The Border Lord

by Sophia James

  The bile rose in his throat. Had it just been he, he might well have laid his hands around the slim column of her neck and squeezed the truth from her about what had happened to his brother.

  But he couldn’t. Not with the fate of his people resting so firmly in her traitorous palms. Not with the threat of winter looming, close and long, and a hundred clan children who would not see the next spring should he take unwise retribution.

  He hated the feeling of helpless anger he was suddenly consumed with. Hated the knowing smile on Grace Stanton’s face and the muted sobs of the group of yellow-haired girls. Hated Grantley and its luxury. Hated the problem of poverty he was faced with, and no way short of marriage and a rich wife to solve it.

  When the front doors were opened by myriad servants, the opulence of the manor made him stop. The whole of the bottom floor of Belridden would have fitted into this one single salon, wealth screaming from each priceless piece of furniture. He wondered what Grace Stanton would make of the hall at his keep and knew the answer with a sinking heart. She would probably have one peek and burst into tears and take to her bed for a week. Wasn’t that the way of wealthy women?

  Her bed. His bed? Their bed? Lord, he had not even had the time to think through the sleeping arrangements before being summoned south on the orders of his king. A niggling worm of doubt turned inside him.

  To bed her?

  To unpeel the high-necked gown from her body and discover the woman underneath. To enter her with the legality of the king’s missive between them and produce an heir? To see her stomach full swelled with the seed of his loins, ripe, womanly, available.

  Even with his brother’s band on her finger, the idea was not repugnant. Not repelling. Nay, the very idea took on a breathless possibility and shimmered between them as they took their seats at the table.

  Sensual. Shocking. Raw.

  He noticed how she slid her chair as far away from him as she could manage.

  ‘S-S-Stephen will be here t-t-tomorrow.’

  Her stutter made her strangely vulnerable and as their eyes caught close he saw something in them that garnered his pity. Pure and utter effort marked the velvet, and a light sweat beaded her upper lip.

  ‘We will be gone long before then, aye.’ No point in pretending otherwise. He was annoyed with his sudden want to make things a little easier for her. Annoyed, too, when the softness that had been in her eyes sharpened and she turned away.

  A wife to provide a suitable heir. That was all he needed.

  That and her sizeable dowry.

  And as soon as he could rip Malcolm’s ring from her finger, he would.

  Chapter Two

  The party from Belridden hardly ate a thing.

  They hardly touched the fowl or pork or salmon that appeared in course after course from the generous kitchens of Grantley. Nay, they sat there like a sullen solid wall of plaid and muscle and helped themselves to wine. But that was all.

  Did they think the fare poisoned? Or was it food so unlike the nourishment at Belridden that they just could not steel themselves to try it?

  A headache that had begun outside blossomed and the zigzagged beads of light that tore through Grace’s vision widened. She would be married under the name of God to a man she would only be able to half-see.

  Blinking hard, she caught his glance.

  No, his half-glance. One eye, no nose and the glimmer of a neck, and the rest of his body disappearing into jagged nothingness.

  Wiping wet hair from her forehead, she no longer cared about the welts of thickened skin hidden beneath her fringe as she counted slowly backwards from one hundred. Sometimes that helped. Today it didn’t.

  The arrival of Father O’Brian lifted the silence, his lilting accent welcomed.

  ‘I had it from the cottagers that the Kerr party were here, Lady Grace, and wondered when you’d be having a need of my services?’

  He stopped as he came fully into the room and stared at the strangers opposite. She’d always thought Patrick O’Brian a large man, but compared to Lachlan Kerr he suddenly looked small. Still, to give him his due, the cleric tried to stand his ground as his eyes slid across the numerous swords. ‘I cannot marry you in battle gear, Laird Kerr. In the face of our Lord such a thing would be sacrilege.’

  ‘Then you cannae marry me at all,’ Kerr returned, no waver in his voice, just a cold, hard certainty. ‘And when ye don’t comply with the demands of your liege, the way forward from here for you might well be an uneasy one.’

  Her uncle began to splutter, a red sheen covering his cheeks. Grace could see it because she had massaged the tight muscles in the back of her neck for the past two minutes and felt the instantaneous relief to the pain behind her eyes. As if by magic the spots of jagged light disappeared to be replaced by a headache. Dull. Heavy. Constant.

  But she could see. See Lachlan Kerr’s anger and the gritted teeth of his twenty men. See the pale faces of her cousins and the nervous demeanour of both the priest and her uncle.

  And in that moment Grace knew that, unless she took charge of this farce, everyone in her family would be at risk. More than at risk. Death lurked easy when one disobeyed the commands of the king, and her uncle’s building rage worried her the most.

  ‘I am certain that G-God’s will would not be slighted.’

  Lord, if the Laird of Kerr were to walk out now she doubted the aged priest’s superiors would be easy on him for making such a mistake and the token of this truce to secure a fragile peace would be trampled beneath the weight of error.

  Her cousins. Her uncle. Grantley.

  In danger.

  There was only one thing to do.

  ‘I w-wish to be m-married, now.’

  Judith burst into tears and knocked over her wine, the red blush of it staining the tablecloth, a wider and wider blot along the pristine fold of linen. A sign? A portent? Was history repeated in such a simple action? The weight of uncertainty in Ginny’s eyes deepened and the smooth cold gold of Malcolm Kerr’s ring bound the past with the present.

  Fickle and faithless and laughing, the secret of his death lay in the room like a shout, like a screaming echo of unrightness, like a shroud of shame that had brought them all to this pass, this penance.

  Father O’Brian trembled against the lintel of the door, his fingers clutching the cross at his neck whilst he uttered a prayer, the dull monotones reflecting the mood as her uncle turned an even deeper shade of red.

  Her wedding hour.

  Chaos.

  Her dress hanging in the corner of her cupboard, shrouded in calico. Unworn.

  The flowers she had imagined to fashion into a fragrant bouquet, unpicked.

  And a would-be husband that looked at her in the manner of a man who did not care at all.

  ‘He will take my hand and stare into my eyes and a single tear will run down his handsome cheek as he tells me how much he loves me, adores me, cannot live without me, his finger softly tracing the smile on my face…’

  Grace shook her head. How often had she told her cousins this story as she lay beside them in the hours before wakefulness became slumber, dreamtime cameos where knights of honour and chivalry and faithfulness rode into Grantley demanding love. Her love, despite the itchy rash and cursed stutter. In these stories she had none of them. Even her hair was a less fiery shade of red.

  Dreams?

  Reality!

  When Kerr dragged her into the space beside him, his hands were neither soft nor careful. When he demanded that the priest give the oath to bind them together, she heard hatred rather than love.

  And when he gave her his answer two words kept repeating again and again in her head.

  For ever. For ever. For ever.

  A warm wash of horror flooded through her as, before God and her family as witnesses, she was married. For ever. Sealed in the eyes of the Lord and the law with an unbreakable and eternal promise.

  When it was finished and her husband handed her a large goblet of wine, she dr
ank it without taking breath and then helped herself to another, her more normal sense of optimism submerged under the heavy weight of duty.

  Judith held her hand, hard clasped and shaking.

  ‘If he is anything like his brother, Grace…’

  She did not let her finish. ‘He w-won’t be.’

  ‘You can tell?’

  ‘I can hope.’

  ‘We could be at Belridden in two days to get you if you needed to come home.’

  ‘I am married n-now, Judith. Under what law should I be able to leave my h-husband?’

  They looked at each other in silence, the enormity of everything a dark shadow of truth in both their eyes.

  ‘This should not have been your cross to bear. It should have been mine. I am Ginny’s sister, after all; if anyone had to pay the price for Malcolm Kerr’s death, it should have been me.’

  Grace looked at her new husband, their eyes meeting across the crowded room. He was as beautiful as she was plain, the pale blueness of his eyes catching her anew with the contrast of colour against his darkness of hair.

  David’s knight. A man who had ruled the fields of battle from France to Scotland for a decade. She had heard the tales from various bards when they had come to Grantley with their songs and their stories. Sword, scabbard, mail and shield: Lachlan Kerr’s weapons of choice as he rode beneath the gold-and-red standard of the lion of Scotland, its border pierced by ten fleurs-de-lis.

  And now her husband.

  She turned his ring around the third finger on her left hand and the warmth of the metal made her smile.

  A sign. Of hope? She wondered about her marriage night, about being close to such a man.

  ‘If you l-love me, Judith, you will promise to st-stay silent about everything, because if you do not then all of this will have been in vain.’

  Judith did not look happy at all. ‘Perhaps if you told him about what he tried to do to Ginny…’

  ‘And ruin her r-reputation for ever?’

  ‘This is for ever too, Grace.’

  ‘I know, but I am twenty-six and Ginny is b-barely sixteen.’

  ‘She has not spoken since…’ Judith stopped and regrouped. ‘Perhaps she never will.’

  ‘T-ten months is only a l-little time. With c-care…’

  A single tear traced its way down Judith’s cheek. ‘You were always the best and the bravest of us, Grace, and if Lachlan Kerr ever hurts you even a little…’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘You are certain?’

  The pale stare of her husband caught her across the head of her cousin, beckoning her, arrogance written in every line of his face.

  Grace tipped up the goblet she held and finished the draught within. This charade was for a reason and their marriage was final. There could be no going back on such a promise even had she wanted to.

  ‘I am c-certain,’ she returned before limping over to join him.

  He barely acknowledged her as she came to stand beside him, his shoulders a good foot above her own even when she straightened. He spoke to his men of his hopes for Scotland and of his want to be again in the land of his birth before another moon waned.

  So soon? He would not stay here at Grantley for one night? The shock of such an imminent departure made her breathing uneven and she felt his gaze full upon her.

  ‘Belridden has favours that Grantley lacks. The mountains around it, for example, are lauded for their bounty when hunting.’

  Grace tried to smile, tried to understand that it was a reassurance he gave her. Bounty in hunting? All she could see in her mind’s eye was a far-off, lonely place with trails and tracks used for forage and pursuit.

  The easy luxury of Grantley closed in. ‘I have n-no knowledge of h-hunting, Laird K-Kerr,’ she returned and the red-haired man next to him laughed.

  Lachlan Kerr did not, however, his eyes bruised with the growing realisation of the enormous gulf that lay between them as he wiped his mouth free of wine on his sleeve before turning.

  ‘It is time to go.’

  Even his men on the other side of the room heard his words, standing almost as one, and the colourful gowns of her cousins seemed caught in a time frame, like an etching, England swallowed up by the muted earthy tones of plaid. Judith’s wail came first as she pushed forwards, her arms encircling Grace, tears running freely down her cheeks.

  ‘I cannot bear to think of life without you, Grace,’ she cried, ‘the stories you tell us will be so sorely missed.’

  Grace noticed the look of interest that flinted across Lachlan Kerr’s face.

  ‘Stories?’

  ‘Grace has the most wonderful imagination. She tells us tales at night.’ Bright red coated Judith’s cheeks as she registered the Laird’s attention.

  ‘I am c-certain that I sh-shall b-be back often.’ Her own reassurance vacillated as incredulity appeared on the face of every Scotsman. The sheer volume of wine she had consumed began to take effect, for she rarely drank very much. The room tilted and the noise in it dimmed as she felt her hand on Judith’s arm without any sense of it really being there. The goodbyes to her other cousins and to her uncle were just as unreal, the farewells far away through the haze of unreality and less difficult than they would have been were she sober.

  A kiss and a hug, food pressed into her hands and her cape draped around her and then the party was outside and she was up, on a horse in front of her new husband. A hastily packed chest on a steed behind. Quick steps to another life, the angst of it all banished by too many glasses of fine Rhenish wine.

  She wiped her eyes and struggled for control, for normality, but already the whirling tiredness was upon her. Leaning back against the solid warmth was comforting and she did not push away the arm that anchored her firmly into place.

  The landscape swam out of focus, soft, troubled. Almost known.

  ‘Keep still.’ The voice was angry-close and as her eyes flew open wide the world again began to settle.

  They were in the foothills of the Three Stone Burn, miles from Grantley.

  And heading north.

  Away from home. Away from her cousins and her uncle and the people she had known all her life.

  She wriggled forwards, her muscles tight from the effort of countering the pressure from the easy canter of his horse.

  His horse!

  She was on his horse. Hot panic and cold fear.

  ‘Get me off…let me down…I want to get down…’ When she flung herself away the ground came up, fast, and hit her hard against the shoulder, winding her.

  She had not been on a horse since…She shook her head and tried not to remember. Since the moment in the forest outside York when her parents had been ambushed and killed!

  Consciousness was lost under pressure. Ripping. Screams rent from the very depth of fear. And silence.

  ‘What the hell is wrong with ye now?’ A deep voice shattered memory, blue eyes narrowing against the last slant of sun as he caught her wrist and pulled her up from the ground. Close.

  She slapped him as he relaxed his grip, all the pent-up months of worry behind the movement. And when the edge of Malcolm Kerr’s ring caught at his skin, red spilt down the hard line of his cheek.

  He released her immediately and stepped away, the muscles along his jaw rippling as he lifted his hand to the wound.

  ‘Mother of Mary, are ye a crazy woman? Has David joined me to a cackle-head?’

  She made herself be still, placing her fingers across the beating terror in her heart and waited for retribution.

  None came.

  No true sharp blade into the soft folds of her throat, no well-aimed kick or clenched fist. Nothing except for a silence that was stark against the shrill, quick call of a forest bird nesting for the night.

  His men melted back, leaving them alone. Grace could just make out their forms through the leaves of the trees thick in the glade.

  ‘Do ye have a death wish?’

  ‘No.’ She whispered the word. Mouthed it.
No time to even think of stammering, for the light in his eyes held her transfixed. No empty threat here. No quiet warning.

  ‘Give me your right hand.’

  She hid it behind her back, away from him. What did he want her hand for? To cut it off at the wrist? To break her fingers one by one by one? To slash his initial into the lines of her palm?

  ‘Give me your hand, Grace.’

  She hated the way her chin began to wobble, hated the tears that welled in her eyes and the aching fear in her throat. Hated the way too that her arm came forwards. Towards him.

  He took her middle finger, gently, and removed the ring. She felt the roughened skin of his palm and saw the marks of scars under a cloth he wore around his wrist before he let her go.

  No, not scars. A brand. A circle dissected by two lines. Indigo. Complex.

  ‘This ring is a family heirloom. My grandmother holds the other half of a matching pair and I am certain that she would wish it back.’ For a second he held it before depositing it in his sporran. Gone from her.

  Memory!

  She began to shake, badly, her teeth chattering together even as she tried to stop them, and, without meaning to, she closed her fingers over the place where the ring had been and buried her hand in the copious folds of her gown.

  Relief and the release of a duty and a lie! She thanked him silently for the taking of it.

  Lachlan caught his breath and cursed this ridiculous farce that the King had burdened him with. More than twenty years of selfless service repaid by the fetter of marriage to a woman who was scared of her own shadow. If it wasn’t so permanent, he might have laughed. Indeed, he had seen the puzzled faces of his men as they tried to fathom out the character of his new wife, and failed. The whispered asides told him that they appreciated her about as little as did the echoes of laughter.