With her, he had learned that.
Edward had the grace to glance away. ‘War tests the resolve of even the most chivalrous. Sometimes, we fail.’
Had his father failed? Men with nerves pitched for battle could do things they would otherwise condemn. ‘But they say I did it. That I burned the church. And that it was full of people.’
Had Edward heard the stories? Helped to spread them?
Edward waved his hand. ‘People will say what they will. It’s not true.’
‘I know that. But what happened after I left?’
Edward’s temper exploded. ‘I burned it, yes! The church, the nunnery, the whole rebel-filled town! And Edinburgh and Whitekirk!’
‘And the people?’ Gavin heard himself yell, too. ‘What about the people?’
The King rose from his chair. ‘No!’
As the echo bounced off the wall, he slumped back in his seat, head back, eyes closed. ‘Not the people.’
‘And my father?’
Edward lifted his head and stared ahead, silent.
‘They said,’ Gavin began, the words rough in his throat, ‘the same thing of my father. Was it true?’
His words seemed to take Edward back. He didn’t speak and no longer seemed to see the man before him. ‘He was not a bad man,’ he said, finally. ‘Just a young one.’
‘Is that how you excuse him? He was of royal blood. He had led armies, ruled the country when you were in France. Was he not a man who knew right and wrong?’
‘He knew.’
‘And yet he did it anyway?’
‘I don’t know!’ A shout.
Gavin wouldn’t stop now. ‘What about what they say of you? Is that true or as much a lie as their tales of me?’
‘Is what true?’
‘Did you kill my father?’
His question echoed in the silence. He had waited so long, waited since he had first come to court and wanted to challenge the King to combat to avenge his father’s death.
Waited so long that it almost didn’t matter any more.
Almost.
‘Is that what they’ve told you?’ He didn’t deny it. ‘He was so young in those days. We both were.’
‘So that’s your excuse, too? For murder?’
Edward’s blue eyes met his, and he wondered at the mirror he saw. ‘How can you even ask? He was my brother.’
As if that said it all.
But it didn’t. Edward, after all, had had a hand in the death of his own father.
‘I have asked. But you have not answered.’ Relentless now. Nothing to lose. It was all gone except the need to know. Had his father been so evil, so terrible that his own brother had killed him?
Edward put a hand on his shoulder. ‘No.’
His body sagged with relief, yet he still struggled to believe. ‘But they said you had nightmares.’
‘Wouldn’t you if someone you loved had been taken from you?’
‘I did. Your brother was taken, but so was my father.’
The King turned away, pacing. ‘He loved your mother, that Scottish slut. Did she tell you? Maybe she didn’t even know.’ He shook his head. ‘We suggested half-a-dozen wives for him and though he cleverly never said no, he never accepted any of them either. There was never a betrothal.’
Had his mother been right? He scoffed at his thoughts. Even Clare, raised on tales of chivalrous love, could not have sustained such a fantasy.
‘And when I saw him that last time, he said he was going marry your mother. Can you imagine what would have happened then?’
He tried. If the King’s brother had married a woman from a minor Scottish family, even become King of Scotland, the peace he had longed for might have come years before.
And Edward might have had an even stronger rival on Scotland’s throne.
And a reason to want him dead.
‘Then how did he die?’
‘A fever? Spoiled food? Who knows why God takes some men? And when you appeared, looking like John reborn, holding the testament to your birth, I thought he had come back to me. That it could end differently this time.
‘It did.’ He met Edward’s eyes, calm from a lifetime of uncertainty settling over him.
‘Yes. You chose her side.’
‘So perhaps I am like my father in that way as well.’
Edward’s smile was wistful. ‘Perhaps even better.’
Strange, to have accomplished what his father had not: lived past twenty and married. His father had died too soon to learn the painful lessons of experience.
Or appreciate its joys.
‘There will be peace,’ he said, looking at his uncle, golden-haired, blue-eyed, and twice his age. Like the mirror of a future he hoped to see.
Edward sighed, thirty years of rule weighing on him, heavy. ‘Some day.’
Gavin left the King and went to Westminster Abbey. He approached his father’s tomb slowly. Edward had made sure his brother was buried with full honours. A canopy covered an alabaster sculpture of John, laid out in his armour, hands clasped in a final prayer.
Below were weeping figures. The Queen? His brother and sisters?
His mother had wept. But she was not pictured here.
He crept closer to look on his father’s face. Straight, strong nose. Moustache. Full lower lip. A face younger than his own. Was there anything of this man in him?
He knelt on the stone floor and prayed.
And when he left, he had finally forgiven his father.
And himself.
Gavin entered King David’s rooms in the Tower of London, noting the laxness of the guards. It was David’s birthday and King Edward had graciously allowed him visitors.
‘Whose man are you now, Fitzjohn?’ David snapped, sharply. He looked older and more tired than Gavin had remembered. ‘You left me to fight Edward’s battles.’
At thirty-three, after ten years in captivity, David faced the fullness of age, a King who had lived more years away from his country than in it.
Yet, as Gavin knew, that didn’t matter. The call of home would still be strong.
‘And I left Edward,’ he began, ‘to come home again.’
‘Home? To Scotland?’
He nodded, unable to stop the smile. Had it been only a year since he first rode on to Carr lands? He itched to be on his way back. ‘Douglas has given me Carr’s Tower and the woman to match it.’
‘Douglas, eh? So you’re Douglas’s man now?’ He said it with deep resignation, knowing that Douglas’s man would not always be David’s.
Gavin shook his head. ‘I’m your man. We’re near finished with negotiations. You’ll be coming home.’
He outlined the terms. The ransom payment, the free movement of money and scholars, the list of hostages. Not a perfect treaty, but the best they could get.
David’s smile, sad. ‘Why couldn’t they have done that three years ago? The provisions are virtually the same.’ His voice, after all this time, carried only a hint of his homeland inflection.
‘I cannot say,’ Gavin said, though he had his suspicions.
‘You don’t have to. Edward and I were too friendly for most. And Douglas and Stewart were more comfortable without me.’ He let go a sigh, then squared his shoulders. ‘In case of default of payment, who is on the list of hostages to be sent to Edward?’
Gavin gave him the names.
A sly smile touched David’s lips. ‘Let’s be sure that Douglas and Stewart are added to that list.’
Gavin smiled. No wonder Douglas was hesitant to bring David home. He would have to answer to a king at last.
Neither Gavin, nor the tercel, returned in the spring.
Clare flew Wee One alone, riding into the hills, staring to the south without ever crossing the border. The bird seemed to share her feeling of abandonment.
She told herself Gavin only stayed in England because he must so that he could conclude a treaty that would include everything Scotland wanted. Without him, the sweetness of ordinary days deserted her, y
et the memory of their lovemaking, instead of bringing consolation, made her toss and turn, desire mingling with discomfiture. How could she have done those things?
Months passed, until he had been away longer than they had been together. Memories dimmed. Doubts grew brighter. Did he mean to come home at all?
She went down to the cellar one June afternoon, trying to count the days. Had it been a year ago they wed?
The sounds of panting, gasping moans came to her ears like memories come alive. Then she realised it was not memory.
Euphemia and Walter, half-naked, were coupling in the corner.
Clare froze at the sight. His hips, thrusting into hers. Her eyes, closed in ecstasy. Neither of them aware of anything beyond each other. No better than animals.
Heat rushed through her, first unwelcome desire, then embarrassment, anger, fear, shame. In their joining, she saw everything that was wrong with her world, everything her own failings had created.
‘Stop! Both of you!’
They did, jaws sagging in shock. Euphemia had the good grace to duck her head. Walter curved his body around hers, trying to hide her nakedness.
‘Get up. Cover yourselves.’ She turned her back and put her hands over her eyes, remembering her mother’s cool fingers, shielding her sight. But that did not block the familiar sounds of cloth on skin. A kiss. ‘Go upstairs. I will speak to you later.’
She wanted to screech curses at them, but all the words that formed were hurled at herself.
Once, she would have expected no better of Murine’s daughter, but Clare had tried to teach her, had treated them both almost as kin. Euphemia’s behaviour reflected on her.
And she had been a poor example.
Despite all her training, she had listened to her heart; nae, worse, she had listened to her body, untrustworthy vessel, and lulled herself into thinking that an Inglis bastard could be a proper husband.
No one knew what she and Gavin had done alone together, but she did. She had violated every tenet she had been taught. And now she knew that she was no better than the women she despised, no more virtuous than Murine and Euphemia.
In the dark cellar, listening to their steps fade, she made a muddled vow. When, if, he came home, things would be different. They would share a bed, yes, but she would once again be the virtuous woman she had been taught.
And Gavin? He would have to prove that his heart was fully on this side of the border.
The Treaty was signed in Berwick in October. Gavin breathed easier as he and David rode across the border, filling his lungs with the scent of home.
The King was free.
And now, so was he.
They pulled up the horses at the crossroads where Gavin would turn for home. ‘Here’s where I leave you.’
‘I must form a new government.’ Sitting taller on his horse, wind whipping his hair, David seemed to have left ten years at the English line. ‘I need men I can trust.’
Gavin knew that Lord Douglas and Stewart were not necessarily counted among them, though that would not be said aloud. ‘Lord Douglas will be ready to serve, I’m sure.’
He nodded. ‘He’s to be made an Earl.’
‘That’ll please him.’
‘You’re sure you won’t come to Edinburgh with me?’
Gavin shook his head. ‘I have a falcon at home, ready to fly.’
‘Some day we’ll fly the hawks together again.’
They clasped arms and Gavin turned his horse to the west.
He was going home. And the falcon he wanted to fly was one he would share with no man.
Chapter Twenty-Three
As the hills of home appeared, his body grew more eager for her. First he would kiss her all over. Then, he would tease her until she was crazed with wanting. Then—
He stifled the rest as he rode into the tower’s yard. Angus, trying to be a proper squire, took his horse to the stables. His father by marriage, Murine and Euphemia surrounded him with hugs and kisses.
His wife, finally, stepped forwards and gave him a decorous hug. ‘Ye broke nae rules, did ye?’ she whispered.
He smiled. Only in a homecoming welcome did she lapse into the accent of the borders. ‘None I’ll tell you about,’ he answered.
And then, he gave a soft, low whistle, tickling her ear, hoping no one was looking below his waist as he leaped to return to his falconer’s wrist.
He did not see the knowing, private smile he had hoped for.
And now, instead of a retreat to their aerie, he faced a painful hour of public display for the benefit of the rest, who insisted he outline the tale of the last ten months and the terms of the treaty.
Clare, running up and down stairs from Hall to kitchen to laundry, did not hear the story start to finish. Only as he neared the end, did she linger to listen.
But she did not sit beside him. And she would not meet his eyes.
Finally, pleading fatigue he did not feel, he excused himself, grabbed Clare’s hand and headed for their bedchamber, ignoring the knowing smiles from the baron and Murine.
But Clare’s steps were slow and they climbed the stairs in silence.
Shy again, perhaps. That would not take long to mend. The last time they had made love, her eyes had been wide open, her mouth on him…
He quickened his steps.
Once inside their room, he kicked the door closed, lifted her in his arms, carried her to the bed, and lay down beside her.
‘I’ll have no more of your maiden’s mattress,’ he said, between kisses, as his feet hung off the side of the bed. ‘We need one big enough for us both.’
She stretched against him, silent, and he sat up, stripping his boots and chausses, already hard for her. ‘I must have you now, my lady. Our games will have to wait.’
He unlaced her gown, breath taken by the first sight of her breasts. Learning her again, he worshipped the curve of her hip and her belly with his lips. Both, still trim and firm as when he left.
‘With all the times we’ve mated, I cannot believe you’re not yet with babe,’ he murmured, pressing his lips into her skin.
But he was glad of it. He had been away so long, she could have born a babe without him. He would have regretted that. ‘I must make up for lost time.’ Soon enough, there would be a son and a harvest of peace.
Yet beneath his eager lips, she lay quiescent, unmoving, eyes closed, not in ecstasy, but as if to shut him out.
His kisses slowed and he pulled himself up, leaning on his arms over her until she finally opened her eyes. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Wrong?’ The arch of her eyebrow was as sharp as her voice. ‘Whatever could be wrong, my lord?’
He rolled to one side, leaned on his elbow, and sighed. This was not a lady in the mood for lovemaking. ‘Don’t play with me, now.’ Was it her time of month? Some domestic detail she must share with him first? Euphemia looked as if she might have a babe on the way. ‘Tell me what troubles you.’ He stroked the hair back from her forehead, impatient to hear her out, comfort her and move on.
‘Tell me the terms of the Treaty.’
He groaned. ‘Did you not hear enough of that already?’
Had he known it would delay their lovemaking he would have held her to his side as he explained, so she would miss no specifics.
‘Some things, yes. But I need to be sure of what I heard.’
He laid back, arm covering his eyes, waiting for his stiff staff to relinquish its hold so his brain could resume control.
‘David is released, a ransom paid and hostages to be given to Edward in surety for the payment.’
‘How much?’ The bed shifted as she sat up.
He clasped his hands together on his ribs, ready to recite again. ‘One hundred thousand marks.’
She looked at him open mouthed. ‘What did you say?’
‘One hundred thousand marks.’
‘Is there so much in all Scotland?’
‘It’s a bargain for a king. For France’s Jean, he’ll get e
ight times as much.’ David’s stature with Edward had dropped once he had seized the real prize.
She slipped off the bed and out of his reach. ‘You sound happy.’
He sighed and sat up, cross-legged, willing his staff to calmness. This would be no brief conversation. ‘And you do not.’
‘Why should I not be happy when I have a King again?’ Her brittle lilt was forced.
‘Aye. You do.’ Patience. Patience. ‘But can’t these worldly affairs wait?’ He reached for her, hoping to woo her back to a loving frame of mind.
She pulled herself away from his hands. ‘And what about the succession? Who’s to be king if David dies childless?’
This answer, he knew, would not improve her mood. ‘The Treaty is silent.’
England and Scotland could both claim victory as long as the central issue remained unsettled.
‘Did Edward give up his claims to the throne?’
‘No.’
‘No?’ Her voice slid up the scale as she paced the floor. ‘Then I’ve no country left! If we manage to pay the ransom, what will we buy? A few years? Then Edward will claim again what he wanted all along. Scotland.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘And we’ll have paid him to take it!’
‘There’s no certainty of that. David is a young man. He could have children still.’
She scoffed, with the assurance of womanhood. ‘He has been married since childhood and fathered no heir. There will be no children now.’
He sighed. David had confessed near the same.
‘How could you allow this?’
She would not care about the other provisions he had fought for. That neither King could harbour rebels against the other. That the clergy from Scotland might study at Oxford. That England must accept Scotland’s coin so trade could flourish. Provisions concerning Papal letters would mean nothing to her. ‘These were not my terms alone. The other Douglas and Stewart men and King David approved them.’
‘But Parliament refused the same three years ago.’
‘Three years ago, we had French gold to fund our fight. Now, they must ransom their own King. There is no money to send to us.’
‘Us? How can you use the word us?’
‘Because it is us!’ He drew himself to his feet, the bed a barrier between them. ‘Do you only love the half of me that’s Scots?’
His Border Bride Page 20