The Devil of Jedburgh

by Claire Robyns

  She shrugged out of the cloak. “Be that as it may—”

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Speaking of hell, I’ve been there and back once today and I’m in no mood for that tone. I intend to patch up what is left of you with or without your consent.” His fledgling grin flattened when she pointed a finger at him. “Sit!”

  A short while later, she’d cut away most of her petticoats to bandage the seeping cut above his brow and strap the ribs he assured her were merely bruised and not cracked.

  As she worked, Arran told her about the treasonous bond and all that had transpired. “I was meant to die tonight. I didna want to believe it, but John Stewart has turned against queen and country.”

  She’d heard enough about court politics from Arran during the past weeks to question his statement now. “Turning from one doesn’t necessarily imply turning from the other.”

  “I’m not blind to our queen’s faults, Bree. She surrounds herself with foreign dignitaries and servants and takes no council from her barons. And yet, she was born with the God-given right to the crown. If Mary is wrested from power, Scotland will be torn apart at the seams in unrest and civil war.”

  “Perhaps it won’t come to that.” She bound his hand firmly, relying on God’s own luck that she applied the right pressure to keep the swelling down without cutting off his blood flow. He’d broken two fingers, possibly some fine bones in the flat of his hand. “We need to get you proper care. Janet was in the room with me. She would have gone to Broderick for help. Did you see him?” She gently placed his hand in his lap. “Did you see Broderick out there?”

  Arran shook his head. “But he won’t be idle. He’ll know something’s amiss as soon as he hears their bogus charges.” His tattered shirt had been the first thing to go and she insisted he needed his cloak more than she did. He leaned back against the wall and held one side of the cloak open. “Come here.”

  She slid just a little closer. The moment she was within reach, he brought the cloak around her like a blanket and wrapped them both inside it. She lay alongside him, her cheek to his shoulder, taking care to not touch any part of his ribs.

  They lay for a long while, his thumb caressing circles through the velvet of her gown, before he spoke again. “I’m a selfish bastard.”

  Breghan smiled. She should deny it. Perhaps she would. After she’d enjoyed it for a few more minutes.

  “I shouldn’t have brought you to Edinburgh.”

  “Now you’ve ruined the moment.” She craned her neck to look at him. “You can’t take the blame for this, Arran, you know exactly how much I wanted to come.”

  “My reasons were more complicated than that,” he grunted, his thumb still caressing mindlessly. “I thought I only wanted you to not forget me. Now I know I’d always wanted… I needed… Damn my arrogance, I did everything within my power to make you love me.”

  Her heart seemed to hesitate before its next beat. “Is that so terrible?”

  His thumb stopped circling. He was silent so long, she wondered if he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open. But of course not. He simply didn’t know how to lie to her.

  “You are indeed arrogant,” she said, “if you think you have the power to make someone fall in love with you. Believe me, I’ve tried and failed.”

  “I could have done more to push you away.”

  “You did plenty.” Breghan laughed, a hollow sound of defeat and sheer exhaustion. “You didn’t ride into my life on a white steed, you know. Your sense of honour and duty is practically stifling and when your mind is set on something, God help us all. When you think you’re in the right, you’re more rigid than the iron bars holding us in here.”

  “I’m not that bad,” he protested.

  Breghan pushed to her knees so she could face him squarely. Tonight had given her a glimpse of how short life could be, how futile regrets were. Perhaps it was just easier to be bold after facing down death, knowing it might still be around the corner. Perhaps something deeper, truer inside her had permanently changed. “You’re completely missing my point. The heart wants what it wants, with or without reason, Arran. I love you so much, there are times it feels as if I’m choking up the pieces of my heart that haven’t yet even broken off.”

  “Bree—”

  “No, hear me through. I know you’ve come to care for me, that you’d sacrifice your life to spare mine. But I accept it now. The heart wants what it wants. I can’t expect you to give me yours simply because I give you mine.”

  “Bree, sweetling.” He took her hand and pressed it to his chest. “I cannot give you my heart, because it is no longer mine to give. You’ve had it all along.”

  She blinked back a tear. She wouldn’t cry and she wouldn’t hope. She was done with pretences and fantasies. “You don’t have to lie to me. The only difference between yesterday and today is, today we’ll probably die.”

  “These people might have harmed you before as a means to get to me, but there’s no reason for them to wish you dead.”

  “Tell that to our friends over there!”

  Arran glanced at the heap of bodies he’d covered with their own furs. “’Tis a matter of underestimating the vile nature of Sandie Armstrong. There’s few Scotsmen who’d kill a woman in cold blood. And before you say or think it, no, I dinna intend to die today either.” He brought his gaze back to her. “I was in love with you yesterday. And the day before that. And the weeks and months before that.”

  She tried to pull her hand away, but she was afraid of hurting him and he wouldn’t let go. His gaze was steady, a slate of warmth inviting her too look deeper, to see the truth buried in his soul. But how was she supposed to trust what she saw there? Why now? She’d hoped too long, wanted too long. “Your mind and heart were set from the start and naught has changed.”

  “Naught has changed,” he agreed, “except the mistakes I made along the way. You deserve to know that you are loved as much you love. I was already half in love with you the day we became handfasted and I’ve been falling ever since.”

  “You didn’t even want this handfasting to begin with.”

  “Kerr wives don’t live long enough to become mothers. My mother was Da’s second wife. I was the lucky bastard who survived to watch another two of his wives die with his bairns still in their womb.”

  Breghan’s mouth fell open. “You aren’t responsible for your mother’s death, Arran. Women die in childbirth frequently, ’tis the way of life. God decides who to take and who to leave, not you.”

  “Let me be blunt. My da’s wives were all young and slender, beautiful and fragile. I will not make that mistake, not again…” The words rolled off his thickened tongue with a silent echo of grief that refused to fade even as he spoke again, “Bree, there was this girl—it was a long time ago, I was young…and she was—I loved her and she was—I didn’t know, I was an ignorant fool—”

  “Shhh, it’s okay.” She put a finger to his lips. But it was far from okay. She couldn’t bear the pain in his voice, in his eyes.

  “You need to know.”

  “I do,” she said quietly. “I know about your Elizabeth, I know what happened.”

  “Then you understand. I willna sentence you to such a death.” The finality in his voice was as good as stamping a seal on all they’d had up until now.

  “I understand.” She had her answer. He wouldn’t keep her because he cared too much. She wanted to scream and shout out to the heavens. It wasn’t fair. Arran wasn’t the monster here. But she knew him too well. There would never be more. However much he loved her, however much she loved him, there would never be a marriage, children, growing old together…

  “Then I’ll never be a mother,” she said suddenly, urgently. “We don’t have to have children, Arran. If the choice is between you and motherhood, I choose you.”

  “I wouldna do that to you.”

  “You’re not doing anything to—” Of course, the choice wasn’t hers alone to make. Arran hadn’t
discounted all womankind, only those as unsuited for wife as she. She gave him back the words that had once whipped her into a fury of outrage, now they simply brought on a dull sadness. “Every man has need of sons to inherit the land and responsibility.”

  “Bree, that isn’t…” He pulled her back into his arms, ignoring her gentle, careful resistance. “I willna deny that as truth, a necessity I would give up twice over to have you instead. But there is a purpose and order to life that will not be denied.”

  Although she yearned for babes of her own, Arran was here, he was now, and she yearned for him more. “If you’re suggesting I will end up discontent and unfulfilled—”

  “I’m telling you that the Kerrs of Ferniehirst were wiped out at Solway and Pinkie Cleugh. I am all that is left and when I’m gone, Ferniehirst will revert to the crown or worse. The Kerrs of Cessford have the greatest claim and they are our mortal enemy. Without sons to inherit or a daughter to be married into a strong family, you’ll be alone. If anything happens to me, Bree, you’ll be left unprotected, a wife without a home. I cannot subject you to such a future. If you know anything of the man I try to be, you wouldn’t ask that of me.”

  Breghan laid her head in the crease of his shoulder and closed her eyes. “I won’t,” she promised.

  Arran’s sigh was a breath of warmth on her cheek. “I should send you home sooner rather than later. I’ve been selfish long enough.”

  “Then it’s my turn to be selfish,” she murmured. “I wouldn’t miss a single day of the time we have left to be together.”

  Which may be longer than you think. Arran wasn’t the only stubborn person in this couple. Now that she had his love, irresistibly and irrefutably, she’d fight every one of the demons that haunted him to hell and back before she allowed it to be taken from her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  At last, Breghan fell asleep in his arms and Arran wrapped her even closer beneath the spread of his cloak. The comforting weight of her soft body was worth the extra pressure on the dull ache that throbbed straight through his chest to his internal organs. Every now and then he heard the footfalls of a guard further up the passage, not one came this far down. They were likely too afraid to witness and acknowledge the true outcome of their handiwork this night.

  He tried to keep track of time by counting, reached a thousand a hundred times over and the next thing he knew, he came awake with a shudder to the sound of his name. Broderick.

  “Here, we’re in here,” he called out quietly, shaking Breghan’s arm. “Wake up, darling.”

  She stirred and he had them both on their feet before she was fully awake. The barred gate swung open and Broderick came through crouching.

  Arran raised a brow at him. “They just let you walk right in?”

  “Something like that.” He looked Arran over from head to toe. “You look like the ass end of a slaughtered longhorn.”

  Breghan untangled herself from the cloak. “He’s badly hurt.”

  “I’m fine.” Arran took her hand in his and started toward the exit. He stopped short a second later with a grunt. It felt as if every bone inside his body had gone to war on his muscle and flesh. He handed Breghan over to Broderick. “Keep her close.”

  “The path is clear,” Broderick said. “Gavin and Davie are with me.”

  They passed two fallen bodies between their cell and the stairwell.

  “The castle is suddenly overrun with Red Douglases.” Broderick snorted. “One or two willna be missed.”

  “How long have we been down here?” Arran asked.

  “A night and a day. We were given marching orders and told to return next month for your trial. Janet was allowed to stay only long enough to pack up your belongings.” Broderick reached the top of the stairs and thumped upon the door with his fist. “I sent the baggage cart home this morning but the rest of us stayed close, camping in the fields. Just before the supper hour, a full complement of Douglases rode out for the palace.”

  “That doesna sound good.”

  The door opened and Gavin showed his face. Broderick hung back to say, “I wasna going to waste this golden opportunity by worrying about what those swines are up to.”

  They stayed close to the walls, pressed to the short shadows made by the high moon. Arran fell slightly behind the others but waved them on when Breghan paused. “I’m right behind you.”

  “You’ll do him no good to get yourself caught again,” Broderick informed her.

  “I don’t need you to remind—” She shut herself up and moved on.

  Arran chuckled beneath his breath, then cursed the spearing pain at his side. Another body marked the entrance to an arched wooden gate that took them through the castle wall onto an uneven slope that dropped away steeply.

  “Did you kill everyone in your way?” Breghan demanded.

  “Only the prison guards.” Broderick jerked his chin at the gate. “That one’s merely knocked out and trussed up.”

  “How fortunate, then they’ll only hang you twice.”

  Arran caught up and prodded them along. “No one’s getting hanged.”

  They followed outside the wall of the lower ward, taking special care when they crept around the gatehouse and scrambling on the edge of the rocky slope down the esplanade. Davie was waiting with their horses within the thicket of oaks and birches between the castle and the city. He wasn’t alone.

  Arran raised a brow at Broderick. “You brought Janet on the rescue mission?”

  “The bloody woman threatened to make her own way on foot if I didn’t.”

  Breghan ran into Janet’s arms while Arran made his way toward the man holding the extra set of reins.

  He stopped only long enough to gather the burst of energy required to hoist himself onto Rival’s back. He leaned forward to stroke the Arabian’s long neck, more importantly to suck down painful breaths that felt as if his lungs were trying to escape through his rib cage. It’s been far too long since I took a thorough beating.

  Broderick came alongside him. “You’re in no state to ride for Ferniehirst.”

  “I’ve no intention of leaving Edinburgh until I’m satisfied the queen is safe.” Arran raised his bandaged hand to stay Broderick’s protest. He’d aligned the broken bones in his fingers before Breghan had bound his hand and they’d either heal straight or not. “My ribs are bruised and crushing me to blue heaven but not cracked. The rest of me looks uglier than it feels. I’ll keep Davie and Gavin with me.”

  “You’re asking me to take the ladies back to Ferniehirst,” Broderick grumbled.

  “I’m not asking,” Arran assured him. “I’ve further orders. Ewan is to meet me at Stirling with every man we can spare and as many as he can rouse along the way.”

  “The city gates are closed for the night. We’re not going anywhere until morning.”

  “I know where we can hole up.” Arran grinned. “Robbie Scott keeps an excellent establishment in town.”

  Broderick shrugged. “I’ve no objection to adding a few Scott servants to my hanging record.”

  “No need, the bastard closes his house up tight when he isn’t in town to save coin on extra servants.” Arran spurred Rival about and gave the command for everyone to mount. Breghan’s mare, Angel, was waiting for her. Janet was a novice without a horse and had to ride pillion with Broderick.

  They split up into pairs onto the streets of the Edinburgh to avoid suspicion. Arran rode alongside Breghan. As they approached Scott’s townhouse near the palace, less discretion was required. Merchants, trading men, servants…the streets were awake with citizens swarming in the direction of Holyrood.

  Arran leaned low down Rival’s flank and called out to a woman walking close by, “What is about?”

  “Trouble,” she shouted up at him. “Trouble at the palace. Never heard such banging and goings-on before and screams that’d curdle your mind.”

  “You were right,” Breghan gasped, “they’re overthrowing the queen.”

  Arran strai
ghtened. “I’m taking you to safety.”

  “And then you’ll come back here to find out more, no matter your condition.” She notched her chin up at him. “This is my queen and country too. You’ll have to lock me in that townhouse to keep me there.”

  “You think I won’t?” He levelled a warning look on her.

  Breghan snapped at her reins and whispered in Angel’s ear. A moment later the damned mare was dancing just out of reach and into the flow of pedestrians. Arran ground his teeth at her stubborn defiance, but there was nothing he could do without drawing unwanted attention. He nudged Rival forward and blended into the masses.

  City dwellings were packed one on top of the other along narrow alleys and overhung vennels. Word spread as fast as any fire and they weren’t the only mounted amongst the curious throng. Breghan stayed on the fringes and came to a stop well beyond the palace walls.

  Arran grabbed her reins and urged Angel deeper into the shadows. “Do that again and you’ll severely regret your actions.”

  She glared at him. “Right now, you’re too weak to swat a fly! Save your threats for someone who doesn’t care whether you topple from your horse or—”

  “Hush,” he barked, scowling up at the second-floor window where a drape was being drawn. “That’s the queen’s supper chamber.”

  The crowd fell silent as the window opened and Darnley showed his face.

  “All is well,” Darnley addressed the townspeople. “Seek your beds, for there is naught amiss here.”

  “We heard loud noises,” yelled a man.

  “What of the screaming?” demanded another. “Where is the queen?”

  “An overturned candle, my good citizens. The tablecloth caught fire, nothing more. As you know, our queen is in a delicate condition and is resting after this commotion. Her physician is at her side and will remain there throughout the night.”

  The window closed and there was nothing more for the townspeople to do, except start wandering in the directions of their homes.