The Highlander’s Trust_Blood of Duncliffe Series_A Medieval Scottish Romance Story

by Emilia Ferguson

“All the officers?” Arabella stared. This was far worse than she'd thought. “And Father? What did he say?”

  What will he do?

  Francine shook her head sorrowfully. “Father is worried, I think. He knew it for a foolish act, one bound to bring down retribution on our heads. However, what could he do? The man's our ally.”

  “The man's a fanatic,” Arabella said, sinking wearily onto the cushioned bench. Her own embroidery lay in a small pile on the edge of it, but she had no stomach for it now. She stared across into the shadows by the long table, thinking.

  As she thought, the first thing that came to her was Richard's face. Where was he? Was he well? What was he doing now?

  She sighed. What business of hers was his life? Whatever he was doing, she would never know. It was better that way – better that she lost him now before she really knew him.

  All the same, I cannot help but worry over him.

  Was he safe and well? Had he lost comrades here, and had he learned of it? Would that man leave him be?

  She shivered, recalling Rowell, and drew her shawl about her shoulders, feeling unsafe.

  “Is aught amiss, sister?” Francine asked solicitously. “You are not taking a chill?”

  “No,” Arabella said softly. “At least, I really ought to ask Cook for some of her special tisane, if I am to be sure not to get one.”

  “Yes!” Francine nodded, eyes round. “Come on. Let's go down at once. And mayhap while we're there, we'll think of something we can do should...difficulties arise.”

  “Yes,” Arabella nodded. She knew her sister meant retributions against the family and the clan, but in her heart she had her own private worries. What would she tell her father, when he asked about her whereabouts that night?

  He will ask.

  Sure enough, after they returned from the kitchen, Henry, the head guard, appeared in the stair.

  “Milady?” He bowed to Arabella though he looked, if anything, slightly nervous. She frowned.

  “Yes?” she asked, heart already thumping against the tight bodice of her gown. “Is aught amiss?”

  “Your father the earl sent fer ye, milady. In the turret, if ye can go at the soonest moment?”

  “Yes,” Arabella nodded. “I'll go now.”

  She glanced at Francine, whose slender, pale face seemed worried. “I'll be in the solar,” Francine said softly.

  Arabella smiled fondly at her sister. “Thank you,” she said.

  She headed off upstairs.

  “Daughter?” her father called when she reached the threshold. A tall man, he was hunched over his desk, hair dark red in places where it was not white, the wan candlelight making his face more gaunt than it usually was.

  “Yes, Father. It's me.”

  “Your absence was noted, Daughter,” he said, shifting to face her in the chair. She was shocked by how old he looked, how wintry his dark eyes had become. “It won't do.”

  “My absence was not of my choice, Father,” Arabella said softly. As hurt as she felt by the comment, she did her best not to react to it.

  “It doesnae matter,” her father said harshly. “It has the same outcome. And it means I'll not find a fellow among my allies to wed you if we don't move fast and think quickly.”

  “Father!” Arabella stared at him, outrage mixed with horror and a kind of awful inquisitiveness. “What do...who do you mean?”

  He shrugged aridly. “How about Bruce Grayling? He's been on the list of suitable allies long enough. The fellow's soft on you, what's more. He'd overlook anything he needed to.”

  “Father!” Arabella felt her blood drain from her head. She thought she might faint, clutching at the chair for stability. “You...you don't mean that, do you?” Bruce Grayling was the son of one of the most fanatical, most unprincipled Jacobite leaders. The man was known for his cruelty and she had no reason to believe Bruce would not exceed him, or at least not seek to emulate his way.

  He chuckled grimly. “Of course I do. In fact, I took the precaution of getting word sent to Grayling manor already. He should be here the day after tomorrow for a hand-fasting. If you and your maid could do something to make ready for ‘t, it'd be suitable.”

  Arabella stepped back, heading out of the room.

  “Daughter?”

  “Father,” she said, her voice tight. “I have no intention of marrying – Bruce Grayling or otherwise – to further schemes I cannot approve. You know you went too far with this. Now you seek to remedy it, and my...situation. But I tell you, I will not take this remedy. I would rather enter a convent and die a maid than have myself shackled to someone so unprincipled.”

  “Daughter!” her father didn't raise his voice – not ever. Yet there was a dangerous catch in it as, swifter than she would have thought possible, he stood and walked toward the doorway. However, she was already gone. Her booted feet quick and echoing in the hallway, Arabella half-ran back the way she'd come.

  She heard someone shout her name as she headed upstairs to the gallery and thence to her bedchamber. She didn't heed a word of it. She opened the door, went in and slammed it shut. Curled up on her bed.

  “I can't do this,” she said to the silence.

  Richard, her heart cried as she curled into a ball, her face wet with silent tears. Come and help me!

  She sniffed. Reached into her sleeve for where she'd tucked a linen square and dabbed her nose and cheeks, wiping away tears.

  “Foolish thought,” she scolded herself harshly. “Why would he help you?”

  Sniffing fiercely, she sat and leaned back against the wall, looking around the room, unseeing. She was trying to think of a plan.

  Run away, her mind told her. Run to Brookfield abbey and take your vows. Then no one can harm you more.

  As appealing as the refuge seemed, Arabella had no desire to take holy orders. She wanted a life beyond the walls of seclusion. A life where she could see Francine and Douglas often and one where she was free to find love, and have a family of her own.

  I should not lose that, simply for one man's obstinacy.

  She sniffed. She wasn't going to let her father do this to her. One way or another, she was going to fight.

  AN EXCURSION AND A PLAN

  “Another load, sir, and we're done.”

  “Quite so,” Richard nodded to Stower, where he stood by the cart. Instead of requisitioning food and equipment – an activity Richard thought of as little better than plunder – he had managed to obtain some little funds from the quartermaster. They were buying wheat.

  “My back will be glad when that's done,” Stower grumbled, rubbing the offending muscles with a flat palm. “Blasted things are blasted heavy, if you don't mind me saying so.”

  Richard chuckled. “Well, they are meant to be,” he said, thinking about how much wheat it took to feed a regiment. The lot they'd bought today might last three days.

  “Aye, sir,” Stower nodded. “Try tellin' me back that. It'll disagree with you.”

  Richard grinned. In spite of the chilly rain and the darkness of the afternoon, Stower managed to make him laugh. “Well, if there's a difference of opinion between yourself and your back, I'm inclined not to argue too much. If the two halves of you had a disagreement, you might end up split in two, which'd be a sorry sight to see.”

  “Aye!” Stower chuckled.

  They both turned to where two men carried out the last of the bags.

  “You lot done?” Stower inquired mildly.

  “Aye, we are,” one of the men said dourly. “We off, sir?” he asked Richard hopefully.

  “If that's the last of the wheat, then yes,” Richard nodded, making a mental calculation as he assessed the number of bags in the back of the cart against how many stones of wheat he'd bought from the grain farmer. It seemed about accurate. If the man had kept back a bag, they'd only know for sure when they'd unloaded it. And he'll not like what I do to him if I have to come back and discuss having been cheated.

  Richard sighed and, squeezing h
is horse with his knees, rode to the front of the cart. He didn't like the thought of violence, but there was a strange restlessness loose in his soul today. A restlessness he did not know how to slake.

  “Right, fellows,” he said. “We're off. Back at the camp by four of the clock, we should be.”

  “Aye, sir,” one of the men who'd been carrying grain a moment ago murmured. “Be glad to be out of the rain.”

  “So will I,” Richard mused. He gripped his horse with his knees and they rode into the darkening afternoon.

  As they rode through rain-drenched trees, Richard found his mind returning to his worry and tension from earlier. Where was Arabella? Was she safe?

  I have to know, he decided to himself. It wasn't possible for him to ignore this worry any longer. She might have been the quarry of the Major and his troops out searching for spies. In which case, was she safe? Failing that, there were still vagabonds and outlaws in the woodlands, and she was one person, alone. He bit his lip.

  Anything could have happened to her, and I sent her back alone. Whatever happens, I am responsible. I must have been mad. What else, he reflected grimly, could he have done? With Major Rowell with them, and the pretense of her being a war-widow, how could he have convinced the man he needed to escort her home?

  I am a fool. I should never have even thought of leaving her in the encampment. I should have ignored Rowell and escorted her myself.

  “Sir?” Stower asked, breaking in on his thoughts.

  “Yes?” Richard asked, grimly resigned to the interruption.

  “We supposed to go straight back down the valley? Or should we curve through the town somewhere? Me and the fellows is in sore need of victualing.”

  “A moment,” Richard said, raising a hand as he paused, looking about. That was not too much of a bad idea. Rain dripped down his hat, sluicing his face. He blinked his eyes as it stung them and tried to think.

  Duncliffe is not far from here. If we take the next road to the right, then travel through the village of Brookfield, we could inquire after her, mayhap.

  “Yes,” he nodded quickly. “We will take the first road right. You two, you'll stay with the cart. We'll leave it out of the rain,” he added as the two men he'd appointed as cart guards cast a sullen look toward him.

  “Aye, sir.”

  They headed right, down the winding road into Brookfield.

  The place had a small gate, guarded by two very suspicious-looking sentries. As they slit their eyes at Richard where he rode before the cart, he felt a shiver of apprehension. These little outlying places – Brookfield, Grayling, Duncliffe – they had a high likelihood of being hostile. Here he was with three men to defend vital grain supplies. He shivered. This was stupid.

  “Name and business?” one of the men challenged, casting a surly glance in his direction.

  “Richard Osborne, lieutenant, Scots Borderers.” Why lie? “Requesting passage for a consignment of grain for His Majesty's regiment.”

  The two men looked at each other. One of them shrugged.

  “Right then, in you go,” he said. “Sir,” he added belatedly as Richard stiffened.

  He nodded and the cart moved at a slow, grinding pace through the gates.

  In the village, the first thing Richard did was find an inn.

  “You go round the stables with the men, Stower,” he commanded quickly. “I'll go inside and get hot food for us.”

  “Bless you, sir.”

  They both laughed.

  In the dining-room, while Richard waited for the innkeeper's wife to get together a cauldron of stew for them, he stood by the fire and listened to the talk. Most of the locals spoke Lowland Scots, and his was good enough to listen to their talking.

  “So,” one of them was saying at a table beside Richard. “You heard about the goings on?”

  “The feast?”

  “Aye.”

  “Can't go,” the one man said, sounding disappointed. “Got to shoe horses in Presterley.”

  “Och, too bad,” the first man said. “She's a bonny lass. I'd be glad to drink a toast at the hand-fasting”

  The second man said something crude and Richard blinked. He frowned. Who were they discussing?

  “Excuse me,” he said to the innkeeper's wife as she came past, a tray of plates held firmly in her strong grasp. “But I heard word of a feasting nearby?”

  “On Monday,” she said curtly. “Laird's daughter having a hand-fasting, or so I heard. Rather hasty business, so they say.”

  “Oh?” Richard could have been shot in the knee just then and not have noticed. He was in complete shock. He heard how distant his own voice sounded, as he asked: “The local laird?”

  “Aye! Over at Duncliffe.”

  The whole room whirled out of focus.

  Arabella was getting married? He stared and wished his sight would clear. He knew it was ridiculous of him to feel this way, but it felt like a blow straight to his guts. She was seemingly no one to him, a woman he had met twice – once in the woods and once at a ball. She had however, in those two meetings, touched his heart as none other ever had.

  He was, he realized with some surprise, more attached to her than he'd ever thought to be. Now she was marrying someone else?

  “Come on, Richard,” he hissed to himself as he went back to the hallway, feeling too restless for the crowded, noisy dining room of the inn anymore. “It isn't your business.”

  All the same, the more he tried to forget about it, the worse it seemed. A thought occurred to him: Was this Arabella's choosing? Or had her father imposed this on her?

  He shook his head. Whatever the case, she was lost to him.

  “And what can I do?” he asked himself.

  A thought occurred to him. He could try and ride to Duncliffe. Try to see her, speak to her.

  It was a ridiculous, wild plan. He had fled the place on pain of being shot not a few nights before this one. Now he wished to go back. Unaccompanied?

  “I have to try.”

  Just then, the innkeeper's wife appeared.

  “The stew will be done in a moment, sir,” she said. “Before then, if you'd care to take this bread out to your lads? They look ready to eat the props for the stable roof, so they do.”

  Richard laughed. “Indeed, madam,” he said lightly. “I'll take that out before they do harm to your stables.”

  She dimpled and handed him the basket of freshly baked loaves. Richard smiled as he breathed in the delicious aroma and questioned why he'd expected hostility.

  Most of the countryside folk probably couldn't care less who sits the throne of England, he thought mildly. If there's food in their bellies and peace in their homesteads, most people couldn't be bothered about matters of state.

  Which was, he thought wryly, a sensible state of affairs.

  “If I wasn't in the army, I couldn't care less, either,” he said aloud.

  “Sir?” Stower asked as he reached the men, huddled under the eaves of the stable.

  “I said, if we weren't in the army, we wouldn't eat like this,” he amended. Stower laughed.

  “Well, sir! This is the best meal I've had since joining the army, I can say that for 't.” he grinned, reaching for a steaming loaf.

  As the men attacked the contents of the basket with gusto, Richard helped himself to a bannock and crumbled a piece off absently, his mind far away.

  He had to see Arabella again, and soon.

  The stew arrived soon after the bread and the four of them retired to the barn, settling themselves on hay bales to eat their meal. As they ate, the men making short work of it, Richard made a plan.

  “So,” he said, trying to keep his voice as level as possible, “how would you feel about a trip past Duncliffe?”

  Stower stared at him. He had a small loaf in one hand, gravy running down his face. He swallowed. “Sir? You're in earnest?”

  Richard sighed. “No, Stower, I'm making some elaborate farce. Of course I'm in earnest. What do you say?”
<
br />   “You mean, go to Duncliffe to, well, assess it?”

  Richard sighed again. “In a manner of speaking, yes. To find out strength, size, numbers. And, more importantly, the mood in the fortress. I'll have to go in alone,” he demurred. “But I wouldn't refuse someone waiting for me to come out.”

  His man nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Richard let out a long sigh. “Good. You're a good sort, Stower.”

  Stower was eating again, mouth full of fish stew. He nodded to Richard firmly, eyes sparkling. Richard felt some tension in him go out, replaced with a strange excitement for his plans. He knew it was wild, but he had to see her. To ask her if this was her choice. If it was, he thought grimly, he would make himself accept it. However, if it was not, well...if it was not, then they would have to do something. He was not about to see a woman as beautiful, wise and lovely as her suffering for one man's foolishness. Nor would he suffer for it himself.

  DISCUSSING A SECRET

  “So,” the earl of Duncliffe said in a soft voice. “We will have the feast here, and then a detachment of my men will ride with yours to Grayling. What say you?”

  “Aye, Duncliffe.” Alec Grayling's voice was hard.

  Arabella, standing in the doorway of her father's office, felt her fingers tighten in rage and affront. She forced her hands to uncurl, her breathing to slow. Made herself look away.

  I can do nothing about this.

  Across the room from her, Bruce was standing. His dark blonde hair was lit softly by the light from the window. He seemed to catch sight of her just then, for his handsome face changed and Arabella shivered, feeling her whole body tense with revulsion.

  He might, she thought distantly, have the looks of a prince. It seemed to her he had the character of a demon – they had met once or twice in the past and she'd disliked him intensely then. It hadn't changed with time.

  He smiled at her now, a mild smile, though she could see the expression in his eyes. It was not simply the lust that made her stomach twinge. That alone would not have turned her stomach. It was the curiosity.

  I feel as if I was a mechanism he wants to disassemble, to determine how it works. That inquisitive gaze made her want to run, very far, and never come back. However, that was not an option for her now. Her father, his dark eyes serious, turned toward her.