by Amanda Scott
“You know I don’t care a blink for such stuff. All I want is to meet eligible young men, Mairi. And you should want that, too, or you’ll have no one to think about except Robert Maxwell. What will you do then, eh?”
Slowing her mount to lessen the risk that Phaeline or Dunwythie might hear them, Mairi said, “I don’t deny that I found the man intriguing, Fee, but I cannot even tell you why I did. Perhaps it is only that he seems so strong and sure of himself when I so often feel rather helpless in the uncertainty of my future.”
“Sakes, what makes you think he is strong or confident when he failed so miserably to persuade our father to agree with him?”
“The strength I felt came from within him,” Mairi said. “I do not think he counts success or failure in one such an attempt. It seemed to me more as if he were doing his brother’s bidding, never really expecting to prevail.”
“But—”
“Have mercy,” Mairi pleaded. “This is foolishness, because it cannot matter what I think he feels inside, or why or how I sense it. His arrogant posturing when he said his odious brother could seize our estates went beyond what I think of as civil behavior. It infuriated Father, too, although he did keep his temper.”
“Aye, and Father likely infuriated Robert Maxwell, too. That is why it all disturbed you, Mairi. You always hate disagreement. I think that whenever you see conflict, you feel as if you ought to be able to smooth it over,” Fiona added sapiently. “When you cannot, you feel guilty.”
“Mercy, you make me sound as if I think of naught save myself,” Mairi protested. She was afraid, though, that much of what her sister said was true. Disagreements did upset her. But surely they upset most people.
“I know you are not so selfish,” Fiona said. “You just sometimes seem to assume responsibility when you need not and, when things go amiss—even when they have naught to do with you—to take it as a personal failure.”
“Anyone with common sense prefers peace,” Mairi said. “The plain truth is that it frightened me witless when Father just dismissed the sheriff’s threat to seize the estates if Father does not submit.”
“But such a threat cannot be real,” Fiona said flatly.
Mairi feared that it was, however. Her annoyance with Robert Maxwell persisted. However, just thinking about the handsome wretch brought memories of his charming smile, his musically vibrant deep voice, and the strangely sensual air of strength and power the dreadful man projected.
In facing him that first time in the field, she realized now that although she had dreaded crossing words with him, she had found it easier than expected to make her point. It felt almost as if she had drawn her strength then from his.
Silently scolding herself for such foolish thoughts, she had the happy notion to remind Fiona that they would enjoy Easter with Jenny and Sir Hugh at Thornhill. Thereafter, as they followed the river’s course southward, they chatted desultorily.
Rob was glad to be home and glad, too, that the day was turning out to be a fine one and showed Trailinghail at its best.
The stone tower stood atop one of the sheer cliffs forming the west boundary of Kirkcudbright Bay less than a mile from where it opened into Solway Firth. The position provided panoramic views of the bay and the more turbulent Firth. On such clear days, one could see Kirkcudbright’s kirk spire and the towering keep of Castle Mains, ancient seat of the Lords of Galloway and guardian of the town and its harbor.
The rain had passed, and the few clouds scudding across the azure sky were white and puffy. The air was chilly and smelled strongly of the sea. Gulls cried overhead, and Rob’s people hailed his return with sincere delight.
He had inherited the tower and its forested estate from his grandfather, Lord Kelso, at the age of one-and-twenty. Before then, Trailinghail being one of his lordship’s distant and lesser estates, the place had received less attention than his larger holdings and had suffered accordingly.
Lord and Lady Kelso had spent most of their time at his primary seat near Glasgow or at their house in the royal burgh of Stirling, just as their eldest son, Rob’s uncle and the present Lord Kelso, did now. Rob was sure that his inheritance had come at her ladyship’s instigation, if only because his grandfather had shown unexpected forethought in also leaving sufficient funds to set the place in good trim.
As isolated as Trailinghail was, although he had visited his grandparents there as often as possible, Rob had never expected to live there permanently. However, he realized now, rather than chafe under Alex’s thumb in Dumfries, he had taken to spending a little longer at Trailinghail each time he visited.
The people on the estate had made it plain from the outset that they looked on him as a blessing. Their delight in his first arrival and in his declared intent to visit several times each year had spurred him to exert himself more than he might have otherwise. As a result, he had come to love the place as much as they did.
The job of putting things in order had taken up much of the past four years. His fields were in good trim now, the wall was sound. And if the tower had received less attention, it was comfortable enough to welcome his grandmother if she did choose to visit. Despite her suggestion that she would, Rob doubted he would see her before summer. The present Lord Kelso and his family would press her to visit them, and Trailinghail lay miles away from the road to Glasgow.
Rob knew that Lord Kelso adored his blunt-spoken mother despite the trouble they had living together for long periods, and would do all he could to keep her until her annual return to Dumfries for Easter. And, despite her ladyship’s independent nature, she doted on her son’s family and would miss them dreadfully if aught happened to prevent her visiting them.
Thoughts of that mutually doting relationship brought Mairi’s image to mind, and Dunwythie’s. The odd connection spurred a tickling jolt in Rob’s train of thought as if his mind had jumped ahead of itself. Letting the wisp go, he returned his attention to Trailinghail and the new projects he wanted to begin there.
His steward, Fin Walters, a sensible man in his mid-thirties, welcomed Gibby’s arrival. Walters had grown up in service to Rob’s grandfather and had a respect for Lady Kelso that bordered on worship.
“If Herself commends ye to me care, lad, I’m sure ye’ll be a great help,” he said. “I’ve any number o’ things ye can do.”
Gibby, who had been eyeing him askance, straightened noticeably and said he could do aught that anyone asked of him. “Except for herding carnaptious wee cats,” he added stoutly with a sidelong look at Rob.
Suppressing a smile, Rob said, “You will do whatever Fin Walters tells you to do or suffer unpleasant consequences.”
“Aye, sure, I said so, didn’t I?” Gibby said, his demeanor wide-eyed and earnest. “Just not cats.”
Grunting, and avoiding Fin’s twinkling eyes, Rob left them to get acquainted and went inside to stow his gear.
He soon realized he had acquired an orange-and-white shadow.
Amused by the kitten’s curiosity and its antics as it explored his bedchamber, he otherwise ignored it. He was certain it would soon find its way to the kitchen. As soon as someone down there fed it, it would forget all about him.
He had stripped off his jack and his shirt, and was scrubbing himself at the washstand, when a now-familiar voice spoke from the open doorway.
“Fin Walters did say I should ask d’ye ha’ aught ye’d like me to do for ye.”
Reaching blindly for a towel, Rob blotted his face as he turned to face Gibby. “Have you annoyed him already, then?”
“Nay, I just tellt him I’d served Herself mostly inside and rode with her when she went out, and such. So he said I should tend to things in the tower for a time, till I learn me way about and get to know the men. I expect he wants them to ken more about me afore he gives me to one o’ them to train,” he added sagely. “He said ye dinna ha’ a man to look after ye, though. So I might make m’self useful.”
“I don’t need much looking after,” Rob said. Not
ing Gibby’s disappointment, he added, “You can clear up those things I carried up here if you like. The shirts and my netherstocks will need laundering, so take them downstairs when you go. You may also brush my breeks and boots if you think you can. And put those other things away in the two kists you see against yon wall.”
Gibby soon tidied the chamber. As he rose from stowing things in a kist set in the east-facing window’s embrasure, he moved to look outside, standing on tiptoe.
“Coo,” he said. “Ye can see forever from up here.”
“Not quite as far as that,” Rob said. “You can see even more from the next level, and more yet from the ramparts. The large chamber above this one has a window looking over the Firth as well as one like that one overlooking the bay.”
“Then why d’ye no take the two-windowed one?”
“Too many stairs,” Rob said with a grin. When the boy shook his head, he added, “This chamber was my grandfather’s whenever he stayed here. But I’m thinking that when Herself comes to visit, she’ll want to use the great chamber.”
“Aye, she would,” Gibby agreed. “I could help ye get it ready for her.”
What had been only a wispy tickle of an idea earlier took form as he considered how comfortable the upper chamber could be. As her ladyship was unlikely to visit soon, that chamber might even serve another purpose or person first. He would have to consider the notion more thoroughly, to see if it had merit.
Dismissing Gibby to help set up in the hall for the midday meal, Rob said, “I want to think a bit before we dine, Gib. But we’ll go upstairs afterward and take stock of what we might do there.”
“I told you so,” Fiona said with a grimace the following Thursday morning as she and Mairi aired bedclothes on the hillside below Annan House’s gateway. “At least we’re outside, but only because Mam wants to keep us busy whilst she rests.”
“She is tired,” Mairi said.
The grassy hill sloped away more or less on all sides of the house. They could see the river below and the strip of narrow but dense woodland edging it. Across the river lay western Annandale and hills separating it from Nithsdale.
The woodland edging the river continued south and then east above the breeze-rippled waters of Solway Firth, sparkling now in the sunlight. From the woods upward, freshly tilled fields covered most of the hillside.
“I vow, Mam must be pregnant again,” Fiona said abruptly. “She behaves as if she were. In troth, she has been with child more than she has been without child for most of my life. And to what purpose? She has miscarried so many that she does not even seem sad anymore when she loses one. But then, before a person can turn around, she declares she is pregnant again and Father hovers over her, fretting about her health, just as he has been doing of late.”
“It is natural that he should concern himself,” Mairi said fairly. Her thoughts shifted abruptly to Robert Maxwell, as had happened far too often of late. This time it was to wonder if he might fret over a pregnant wife as her father did.
But, in truth, Phaeline was the fretful one, always talking of how she felt, and Mairi had a notion that a wife of Robert Maxwell’s might have no cause to do that.
It occurred to her only then that she did not know he was unwed. Unlike Will Jardine, who lived in Annandale and was Old Jardine’s heir, and would therefore occasion much remark when he took a wife, Robert Maxwell was an outsider.
Mairi had assumed he was unwed from the way he had gazed at her when they met. But he was certainly old enough to have a wife and many children.
“Why do you frown?” Fiona asked, startling her from her reverie.
With a self-deprecating smile, Mairi said, “I just happened to realize that although we can be nearly sure that Will Jardine does not yet have a wife, it is a different matter with Robert Maxwell.”
Fiona’s eyebrows shot upward. “So you were thinking of him again, were you? How you can let your thoughts dwell on that man for even a minute when you believe he and his wretched brother want to seize our estates, I do not know.”
“No one can control the way thoughts form, Fee. They just do. For that matter, we don’t know that Robert Maxwell wants to seize the estates. I believe he was just warning Father that the sheriff has the power to do so.”
“Aye, well, I won’t deny that I think about Will Jardine because I want to,” Fiona said. “Even if we did not know he is unmarried, one could never doubt that he is. He would surely not flirt as he does if he were married.”
“Do you think he would not? Men often flirt who should not, I think, even married men. In troth, if you stop to consider, our father’s friends often flirt with us, and nearly every one of them is married.”
“Aye, but they ken fine that we do not believe they mean it,” Fiona said as she moved to help Mairi shake out their featherbed.
“Nor do they mean it,” Mairi said, wondering at the odd ways of men, even gentlemen and noblemen. “If a married woman flirted the way married men do, her husband would soon sort her out.”
After they had vigorously shaken the featherbed to settle its contents more evenly, Fiona said with a sigh, “Life is most unfair to women, I think.”
“Even women are sometimes unfair to women,” Mairi said a little tartly. “I am sure that Phaeline believes I shall never find a husband.”
“She has certainly hinted as much,” Fiona said. “One wonders how she expects the situation to change when it is her determination to produce a son that prevents any eligible man from learning what your fortune may be.”
“Well, for all that she has been the only mother I’ve known and has, I think, been a dutiful mother to me, I think she would prefer to see me married and gone.”
“Mayhap she would, but she will not say so,” Fiona said. “I suspect that one thing keeping her from insisting Father find you a husband is that it would force him to offer a large tocher. You’d have to have enough so that suitors would not mind so much if Mam does succeed at last in giving him a son.”
“I don’t have any suitors.”
“So we must persuade her to arrange for us to meet eligible men. Mayhap she would let us hold a feast here after Easter,” Fiona added with a thoughtful air.
“Fee, you might as well admit that you are just scheming to invite William Jardine here. You must not even dream of such a thing!”
“Well, if I am not to think of Will Jardine, then you must swear never to think of Robert Maxwell again,” Fiona said. “In time, I do think I can persuade Father to engage more kindly with the Jardines and thus make friends of them. Even if he does, though, he will never agree to let you marry a Maxwell.”
“But I don’t want to marry him,” Mairi said. “I’ve no thought of marrying anyone yet. Nor will I until I meet a man with whom I could bear to spend my life.”
She meant what she said. Her thoughts might now and again—without effort—turn to Robert Maxwell. But although he might be handsome and display reassuring strength and undeniable charm, he was no less an enemy, and he had behaved arrogantly when they’d first met. So that, she told herself, was that.
Since leaving Dunwythie Mains, she had missed it more each day. During the sennight they had spent there, her father had behaved as if she and Fiona were important to him and useful. He had exerted himself to explain things, and to introduce them to his steward, his bailie, and others who might aid them—if it ever came to that.
He had also promised to introduce them to neighboring landowners in days to come. Instead, he was traveling hither and yon to talk to other men about the sheriff’s threat, leaving his daughters at home with Phaeline.
Mairi felt as if, after a week of pretending to be an adult, she had returned to her childhood. Fiona was right, she decided. Their life at Annan House was boring. If she had an ounce of spirit, Mairi told herself sternly, she would not stand for it.
She would do something about it.
Chapter 5
Rob stepped out of Trailinghail Tower into the yard late Frida
y morning to find the knacker Parland Dow dismounting from his horse.
As Rob went toward him, an orange-and-white ball of fluff pursued by one of his hounds shot across the yard and up his leg. The dog saw Rob and skidded abruptly to a halt, tail wagging, tongue lolling. Rob bent to pat its head.
The kitten, climbing to Rob’s shoulder, looked down and hissed.
“Hush, cat,” Rob said as he ruffled the dog’s ears.
He had feared for the kitten’s life at first but only until he saw that the fearless little beast was able—with the aid of only one or two roared commands from him—to inspire the same respect in his dogs that it had inspired in Gibby. The cat apparently viewed the dogs as playmates if not as rather large, amusing toys, so Rob had relaxed his vigilance.
The hound trotted after him as he went to greet the knacker.
“I did hear at Dumfries about the wee gift Herself gave ye,” Dow said, nodding toward the kitten as they shook hands. “I see ye’re still plagued wi’ him.”
“So I am, but welcome to Trailinghail,” Rob said. “What news do you bring?”
“As to that, sir, ye mayn’t like some of it.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Aye, well, I heard rumors in Kirkcudbright that the sheriff does intend to seize lands from men of Annandale and other such places as refuse to bend to his will,” Dow said. “Men fear such talk may lead to clan war.”
“Aye, it might,” Rob said. Realizing he’d sounded curt, he said cordially, “What further news have you?” Most information of value that reached Trailinghail came from such itinerant tradesmen, who collected and shared it as they traveled.
“I’ve summat and nowt,” the knacker said with a twinkle. “Ye did say ye ha’ work here for a thirsty man, did ye no?”
“I do, and a drink for you first, if you’ll come inside,” Rob said. When they had settled by the hall fire, he said, “You told me you were for Annandale, I think.”