elizabeth and the Comyn chiel in conversation.
The Comyn was standing stiffly, with a face that darkened at times like thunder, but which remained mostly closed and unyielding. Elizabeth was appealing to him with a pathetic pleading look in her eyes, beseeching him at times with open hands, but he remained unmoved by her appeals.
Sanderson was too far away to hear what they were saying, but they were clearly quarreling. He was lying on his stomach. The ground was hard, and his back was growing sore from the strain of having to take the weight of his upper body as he raised it to peer through the spiky foliage. He brushed the stubble of his chin with thumb and forefinger.
The young lovers were having a tiff, he reckoned to himself. He hoped it was nothing trivial. Maybe the Comyn whelp had found out that their Lizzie was nothing but a common wee whore dressed up as a lady. Or maybe she was just refusing to give him his pleasure, and he was just showing himself in his true colors, as a randy loun. Either way, whatever the trouble was, it would suit him fine, Sanderson reflected with a grin of satisfaction.
The Comyn chiel walked away from Elizabeth, back to the drove road. Sanderson watched as Elizabeth took a few steps after him, still appealing to his retreating back. The Comyn did not turn back nor pause in his walking. As he fell from her view down into the first dip of the path between the hillocks, Elizabeth collapsed onto her knees and buried her face in her palms. Her shoulders shook compulsively.
This is my chance, Sanderson thought; she is distressed and in need of comfort. I could have her tupped before she realizes what is happening to her. She would be so grateful.
But, on the other hand, he reflected, she would know at once that he had stalked her there. How else could he explain his presence at the remote and derelict shieling? What other reason could there be for his being there? And she would not look kindly on him having followed her, even if he had done so, as he now told himself, out of concern for her safety. So, he stayed put in his hide behind the gorse bush.
By and by, Elizabeth spent her weeping and composed herself. She raised her face to the heavens as if to let the breeze take her lingering tears away. Her long red ringlets fell about her shoulders, and her breast rose and fell as she drew in deep draughts of the fresh, clean air.
She rose to her feet and trudged down towards the drove road. The breeze was strengthening, and its gusts were beginning to whistle between the green hillocks. A phalanx of gulls rode in from the coast and rent the silence with their raucous screams, a sure sign that a storm was on its way.
A sudden chill to the air caused Sanderson to dig the cap from his belt and pull it onto his head. He moistened his dry lips with his tongue. The breeze carried a faint scent of heather to him from the moor. He briefly wondered how Lizzie Bryce would smell in her flesh, in her most intimate hidden places.
As soon as Elizabeth was out of sight, Sanderson rose and followed her back down the braes, making ready to confront her once more.
If fortune continued to favor him, it would not be long before he tasted her sweet scent.
Chapter Eleven
Slains Castle
Solar
Later the same day
As soon as she entered Slains, Elizabeth immediately fled upstairs to the solar. Thankfully, it was empty; the chambermaids had finished their work in the family’s private quarters and Nicholas, she supposed, must be making a nuisance of himself somewhere else in the castle or among the stables and workshops. Fresh rushes had been strewn on the floor, the grate cleaned and polished, and the basket of peats and logs that sat beside the fireplace had been replenished.
Elizabeth’s blood roared in her ears; she was only vaguely aware of the clang and clatter of industry rising from the courtyard and of the calls and laughter of the castle folk as they went about their business. Tears of anguish pressed hard against her resolve to retain her dignity as a lady in front of the servants and retainers, but cracks were beginning to appear in the wall of that resolve, and the dam that was holding back the flood of her emotion was threatening to burst at any moment. She did not want the further humiliation of having others witness her distress, of having to explain her grief to them. She passed quickly through the family room and into the
privacy of the bedchamber she shared with Nicholas.
She threw herself onto her bed, buried her face in the plump goose-feather pillows and began to weep. Her chest ached with the force of her bottomless heart-rending sobs. Her eyes stung with the salt of her bitter tears. As well as being distraught, she was also furious with Duncan over how unjustly he had treated her and for how he made her care about it so much. She pressed her face deeper in the pillows, finding comfort in their softness and in the cool of the smooth linen pillowslips on her burning cheeks and brow.
“Lizzie! What’s wrong, Lizzie?”
Elizabeth raised her face from the pillow and looked over her shoulder in surprised alarm. Nicholas was standing, brought up short, in the doorway to the chamber, his eyes round with concern, his mouth agape. Elizabeth hastily composed herself, hurriedly wiping the tears from her cheeks with the backs of her hands.