The Border Lord

by Sophia James

  She moved, laying her thumb against the words and silencing worry.

  ‘I love you, Lachlan.’ The warmth of his tongue traced the line of her skin. ‘You are my knight and I shall wait until you vanquish all our enemies.’

  ‘Knight of Grace,’ he whispered. ‘I like that.’

  ‘And this? Do you like this?’

  She stood on tiptoes and placed her open mouth across his.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Grace stood still as the maids primped and plumped her hair, stood still as the gown Lady MacDonald had bequeathed her was carefully laced and the belt at her hips lain in an amber arc of citrine quartz, she supposed, or agate. She could not care which.

  All her thoughts were on her husband and the last sight of him leaving her, the strange charcoal lines drawn on his wrist easily visible as his fingers had let go of her own, one by one by one.

  Would he be at the court tonight? It was five whole days since she had seen him, though every night she had been taken out. Somewhere. A banquet. A dance. Each night she had looked to see if he was there and each night she was disappointed, the worry of the impending tournament weighing on her composure.

  Her fault, everything, and no sign of Lachlan anywhere. And so when the servant led her into a chamber she knew to be seldom used at the bottom of the house, her heart began to beat fast. Perhaps it would be him. Here.

  She stepped through the door with hope in her mouth and stopped just as suddenly. Malcolm Kerr stood watching her, his back to the fire in the hearth, his black hair highlighted by the colour of flame.

  Satan. Embodied. She turned to leave.

  ‘If you go, it will make things infinitely more difficult. I am here only to talk.’ The same silky, self-serving voice then? Nothing different.

  She could not believe that Lady MacDonald had meant to leave her here alone with a man whom she had much reason to hate. Unless. He seemed to know just what she was thinking as he carried on.

  ‘Everyone in Edinburgh has secrets they wish to hide. Including your hostess.’

  Blackmail and bribery. Grace stayed very still.

  ‘If you want to protect your husband, you need to leave Edinburgh. Your being here will only be a distraction.’

  ‘When Lachlan k-kills you?’

  His smile made her nervous. Not the reaction that she might have expected.

  ‘Such an innocent. You think it is my life that holds the key to all of this? You think that it is my continued miserable existence that I should risk everything for?’

  Confusion clouded the urge to simply walk out and away. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Do you truly not? Then I shall endeavour to explain it to you. We are both expendable, Lachlan and I.’

  ‘No. B-Belridden holds its own p-power.’

  ‘Against kings?’ He laughed. ‘There are many landowners who are restless, Clarence is angling for a title and David still holds to the belief that Scotland can be stronger under English rule. Edward the Third would take the Marches tomorrow if he did not think that in diplomacy there is a better chance of having them anyway.’

  ‘You w-would of course know th-that, given your own recent h-help in his campaign.’

  ‘It is never wise to underestimate the enemy. Surely that is something you understand.’

  ‘E-Enemy?’ He spoke as if he had not thrown in his lot with the disinherited, and then she frowned when she realised it might be her family of which he spoke.

  ‘Shifting alliances are something that an astute man can use to his own advantage.’

  ‘Like you always h-have?’

  He opened his palms in a strange gesture of intent. ‘Until two weeks ago I wanted to kill you both, but today I come in peace.’

  ‘Why? What has ch-changed?’

  ‘My motives, I suppose. Ruth’s brother told me that she took the poison herself because she wanted to punish Lachlan and me. She laid the blame upon us both and died with a smile on her face. An ague of the head, I think, from her carrying of the babe?’

  Shocking, raw, the confession was so bald she could do nothing save believe it.

  ‘Then why challenge for my hand and for Belridden? Why should you punish your brother when he did nothing to you? If you relinquished your claim, we could all go home.’

  ‘No.’ Sweat now beaded his upper lip. ‘Lachlan will die unless you can find it in yourself to trust me, for you still dinna see it, do you?’ Pity hung in his words. ‘If I had not challenged his right to you and forced the tournament, Belridden would have become the first of the clan lands to fall into chaos, the first to be divided between two kingdoms in the name of a peaceful succession by the Duke of Clarence. A tournament highlights the right of the Kerrs to the land, makes those who might take it by subterfuge less likely to try. This way the world will see that we claim it, Lachlan and I, and that they should tread warily.’

  ‘I d-do not know…’

  ‘Ask your husband, then. Ask him of the king’s intentions and then leave Edinburgh and go home to Grantley. Take the child that you nurture and hold it safe.’

  Her hands went across the slight swell of her stomach. ‘How do you know of that?’

  ‘Your servant Lizzie has a liking for fine wine and she is not a careful drunk.’ Something showed on his face, something warmer and more real.

  ‘That was why you did not expose me, b-because of the child?’

  He smiled. ‘Perhaps you were not as innocent as I had thought when you made no real effort to locate my body at Grantley, but this babe will be the last of the Kerrs. Even a sinner has a point he tries not to cross.’

  ‘What of your progeny? Surely you could father children?’

  ‘Nae, I cannot.’

  ‘But the child Ruth bore?’

  ‘Wasn’t mine.’

  ‘Lachlan insists that she was n-not his either, yet he buried the child in consecrated ground and cursed you for it as he did so.’ The facts fell bare between them and Grace ran her hands through the short length of her hair. Lord, what was she to do now? Candour had its own barbed points and she could see in Malcolm Kerr’s eyes the beginning of comprehension.

  Not his? Not his brother’s? The woman he loved obviously had had her own demons.

  His face reddened and his teeth gripped at his upper lip. For a second she thought that he might cry in front of her, the bullish cocksure man of a minute ago submerged under a mask of grief.

  Lord, Grace thought. So here was the truth. A family pulled apart by death, curses and poison and a woman too weak to see her part in the healing.

  Still she could not absolve him of everything.

  ‘Ginny, my cousin…’

  ‘She said she wanted me. I thought that she was saying yes.’

  Another truth. And perhaps her cousin had wanted him. The letters. The meetings. Complex and startling, and just like that, the man who had been a puzzle became one who was not.

  ‘I sh-should have sent men to look for you. I sh-should have tried harder, but I w-was angry.’

  He made no comment at all to that.

  ‘I’ve made many mistakes in my life. One of them was trusting Ruth and another was throwing my lot in with the English. But at the very end of it all, Belridden stands as the only true thing that matters, the real treasure that needs to be saved. We can only do that if Lachlan and I take on those against us and win, for otherwise it will be lost to the Kerrs.’

  ‘Cross the f-field, you mean, with everyone l-looking on?’

  He nodded. ‘It could work if none could guess that I planned to do it. Is it possible for you to see my brother before the tournament?’

  ‘I am n-not certain. So far I have n-not.’

  ‘He won’t trust my intentions.’

  ‘Can you b-blame him for that?’

  ‘Tell him first if you see him. Tell him it is for the name of Kerr that I am fighting and for the babe you carry—’

  ‘He does not know of this child,’ she butted in. ‘I have not had
the chance to say it.’

  His smile surprised her as it made him look so much more like her husband. ‘Lachlan protected a child he thought was mine. It is the least I can do to protect one that I know is his.’

  A noise outside made them turn and Claire MacDonald entered the room, her pallor deathly white and her hands trembling. She looked straight at Grace and crossed the floor to stand by her.

  She was a good woman with difficult choices and the fibre within to make the right one. Malcolm could learn a lot from her.

  As if he had had the same thought he turned to leave, his silence allowing the woman at least some comfort, and when the tapestried curtain hung down behind him and there was stillness, Claire burst into copious tears.

  ‘If he hurt you in any way…’

  ‘He did not.’ Grace took the cold hands into her own, liking the way the fingers threaded through hers. ‘And he will not hurt you or your family either.’

  A glimmer of relief was followed by even louder sobs as Lady MacDonald realised how close she had come to losing everything she held dear.

  Grace saw her husband later that night from a distance, his hair slicked close and a shirt and plaid showing off the dark of his skin. He was like an outsider caught here among the fine clothes and manners, and, for the first time she could ever remember, he did not carry a weapon within the company of others. His choice, or the wish of those near him, she knew not which, though the beat of his fingers against the emptiness of his belt gave her some sort of an idea, as did the presence of men she had not met before. He was being as watched as she was.

  She tried to compose herself, tried to swallow back panic as he walked across the room towards her. Even dressed in the finery Claire had lent her, she was…ordinary compared to him…the beauty she had perceived a few hours ago in front of her mirror less certain here.

  ‘Grace.’

  He said her name softly as he took her hand. No more than that, just the feel of his skin against her own. For a moment she did not meet his eyes, could not, could not look and see what she hoped was there. And then she did, there in the middle of a crowded room with the lights of the candles above them and outside the Scottish autumn settling close.

  His fingers tightened, the ball of his thumb running across the sensitive flesh inside her palm, promising all the things that they might do later. Much later, with politics and the way of the court now binding them to different paths.

  When he stepped back their hands fell away, his smile bright. She could see other women watching him, prettier women than she and cleverer. Still he stayed there, close.

  ‘Ye have been well?’

  ‘I have been, my Lord.’ So polite in this company as manners stripped the words of meaning. ‘And you?’

  ‘Well.’ The glint in his eyes bordered on humorous, though danger was imprinted there too, and, as John Murray wove his way through the crowd, new hope surfaced.

  ‘I wish to have a moment alone with the Kerrs,’ he ordered and unexpectedly took her arm as he moved with Lachlan away towards the window, shepherding them to the least used part of the room.

  ‘We have a minute at most, Grace,’ her husband said as they walked. ‘By then they will have realised that John here has no mandate at all to dictate their behaviour.’

  ‘Who are they?’ she asked.

  ‘Men from the north! David is under threat from everybody these days and so he lets them have their head.’

  ‘I have met your brother.’ She rushed the words out, and she was glad that he had not tried to touch her as the distraction would muddle her thoughts and she needed to tell him. ‘He knows that I carry your child.’

  ‘Wha-a-at?’ Even John Murray turned around at that.

  ‘I know this is a t-terrible place and time to t-tell you, Lachlan, but it makes a difference to why Malcolm will help us.’

  ‘You are with child?’

  ‘What difference?’

  Two questions from two men. She answered the one of her husband.

  ‘By almost eight weeks.’

  ‘And you are well?’ His hand came across the swell of her stomach, carefully, as if even the gentlest of touches might disturb the baby.

  ‘Your brother says that he will cross the field at the tournament and support you. He says that Belridden is in danger of being divided up between all those who would support David and that Edward of England is losing patience. He says that the Kerr land will be the first to be sacrificed to appease the English monarch.’

  ‘Have you heard these rumours?’ Lachlan looked to John for confirmation, but Murray shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘The envoy from Edward came to Edinburgh with your brother. It is anyone’s guess what was talked of.’

  ‘So it could be true?’

  ‘Aye, it could be. Edward has made no secret of the fact that he supports those stripped of their lands under the Bruce.’

  ‘Lord, Grace, you need to get out of Edinburgh and go back to Grantley.’

  ‘No. You need to win at the tournament, and when you do we will ride back to Belridden.’

  ‘Listen to me—if you love me you will listen to me, Malcolm is not to be trusted…’

  But the time was up and before she could even give an answer, her husband was bustled away and out of the room.

  John Murray still stood beside her.

  ‘In your reasoning, why should we now trust Lach’s brother?’

  ‘Because we have to,’ she answered back, less and less sure of her motives in the wake of her husband’s advice. If Malcolm Kerr betrayed them now, it would be more dangerous than before. At least then Lachlan would have been ready for him, but behind his back…

  She shook her head and refused to even think about it.

  Lachlan walked back to his rooms alone.

  Grace was having their child. Conceived when? His mind ran back over the weeks.

  The first time he had gone to her room perhaps? The thought amazed him. Would it be a lad or a lassie with hair the colour of the rowanberries in full blush? Would she be safe, they be safe? She had looked tired and uncertain, the dress a full size too big. Not her own, then. Lady MacDonald’s, perhaps, or one of her grown up daughters? He noticed too that his ring on her finger was still loose and that she wore the clip from Constantinople he had bought her.

  He loved her. Loved her as he had never loved anyone before, because with love came risk and loss. He could see now why his father took refuge in drink after his mother had died.

  And she had died in childbirth, too. His heart began to pound. She was small like his mother. What if it should claim her life as well? How would he live? And why would she not go to Grantley, to safety, the power of the Carrick name protecting her there like his own could not here? He had seen the same look in her eyes in court as he had in the cells of the Watchlaw Castle. Forceful. Certain. What was she up to? Where had she seen Malcolm and why should he now take the leap into brotherhood when in the years of their growing up he had not?

  No. That was not quite true. There had been a time when Malcolm and he had been friends, good friends, between the constant journeying to David and the growing bitterness of their father. Even after that, he thought. When Hugh had been buried they had forged the old bonds back. For a while. It was only recently his brother had been fully lost to him over the saga of Ruth. Guilt rose. Perhaps his brother had loved her as he had not? Perhaps now knowing what he did about love and feelings he might have acted differently, not having then understood what drew people together and what tore them apart.

  Ruth! People had said that she had not been happy for a long while, as long as their marriage had lasted perhaps, two people bound by nothing save a troth.

  He had not known then what could bind lovers, the white-hot strands of joy and passion foreign to him. He had not understood that his indifference to her suffering might have cut like a quick into the heightened feelings of his brother.

  Love. It had come unexpectedly, like a flash flood in t
he hills behind Belridden in the early fullness of spring or the hailstorms bearing down from the Cheviots when winter blanketed the Eastern Marches. Unstoppable. Elemental. Grace.

  In court today she had looked magnificent, no other word for it, and though there were woman more beautiful in the conventional sense or more shapely, it was to Grace that his glance kept returning, her bravery worn like a banner.

  She believed in the power of good. She believed that a solution to the struggle in the Borderlands could be achieved and that he was the man to do it. Aye, and she did not falter under her beliefs either or wear a paltry timidity. Faint-hearted and fearful? How could he have ever thought her such?

  But would this plan work?

  Lord. He swiped back his hair and leaned against the cold stone behind him. He wanted to see his child grow up, wanted to be the sort of father to it that his own had not been to him, wanted Belridden to ring again with the sound of laughter and hope. Perhaps all this could be possible again? Perhaps in the next generations of Kerrs, peace, prosperity and trust might come again to the keep?

  Because of Grace.

  ‘Mother of Mary, let that be so,’ he whispered to himself, and tried to imagine what his child’s face might look like.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The tourney was held in a field outside Edinburgh, the list measuring three hundred yards by a hundred and with no rules as to the allowed number of blows. From a stand behind a double-barrier fence Grace watched the fluttering banners and coats-of-arms, the colourful pageantry belying the danger involved. She had never in her entire life seen such a spectacle, the canopied and tiered stands decorated with shields of a hundred colours and more than a thousand people watching, peasants and nobles alike, all caught up in the excitement of the event. Like a sport!

  Claire MacDonald took her hand and squeezed. ‘I am certain that your husband will be safe, and win the challenge.’ Grace thought her quavery voice belied the inherent message in it, but any answer was drowned out by a fanfare of eight trumpeters announcing the arrival of David, King of the Scots, accompanied by his highborn nobles. Today he looked every inch the head of a royal lineage, and when he caught Grace’s eye she curtsied in respect. His allegiances were complicated and this challenge under the guise of Malcolm Kerr’s revenge must have caused him many a sleepless night. But her husband was the King’s man after all and she needed the monarch to believe that the loyal support he had from the Laird of Kerr was enough. Enough to let them retire back to the Belridden stronghold after the tournament and into a relative obscurity. Lord, how she hoped so.