by Amanda Scott
“Go ahead and cry yourself out, Robby,” Dev murmured to the top of her head. “This is a good place for it. The creatures won’t mind, and the breeze won’t tell.”
Suddenly, it was easier to stop, and she remembered similar times in her distant past when the simple permission to cry had dammed up the torrent.
Drawing a long, shuddering breath, she tilted her head back to look up at him. “I’ve rained all over your jack, and I don’t know what came over me, but you’re right. It is the first time I’ve let myself cry for Rab.”
“I thought so,” he said. “I think you have had a hard time of it here.”
“I cannot control my thoughts,” she admitted. “They tumble about in my mind, all mixed up. One minute I’ll be furious with everyone, the next I’ll be sad or terrified that I’ll start crying and won’t be able to stop. Then I remember that everyone else is sad, too, and that a sensible Borderer does not dwell on death.”
“Blethers,” he said. “Lady Meg said much the same thing when I was at the Hall, and I nearly told her to her head that often one does dwell, that it’s simply human to grieve. It is not an offense against nature.”
Robina’s watery chuckle surprised her as much as it must have surprised him. “I’d like to be there if you do tell her such a thing to her head,” she said in a voice that sounded, to her, almost normal. “She’d snatch you baldheaded.”
“I’d deserve that if I spoke so uncivilly,” he said in that same quiet tone.
She looked at him more searchingly then. “Dev, I do know that it was not your fault. You did what you had to do, as Rab did. Men fight to keep us safe, and men die because of it. Please don’t think I do blame you.”
“Robby, you said nowt to me that I’ve not said to myself many times. Everyone says ‘if only’ in times of tragedy, whether they admit it or not. It is natural to be angry, too, even—or especially—with the one who died. You must not think you are alone in thinking such things. I have cursed Rab for his heroism more times than I have praised him.”
With that, he kissed her lightly on the forehead. When he continued to hold her and look into her eyes, she didn’t look away. The moment lengthened until, without thinking, she raised herself on tiptoe and touched her lips to his.
It was as if a flaming bolt shot through Dev. Never before had he felt such warmth spread within him or such yearning. His body ached with it.
Without thinking, let alone considering consequences, he tightened his arms around her and took what she’d offered him.
She melted trustfully into him, the warmth of her body adding to the heat of his own, and let him capture her lips. He teased and tantalized them with his and with the tip of his tongue until her lips moved eagerly under his and she moaned in his arms. Then a bird whistled from a tree beyond the graveyard fence.
Common sense restored itself, or his natural sense of survival awoke.
He growled, low in his throat, and released her.
She smiled and stepped back. “I’d wager that that whistle means Rab is watching,” she said lightly.
“I hope not,” he said, trying to keep his own voice light. “If he has access to lightning bolts up there, I’d liefer he not fling one at me.”
“Faith, do you think he would object to a friendly kiss?”
Startled to hear her define it so, he said, “Do you think he would not?”
“Well, he might not approve of you licking my lips as you did,” she said. “But it felt good, and you have made me feel much better than I did. I’m all warm inside and, and tingly. I’ve not felt so before.”
“If it were possible for Rab to watch us, I doubt he’d be as pleased about what I did as you seem to be.”
“Do you not believe he watches?”
He hesitated, reluctant to speak the truth lest he upset her again.
“You don’t,” she said. “Well, I know that he does, Dev. I can feel him here. I feel his presence often, and I know—”
“Robby, I think it is good that you feel as if Rab watches over you, but…”
Again he hesitated, and she stepped into the void, saying, “You believe he is just cold and dead in that grave, aye?”
“That is what I think,” he admitted. “But none of us really knows the answer to that mystery, nor will we until we are dead ourselves.”
“I do know,” she said firmly. “He is watching us, and since he made you promise to look after us, I’m sure he’s glad you’re here, even if he did see you kissing me. He knows, as I do, that you were just trying to make me feel better. And you have, Dev, but I think we should go back. Benjy will likely have wakened from his nap and will be looking for us.”
“Aye, then,” he said, looking at the little bird. It whistled its clear, high pee-ew and leaned precariously on a slender branch—its distinctive red, white, and black head down below its feet now—as if it were determined to keep them in sight.
Dev told himself firmly not to be a fool, that if Rab were going to flit about, watching to see that his twin and Dev behaved, he would do so as a hawk or an eagle.
He would not do so as a wee goldfinch.
Walking back down the hill toward the castle, Robina could still feel Dev’s lips against hers and the warmth that had spread throughout her body when he’d kissed her. She wondered what Rab would say about it. It had been all she could do to speak lightly of him. She did not believe for a moment that he would ignore what they’d done.
However, she saw that Dev did feel guilty about the kiss. He’d given her such comfort that the last thing she wanted him to suffer was guilt. But, if he thought that Rab could see them, perhaps what he felt was not guilt but merely something other than what she had felt. Surely people didn’t all feel the same sensations when they kissed.
She had kissed no one but Benjy for so long that she did not recall how it had felt. Her father’s hugs had comforted her, and so had Rab’s. Come to that, Rab had kissed her on the mouth whenever he had come home or was leaving again. She had always felt happy that he was home or sad that he had to go but had never felt such warmth as this.
She would think about that. Meantime, she resolved to repay Dev for his kindness by being as amiable as possible.
They chatted with each other and with Benjy at supper, but she bade Dev goodnight when she rose to take Benjy up to bed.
“Come back down when you get him settled,” Dev said. “We can talk more.”
“We left Benjy all afternoon,” she said. “I should spend some time with him now, tell him a story, at least. Then, perhaps I will.”
A half-hour later, though, when she left Benjy in his cot and saw that Corinne had not come upstairs yet, she went into her own bedchamber, shut the door, and bolted it. Then, she took the jar and the iron crow out of the kist.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor with the jar in her lap, she used the crow to pry the wire end away from the lid, turning the jar until she could get a firm grip on the wire. Whoever had wired the lid to the jar had made sure that it would stay in place. Both ends of the wire wrapped under the jar’s lip, crisscrossed its top, and then wrapped again under the lip. At last, though, the lid fell into her skirt.
When it did, a handful of blackened coins spilled over it, clinking merrily.
Staring at them in stupefaction, she knew they were likely silver and wondered how much they were worth. Picking up the jar, noting that it was still nearly full, she rejoiced to think how helpful so much gelt could be in providing for Coklaw and its people.
Her next thought was that she must tell Dev straightaway.
“Nay, dinna be daft. Recall that Lady Rosalie is a gabster, and a damned Percy. Once she hears of such a find, the news would fly through the Borders on both sides in a twinkling. We don’t even know how the jar got there, Beany. You must tell no one!”
Rab was right, she decided. Quickly returning the coins to the jar and securing the lid with its wire but wrapping it only once around after crossing it over the top, she rewra
pped the jar in its towel and slipped it back into the kist.
She would return the iron crow to the tool shed in the morning.
Hearing a rap at the door and Corinne’s voice, she went to let her in.
“Why did ye bolt it?” Corinne asked as she strode in with Robina’s hot water.
“I wasn’t sure Benjy was asleep yet,” Robina replied glibly. “He came in without knocking the other day, and I think he’s getting too old for that.”
The excuse sounded weak to her, but Corinne nodded as she poured the water from the can into the ewer.
“Men,” Corinne said. “They be intriguing creatures, even as bairns.”
“Sometimes,” Robina said, wondering if Dev would come looking for her.
“That Jem Keith be gey fascinating and a gey good kisser. But I dinna think he’s as bonny a laddie as our own laird were.”
“My father or Rab?” Robina asked, although she knew which man it was. She had had to curb Corinne’s flirtations with Rab.
“And without due cause, I’d say.”
But the look on Corinne’s face belied his words. Looking rapturous, she said, “Och, mistress, ye ken fine which one I meant. I shouldna say it, but our Rab were the bonniest man in the Borders, I think, and the best kisser.”
A strong suspicion struck Robina that Corinne and Rab had been even better acquainted than she’d known.
“Don’t go putting wicked thoughts into your own head, Beany. And tell the lass she should not speak so of me.”
Robina wished she could confront him face-to-face to see if he spoke the truth. Since she could not, she ignored his command and prepared for bed.
The next day, Tuesday, passed peaceably. She saw Dev only at meals.
Someone had discovered that, thanks to the storm, debris had blocked a drainpipe for the castle wellspring’s outflow, now flooding the yard’s lower end. Dev and Sandy, taking charge of clearing the pipe, spent that day and Wednesday morning seeing to it.
Then, Wednesday afternoon, the lady Rosalie arrived with an impressive entourage.
Dev was in the yard, talking with Greenlaw, when a hail from the wall walk announced the visitors and Shag opened the gate. The party rode in, two by two. A man about Dev’s age and a lad that Dev knew led with the Scotts’ star-and-crescents banner.
Behind them, Wat rode beside the lady Rosalie, who rode a fine-looking gray palfrey. She wore a stylish green kirtle under a matching cote-hardie with short tippets from which her arms in their knuckle-length sleeves emerged, an outfit that Dev thought any duchess might wear with pride.
Behind Rosalie, Janet Scott rode next to an older, gray-haired woman in an engulfing gray houppelande.
A dozen armed riders trailed behind them, Wat’s entire fighting tail.
The man riding beside the banner-carrier immediately dismounted and moved to the palfrey’s head.
Wat grinned at Dev as he dismounted. “Don’t look so alarmed,” he said with a knowing glint in his eyes. “I promise we won’t all stay for days. I brought Jannie along to visit with Robina. I’m sure Robby won’t mind sharing her bed tonight. And, as promised, I brought my saintly aunt Rosalie to lend consequence and propriety to this establishment.”
“Saintly, you say? Pay him no heed, Sir David,” Lady Rosalie said with a twinkle in her eyes. “He and Janet, and his men, stay just overnight, and I brought only my attire-woman, Potter, and my equerry with me.”
“Have you supplies enough to feed us all?” Wat asked. “Or shall I send Geordie and one of the other lads out to bring in a few rabbits?”
“We can feed you,” Dev said, shaking his hand and nodding to Janet, who was allowing Lady Rosalie’s equerry to help her dismount.
“Cousin Rosalie!”
Turning, Dev saw a smiling Robina hurrying toward them from the keep. She wore the rose-pink kirtle again with the pink-and-green shawl that matched both the dress and her moss-green eyes. The kirtle was shabby, but its color suited her and if the shabbiness distressed her, she gave no sign of it.
Rosalie opened her arms, and Robina hugged her warmly.
“I like your fine dress, madam,” Robby said, standing back again and looking the older woman over from tip to toe. “What a beautiful bright green!”
“It is good, is it not?” But Rosalie was eyeing Robina, too. “Meg said you would need new garments, my dear. And, if I may judge by that kirtle, she’s right. But Wat assures me that even such a village as Hawick can produce a proper mercer, a haberdasher, a seamstress, and mayhap even a ladies’ shoemaker.”
Robina looked at Dev, who willingly nodded. He hoped she understood that he would approve anything she needed, especially clothes more suited to her station in life. He was sure that she hadn’t given a thought to new clothing since her father’s death.
He walked with Wat as they shepherded everyone inside. “My thanks for bringing her ladyship so soon,” he said. “I feared she might wait until the roads were dry.”
“Nay, she is all eagerness and will enjoy taking Robby in hand.”
“Aye, perhaps, but will Robby enjoy that?”
Wat eyed him in much the same way that Rosalie had eyed Robina. “How are you getting on here, Dev? I hope you have not had to sleep in the stable.”
“Greenlaw ended that notion,” Dev admitted. “Since I stand in the master’s place, he said, I must have the master’s chambers. He and his Ada sleep at the top of the main stairway, and he assured me that they are light sleepers.”
Chuckling, Wat said, “I won’t ask you if that’s true.”
“Did you come straight here from the Hall or did you go first to Hawick?”
“Straight here,” Wat said. “There have been raids east of here on the usual routes, so I thought I’d better get Rosalie settled in before she heard about them.”
“Then I’m doubly grateful,” Dev said, hoping the raids stayed well east of them.
“You have a ladies’ solar here, do you not?” Rosalie asked Robina after Ada Greenlaw had taken Potter to show her where her mistress would sleep.
“That is where we are going,” Robina said, casting a glance back to see that Janet was right behind Rosalie on the stairs. “I use it rarely myself except to do mending, but we can be cozy there. Have you not seen it before, Cousin Rosalie?”
“Nay, you did show me a little of the keep when I visited shortly before your father died. After we dined at your high table that afternoon, I returned to Scott’s Hall with my steward, Len Gray.”
“He is no longer with you, though,” Robina said, vaguely recalling the man.
“Oh, no, Len has family in Fife and returned to them last year. I decided then that, besides my dear Potter, I required only an equerry to see to our horses and to arrange for the additional men and ponies we need when I travel.”
“Do you still enjoy moving about so often?” Robina asked.
“I do. I recall this stairway,” she said. “You and I talked for a time in that room across from the hall. Rab and Wat were out looking at sheep or some such thing.”
“What a sorry hostess you must have thought me!” Robina exclaimed.
“Naught of the sort,” Rosalie said. “You were but seventeen then, I think. You turned eighteen the following April and have just turned nineteen, I believe.”
“Aye, my birthday fell on Easter Sunday this year, not that we make much of such days anymore. Nor did I want anything made of it,” she added softly.
“I was so sorry to learn of Rab’s death,” Rosalie said as Robina opened the door to the solar. “You must miss him sorely.”
“I feel as if I’ve lost part of myself,” Robina admitted. Forcing a smile, she added, “You must not feel sorrowful, though. I’d liefer you make me laugh.”
Returning her smile, Rosalie moved to sit in the cushioned window embrasure, so Robina drew two stools closer to it.
Janet, shutting the door, said, “Wat said that some men call Sir David ‘Devil Ormiston,’ because he has a devilish t
emper. I have never experienced it, myself, but I did worry about you, Robby. Is he difficult to live with?”
“He can be a tyrant,” Robina said frankly. “But I have a temper, too, and so did Rab, so temperamental men don’t frighten me.”
Rosalie raised her thin, arched eyebrows. “Take care that you do not defy Sir David too often, lest he wash his hands of you and Coklaw. You must not risk that unless you’d welcome one of Douglas’s minions here.”
“Sir David won’t abandon us,” Robina said.
“Are you so sure, my dear, that you’d take that risk?”
“There is no risk, because he will not leave us,” Robina said. Although she said it to defend Dev, she realized that she meant it. She was certain. Dev’s sense of honor and his dedication to duty were too strong for him to abandon her or Benjy.
Chapter 10
Dev and Wat Scott had gone outside to talk about wellspring blockages. As they discussed the various problems and possibilities, Dev glanced around the yard and realized that he had not seen Benjy since their visitors’ arrival.
Nor did he see him now, but as his gaze met Sandy’s, the older man made a slight gesture. Following it, Dev saw the boy sitting in the shadow of the stable’s overhanging thatch, leaning against the wall with the shaggy dog Tig’s head resting on his lap. At first, Dev thought that both boy and dog were asleep, but when one of the stable lads strode past them to the nearby trough with a pail, Benjy turned his head to watch.
“Sakes,” Wat said, “is that young Benjy? I saw him just before Christmas, and I vow he was but half that size then.”
“He’s nine and growing fast,” Dev said, catching Benjy’s gaze and motioning for him to join them.
Pushing Tig aside, Benjy scrambled to his feet and ran to them. “I didna want to interrupt you,” he said with a smile. “Me stomach’s starting to growl, though, so I’m thinking we may be nearing suppertime.”
“Make your greeting to his lordship, Benjy, or do you not remember him?”