by Faris, Fiona
On the other hand, she wanted Duncan Comyn, but he had made it clear that he despised her for her affinity with the Hays. That latter she would have to give up if she was to have any prospect of becoming acceptable to him once again, and that she could not do. The Hays had been too good and kind to her; it would be despicable for her to renounce their affinity. She also wondered what his reaction would be when he too discovered her history and fallen state. Even if she did renounce the Hays, would he still not find her repulsive?
The problem was, she recognized, that she wanted to keep her cake and to eat it at the same time. She wanted both Duncan to accept her and the Hays to accept Duncan, and she knew that the first might not happen and the second would most definitely never happen. Perhaps, she thought, if I am going to have the chance of any cake at all, then I will have to sacrifice my loyalty and affection for Lady Margaret and hope that Duncan will forgive my shameful past. This may not give her all that she wanted, but it might give her at least some of it. Otherwise, she would have none.
She must take her chances with Duncan.
Reflecting on the second part of Dearbhorghil’s ‘prophecy’, she realized that now she must ‘climb the dewy knowe to reach it’.
She resolved to take her fate into her own hands and seek Duncan out.
Chapter Seventeen
Cruden Bay
The Cullen’s Cottage
The following day
Elizabeth waited until the noonday high tide had begun to recede, then set out down the cliff path towards the beach of Cruden Bay. It was a fine blustery day; a sweet and pleasant gale whipped the waves into rearing and plunging white horses and hurried a squadron of small white clouds across an otherwise clear and azure sky. Even the seagulls sounded gay after the recent storms. At the far end of the beach, Mairi Cullen’s washing flapped and snapped briskly on the line outside the cottage.
The cottage door was open when Elizabeth reached it, and she rapped on the jamb.
Mairi appeared, rubbing blood and fish scales from her hands on her ‘seckie’ – the rough hemp apron she wore to protect her kirtle.
“Lady Elizabeth,” she said in surprise, her eyes wide in astonishment. “Come away ben. I was just cleaning the herring.”
She showed Elizabeth into the single room and hauled the chair kept for visitors across the hearth. A small fire smoldered in the center of the firepit. Mairi resumed her seat on a low stool, beside which stood a creel half-full of sleek silver fish and a staved wooden bucket of discarded fish guts. She picked up her knife and continued cleaning her husband’s most recent catch.
“I am looking for Duncan,” Elizabeth enlightened her. “I thought he might be in.”
“He has gone out with the babbie,” Mairi explained. “She was fretful and wouldna settle. He reckoned the sea air micht ha’e helped her fa’ ower into sleep. He shouldna be long away.”
Elizabeth’s eyebrows shot up.
“A man minding a bairn…? That is very obliging of him.”
“Aye, well…” Mairi frowned. “It was a case o’ needs must. I had tae get on with the herrin’ an’ the babbie wouldna gi’e me any peace… He’s a good man, in that way, is Maister Duncan,” she added. “Thochtie. And he said he was wearying from havin’ nocht to dae, so…”
Her knife sliced along the belly of a fish, and she scooped its innards out with her thumb, depositing them in the bucket before picking another fish from the creel.
“If you have another gippie-knife, I could help you with those while I’m waiting,” Elizabeth offered.
This time it was Mairi’s eyes that shot up.
“I wouldna ha’e thocht a fine leddie like yourself would ken how to gip a fish!”
Elizabeth gave Mairi a warm smile of complicity.
“I ha’ena ay been a ‘fine lady’,” she confessed. “I’ve gipped a few fish in my day, though mainly trout from the burn. We didn’t catch many herring in the Tweed.”
Mairi rose and fetched Elizabeth another small, thin, razor-sharp gutting knife, along with another low stool that would be better for the work, and they slit and cleaned the fish together in companionable silence for some minutes.
“What is it that Duncan does?” Elizabeth inquired. “How is he employed?”
Mairi shot her a suspicious look.
“I can’t rightly say, mistress.”
“But how does he spend his time?”
Mairi pursed her lips, as if wondering how much she should reveal about her guest.
“He is out a lot, but mainly at night. His business takes him around the country. He sleeps late and helps about the place. Occasionally, he will go out in the boat with Micheil.”
“And he minds the bairn,” Elizabeth added, a small smile twitching her lips.
“I keep to my own business, ma’am, and he to his,” Mairi observed pointedly. “I dinna pry.”
He is a man of mystery, Elizabeth reflected. She remembered his mischievous eyes, the well-formed frame, the supple muscles of his arms and legs and shoulders, his narrow hips, his effortless movements. He was clearly as fit as any well-trained man-at-arms, a man of action. She thought of the three classes into which Lady Margaret divided mankind: those who fight, those who pray, and those who work. His manner and bearing placed him firmly in the class of men who fight; he was certainly no cleric or farmer or tradesman. But if he was a warrior, for whom did he fight, who was his liege-lord? She thought of the bitter enmity he had displayed towards the Hays in their last tryst by the old shieling. Could he be here on some mischief concerning the Hays? she wondered. He was a Comyn and from the country of Formartine, yet he was lodging with a poor fisherman rather than living on his own account in a home of his own. Why could that be?
A shadow in the doorway caught Elizabeth’s eye. She looked up and there stood Duncan Comyn, a look of alarm on his face.
“Ah, maister,” Mairi said, in evident relief at being freed from Elizabeth’s questioning. “You have a visitor. Has the wee ane fa’en ower?”
She rose, and wiping her hands on her seckie, went to Duncan to relieve him of his burden. She scooped the baby from the sling in which Duncan had been carrying it against his breast and took it to lay in the crib by her sleeping place.
“Lady Elizabeth,” he acknowledged coolly.
“Master Comyn,” Elizabeth returned.
He stood in awkward silence, not knowing whether to advance or retreat.
“I’ll go and see to the washing,” Mairi told them and slipped through the door.
“I…”
“You…”
They spoke at the same time, once they were alone, and ceased at the same time, each deferring to the other the burden of breaking the difficult silence.
“I trust you are well,” Duncan offered lamely.
“Quite well,” Elizabeth replied. “I have been taking the air a lot, on the uplands.”
“I know,” Duncan blurted, then checked himself; he did not want Elizabeth to think he had been taking an interest in her movements.
“I…”
“You…”
Their eyes met, and after an embarrassing pause they both let out a snigger.
“The cat seems to have got both our tongues,” he observed with a sheepish smile. Then he composed his features into a solemn frown. “I should apologize for my behavior at our last interview.”
Elizabeth let her eyes drift to the creel between the stools where she and Mairi had been working.
“You should,” she agreed quietly. “You said some hateful things.”
“I did,” he confessed, “and I have regretted them sorely ever since.”
Elizabeth continued to study the weave of the creel and said nothing.
“Can you forgive me?” he asked.
She considered for a long moment.
“I can forgive you,” she said eventually, “but not the words.”
“Then the words be damned,” he declared, stepping forward. “I laid them at your doo
r, where they did not belong. You cannot be blamed for the wrongs that others have done me.”
He strode across the room and picked up a sack, which lay at the head of a thin palliasse behind a wattle screen in the corner. He delved inside and brought out a small book, which he handed to Elizabeth.
“A Book of Hours?” she observed quizzically.
“A present from my patron, Henry de Beaumont.”
“The claimant of Sir Gilbert’s earldom?”
“The same. He who would be Earl, had he not been disinherited by the false king, Bruce.”
The book fell open at a page. Between the leaves lay pressed a posy Elizabeth recognized.
“This…”
“I found it in the old shieling.”
“You have been going back there too?” Elizabeth asked in astonishment.
“Only lately,” Duncan told her. “I found this.”
“I have been leaving them.”
He grinned.
“I know.”
Mairi squeezed back through the doorway with a large bundle of linens filling her arms.
“They have dried in no time,” she said. “It has been a good drying wind.”
“Shall we take a walk along the strand?” Duncan suggested to Elizabeth, raising his brows imploringly. “I think we need to talk.”
Elizabeth smiled and released a long slow breath through her nose. Her shoulders too relaxed as the tension and foreboding she had felt at the prospect of meeting him again left her.
“Yes, we do,” she replied.
He stepped aside and invited her to go through the door ahead of him, while Mairi settled down again by her basket of herrings.
Elizabeth’s heart thrilled at the thought of being alone with him.
Chapter Eighteen
Slains Castle
Solar
The same day
Margaret was sitting at a small escritoire, updating the castle accounts, when there was a discreet tap on the solar door. She looked up to find Giorsail, one of her personal maids, peeking timidly through the doorway.
“Matthew Fitt is requesting a word, milady.”
“Matthew?” Margaret repeated, wondering what the word he wanted would be about. She had very little dealings with Gilbert’s men-at-arms. “Ask him to come in, then, Giorsal, lass.”
She placed her quill down on its little tray at the top of the escritoire and half-turned to receive her visitor. Matthew swept into the room, halted, and inclined his head and shoulders in a courteous bow. She could not resist running her eyes over his tall form, with its strong firm lines, his well-turned calves, and rugged, chiseled features. His straw-blond hair fell to his broad shoulders in a well-groomed pageboy style, and his steel-blue eyes glinted beneath a smooth tanned brow. She felt a purr of contentment in her breast; he was very easy on her eye.
“Master Fitt.” She smiled. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
“I would speak to you of your change, the Lady Elizabeth Bryce,” he spoke out in a strong, confident voice, not beating about the bush.
“And what of Elizabeth?” she inquired with an equanimity she did not feel. Indeed, she felt a vague foreboding.
“I would ask permission to pay her court,” Matthew continued in his assured and self-possessed manner.
Margaret’s hand went to her breast, and she colored.
“Pay her court?” she echoed, with a catch of amusement in her voice that suggested she had not heard him right.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But…” Margaret stammered, her usual poise all but deserting her. “She is like a daughter to me, and you are just a… well, a common man-at-arms. I’m not sure it would be appropriate, or seemly, for her to be courted by… well, as I say, a common retainer.”
Matthew was undeterred.
“I know, ma’am, but I am taken by her. She is the most enchanting creature I have ever set eyes on. She has stolen my heart, ma’am.”
Margaret suppressed a titter. She was suddenly struck, and tickled, by the incongruity and absurdity of the soft words coming from the mouth of a hard and disciplined man. His manner was such that he appeared to be giving her a military report rather than a declaration of his feelings. He might as well have been asking for permission to advance upon the enemy as for permission to woo her companion.
“Well, ma’am…? he ventured, his eyes shifting slightly in confusion at the delay in her answer.
“Well, Matthew, this has taken me completely by surprise…”
“As have my feelings for the girl,” Matthew offered. “They have overwhelmed me all at once, ma’am, since I saw her the other evening at the homecoming.” Again, his eyes wavered in momentary confusion, as if he could not comprehend what had transpired in his own breast. “I-I… It was as if I had never noticed her before.”
Margaret sighed and lifted her quill. She considered her words carefully as she twirled the stem of the goose-feather between her fingers.
“I have no doubt that you are smitten by her, but…”
“‘But’, ma’am?”
The first crack appeared in his armor of self-assurance. His brow furrowed.
Margaret was suddenly afraid that he would burst into tears.
“Elizabeth is very dear to me,” she began softly. “She has been my succor and comfort through some very difficult times. I would raise her up to be a lady of a manor…” she added, pinching her bottom lip between her teeth. “I am afraid that you would not be an eligible match for her. I must refuse your request.”
Matthew’s face was crestfallen, but he maintained his proud and noble bearing.
“I understand,” he murmured, but his voice remained strong and unwavering. He bowed again and made to turn towards the door. “I am sorry to have troubled you.”
“Matthew!” Margaret detained him. “I am sorry, but you understand; we each have our place, and Elizabeth’s place is not with you. I wish it could be otherwise, but that is the way of things.”
“I understand, ma’am,” Matthew repeated.
“You are a fine-looking fellow, handsome and courageous and… well, you will be a fine catch for any maiden. I am sure you will find the right woman someday; only, that woman is not Elizabeth.”
Matthew nodded and made a dignified retreat.
Margaret bit her lip as she watched him go. He was clearly very much taken by Elizabeth. She suspected that she had not heard the last of Matthew’s suit.
Chapter Nineteen
Cruden Bay
The same day
Duncan and Elizabeth strolled along the firm sand of the empty beach. The tide had ebbed, and oystercatchers and wagtails skittered between the pools, gorging on shellfish and insects, while gannets and terns wheeled above the bay, spying out shoals of herring and sprats. A bright sun was shining, casting the cliff face into shadow, and a stiff breeze scoured the sand.
They walked a little apart, but still close enough that an onlooker would have suspected some intimacy between them. Elizabeth’s figure appeared slight and fragile beside Duncan’s tall, broad-shouldered frame. Her dark red hair gleamed in the sunlight, and the wind molded her gown against the modest curve of her breast and hips. She had kicked off her shoes and was enjoying the smooth caress of the wet sand beneath her feet. Duncan’s hair danced about his brow, and his sleeveless coat rose and coiled behind them as they progressed towards the northern headland.
“I am pleased that you sought me out,” Duncan said, once their small talk about birds and the weather and Mairi’s baby and the herring had petered out.
“I thought that, if I could only explain the true nature of my relationship to the Earl and Countess, you would be better disposed towards me. You seemed to think that I was kin to them or had some affinity other than that of a retained servant. I am a lady’s maid and companion to the Countess; that is all there is to it. I can no more be blamed for what has happened to your people than one of her scullery maids.”