Giving him a straight look, she said, “You know me too well to believe that, sir. Isabel said she would come when the court removed from Stirling. That she has not yet done so suggests only that something has delayed her.”
“Where will you stay until she does come?” Lady Murray asked.
Smiling at the expressionless steward, Sibylla said, “As one of Isabel’s ladies, I have access to her chambers, madam. I shall occupy my usual room.”
“Begging your pardon, Lady Sibylla,” the steward said. “As ye ken, the princess always sends word a few days ahead, and we’ve not heard from her yet.”
“She did tell you to expect her when the court removed here, did she not?”
“Aye, she did that,” he agreed. “And ye’re welcome as always, m’lady.”
Much as she would have liked to have Isabel’s chambers to herself for at least a short time, she said to her father, “Alice can stay with me, sir. Rosalie is also welcome, madam, and you, as well, if you like. I can provide beds for you all until Isabel arrives, but I recall that you do have access to other accommodations.”
“We do, aye,” Lady Murray said. “In the past, my son has given up his room to his father and me, and I did assume . . .” Pausing, she looked at Simon.
“You are welcome, of course, madam,” he said. “I can always find a bed.”
“And you, sir?” Lady Murray said to Sir Malcolm. “Where will you put up?”
His annoyance with Sibylla plainly forgotten, he said, “The Douglas keeps chambers in the gate tower, and I use one of his rooms. But I own, it would be better if Sibylla provided a cot here for Alice. And, as I’m thinking the two lassies might like to sleep together”—Rosalie and Alice nodded fervently—“I’d be gey pleased if ye’d agree to look after them all yourself, my lady.”
“ ’Twould be a pleasure for me, sir,” she said, nodding. That exchange leaving Sibylla with no more to say, the other ladies followed her to Isabel’s chambers. The rooms were always kept ready for the princess and her ladies, and comprised five bedchambers opening into a larger central solar—two on one side and three smaller ones on the other—on the third floor of David’s Tower.
Rosalie and Alice shared one room, leading Sibylla and Lady Murray to opt for separate chambers until the princess’s return. Lady Murray had her woman, Alice had brought a maidservant from home to assist her, and the princess always left a chambermaid to look after her rooms, so their baggage was soon stowed.
By then the rooms were redolent of lavender and cloves from scent bags in the Murray ladies’ sumpter baskets. Commenting on the pleasant aroma, Sibylla learned that while Lady Murray and Rosalie liked a mix of lavender and cloves in their scent bags, Simon preferred a hefty dose of cinnamon added, as his father had.
When Sibylla told the others they could order food brought to them, Lady Murray announced that they were too weary from their travels to think of attending court that evening. The girls protested, but her ladyship summarily overruled them.
“We shall retire early, my dears, and make our plans tomorrow after we have broken our fast. I know you will agree that that is the best plan, Sibylla.”
“Indeed, madam. But, prithee, you two, do not look so downcast,” she added. “We are too late to take supper in the hall. Moreover, for a first appearance at court, certain customs apply that you must follow. Your brother will present you to the Governor or to his chamberlain, Rosalie, and our father will present you, Alice.”
“What do we say if we meet the Governor?” Rosalie asked.
“Not a word, dearling,” Lady Murray said. “You will make your best and deepest curtsy and remain silent unless he addresses you.”
“Fife won’t,” Sibylla said. “He never does.” Recalling his aborted attempt to arrange Rosalie’s marriage eight months before, she hoped she spoke the truth.
The evening passed without incident, and the next morning, with little else to occupy their time, Sibylla agreed to escort Alice and Rosalie around the castle.
Lady Murray excused herself. “I have been here many times and do not need to wear myself out walking up and down Castle Hill,” she said. “But do be sure to show them St. Margaret’s Chapel, Sibylla.”
Sibylla agreed and, seeing the castle precinct anew through the eyes of her young companions, soon recalled how exciting it had been for her the first time.
A sea mist had blanketed the dawn but lifted before they set forth, to reveal a sky full of drifting white clouds. The air still felt damp but was warm enough for Sibylla to wear only a pale-pink silk tunic and skirt. She wore gloves and a caul, too, because one did so in Edinburgh whenever one was outside. Rosalie had also rejected a heavy wrap, but Alice, less hardy, had donned a gray wool mantle over her dress.
Both Rosalie and Alice showed more interest in the bursts of scenery and the men they saw than in the fine buildings Sibylla pointed out.
Other parties strolled about, gazing at one part or another of the castle just as the three young women were, and usually with someone to act as guide. With her charges showing as much interest as they were in any young man who crossed their path, Sibylla was relieved when the number of other wanderers thinned as they went uphill, until they found themselves alone at the top.
St. Margaret’s Chapel sat by itself atop the highest point of Castle Hill. Just fifteen by thirty feet, its exterior was undistinguished for the oldest building in Edinburgh. Explaining that its use was reserved for members of the royal family, Sibylla encouraged her charges to look inside at the columns and lovely carvings on the semicircular apse’s arch and the chancel.
Outside again, standing by the chapel, they could see the North Loch just below and the blue-gray waters of the
Firth of Forth in the distance. A breeze blew toward them from the Firth, fresh and tangy with scents of the sea.
Sibylla breathed deeply, listening with only half an ear to her gaily chattering companions until Alice exclaimed, “What is he doing here?”
Turning, Sibylla beheld a handsome young man striding toward them with a confident grin on his face. His dark coloring, lanky build, and aquiline features put her so strongly in mind of Thomas Colville that she easily deduced his identity.
“Someone told me you had come here, Alice,” he said, walking right up to her, catching her by the shoulders, and kissing her soundly on the cheek. “So you missed me enough to persuade your father to bring you! I’m gey glad to see you, lass, but you should present me to your bonny companions.”
Seeing Alice shrink away from him stirred Sibylla’s temper. “If we are to talk of manners,” she said, “I should think you’d know better than to accost the lady Alice in such a rude way.”
He threw back his shoulders, put his hands on his hips, and looked down his nose at her. “And who might you be to speak so boldly to a nobleman, my beauty?”
“You would do better to put that question to someone who might present you to me,” she said tartly. “Until you find someone of that sort, pray step away from us.”
“I do not dance to a wench’s command, especially one who would make such a pleasant armful . . . if I were still seeking one,” he added with a cheeky grin. “You must not know that I’m betrothed to Alice, which must surely excuse my behavior.”
“It reveals only that she is getting a bad bargain,” Sibylla retorted. “Come, Alice, we will go back now.”
“Nay, come and pray with me,” he said to Alice, gesturing toward the chapel.
Keeping her back to him as she stepped between them, Sibylla touched Alice’s arm to urge her away, only to feel her own arm grasped rudely from behind.
“By heaven, you’ll not dismiss me like a common lackey,” he snapped, swinging her to face him.
As he did, she drew her right elbow back sharply, formed a fist, and using the momentum he provided her, drove her gloved fist as hard as she could straight up at his nose. Faintly hearing squeals of dismay from the girls, she watched him lurch backward, catch his heel on a
rock, and sit down awkwardly and hard.
When he clapped a hand to his nose, blood spilled into his palm.
Looking at it, he said, “By God, when I get my hands on—”
“Come, ladies,” Sibylla said as she stepped nimbly beyond his reach.
Turning from him, back the way they had come, she beheld a familiar, broad-shouldered figure standing on the walkway, looking straight at her.
“Thank heaven,” Rosalie murmured.
Sibylla was not sure that Simon’s appearance was any blessing. Her cheeks were burning, and her temper was still far from under control. If he thought he was going to wax coldly eloquent over how a lady should behave toward boorish young men, he had better, she told herself, think again.
Walking toward him, aware of the furious man behind her, she did not intend to stop long enough to explain her actions.
“How could you?” Alice asked quietly but with an unexpected tremor in her voice. Thinking she must be on the verge of tears, Sibylla looked at her only to see evidence of suppressed laughter instead.
Rosalie murmured, “Good sakes, I want you to teach me how to do that. I never saw any female hit a man before.”
“My brother taught me,” Sibylla admitted. “But I expect I should not—”
“I hope the look on Simon’s face is for that ruffian you struck and not for us,” Rosalie interjected more soberly than before.
Sibylla was watching Simon and understood her concern. Despite his tawny coloring and stony face, the words “black as thunder” swam into her mind. She remembered Amalie using them to describe what Simon looked like in a fury.
He was not looking at Colville, either.
He was still looking straight at her.
Simon had come upon the scene in time to watch astounded as Sibylla whirled on the apparently unsuspecting man behind her and knocked him flat with one blow of her gloved fist.
As she and the other two lasses came toward him, he strode to meet them and said sternly as soon as he knew she could hear him, “What the devil were you—?”
“Not now,” she cut in sharply. “If you must have an explanation, you may have one when we are well away from here. At present, however, you will oblige me by letting us pass and taking care that that ill-bred knave does not follow us.”
“I’ll see that he does not,” Simon said, his ire shifting instantly to the new target. So astonished had he been to see her knock the man down that he had failed to observe the extent of her anger as she approached him.
Or perhaps, he mused, her anger was with him for daring to block her way.
Her victim was on his feet and coming unsteadily toward him, clearly furious. Despite the hand clapped to his face, blood dripped from his nose. Evidently realizing he was only collecting gore, he flicked the hand to one side as if to get rid of the blood. As his angry gaze met Simon’s, Simon recognized Edward Colville.
“I suppose you saw that foolhardy wench clout me,” Edward snarled.
“I did, aye,” Simon said. “She has good aim.”
“Well, I’ll teach her not to play such tricks with me,” Edward said.
“That might not be wise,” Simon said.
“Wise or not, my sister has a lesson coming to her, sir.”
“Your sister?”
“Aye, sure. I warrant you can have no objection to a man punishing his sister. I told her she had no business up here without proper protection, and—”
“She clearly has little need for protection,” Simon interjected. In a harder tone, he added, “Before we continue this absurd conversation, Edward Colville, I should tell you those three ladies are here under my protection. I trust you will not require me to explain why I used the word ‘absurd.’ You’d do better to consider what Sir Malcolm Cavers will think of your behavior toward his daughter.”
“Look here, I don’t know who you are, but if you speak the truth about your responsibility for Alice Cavers, you know I am betrothed to her. That other—”
“Again I’d caution you to guard your tongue, Colville. Take your tale of woe to Sir Malcolm if you dare, but having lied to me, you will not persuade me now.”
“Damn it, what right—”
“As the youngest lass is my sister, sirrah, I’d advise you to hold your tongue if you do not want blood pouring from your mouth as well as your nose. I have held my temper so far only with difficulty. Press me further, and I’ll happily set it free. Begone now, and do not let me see you annoying those ladies again, or any others.”
“By God—”
Simon braced himself hopefully, his hands forming fists.
“Oh, very well,” Edward Colville muttered. “I suppose you will tell everyone who will listen to you what she did.”
“I do not gossip, certainly not about innocent young maidens,” Simon snapped. “But neither do I speak just to hear myself speak.”
Brushing past him, Edward strode off angrily down the hill.
Simon followed but felt sure the younger man would not try to catch up with Sibylla—not until he could do so safely, at all events.
Simon had come looking for her . . . for all three of them . . . after learning from Fife’s chamberlain that Fife would be unavailable to receive him until later in the day. Deciding then that it would be wiser to talk to Fife before taking his mother and sister to dine with the court, he had gone to relay that decision to Lady Murray.
Learning from her that the three younger ladies had gone exploring, he had strolled in search of them.
His first reaction at seeing Sibylla strike the man had been a mixture of amazement, alarm, and anger. He deplored the impulsiveness of any woman daring to strike someone so much better equipped than she was to win such a match. But underscoring those feelings had been an odd sense of pride and another of gratitude that he had been at hand to see it for himself and stop her victim from retaliating.
Now, as he walked back to David’s Tower, reason stepped in and he pondered what he would say to her. Recalling her words as she had passed him, he decided the younger Colville had insulted her or one of the others and that Sibylla had thought the insult severe enough to merit immediate punishment.
Either that or the man had said or done something to snap her temper.
Despite the mastery he now wielded over his own youthful volatility, Simon understood the sudden leap of rage she must have felt to have done such a thing.
Even so, she could not go about Edinburgh doing such things without risking dire consequences. He had to make her understand that straightaway.
Sibylla took her sister and Rosalie back to David’s Tower, aware that she would do well to avoid both Colvilles until Edward had time to come to his senses.
As they approached the tower entrance, Rosalie said, “Need we tell my lady mother what happened?”
Hearing Alice gasp, Sibylla said, “You may tell her or not, as you choose, my dear. I’ll not ask you to harbor secrets to protect me from your mother or your brother. He may tell her what he saw, however.”
Rosalie shook her head. “He will not. He may scold you—scold all of us, come to that—but he will not do so if she is present. Nor will he tattle to her.”
With a squeak of protest, Alice said, “You ought never to have done it, Sibylla. Edward must be very angry.”
“I expect he is, although he should be ashamed of himself. If I am sorry for hitting him, it is only because I should not have done so where others might see me.”
“No one was there until Simon came,” Rosalie pointed out as they passed through the entryway. “It was just luck, though, that he arrived before Edward recovered his senses enough to vent his anger on you.”
“Bad luck, too, though,” Alice said, looking sympathetically at Sibylla. “Murray is angry now, too, I think.”
“He is, aye,” Sibylla agreed. “But Rosalie is right. I own, I did not like to see him scowling at me, but we walked away unscathed only because he was there.”
Rosalie chuckled. “I warr
ant you wish he’d been a stranger instead.”
Sibylla met her twinkling gaze with a rueful smile. “I may have wished it at the time. But that stranger might as easily have been a friend of Edward Colville’s.”
That silenced them, leaving Sibylla with her thoughts until they reached Isabel’s chambers. Learning then that they would not dine with the court, after all, but that Lady Murray had ordered a small midday repast for them there, Sibylla hoped she had gained a respite from the inevitable confrontation with Simon.
Less than an hour had passed, though, when the chambermaid approached her to say that the Laird of Elishaw had sent her to ask if the lady Sibylla would join him for a stroll round the tower forecourt.
Lady Murray frowned at hearing of this request. “What is he thinking?” she asked. “Tell him to come here. To stroll alone with you will surely stir talk.”
“Not if I just walk about the courtyard with him, madam,” Sibylla said. “We both attend members of the royal family, after all. When the court is in residence, the courtyard is as public as the great hall. Therefore, most observers who recognize us will think only that we meet to relay a request from one royal personage to another.”
Sibylla did not include her father in “most observers” and hoped that if he did see them together, the sight would not spur him to tell Lady Murray that they had nearly married. He did sometimes forget his promises, especially if he overindulged in whisky or claret.
Quickly tidying her hair and shaking out her skirts, she went to meet Simon. Not for a minute did she contemplate refusing to walk with him, because she knew he would have his say one way or another. She would gain nothing by delay.
He was waiting quietly if not patiently on the stair landing. “We’ll be back soon,” he said. “What I have to say will not take long.”
Light in the stairwell was too dim to reveal much in his expression, but his demeanor revealed no sign of displeasure. Deciding that he believed he was merely attending to a tiresome duty, she put a hand on the forearm he extended to her when they reached the foot of the stairs, nodded pleasantly to the steward as they passed him, and let Simon take her out into the courtyard.
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