by Amanda Scott
Lifting her hand from Rob’s forearm, she snatched up her skirt and hurried to the woman, saying, “Pray, madam, do not blame him. This is all my fault!” Sinking to the deep curtsy that she had been practicing to make to the King or Queen if she chanced to meet them at Inverness, Murie looked up into leaf-green eyes exactly like Rob’s. “I have looked forward to meeting you, madam,” she said quietly.
“Rise, rise, for pity’s sake,” Lady Euphemia snapped. “Who are ye and from whence d’ye come?”
“I am Muriella, third daughter of Andrew MacFarlan of Tùr Meiloach and the lady Aubrey Comyn, his wife.” Murie straightened as she spoke but sensed no softening in her ladyship’s demeanor.
As she sought for something else to say, the older woman turned and said scathingly to Rob, “How dare ye, sir! A third daughter and likely impecunious? Ye be well aware that we had planned a much more eligible union for ye.”
Murie’s mouth opened, and as she fought to tamp down her temper, a firm hand gripped her arm. She pressed her lips together at once. So intently had her mind fixed on Lady Euphemia that she’d failed to sense Rob’s approach.
Aware that he was holding Murie’s arm too tightly, Rob eased his grip but kept his gaze on his mother. Knowing that to vent his temper with her would be unwise, he said evenly, “I know that you had hoped for such an alliance, madam. If my father had a similar expectation that your hope would result in a betrothal, he did not share it with me. In any event—”
“Never a bit, Robert,” his mother interjected crossly, folding her arms across her plump bosom. “God kens fine that I’ll no tolerate so daft a marriage. We will seek an annulment and set things aright. Furthermore—”
“That is enough,” he interjected calmly but confidently. “Before you issue more orders, Mother, I would remind you—although I should not have to—that your status here has changed. You are my mother and will have due respect and a place here at Ardincaple for as long as you desire one. However, the final say here is now mine. You and I can continue this discussion later, if you wish. But we will do so privately and after I see my lady wife settled into our bedchamber.”
Although Lady Euphemia had glowered at him throughout his rebuke, her mouth fell open at the last few words, and he had no trouble following her train of thought.
Gently, he said, “Since you had no warning, I do not expect you to remove your things from the laird’s chambers straightaway. Nevertheless, I will expect those rooms to be ready to receive us within a sennight unless there is gey good reason that they are not. Meantime, you will oblige me by seeing that my current bedchamber is rearranged at once to accommodate Muriella.”
He watched his mother try to digest his orders and saw that she was having difficulty. Deciding she might do better without Murie watching her, he said, “Come along now, lass. I’ll show you where we will sleep and help you get settled.”
As he spoke, he put a hand to her nearer shoulder and urged her rather quickly toward the stairs. To his surprise, as they neared the doorway, she abruptly stopped, her gaze again fixed on his mother.
“Muriella?”
“With respect, sir,” she said, her tone carrying easily, “I ken fine that you have much to do and would be better pleased to be doing it. I would be happy to let her ladyship show me where I am to sleep, if she will be so kind.”
Silence from Lady Euphemia being her only response, Rob bent his head close to Murie’s and said, “You’d do better to follow my lead, lass, believe me.”
“Prithee, sir,” she murmured. “I think it would be wiser for me to talk with her. You’d liefer have the three of us live together in peace, would you not?”
He grimaced. “Art sure, lass? She practically eats wenches like you.”
Giving him a secret, saucy smile and speaking close to his ear, she said, “You don’t know yet what I’m like, Rob MacAulay. Mayhap I will surprise you.”
As he turned away, suppressing his own smile, his mother said curtly, “Whilst ye’re talking rude secrets, Robert, ye’ll be glad to know I’ve put off the laird’s court. Ye’ll want time to find your way about as laird here afore that.”
Rob turned back. “When did my father mean to hold it?”
“This Wednesday, midmorning,” she said. “ ’Tis much too soon.”
“I ken fine that you had no way to know how long it would take to find me,” he said. “But since I am here now and we have three days to prepare, we have no reason to delay. I’ll tell MacGurk to send out word, though. You need trouble your head no further about it.”
She did not reply, and when her angry gaze shifted from him to Muriella, he decided that the latter might soon wish herself back at Tùr Meiloach.
She might even decide that she had been safer at Arrochar.
Realizing that Rob had made things worse for her by rejecting his mother’s postponement of the laird’s court, Murie knew that any anger Lady Euphemia felt would flow to her. Warning herself to stay calm, she thought about Lady Aubrey and Lina and imagined herself donning their habitual cloaks of dignity and calm.
“Prithee, madam, I hope you are not too vexed with me,” Murie said, moving toward her again and allowing some of her own tension to enter her voice. Then, overruling her earlier decision never to call Rob “Robert,” as Lady Euphemia did, Murie said, “Robert has told me gey little about Ardincaple or his family. But pray, madam, do not blame him for that, either,” she added hastily. “See you, we have had little time to know each other, let alone to learn much about each other.”
“D’ye mean to say ye’ve not yet consummated your union?” Lady Euphemia inquired with an irritating air of hopefulness.
Chapter 15
Seeking his steward, Adkin MacGurk, Rob found the slender, white-haired man in the buttery talking quietly with the housekeeper, a buxom middle-aged redhead known as Flora’s Maggie. Maggie’s mother had served as Ardincaple’s housekeeper for many years before her.
MacGurk and Maggie turned as one and began in chorus to express their pleasure at seeing Rob and to offer their sympathy for the loss of his father.
Maggie said, “Such a shock it were, Master Rob—” Breaking off with a grimace, she said, “ ’Tis likely I’ll do that more than once, m’lord. But it doesna seem possible, even after two days’ time, that the auld laird be dead.”
“ ’Tis hard for me, too, Maggie,” Rob said. “But, prithee, call me ‘laird’ as you called him. It will please me more than ‘m’lord.’ Meantime,” he added, “I must tell you something of importance.”
“Ye’ve brung home a lady wife,” Maggie said, exchanging a droll look with MacGurk. “We ken that fine, sir. Cully told us.”
“I never could keep secrets from either of you,” Rob said.
“The mistress… that is to say, her ladyship, Lady Euphemia—”
“I’ll wager you both know how she reacted,” Rob said. “But she is with my lady now at my lady’s request. We must all wait and see what comes of that.”
Neither Maggie nor MacGurk looked any more hopeful than Rob felt.
He said, “I mean to hold our laird’s court on Wednesday morning, MacGurk, as my father intended. You will have to spread word again of this new change.”
“Nae need, laird. I doubted ye’d go farther than Arrochar and would be back as soon as ye could tae report tae Himself. So I did nowt about his laird’s court, ’cause I thought likely ye’d want tae get him underground then, too, so folks could be there tae see when ye did. See you, sir, wi’ this chilly weather, I kent fine that we had time tae wait, if only until tomorrow.”
Thanking him, Rob agreed with Maggie’s suggestion that she might take a wee peek into his bedchamber to see if aught needed doing before he and his lady wife slept there. She took herself off at once, leaving the two men alone.
“Walk with me, MacGurk,” Rob said then. “I want to hear all you can tell me about how Father died and what else you know of his plans for his laird’s court. I’ve just sat through one
with a Brehon justice setting the rules, so I ken more than I did about such things. But—” He spread his hands.
The older man chuckled. “I’d like tae hear more about that court, sir.”
“In good time,” Rob said. “Tell me how my father died.”
The steward’s version being the same as the galley captain’s, Rob was no wiser afterward than before. Nor had MacGurk been privy to MacAulay’s intentions toward anyone who would appear before him at his court.
Since Rob had been at Ardincaple for a sennight before going to Tùr Meiloach, the steward had little more to tell him. “I will say that them who serve the castle would be glad tae see more o’ ye, sir,” MacGurk added quietly.
Assuring him that he would stay at Ardincaple at least until the King summoned him for some task or other, Rob had turned away before he recalled that he would leave sooner than that.
“I did tell my good-father that I would try to attend the Inverness Parliament,” he said. “Sithee, I must swear fealty to his grace as soon as I can, and Andrew Dubh expects to leave Tùr Meiloach in ten days.”
“Will your lady accompany you, sir?”
“We’ll see,” Rob said. When that answer caused MacGurk to raise his eyebrows, he realized that the older man feared he might be leaving Murie like a lamb for his mother’s slaughter. Rob doubted that that would be the case, but he also hoped to take her with him. He just did not want to make that decision until he had a better idea of what he could expect of her.
After showing himself everywhere he thought necessary for the time being, he grew impatient to learn if his bride had survived her discussion with his mother.
Lady Euphemia’s hopeful request to hear that Muriella and Rob had not consummated their marriage had shocked Murie, so she was glad that she could answer honestly. She was also grateful for the heat she felt in her cheeks. She said, “Mercy, madam, I did not mean to mislead you. We did that straightaway.”
Well, almost straightaway after we reached Tùr Meiloach, she amended silently to herself. Lest her ladyship inquire more closely, she added hastily, “See you, madam, your brave Robert saved me from a dreadful villain and did so with great courage. I can tell you now, after seeing how you stood up to him…” Pausing, she added in a confiding tone, “I ken fine that you must be as aware as I am now that he can be a trifle domineering.”
Dryly, Lady Euphemia said, “Robert can be willful, aye. I expect a young wife might think him rather intimidating.”
“Aye, because he is forever telling me what to do,” Murie said frankly. “But I meant only to say that he clearly inherited his courage from you, madam. My good-brothers told me that he is a gey courageous man, and then I saw as much for myself. But they told me little else. I hope to learn more about him and about Ardincaple from you. My mother has oft told me that the lady of a castle kens more about it and its people than her lord husband does.”
“That is perfectly true,” Euphemia said. “Why, I could tell you tales…”
When she paused, Murie clapped her hands together with sincere enthusiasm and exclaimed, “Oh, pray do, madam. I adore such stories and learning about how people think and act. You must know many, many tales that you can tell me. Robert talks so little about himself,” she added. Then with a sigh that she hoped sounded sad rather than frustrated, she said, “There is one thing that he did tell me, although he mentioned only the barest facts and none of the reasons for it or names of people involved. He… he said he should tell me about it before anyone else did.”
When her ladyship’s eyebrows fluttered upward, then down into a frown, Murie realized she might be thinking of the scheming Euphemia was supposedly doing now with Duchess Isabella to marry Rob to the duchess’s young daughter.
Hastily, but as casually as she could, she said, “He told me that a young girl… that he was nearly betrothed… and… oh, it was such an appalling tragedy!”
“You speak of poor Elizabeth Napier, I think,” Lady Euphemia said. “Hers was a terrible fate, aye, and much Robert’s fault, I fear. Sithee, he did not want to marry and rejected all that his father or I said about how little he need feel married until the girl was older. He offered her little wooing, so the poor child decided she would not have him. Her parents knew what an excellent marriage it would be, so they urged her to be patient with him. She cried out at them then, her mother said, and threatened to run away. So her father locked her in a tower and said he would keep her there until she came to her senses. The next time he entered, she threw herself out the tower window right in front of him, to die on the cobbles below.”
“How horrid!” Murie exclaimed, too easily able to picture the lurid scene. Searching her memory as she watched Lady Euphemia, she added, “Robert never told me the poor girl’s name. Did you say it was Elizabeth Napier?”
“I did, aye. Her father is a Clan Scott chieftain, so the connection would have been an excellent one for her and for Robert.”
Thoughts awhirl, Murie fought to concentrate. “She was a Borderer, then.”
“Aye, but her mother is kin to the powerful Earl of Sutherland, so the family has roots in the Highlands and the Borders. Why did you ask that?”
“I thought I had heard that tale before,” Murie said. “I was gey young though. Robert said he was fourteen at the time. That would be ten years ago, aye?”
“I promise you, we did not spread the tale,” Lady Euphemia said with a sniff of indignation. “Someone else must have done that if it is the tale you heard. People will gossip, and it does seem to fly about the country faster than real news does.”
“I’m nearly certain that the name I heard wasn’t Napier, though,” Murie said.
“Well, it is sad but true that such tragedies are more common than we like to think they are,” Lady Euphemia said. “Do you have a great deal to unpack, my dear? Come to that, did you bring your woman with you?”
Welcoming the endearment, Murie sensed that it was either sincere or a habit of speech for her ladyship. Either way, the rancor had disappeared from her voice and demeanor. That alone was acceptable progress, Murie decided, feeling more confident than she had when their conversation began.
In response to her ladyship’s question regarding a personal servant, Murie said, “I brought no one, madam. Our Tibby would dislike leaving home, and Mam said she was sure that you would willingly provide someone to suit me.”
Lady Euphemia nodded. “I know several maidservants who might do, but you will want to decide for yourself. I own, my dear, I was disappointed to learn that Robert had married without consulting his father or me. But I begin to think that you and I may deal together more comfortably than I thought we would.”
“Then, mayhap, if you would not find it tiresome, you will show me something more of this wondrous castle,” Murie said. “I have little to unpack, because Mam said she would send more of my things here after the Inverness Parliament. But I’d like to learn as much as you can teach me about Ardincaple.”
“I don’t tire as easily as that,” Euphemia said. “Forbye, I know that Robert will not tell you many things that you should know about the place and its people. Sithee, I came here just as you have, so I ken fine how difficult it can be.”
Murie felt as if she had achieved much but sensed that Lady Euphemia had reasons of her own for being kind to her and wondered what they might be.
Sunday and Monday, Rob and Muriella kept busy with duties at the castle, while Rob kept a wary eye on Murie and his mother. Long experience warned him that Lady Euphemia often had goals that did not mesh with his father’s and were unlikely to appeal to Rob, either.
Evenings, when the sun neared the horizon, he and Murie took supper with Lady Euphemia. Afterward, they strolled about the castle yard together and talked before retiring early to bed, where they learned even more about each other.
Muriella having shown strong curiosity and eager willingness to explore the pleasures of the marriage bed, Rob was just as eager to teach her all he knew.
After supper Tuesday, they walked out onto the hillside beyond the castle, from the crest of which they had a view northwest as far as Loch Lomond. Realizing that a slight hollow just below them on the hillside there provided both privacy and shelter from the breeze, Rob spread his plaid on the ground there.
“Come here to me, lass,” he said, still on one knee but looking up at her.
She stood where she was and cocked her head. “That sounded ominous,” she said. “I hope you are not going to fulfill your promise to the Brehon out here, sir.”
“You may hope,” he said, but his eyes twinkled. “I doubt you will dislike what I mean to do.”
“In that case, my lord, I am yours to command,” she said with a smile.
“Then do as I bid you,” he said, beckoning with a finger for her to approach. When she stood right in front of him, he said, “I think it is warm enough for you to take off your kirtle and shift.”
“Here?” Her voice squeaked.
“Aye, sure,” he said, grinning. “You said I had only to command.”
“Very well, then, but you had better keep me warm, sir.”
He kept her warmer than warm, stirring her senses until she cried out to him to stop, and then he stimulated her more, taking her to heights she had not known before, and clearly enjoying himself in the effort.
Afterward, as they walked back to the castle, Murie said casually, “I enjoyed that, and I would like to spend more time with you, doing things together.”
“Then we will,” Rob said amiably.
“Aye, but your mam said the laird’s court will mean having the castle full of clansmen, some of them strangers even to her. Must you hold it so soon? Your mam said that some people might think it disrespectful to your father not to wait until a more suitable length of time passes after his burial.”
“Did she?”
“Aye, and I must agree with her,” Murie said. “Sakes, your father is not in the ground yet, sir. You seem more concerned about your court than about him.”