Border Brides

by Kathryn Le Veque

  Diamantha had been standing silently by, watching the woman try to warm Sophie up, but it was clear her daughter wasn’t willing to respond at the moment. She was tired from travel, so Diamantha interrupted the woman’s attempts.

  “We are very tired,” she said politely. “Mayhap she will accept your treat once she has had a chance to rest. May we go to our rooms now?”

  Even though the husband hadn’t yet decided if he wanted English guests, the wife took charge of the situation. She didn’t care if they were English or not. She had guests and she would provide for them.

  “Of course ye can,” she said, moving towards the narrow staircase built against the side of the wall. It disappeared into the darkened floor above and she mounted the steps, turning to wave her guests along. “Come with me. I’ll get ye settled. Would ye be wantin’ a bath?”

  Diamantha was already following the woman with Cortez, Sophie, and Merlin close behind. “That would be lovely, thank you,” she said.

  The woman gathered her dirty skirts as she took the stairs. “I’ll have one brought to ye,” she said. “I’ll also bring up some food fer the little lass.”

  “We have more in our party,” Cortez said as he carried Sophie up the stairs. “Five more knights who will require rooms. I shall pay handsomely for the privilege.”

  The woman nodded vigorously. “We have enough room fer them,” she said. “There was a big market here a couple of days ago and we were all full, but everyone has left. We have lots o’room now.”

  Diamantha turned to glance at Cortez, who winked at her as they followed the loud, enthusiastic woman up the stairs. Once they mounted the top of the steps, she turned left and took them down a short, dark corridor that ended at a rather heavy oak door. The woman threw the latch and an enormous room came into view.

  The chamber was at the front of the inn, overlooking the square. There were two good-sized beds, strung with rope with clean straw mattresses, a table and chairs near a sooty hearth, and back in the corner behind a wooden screen was an in-room privy. It was nothing more than a seat placed over the bottom half of a barrel, but Diamantha was rather surprised to see it in their room. The old woman threw open the window at the front of the chamber and let some of the damp, cool wind inside.

  “There, now,” she said. “This will air it out a bit. I’ll send me lad up with peat fer the fire. And I’ll be back with food!”

  She bustled out, leaving Cortez and Diamantha to settle in. As Merlin carried the bags in and set them down near the window, Cortez set Sophie down on one of the beds and Diamantha set the animal cage onto the floor. Then she went over to her daughter and began removing the heavy outer layer of clothing that had kept her warm throughout her travels. She looked over at Cortez as the man inspected the other bed.

  “Can you please bring in all of my sewing?” she asked. “It is still in the wagon where I was sitting. The barrel with our new clothing is there, too. Can you have someone bring it all up?”

  Cortez nodded, finished with the bed inspection and then moving over to the in-room privy. He lifted his eyebrows and shook his head as if he’d never seen such a thing in his life. “I will go and have them bring it in right now,” he said, his gaze lingering on the privy a moment longer before heading for the chamber door. “Do you require anything else while I am at the wagon?”

  Diamantha pulled Sophie’s arms out of the woolen coat and set it aside. “Nay,” she said pensively. “But I have been thinking… well, that is to say, I have been wondering how far we are from Norham Castle.”

  Cortez paused at the door. “Norham?” he repeated. “What has brought that about?”

  Diamantha shrugged as she began untying Sophie’s little boots. “I am not entirely sure,” she said. “I suppose I have simply been thinking about my father since we are so far north. He has never seen Sophie, you know. I was wondering how far away we are from Norham Castle and, if we are not too far, mayhap we can visit my mother and father for a day or two, as we did your father. I… I miss my papa, Cortez. I have not seen him in a very long time.”

  Cortez stood at the door a moment before coming back into the room and shutting the door. He seemed to be mulling over her request as he sat on the other bed in the chamber. The ropes creaked under his weight.

  “Norham is, at the very least, several days from here,” he said. “It would mean traveling through a good deal of hostile country to get there.”

  Diamantha pulled off one of Sophie’s boots and set it down on the floor. “But we have several knights traveling with us,” she said. “That should make it somewhat safer.”

  He wriggled his eyebrows. “Not if we are attacked by a thousand angry Scots,” he said. “Moreover, it would mean delaying our arrival at Falkirk by several days at least and we want to have the chance to look for Rob’s remains while the ground is still soft. If there is one snow or one freezing rain storm, the ground will harden up and there is no telling how long it will take it to soften again.”

  Diamantha’s expression was downcast. “I know,” she muttered. “It was just a thought. I do not want to delay what we have set out to do. But I thought… if we were close enough… then mayhap I could see my father and he could meet Sophie.”

  Cortez stood up from the bed. He went over to her and kissed her cheek as Sophie, with one shoeless foot, began playfully kicking at her mother.

  “There will be another time,” he told her. “But I do not believe this is the right time.”

  Diamantha simply nodded as he turned for the door once again. His hand was on the latch when she called after him.

  “Cortez?”

  He paused by the panel, hand on the latch. “Aye, sweet?”

  Diamantha was in the process of fending off Sophie’s playful feet as she tried to remove the other boot. “You only recently saw my father, did you not?” she asked. “When you went to Norham to ask for permission to marry me.”

  Cortez didn’t move from his position by the door, but his expression flickered. There was something odd in his face, perhaps a flicker of fear that crossed his features but was just as quickly gone.

  “Why do you ask?” he wanted to know, his tone steady.

  She managed to remove Sophie’s second boot. “Because I never asked you how he was,” she said. “Was he healthy? How did he look?”

  Cortez just looked at her. Slowly, he came back into the room as Sophie, seeing her mother distracted, bolted off the bed with her shoeless feet and, giggling, ran to play with her animals. Diamantha turned to follow her so she could finish undressing the child but Cortez reached out and grasped her by the hand.

  “Wait,” he said gently. “Come over here with me. I must speak with you.”

  Diamantha allowed him to lead her over to the bed. He sat down and pulled her down next to him, his hands gripping hers. All the while, he seemed very thoughtful, which in turn spurred Diamantha’s imagination a bit. At first his manner was curious to her but now she was starting to become frightened. When he lifted his head so speak, she interrupted him.

  “Something is wrong,” she blurted, fear in her eyes. “What is wrong? Is it my father?”

  He shushed her softly, putting a gentle finger over her lips to keep her from chattering nervously. “Listen to me, please,” he murmured. “I went to Norham Castle on my way home from Falkirk those months ago. It is the stronghold of de Longley, the Earl of Teviot, and a more fortified place I have never seen. I asked for your father but it was your mother who met me. You look a lot like her, actually. I also met your brother’s children. Your mother was minding them. Your brother, Corbin, lives at Norham, too, although he was not at the castle the day I was there.”

  The expression of fear on Diamantha’s face was increasing. “Cortez,” she said, her throat tight with tears. “What about my father?”

  He sighed heavily, bringing her hands to his lips and kissing them tenderly. “I informed your mother of Rob’s death and told her my business,” he explained. “Because
of Rob’s passing, she did not want me to tell you what had happened. About your father. She thought it would be too much for you to take in addition to the death of your husband and I promised her that I would not tell you, at least not right away. But I find I can no longer keep it from you, not when you are asking me direct questions about your father. I will not lie to you. Sweetheart, your father passed away a week before Robert met his death at Falkirk. Your mother said he died in his sleep and that it was very peaceful. He did not suffer.”

  Diamantha stared at him. As he watched, her eyes grew wider and wider and suddenly she gasped as if she had been struck in the gut. Her hands flew to her mouth to hold back the scream of anguish.

  “Nay!” she shrieked. “It cannot be!”

  Cortez felt so very badly for her. He put his arms around her, trying to pull her close. “I am so very sorry, my love,” he consoled. “I am so sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. Your mother assured me that your father had spoken of you very recently, musing over the granddaughter he had not yet seen. She wanted you to be comforted in the fact that your father loved you dearly and that he is now at peace.”

  Diamantha broke into gut-busting sobs, her face buried in her hands as she wept her grief. Over by the animal cage, Sophie heard her mother crying and she stood up with a kitten in her arms, looking at her mother with great concern.

  “My Papa,” Diamantha wept. “I want my Papa.”

  Cortez could feel a lump in his throat as he rocked her gently, his eyes on Sophie as the little girl padded over to the bed, her attention on her weeping mother. Sophie tugged on her mother’s skirt.

  “Mama?” she asked. “Are you sad?”

  Diamantha was nearly hysterical. She pulled away from Cortez, sharply, and swept her daughter into her arms, weeping all over the girl. Her grief was a palpable thing, bleeding over onto everything she touched.

  “My papa is dead,” she sobbed. “Just like your papa is dead, Sophie. Now we are the same. Neither of us has a father.”

  She sailed into gales of sobs and Cortez stood up, pulling Sophie from her arms. At this point, Sophie was more confused than anything. As Diamantha threw herself on the bed and wept her heart out, Sophie turned her confused little face to Cortez.

  “Papa is dead?” she asked, cocking her head.

  Cortez was in damage control mode at this point. He could feel everything tumbling down around him and he was struggling to stop it. He knew that Diamantha had not told her daughter of Robert’s passing but in her grief, she had confessed his death to her bewildered daughter. Sophie was trying to understand all of it. He tried to sound comforting.

  “Do you remember when I told you that your father was with the angels?” he asked calmly. “I told you that he was in a place of light and if you are a very good girl, you will get to see him someday. We all go to live with the angels when we die. It is a wonderful place.”

  Sophie remembered that conversation. She was a very sharp little girl. She continued to stare at him with her big, bottomless eyes for a few moments before squirming in his arms, trying to get down. Cortez put her on her feet, gently, and the child toddled over to her mother, who was sobbing on the bed.

  Sophie may have only been three years old, but she was remarkably intuitive. She knew something was very wrong with her mother and only marginally understood what it was. It had something to with living with the angels, with people they could no longer see or speak with. She reached out and put a hand on her mother’s trembling head.

  “Mama?” she asked softly. “Mama, do not cry. Papa is living with the angels and if you are a very good girl, you can see him again someday.”

  Diamantha’s eyes popped open at the sweet, comforting words coming from her child. Sophie was trying to ease her pain the only way she knew how. Cortez had given her words of hope and she, in turn, was giving them to her troubled mother. Though no longer openly weeping, tears still poured from Diamantha’s eyes as she reached out and stroked her child’s cheek.

  “Shall I tell you about my papa?” she asked, sniffling. “You have never met him, but he was a wonderful man. He was very tall, the tallest man you have ever seen and he was a very great knight. He was a great knight like your papa and like Cortez.”

  Sophie grinned and she started jumping up and down with the kitten in her arms flapping about. “My papa is very tall,” she said, holding up her arm to emphasize her point. “He is as tall as the clouds.”

  Diamantha couldn’t help but grin through her tears. She reached out and took the kitten out of Sophie’s grip because it was getting whiplash the way her daughter was jerking it around. The kitten immediately cuddled up next to Diamantha as the woman lay down on her side, reaching out to toy with her daughter’s hair as the little girl stood next to the bed.

  “Aye, your papa was very tall,” she murmured, tears still spilling from her eyes. “But my papa was even taller. He was your grandfather. He loved you very much even though he had never seen you. God, he would have loved to have known you.”

  She closed her eyes and the tears fell with a vengeance. Cortez, who had stood by silently through the exchanged, moved forward to pick Sophie up. He gave her a gentle hug as he took her back to her pets.

  “Play with your animals for a while,” he told her. “I will go and get them some food, and you can stay here with your mother.”

  Sophie reached into the cage and pulled the puppy out, who immediately started licking her face. “I want to go and get food, too,” she told him.

  Cortez shook his head. “Not this time, sweetheart,” he said. “You have no shoes on. Stay and play with your animals and I will return shortly.”

  Sophie didn’t argue with him. She was happy remaining with her animals. Cortez moved away from the child and returned to the bed where Diamantha lay, weeping softly. He knelt down beside the bed and clutched one of her hands.

  “I will just be a minute, I swear,” he said. “I want to make sure that food and bath are being sent up. I will bring you some wine myself. Will you be well enough until I return?”

  Diamantha’s eyes were closed as she squeezed his hand. A sob bubbled up from her chest but was quickly silenced. It was clear that she was fighting to stay lucid, fighting off the pangs of grief. Hysteria was not normally in her nature but she had been through much where it pertained to the death of loved ones. She was pushed beyond her endurance and her emotions were brittle.

  “I think my father must have been waiting for Robert when he arrived in heaven,” she whispered. “They are together now, I am sure. I wonder if my father knows how much I have missed him.”

  Cortez kissed her hand. “He knows,” he confirmed. “By now, he knows everything. He knows that I did not ask him for your hand but I asked your mother instead. I wonder if he will be angry with me about it.”

  Diamantha opened her eyes, a smile breaking through the tears. “More than likely, he will be angry with my mother,” she said. “But he could never stay angry at her for long. I think you are safe.”

  His dark eyes glimmered at her as he kissed her hand again. “I promise that I will take you to see your mother very soon,” he said quietly. “We will make sure that Sophie meets her.”

  Diamantha was back to weeping again. She clutched his hand by her face, her cheek against his flesh as the tears fell. “God has taken Robert away and now he has taken my father,” she sobbed quietly. “But He has given me you, and for that I am grateful. Thank you for barging into George’s solar and demanding that I marry you, Cortez. You were so maddening but now I see God’s plan. He meant for you to be there and to be forceful with me. Had you not come, I would still be wallowing in grief for Robert’s loss. I still feel grief, now more so with my father’s passing, but I thank God that you are here to comfort me. I thank God that He has brought you into my life.”

  Cortez kissed her temple, her hands, squeezing her fingers tightly. “You are my angel,” he whispered. “You have made me feel more love than I have ever known to
exist. Know that I will never leave you, not ever. You have all of me, Diamantha, forever.”

  Diamantha stopped in mid-sob, lifting her head to look at him with an incredulous expression. “Love?” she breathed. “You feel love?”

  He was an inch from her face, smiling sweetly into her wet, watery eyes. Gently, he stroked her silken cheek. “Of course I do,” he whispered. “I cannot remember when I have not loved you.”

  Diamantha, emotional and spent, burst into tears again but this time, they were tears of joy. “I love you also,” she wept, wrapping her arms around his neck as he kissed her face furiously. “Sophie and I… we are so thankful to have you.”

  Cortez kissed her salty cheeks, her chin, and finally her sweet lips. It wasn’t a kiss infused with lust as it usually was when he touched her. It was something more than just physical. It was emotional at the deepest level, joy that bubbled up from the soul. He’d been the bearer of terrible news twice in her life; once with the death of her husband and now with the death of her father. Instead of hating him for it, which he had deeply feared, she was thanking him for his comfort. God was good, indeed.

  When the frenzied kissing eased, he looked into her eyes, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs as he cradled her face. “The quest we have embarked upon has done more to draw us together than anything ever could,” he surmised. Then, he held up her left hand, the one that had the Posey ring on it. He kissed the ring, grinning. “My quest is you. I think it has always been you.”

  Diamantha smiled in return, reaching out to gently touch his face as he kissed her fingers tenderly. She was so emotionally overwrought at the moment that it was difficult for her to speak, so he kissed her one last time and pushed her down gently on the bed.

  “You remain here and rest,” he told her. “I will check on our meal and a bath and return as soon as I can with some wine. Will you be well enough while I am gone?”

  Tears subsiding, all Diamantha could manage to feel at the moment was exhausted. She nodded her head. “Aye,” she replied. “I will be well. Go about your business and we will be fine.”