by Amanda Scott
Turning her attention to Greenlaw, Robina waited patiently to hear what he would say. He looked from her to Dev and then back at her.
Dev wondered if Greenlaw felt uneasy discussing such a find with him there. After all, the old man knew only that he’d been Rab’s friend and was now Warden of Coklaw by order of the Douglas. If the steward did not trust Douglas…
Greenlaw cleared his throat and addressed a point midway between Dev and Robby, saying, “I ken nowt o’ such a jar. I can tell ye it didna come from Coklaw or anyone here. The late master—Master James, bless his soul—kept nowt from me, knowing that I couldna care for the place without knowing all he knew about it. Master Rab and the lady Robina grew up believing as their da did, and our people all be loyal. How much silver be we talking about, if ye’ll tell me?”
“Much,” Robby said, holding her cupped hands apart, one slightly above the other, indicating the approximate height and circumference of the jar.
“Then, I’d wager it belonged to them wicked Percys. Small coins and silver only?”
Dev saw Robby nod when he did. He said, “Silver shillings and pennies.”
Greenlaw said, “That be more than I’d expect anyone hereabouts, other than the Douglas or Buccleuch, to have. But even a jarful that size wouldna be enough for Northumberland or Hotspur to pay the army they’d gathered to take to Wales.”
“Was it so big?” Robby asked him.
“Aye, m’lady. See you, dunamany Scots joined them, ’cause the Percys were a-taking up against Henry o’ England, joining wi’ the Welsh rebellion.”
Robby looked at Dev, and he nodded. He’d heard as much, himself.
Greenlaw said, “The current Douglas’s father and the Duke o’ Albany, who was Governor of the Realm then, did both think it were better to occupy Henry in Wales than to ha’ him on our doorstep. We did hear afterward that Hotspur’s army carried a treasure chest to pay their warriors and to aid the Welsh rebels.”
Dev said, “Then you suspect that someone might have helped himself to it?”
“Men who got close enough to ha’ a look at their encampment said the Percys’ tent had guards round it, day and night, guarding against their own men. From me own experience of such, I’d say the treasure chest were inside.”
“Aye,” Dev said. “ ’Tis gey unusual for a man to steal from his liege, though.”
“Would someone like that have been able to bury it on the rise, John?”
Greenlaw shrugged. “They left gey quick, after midnight, m’lady. Had someone taken such a sum, he might ha’ found it easier to hide it here in dark of night than near their camp. Mayhap he were unable to fetch it afore leaving.”
Dev nodded. Noting that Robby had turned and was watching him, he smiled at her. “That makes more sense than any other thought we’ve had, lass.”
“Aye, perhaps, but does it get us any further?”
“Well, to my mind, the likeliest thief was someone guarding the Percys’ tent. If that whole army went straight from here to the battle at Shrewsbury…”
“They did,” Greenlaw said. “And many of them, including Hotspur, died there.”
Dev grimaced. “So, if such a theft occurred, the thief risked his life to steal the gelt and then fought a battle with terrible losses. ’Tis likely he was one of those who died.”
Robby shook her head. “If he died, then who pulled Benjy’s tree out of its hole and dug the hole deeper?” she asked him. “Someone else knows about that jar, sir.”
Dev agreed, but they had learned all they could from the Greenlaws. Suspecting that Mistress Greenlaw was thinking of the midday meal again, Dev said, “I expect we should let these good people get on with their duties, lass.”
Thanking them for their help, they left the housekeeper’s room and went upstairs. When Robby turned to go into the hall, Dev stopped her and urged her on up the stairs.
“We’re supposed to be taking time to ourselves,” he reminded her. “They won’t be serving food yet for a half-hour or more.”
“I don’t need to change my dress,” she said.
“You may not change it,” he said with a meaningful grin. “But you’ll likely want to put it back on after I take it off.”
“It’s the middle of the day!”
“Aye, and a fine time it is for me to learn more about my wife.”
Robina was shocked. It had never occurred to her that her husband might want to couple at any time other than when they went to bed at night. However, just the thought that he wanted to couple sent sensations through her body that easily matched much of what she’d felt the previous night.
Her nipples swelled and pressed against the fabric of her shift, as desire coursed through her. By the time they reached their bedchamber, she wanted him to take her in his arms and kiss her again as thoroughly as he had the night before.
Closing and bolting both doors as he had then, he returned to her and reached for the front lacing of her new pink kirtle.
The shutters were open, but the hillsides were distant and no one below could see them. Nevertheless, she felt vulnerable and nearly protested.
Then, she saw the hunger in his eyes, and the fire in her body burned hotter. When his hands, untying her laces, brushed against her tender nipples, she gasped.
He kissed her then as thoroughly as she had hoped, while his fingers and hands remained busy. In a trice, her kirtle and shift slipped down to puddle at her feet. She put her arms up to hug him, but he held her a little away.
“I want to look at you,” he murmured.
Her wayward thoughts sprang instantly to Rab. Was he watching them?
It occurred to her that if he was, she could do naught to stop him, and that whether he watched or not, God did. All priests said that He saw all and knew all. Since she could do naught to stop God, either, she’d just have to get used to them both watching. The possible presence of anyone troubled her no further after that, because Dev seized every fiber of her being and thought by tweaking a nipple.
“You should pay heed to your husband, my love,” he said. “I hope you were not thinking about another man, because I would dislike that.”
“Is God a man, then?” she asked, looking up to see how he’d react to that.
His eyebrows rose. “Aye, sure, God is a man. Has anyone suggested otherwise.”
“Then I was thinking of another man. I wondered if He was watching us.”
Instead of chuckling or laughing outright, as she expected, he looked at her more searchingly. “Is that all? You looked… I don’t know how to describe it, but you looked as if you were keeping secrets again.”
“I warned you not to lie to him, Beany. You don’t want to make Dev angry.”
She swallowed. Rab was watching, and listening. And she knew that Dev had seen her reaction.
Hoping to divert him, she said, “Do you mean to stand there in your clothes, sir, gawking at me? I’m unaccustomed to standing still whilst someone looks at me as if he would see through my skin to my bones.”
“Turn away from me,” he muttered, holding her gaze.
To avoid his discerning eyes and because the command sent heat roaring through her, she obeyed. Facing the wall with her sampler hanging on it but conscious only of him watching her, she trembled.
He kept her standing so until she looked over her shoulder at him.
“Have you seen enough?” she demanded. “You are making my skin prickle.”
He grinned. “I have not seen nearly enough, lassie-mine, but ’tis a husband’s right to look his fill. You may come and undress me now.”
“May I? I’d liefer watch you undress yourself.”
“Nay, you must learn to do it. Only think if I should be injured and you did not yet know how to undo all my laces and buckles.”
She laughed. “Good sakes, I know all about buckles and laces,” she said. “I had to help Rab fasten and tie his when we were small. He was all thumbs.”
“Then you should excel at the task n
ow. Show me.”
He was still smiling, and she was beginning to enjoy herself.
Dev showed her other ways that they could enjoy themselves, and in the days that followed, he taught her more ways that he could pleasure her. They argued occasionally about small things, but he did listen to her. And, if she said something to change his mind, he admitted it far more willingly than Rab ever had.
Dev also showed her how much she could enjoy their coupling. He could stir her passion with a look or a wink, sometimes just by walking into the room.
Wednesday afternoon, while they lingered together at the high table after their midday meal and discussed whether they would ride to the Hall to celebrate Beltane with everyone there or stay home, Coll entered to tell them that two messengers had arrived under a Percy banner and a white flag of truce.
Their blissful interlude thus ended abruptly.
Dev said, “Bring them to me in the inner chamber, Coll. Make sure first that they carry no weapons.”
“They don’t, sir. We searched them when they arrived. I’ll fetch them in.”
“You stay here,” Dev said to Robina as Coll strode back across the hall.
“I will not,” she said, standing when he did. “I have as much right to know what is going on as you do. Moreover, if our men have searched them—”
“You will do as I bid,” he replied, fighting to speak calmly instead of reacting as he usually did to defiance. “This is not the time or place to test my temper, Robby. Having two Percys here is bad enough, white flag or none. I don’t want you exposed to such men.”
“I disagree, Dev. They’re more apt to remain civil if I’m with you.”
“Coll and I will keep them civil,” he said, no longer bothering to conceal his rising temper. “You will do as I say, or by my troth, I’ll carry you upstairs and let them wait whilst I persuade you to stay there.”
Having already experienced one of his harsher methods of persuasion, Robina grimaced but nodded submissively. “I’ll go up, then.”
Dev’s brow furrowed. “You are submitting mighty quick, lass.”
She rolled her eyes. “Faith, you scold me when I speak my mind and you scold when I submit to you. How am I to know the more acceptable course?”
“Obedience is always best,” he said sternly.
“Certes, I can understand why you think so,” she retorted. “Nay, cool your ire, sir,” she added hastily when he stiffened. “I won’t stay here, but I will go upstairs if you insist.”
“I do.”
Gathering her skirts in one hand, she raised her chin, gave him a withering look, and left the dais. Crossing the hall to the archway, she maintained her dignity until she was on the stairs. Then, however, she snatched her skirts up with both hands and went lightly but quickly up the one flight to the master chamber.
Bolting the door, she took her sampler from the wall and put her eyes to the laird’s squint that it had concealed. Peering down into the inner chamber, she saw Dev take his place in the two-elbow chair behind her father’s heavy oak table.
The scraping sound of the chair across the floor came easily to her ears.
“Ah, Beany, ’tis a wicked, disobedient wife you are.”
“Hush,” she murmured. “Coll is bringing those Percys in. I want to hear.”
Chapter 20
Dev waited until the two men stood before him. The older one, a chestnut-haired man of perhaps thirty, wearing the garb of a peasant or cowherd, carried their white flag. The younger—tawny headed, eighteen or so, dressed in similar style—had relinquished the Percy banner into Coll’s care at the door. The lad stood beside his superior with one hand resting atop the other at his crotch.
Coll stayed by the door, armed with his dirk, but Dev could tell that the two nervous men before him wanted only to deliver their message.
“What message do you bring?” he asked the older one.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but who d’ye be? I were told to deliver me message to the Laird o’ Coklaw.”
“The current laird is nine years old,” Dev replied. “I am the Warden of Coklaw, acting in his stead, so you should deliver your message to me.”
“May I ken your name, sir, to tell my master?”
“Tell me yours first.”
“They do call me Jock o’ the Storm, and this be Bangtail Joey.”
“I’m Sir David Ormiston of Ormiston,” Dev said. “You rode here under Northumberland’s banner. Do you speak for his lordship?”
The younger lad’s hands clutched each other over his codpiece as though he feared for his manhood. Under the circumstances, though, Dev decided he’d be wise to deduce little from that.
“I do bring a message from Alnwick,” Jock o’ the Storm said steadily. “Ye may ken that our fourth King Henry gave all o’ the Douglas lands o’ Teviotdale to Northumberland as reward for his lordship’s victory at Homildon Hill.”
“I know that his lordship’s grandsire, the first earl, had the temerity to make such a claim twenty-five years ago,” Dev said. “He failed to take Teviotdale, though, and I doubt the current earl has enough power to do so. So, what is your purpose here?”
“To ask ye to confer wi’ the Douglas. Tell him our master means to ha’ what is his and would parley wi’ him. Our master will accept payment instead o’ land, but if ye dinna agree to one or t’other, we’ll besiege Coklaw again.”
“So I am to be your messenger, am I? Art too cowardly to ride two miles more to Hawick? Unless his grace has summoned the Douglas elsewhere, he is currently staying at the Black Tower. Did you not know that when you came here?”
The two men looked at each other. Then Jock o’ the Storm looked Dev in the eye and said, “I did ken that, sir. But a Scots town be a gey dangerous place for an Englishman. If that be cowardice, so be it. Will ye take our message to Douglas?”
“I will not. Between them, as you must know, Buccleuch and Douglas can raise ten thousand men in a sennight. Your master would be lucky to raise half as many.”
The older man shrugged. “We had over twenty thousand at Homildon.”
Dev held his gaze but did not bother to comment. Jock o’ the Storm was too young to have aided in the Scottish defeat at Homildon Hill. Moreover, the current earl, Hotspur’s son, was a mere shadow of his father or grandfather.
“Be that your final answer?” Jock o’ the Storm asked quietly.
“It is,” Dev said. “Your white flag will provide safe-conduct back across the line, but I’d advise you to travel swiftly. Keep heading due south and stay clear of Hermitage. Its constable, as you doubtless know, takes a dark view of Englishmen in Liddesdale.”
“Aye, we’ll keep clear,” Jock said. “But ye’d be wise to heed me warning, too, that trouble will follow this refusal o’ yours.”
“Leave now, whilst you can,” Dev said, adding a chill to his voice.
“Aye, then, sir, we’re awa’.”
Leaving Coll, Sandy, and Jock Cranston to see the two outside the gate and away, Dev decided to attend to his ever defiant, yet ever intriguing wife.
“D’ye ken who that were?” Bangtail Joey demanded when they were clear of the gate and trotting their ponies southwestward toward the cut. “That were Devil Ormiston! Ye were daft to threaten him, Chukk.”
“He’s a man like any other man,” Chukk said, although he knew better.
“They dinna call him Devil Ormiston for nowt,” Joey said testily. “Ye told ’im me right name, too, and gave a false one for yerself. Why did ye no call me summat else, too? Answer me that!”
“I didna say ye were a Graham, did I?” Chukk snapped. “I’ll wager there be any number o’ Bangtails this side o’ the line, just as there be south of it.”
Joey grimaced but said no more, and the silence continued for a mile or more before Chukk said, “He didna recognize either o’ us. That be a good thing.”
“What d’ye mean?” Joey asked. “How would he recognize us?”
“I thought ye’d
recall him from that fracas near Chesters some weeks back,” Chukk said. “That Ormiston chap were wi’ the reckless one that the earl’s Simon killed wi’ his lance. That dead one, they said, were the new Laird o’ Gledstanes.”
“Aye, well, Himself did tell us to make mischief hereabouts, but I hope it doesna rain again,” Joey muttered. “I were a-hoping ye’d take us home soon.”
“We need more mischief than a few raids, Joey. You hie yourself back to the lads and find us a new place to shelter, mayhap where we camped at Easter near Langside. Ormiston’s men may scour the hills this side o’ Slitrig Water, to be sure we’ve gone.”
“What be ye a-doing, then?”
“I’ll be a wandering shepherd again,” Chukk said. “I’ve a wee notion under me cantle,” he added, patting the top of his head. “But I must hone it some, so I’ll think whilst I wander. Meet me in yon lamb’s cut early tomorrow—alone. I’ll ken more by then about what I mean to do.”
Robina heard Dev’s footsteps mounting the stairway, but the sampler wanted to tilt. Drawing a breath to steady herself, she adjusted its frame again and stepped hastily down from the stool.
“He’s on the landing!”
Ignoring Rab, she went to the north window and looked out at the hillside behind the castle just as the privy-stairs door opened in the corner behind her.
Dev was silent, so Robina stayed as she was. If she looked at him, he might see her guilt, and she was sure that he’d be angry with her for spying on him through the squint. But Coklaw was her home, and she had every right to know when someone threatened it. Dev might be the one in charge now, but she would not let him set her aside altogether.
“Are you going to look at me, Robby, or are you going to sulk?”
She turned then but chose to address a point just above his head and said as calmly as she could, “I’m not sulking. Are you going to tell me what they said?”
“Do I need to?”
She looked right at him then but his gaze was steady, his face expressionless. She had discerned no anger in his tone and saw nothing of his mood now, either.