The Heather Moon

by King, Susan

  Tamsin felt tears rise, and swallowed them down. She looked at Helen and smiled. In that instant, the imperfections in Helen's skin seemed to vanish. To her, Helen was surely the loveliest woman, and the kindest, she had ever seen. "'Tis fine," she said. "'Tis fine. Let her suck on... on my hand if she likes. She's a bonny wee bairn."

  "We think so," Helen said. "She's a good wee lassie."

  "Aye so," William said gently. "Come here, my bonny Kate, you've harangued Mistress Tamsin long enough." He slipped his long fingers around the child's middle and drew her up and out of Tamsin's arms. Katharine reluctantly detached from Tamsin's hand, and turned to her father with a coo like a dove.

  Tamsin pulled the ruffled cuff of her chemise over her hand. Though she was amazed that Helen, like William, did not seem to be bothered by the sight of it, she could not get used to such acceptance so easily. She was more comfortable hiding the hand, as she had always done. But her throat felt constricted with tears, and her heart seemed to swell with a sense of gratitude, of tenderness, toward all the Scotts of Rookhope.

  Helen smiled again. "You look lovely, Tamsin. I am glad I chose that black and gold for you, and the indigo gown I left for you should do just as nicely. Would you like some help with your hair, and in choosing a cap? I have others, if the ones I lent you willna do."

  "I—I—" Tamsin stammered, so overwhelmed by the woman's kindness that she struggled against the tears until her lip wobbled. "Nay, thank you, Helen, all the gear is lovely. I can finish the rest myself. I will be down for supper shortly."

  "Good. Mother will be pleased to hear that you are feeling better," Helen said, and grinned as if she and William and Tamsin shared a delightful secret. She turned to leave the room.

  William looked down at Tamsin, his eyelids relaxed, a gentle gaze. His daughter leaned against his shoulder, eyes closed, peacefully sucking on her own hand. With a fingertip, William reached out and traced the outline of Tamsin's jaw, tipping her chin up on his knuckle. The warmth of his touch seemed to flow from her chin down to her toes. She looked up at him through a sheen of tears.

  "The endless variety of Nature," he murmured with a slow smile. His thumb grazed her cheek, while his gaze rested on hers. Tamsin closed her eyes for an instant, breathing in his touch, his kindness, his nearness. She hoped that he would stay, would bend down and kiss her as he had before. But he let go, and turned to carry Katharine out of the room.

  Tamsin stood in the middle of the library for a long while, absorbing the tears that burgeoned within her, absorbing new thoughts, new ideas. She turned finally, skirt whispering on the rushes, and saw the table behind her, where the small wooden sphere sat on its brass mountings.

  She reached out with her left hand and smoothed her palm over its engraved surface, tracing the tip of her wedged finger over the outlines of the lands of the earth, watching them spin slowly beneath her touch. She felt as if her own world, the small, personal, insignificant sphere of her existence, had somehow tilted, and righted again, and now whirled under a new sun. And she knew then that nothing in her life, or within herself, would ever be the same again.

  Chapter 20

  She came tripping down the stair,

  And a' her maids before her,

  As soon as they saw her well-far'd face,

  They coost their glamourie ower her.

  —"The Gypsy Laddie"

  "How wicked of Musgrave to insist on keeping a lass prisoner as a warrant for her father's obedience," Lady Emma said. She bent over an embroidery frame as she spoke. A flaming candle in a sconce beside her chair gave a glow to her profile. "Pledging is common enough in Scots law. But an Englishman, keeping a Scots lass!"

  "Mother, we know that Jasper Musgrave has a cold heart," Helen added from her place on the floor of the great chamber, where she played with Katharine.

  "'Tis why I told him I would keep Tamsin at Rookhope for the duration of the pledge," William said, seated near the fireplace.

  Emma cast him a quick glance as she worked. "But you didna expect to marry her at the time, you said."

  "True," William answered. "That came about later."

  She slid the needle through the fabric with nimble, capable fingers. "William," she said. "What did bring it about?"

  He paused. "Fate."

  "Ah." Emma seemed to want to say more. But she nodded and went back to her work.

  He wanted to tell his mother more than that, and would, eventually. At supper not long ago, he had explained only the essentials of the marriage to his mother and sister in Tamsin's absence, for she had not come downstairs, although they had waited supper for her. William had reminded Lady Emma and Helen that he needed a wife in order to keep Katharine safe at Rookhope.

  Although he simplified the matter, he had explained that he thought Tamsin Armstrong attractive and agreeable, and, as the daughter of Armstrong of Merton, suitable to be lady of Rookhope. His kinswomen had agreed politely, but he had seen tears gleam in his mother's eyes, and he wondered at her thoughts. She had voiced only quiet approval.

  "You said that Archie Armstrong and Musgrave had some dispute over reiving," Emma said after a few moments.

  "Aye." He sipped sherry from a small cup of German-made glass, green as Tamsin's eyes. "Those two squabble constantly."

  "As if Archie Armstrong would be obedient," she murmured. "I knew him well, years ago. A big, blond, handsome man, with a kind heart and a blunt manner of speech. And a fine way with a jest, which sometimes got him into trouble."

  William smiled. "Aye, that sounds like Archie."

  Hearing the light chime of the baby's laugh, he glanced at his daughter, who sat on the floor with Helen. Katharine looked up at him, her gaze curious and calm. He smiled, and she made a soft, excited sound, looking away with a wobbly turn of her head.

  "Your father loved Archie well." Emma sighed. "I do recall that Archie and Musgrave always hated each other, even then."

  "Apparently not much has changed," William said.

  "What hold would Musgrave have over Archie, and what interest could you have in either of them?" Emma asked. "I sense intrigue in this matter."

  "Mother, I canna say more. But be sure that Archie willna make any of this easy for Musgrave."

  "Good," Emma said. "And you must promise to be careful."

  William nodded and watched her rhythmic, steady stitching. An air of calm seemed to surround his mother. He felt a sense of ease in her presence that he rarely found with others.

  He sighed and slouched in the large chair, sprawling his stockinged legs before the hearth fire and glancing around the room. The great chamber was a small room, despite its name, with glazed windows, sturdy oak furniture, timber paneling, and floorboards strewn with rushes. Turkish carpets of red and blue covered the tables, and chair cushions and draperies of dark red lent the room the warmth and brilliance of a deep-hued jewel.

  In his childhood, the great chamber had been the quiet, cozy heart of Rookhope. Most evenings, after supper in the great hall, William and his parents and younger siblings had gathered around the hearth in this chamber for games, stories, music, and conversation. Seated in the chair that he now sat in himself, his father had taught him to play chess, draughts, and card games. Sprawled on the hearthstone, William had listened to stories of reiving adventures along the Borders, exciting and even comical, from his father, and from kinsmen and guests, including Archie Armstrong of Merton.

  He remembered listening with avid attention, wanting to grow to manhood the equal of his father. He had dreamed of becoming as skilled, as witty, as bold and courageous as Allan Scott, the notorious Rogue of Rookhope.

  But those dreams, and the loving, secure world where he had been nurtured a rogue's pup, had been destroyed on the day of his father's unjust and horrible death. In the years following that devastating event, Rookhope had been captained by Scott kinsmen, Emma had lived elsewhere with her younger children, eventually marrying a second time, and William had remained a prisoner of the
crown. He had come back to live at Rookhope only last year, after his mother and sisters had asked his permission to reside here once again.

  William watched his sister and his daughter, heads close together, laughter soft and lovely. He sipped from his cup, and felt tension flow out of his muscles as the heat of the sherry flowed through his body.

  Nothing, though, could erase the tautness from his soul. He still felt like an outsider with his own family, in his own home. He watched the love and companionship around him as if he observed it through a glazed window, or as if he watched a mummer's play. He enjoyed the spectacle, but always stayed at a distance from its center.

  Years spent apart from his family, and deep hurts never healed, he knew, were at the root of the remoteness in his heart. He could not change that any more than he could alter the facts of his father's death, or Jean's. He could only sip at the love his kinswomen offered him, as he sipped at strong, good wine—slowly, cautiously, never filling himself all at once.

  "Tell me about Tamsin," Emma said, her voice easing into the quiet. "Is she as stubborn as her father? She seems, in her own way, as much the free spirit."

  "The daughter is like the father in some ways. She ran off when I was escorting her here, as I told you the other day, for she didna care to be held in my dark, terrible dungeon."

  Helen laughed outright. Katharine blinked up at her and gurgled.

  "Dungeon, indeed. I suppose you let her believe that!" Emma's silver needle flashed, drawing black thread.

  "I did," he said. "She set my temper off like a matchlock."

  "Ah," Helen said. "And so you married her." She grinned.

  William twisted his mouth awry and said nothing. Emma chuckled, and he glanced at her. Firelight flickered over her face and warmed the wings of her hair beneath her black gabled hood. She narrowed her eyes over her work and pressed her teeth to her lip like a young girl. The years had been a strain for her, William knew, but age had only enriched Lady Emma's appealing beauty.

  Helen supported Katharine with a steady hand and glanced at him. "Perhaps 'twas your grim manner and ogre's temper that caused her to run off," she said, teasing. He returned a brotherly grimace, as he had done when they were very young.

  "An ogre, am I?" But he thought to himself how bonny Helen was in firelight, hazel eyes dancing, auburn hair smooth beneath the crescent-shaped headdress. Early widowhood had subdued her inner sparkle, and the scars on her face had made her ashamed of her appearance. She had finally ceased to wear black constantly, but claimed she would never wed again, and that she would stay at Rookhope for so long as her brother let her.

  William would let her stay forever, of course, but he wanted her to be happy again. He saw the loneliness that lingered in the shadows around her eyes, and felt its twin in his own eyes. He and Emma and Helen had shared sadness, tragedy, and some happiness too. Love and pain bound the three of them together, like the interwoven vines and flowers in Emma's elaborate stitchery work.

  Perhaps that was why, he thought, he had so impulsively agreed to this ruse of a marriage rather than risking a genuine union with Tamsin or any other woman. He had experienced much hurt in the past. Yet he yearned for love, for solace and passion in his life. Despite his instinct to protect himself, this time fate had managed to catch him fast in its design.

  As William mused, and watched his daughter and his sister, Katharine yanked at the rope of pearls that dangled over Helen's stiff bodice, causing Helen to gasp and pry the little fist loose. William leaned forward, elbows on knees, and looked down at his daughter, whose lip quivered as she fretted the loss of the necklace.

  "What think you, sweet Kate? Am I an ogre?"

  Katharine brightened, leaned over, and slapped her hands on the floor, launching into a strong crawl despite the impediment of her clothing. William held out his hands and scooped her up, setting her bundled behind on his knee.

  "There, I didna scare her," he told Helen.

  "She adores you," she said.

  "Da-da-da," Katharine burbled. William sifted his fingertips through the fine brown curls that escaped her silk cap, her head a warm fit to his palm.

  "She's saying my name now," he murmured, touched.

  Helen and Emma both laughed. He looked at them, puzzled.

  "She says that to me, to Mother, and even to Jock and Sandie," Helen said. "'Tis all she says."

  "Most bairns make that sound at this age," Emma said, as she outlined the shape of a flower in black thread. "She doesna mean you, William, when she says that. Not yet, at least."

  "Oh," he said, a little disappointed. Katharine grabbed at his hand and strove to suck on his smallest finger. He watched her, bemused and fascinated, though warm spit trickled down his hand. He thought of Tamsin, who had relinquished her hand to Katharine with great trepidation. His heart had gone out to her, watching that.

  Thinking of her now, he glanced toward the door again, as he had done often in the last hour. He wondered if she still struggled with the niceties of her female gear, or if she struggled with embarrassment, and had decided to stay away.

  Katharine gave a faint little growl and renewed her voracious, noisy sucking on his finger. "She's more like a puppy than a lass," he drawled. Emma and Helen laughed.

  Katharine's grip on his heartstrings was as fierce as her grip on his hand. A sudden, ferocious urge to protect her thundered within him. If Malise Hamilton attempted to take her from him, he thought, whether on paper, in court, or by forcible means, William would fight to the death for her.

  He would die for any one of them, he thought, glancing at his kinswomen. But he would not admit aloud to them the intensity of his feelings, or his need to see them safe and content. He was no poet, no composer of songs, to lay his feelings out on parchment, fileted like a fish.

  Whenever he was with them, he stayed quiet, smiled some, and listened attentively. His love for his family was heartfelt and strong, though he seldom expressed it directly. But his yearning for a love of his own, hidden behind his calm exterior, was even more profound.

  The memory of that tender shared kiss with Tamsin rushed unbidden through him. He frowned slightly, wondering at the unexpected power of that moment.

  "I remember Tamsin's Egyptian mother," Emma said suddenly, startling him out of his thoughts. "I met her once. A beautiful creature, though very young, and strange in her ways. Archie adored her. But I never knew that he kept her bairn with him. I thought the gypsies took the child with them."

  "They did, but Archie took Tamsin into his home years later... at about the time that we left Rookhope," he said. He recalled an image of Archie on a horse in a flurrying snow, with the dark-haired child in his lap. The sight remained vivid and precious. "I saw her with Archie, the day that I left here with Malise."

  "You never told me that," Emma said softly.

  "I didna see you for years after that day," he reminded her. "I suppose I forgot to mention it." Silence followed, as if none of them knew what to say next.

  Katharine stopped gnawing his finger to look up at him. William loved the innocent calm he always saw in her round blue eyes. She had Jeanie's eyes, dark as blueberries, rather than his own lighter hue. At times, the shape of those eyes, a tilt of that brown-curled head, would bring memories of Jean flooding back to him. Most of all, he remembered her laugh, rich and melodious. He wondered if Katharine would have that same laugh as she grew.

  Katharine went back to his finger as if to a feast. "This child should be fed more often," William said.

  "She is in a fit of teething." Helen stood and lifted the infant from his hold. Katharine began to fuss, mouth wide, eyes clenched. "I'll find her wetnurse. Margaret will be in the kitchens, eating again, I vow, or flirting with the cook's lad. After she feeds, I'll rock Katharine in her cradle myself this even, I think." She snuggled her close. "Sweetheart, come with me. Bid farewell till morn. William—if I dinna see you again this even, felicitations on your marriage, and tell Tamsin the same. I think it a wond
erful surprise." She smiled down at him, and he nodded his thanks. Helen left with the child.

  The room seemed dimmer, somehow, in Katharine's absence, as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. William settled back and watched his mother at her stitchery: vines and flowers in black thread on linen, which he knew she called Spanish work.

  "This will be a fine piece, when 'tis done," she remarked.

  "What is it? Table linen?"

  "A cover for a bolster. I have done two like it already, on cushions in your own bed. Did you never notice?"

  "Nay," he admitted sheepishly. "Pray pardon."

  "I doubt you would have noticed a change in there unless we had moved the bed clean out," she said mildly. "Ah, but now that you have a wife in your bedchamber, 'twill be different."

  He saw a little glimmer in her eyes. Lady Emma was sedate by nature, but she had never been prim. As the wife of a notorious reiver, years ago, she had brought dignity and elegance to the household, yet always retained an earthy honesty about her.

  "Perhaps," he said, and cursed himself for a schoolboy, for he felt a blush rise in his fair skin, and knew she had seen it. He cleared his throat and sipped at the sherry.

  "You shouldna be down here with me, William," she said, as she turned the embroidery frame to clip at threads with tiny silver scissors. She set the piece upright and threaded the needle anew. "'Tis your wedding night," she added.

  William sighed, passing a hand over his eyes. He had nearly forgotten that, for he did not feel married, and in truth was uncertain of the status of this unusual union. "Tamsin said she would be down when she finished dressing," he said. "She must have changed her mind."

  "She may be waiting for you to come to her," Emma said. She lifted a brow and slid him a glance.

  "She might," he said. Only if she was stuck fast in her clothing, he thought. He realized that he was reluctant to go up the stairs to his own chamber. In the midst of that impulsive pledge at dawn that morning, he had promised chastity and he was determined to honor that. But his new bride, who was not his bride, made his body and his blood burn with an inner fire.