His Border Bride

by Blythe Gifford

  ‘To the Holy Land?’ Her hands grew cold. He had mentioned nothing of this before. Such a trip would take at least a year.

  ‘Not so far. Amiens.’

  The French cathedral housed the head of St John the Baptist. It would be natural for Alain to travel with the group back to France. ‘When?’

  He shrugged. ‘Arrangements must be made. By summer. Sooner, I pray. I can’t wait to leave this cold, damp place.’

  Arrangements must be made. Of course. He had sent messages home, she knew. He must be waiting for his parents’ formal consent before he spoke for her.

  They would give it, she was certain. Alain’s mother had fostered her as a child and taught her all she needed to know to run their household. Douglas would approve, since he knew the family well.

  That left only her father and Alain to persuade. The one to give his blessing, the other to make his home in Scotland.

  She was not sure which would be the harder.

  A few days later, when Clare heard the soft moo of cattle, she didn’t look up from chopping radishes.

  But as the noise became louder and more insistent, she went to the window. And there, riding into the yard, was Fitzjohn, warm with the sweat of hard work in early spring.

  Behind him, flanked by two of her father’s men, plodded seven fine, red, long-haired cattle.

  Something that felt like happiness erupted into a chuckle.

  ‘Glad to see him, daughter?’

  She swallowed the laugh. ‘Of course not. But you must be. You sent him after those cattle, didn’t you?’

  He shrugged, but his smile showed. ‘If a Scot wants to steal cattle, he needs no one’s permission.’

  She looked back at Fitzjohn. He had dismounted, and Angus ran up to grab the horse’s reins. Some of the men hung back, still suspicious, but more clasped his hands or gave him a hearty swat on the back.

  Well deserved. He had crossed mountains still covered with snow, ridden into the Inglis homestead, liberated half a herd of cattle, and returned unharmed.

  Perhaps his Scots blood ran strong after all.

  Gavin herded the cattle into the pen, ignoring the old man as he strolled over to watch. The task had been near impossible, and the thieving rascal knew it. Still, bone tired as he was, Gavin felt a heady sense of triumph no battlefield victory had ever given him.

  And he hadn’t had to kill anyone.

  He spoke to the baron without preamble. ‘Here’s the six you wanted and an extra for good measure, though I’m beginning to think you snatched them from the Robsons first.’

  The baron lifted his eyebrows and tried to look shocked. ‘Well, you may turn out to be a Scottis man yet, laddie.’

  He laughed. He might have proven himself a passable cattle thief, but Clare’s father, no doubt, was a master.

  Gavin held out his hand. ‘What’s my reward?’ In battle, a captured knight meant a substantial ransom. Cattle should be worth at least a Scottish shilling.

  ‘Oh, I’ve something in mind.’

  His hand, still empty. ‘Promises?’

  He had abandoned two kings for this, taking no more than what he carried on his back. Had he known what would face him, would he do it again?

  Yes.

  ‘Sit at the high table tonight. Share a trencher with my daughter. We’ll talk later.’

  He shook his head as the man walked away. No doubt he would get frostbite dipping his bread in a trencher shared with Mistress Clare.

  But as he started for the stable, he saw her face at the kitchen’s window, touched with a smile.

  The Frenchman, striding out of the stable, glared in Gavin’s direction, eyes narrowed in disdain, and walked deliberately wide of him.

  ‘Have you no courteous greeting for a fellow knight?’

  His question forced the comte to pause, but he pursed his lips as if holding back words.

  Gavin held on to a slow smile. ‘You’re working very hard not to say anything.’

  ‘To speak to you soils my tongue.’

  ‘Oh? Why is that?’

  ‘Lichieres pautonnier.’ The insult was a slap in the face. ‘You are a disgrace to the knighthood you profess.’

  ‘The baron doesn’t agree with you. He’s asked me to sit at the high table tonight.’

  ‘He’s as bad as you are.’ Behind him, a cow bellowed. The comte’s glance, disgusted, took in the animal, the tower, the hills and both sides of the border. ‘Inglis, Scots, you are all barbarians.’

  He’d been called worse. ‘France is not the sole keeper of the code of chivalry.’

  ‘I cannot wait to be rid of this island,’ he muttered, as if to himself and not Gavin. ‘Nothing worthy dwells here.’

  ‘Nothing?’ Over the man’s shoulder, he saw Clare come out of the tower, the trace of a smile clinging to her lips. ‘I thought you found Mistress Clare more than worthy.’

  She paused, looking at them both, and he watched the sun turn her hair to liquid light.

  Alain’s gaze followed Gavin’s. Her smile broadened to touch them both before she turned away towards the garden. ‘My mother trained her well.’ He sighed. ‘She deserves better than this.’

  Yet in the man’s eyes, Gavin saw neither desire nor commitment, but only a touch of regret. ‘Well, maybe I’ll give it to her.’

  ‘You?’ The question was like a call to combat. ‘Licheor plain d’anvie. Do not dare defile her.’ The man spat in the dirt at his feet.

  ‘Then she’s to be yours?’

  He tried not to think about how much the man’s answer meant to him.

  ‘La mienne?’ Alain’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

  ‘Non?’ This time, it was easy to smile, for Alain was a man who intended no claim on Clare, much as she believed otherwise.

  ‘I meant only that she deserves better than a man so debased he is hunted even by the Anglais.’ He turned his back and moved towards the tower.

  Hunted by the English? His moment of triumph soured.

  Edward must have named him a traitor. He should have expected no less. If a man could kill his brother, he would not hesitate to condemn a nephew.

  But a faint wish lingered that, hunted though he was, he might be the kind of man worthy enough to deserve Clare.

  Chapter Five

  Gavin joined the family table that evening, moving up from the end where the men-at-arms gathered. He sat on one side of the baron, while, from the other, the Frenchman glared in his direction, eyes brimming with disdain, doing everything he could to avoid speaking to him directly.

  He’d met the man’s kind before. One of those who cared more for appearance than truth. Yet Mistress Clare’s gaze rested on him, wide-eyed, as if appearance were all.

  The moo of the cattle penetrated the walls. ‘Glad to be back home,’ the baron said, smiling.

  ‘Until your maudit neighbours steal them again,’ the comte said.

  The old man turned on him. ‘You don’t like us much, do you?’ A smile twitched on the old man’s lips. Gavin didn’t think the baron liked the Frenchman much, either.

  ‘Da, please. Alain is a guest in our house.’

  Gavin could hold his tongue no longer. ‘Guest? That’s not what I call someone who comes to make war on another country.’

  Forced to acknowledge him, the comte stared with loathing. ‘France came to Scotland’s defence. It was you who invaded Scotland and burned her sacred churches. Everyone, they know who you are and what you did.’

  The baron and Clare turned to watch him, waiting for his denial. He made none. Let the man think what he liked. Nothing Gavin said would change his mind. ‘What everyone knows isn’t always the truth.’

  ‘That’s not what I’d call an answer.’ The baron looked as if he might reconsider his generosity.

  ‘He didn’t ask a question. He made an accusation.’

  ‘You see?’ the Frenchman said. ‘He does not even bother to deny it. But the Scots are no more civilised. They torched homes and fields just to
deny them to the Inglis.’

  The baron’s smile turned to a growl. ‘You may not like the way a Scot wages war, but we’ve kept the Inglis at bay.’

  ‘What you wage is not war. You either commit brutal destruction or you run like one with a tail. I came to fight in proper combat, not to skulk in the woods.’

  This, then, was why Clare thought war was a pretty pageant, a tournament writ large instead of a life-and-death struggle. Strange. Her father knew better.

  The baron chuckled. ‘The Frenchman here’s been spoiling for a big battle for months. Seems as if that’s the only kind he’s willing to fight. But the Bruce advised us to take away anything that might comfort the enemy, and we’ve found that a better tactic than standing in a line waiting for Inglis arrows to fall on us.’

  ‘Da! Alain is a valiant and brave warrior!’

  ‘He doesn’t need you to defend his honour,’ her father said.

  Gavin bit back a smile and took a bite of his oatcake. He liked to see Mistress Clare with a flash in her eyes and a flush on her cheek.

  ‘Monsieur le Fitzjohn is the one without honour,’ the comte continued. ‘He only attacks helpless people in the dark.’

  ‘And I’ve seen enough of how Frenchmen fight,’ he said, keeping a grip on his tongue and his temper, ‘You offer to make an appointment, then can never agree on the date.’

  De Garencieres’s cheeks turned dark red and he exploded into French insults.

  Clare put a hand on his arm in a vain attempt to soothe him, shooting an angry glance at Gavin.

  The baron rose and pulled his knife. ‘A Scot is worth two Frenchmen!’

  The comte stood to meet him, brandishing his own weapon. ‘One Frenchman is better than five Englishmen!’

  Clare looked at Gavin, pleading for help. ‘Fitzjohn?’

  All eyes swung to him. Half-Scots. Half-English.

  He kept his eyes steady. In Scotland, his father’s name had been despised. At the English court, they called him savage. Which side was stronger? His mother’s or his father’s? Most days, he hated both. What would it be like, he thought, looking at them, to know so clearly who you were?

  ‘Well,’ he said, slowly, deliberately pasting the smile back on his lips, ‘it appears that would make me worth at least three Frenchmen.’

  The comte did not return his smile. ‘You are no man at all. You are a beast who held the torch to burn the very—’

  ‘No.’ He rose then, and let his hand rest on his dagger. Think what you like, he had always said, for his father’s acts clung to him, no matter what he did. But he would not have Clare believe he’d lied. ‘I did not.’

  The comte raised his brows in surprise. ‘That is not as I was told.’

  ‘You cannot believe everything you hear.’ All the years, all the insults from both sides of the border. He wanted to be quit of them. But even here, they followed. ‘Scottis. English. French. A man is what he proves himself to be.’

  In the awkward silence that followed, Clare touched each man on the shoulder, gently forcing them to sheath their weapons and sit.

  The baron smiled. ‘You’ve proven to be at home in the hills, Fitzjohn. Let’s see what else you can do. Take on the arms room. Repair the damage we did in the fighting.’

  ‘Da! You know nothing about this man.’

  ‘Neither did you when you brought him in. Now each of you claims to know a great deal about him.’ He looked at Gavin. ‘Why don’t we let him show us who he is?’

  He felt a moment’s peace. Refuge, even for a while, was everything. He nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  Carr rose. ‘Well, I think this calls for breaking out the brogat.’

  The comte, scowling, held his silence as Clare filled their cups.

  Gavin took a sip and let the drink’s honey flavour soothe his throat. Mistress Clare’s brew was both smooth and dangerous.

  The baron lifted his cup. ‘Here’s at least one thing about Scotland even the Frenchman likes, eh?’

  ‘I like several things about Scotland,’ he said, his eyes lingering on Clare.

  Gavin’s fingers tightened on his cup. He took another sip. The woman was nothing to him. Nor could she be.

  He pulled his gaze away. What was it about Clare that called to him? Strong, yes, but, like her bird, alert, expecting danger any minute. Her strength was a shield. He wondered what it hid.

  She acted as if she’d never been tempted, let alone succumbed.

  He’d like to see it happen.

  He’d like to help.

  The vision filled him. Clare. Naked. Tight braid undone. Hair tumbling across her shoulders. Eyes soft, lips yielding with want.

  He downed the rest of his drink. If she knew what he was thinking, it would confirm every laidly thing she believed of him.

  And she’d be right.

  Chapter Six

  Pouring another round, Clare felt pinned between Fitzjohn’s gaze and Alain’s. Her father delighted in pitting the two men against each other, even favouring the bastard over the comte.

  Euphemia came up from the kitchen floor below to help clear. As she went to the end of the table, one of the men swatted her behind, hooting his appreciation.

  Clare frowned. ‘They should not treat her thus.’ Her own cruel treatment of the girl pricked her conscience. ‘You must stop them, Da.’

  ‘Can’t stop a young man from looking. I was young once. Patted your mither just the same way.’

  She frowned. Her mother had been gracious, cultured. She would never have allowed such treatment. ‘Mother wasn’t even here. She was in France.’

  ‘So was I. Went to make sure the King signed the treaty with us.’ He grinned at the shock on her face. ‘Didn’t know that, did you, daughter?’

  Alain was wearing his pained smile again. She nearly moaned.

  Fitzjohn, curse him, shared a look with her father. ‘Is that how you won her?’

  She jumped in before her father could disgrace them further. ‘Of course not. My mother would never have responded to something so vulgar. He is teasing.’ She prayed that was true.

  ‘That’s all you know, lass.’ Her father laughed. ‘Your mother came out to play under the moon once or twice.’

  She gripped the jug until her knuckles whitened. Clare’s image of her mother was a child’s picture of perfection. Was that memory or imagination?

  Her father’s easy smile raised doubts. She could easily imagine him—standing outside the castle, hooting and hollering.

  Yet if her mother had been the kind of woman who would respond to such lewdness, what did that say about Clare?

  She’d had those visions and tried to hide them. From Alain. From herself. Thoughts of a man looking, touching, kissing, more…

  No. Her mother had not been that kind of woman. And neither was she. Alain would never marry a woman like that.

  ‘Would you like someone to howl at you under the moon, Clare?’ Fitzjohn’s smile said he had read her doubts and wanted to encourage them.

  ‘Demoiselle Clare is much too fine for that,’ Alain said.

  ‘Are you suggesting my wife wasn’t?’

  She put a hand on Alain’s shoulder before he drew his blade again. ‘We need no more fights tonight.’ She cleared her throat, wanting to scream at all of them to stop speaking of her mother so. ‘I think that Alain’s experience is that no true lady, including my mother, would respond to such a display.’

  Gavin’s smile refused to budge. ‘Is that what you meant, Alain?’ As if he enjoyed seeing them devour each other with words.

  Her father elbowed Fitzjohn with glee. ‘Listen, lass. Your mother and I enjoyed our marriage bed. Where do you think you came from? A hen’s nest?’

  Alain’s face had turned to stone. From the other side of the hall, a whistle greeted Euphemia again.

  Anger rose in her throat. ‘Stop it!’ Clare slammed the jug down on the table. ‘Stop it, both of you!’ Brawls. Bawdy insults. When would she be free of this dreadful place? ‘
No wonder Alain thinks we are savages.’

  The men at the end of the table turned from teasing Euphemia to stare.

  Horrified at her own outburst, she ran from the Hall and down the stairs, nearly tripping on her skirt.

  Outside, she gulped in the night air and shivered. The whistles and hoots subsided, or were muffled by the tower wall. Alain’s footsteps, slower, echoed on the stairs and came up behind her.

  Ashamed, she looked at the ground, blinking tears away. ‘I don’t know why Da doesn’t stop them. He thinks it’s funny, which just eggs them on.’

  ‘But that girl, she is not of your family. She is nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, relieved he believed so. But while they shared no blood, Euphemia was the daughter of her father’s mistress. Through him, they had a bond, one Clare did her best to ignore.

  Ready to face him, she turned. ‘Sometimes my father, well, I wonder…’ How could she have been born of that man?

  His eyes were gentle. Concerned. Polite. ‘You’re nothing like him.’

  I’m glad was her first thought. Then guilt pricked her. He was her father. She could not deny him. ‘He hasn’t had the life you have. Things are different here.’

  ‘But you’re not a woman who could be howled at and dragged into the bushes.’

  ‘Does that mean I’ll never be kissed?’ The question slipped out and she averted her eyes, mortified that she had asked it. But tonight, she wanted to be kissed. Hard.

  ‘Mais non.’ He touched her chin and turned her head towards his.

  Now. Now, though she’d been too forward, he would finally speak. Finally take her in his arms.

  His hand cupped her cheek and she leaned towards him, close enough that her breasts brushed his chest.

  His hand dropped to his side. ‘Everything will happen in the right time, chérie. Now come in out of the cold.’

  She bit the inside of her cheek to stop the tears. He must not see her cry. ‘You go. I’ll be in shortly.’

  When will the time be right, Alain?

  No lady would say such words. She scolded herself with a silent recitation from Miroir des preudes femmes. Alain’s mother had insisted she learn it by heart. A virtuous woman must wait until her lord speaks first. She must strive to perfect humility. She must never quarrel. She must never be angry.