The Heather Moon

by King, Susan

  "I am glad you decided to wed, though 'twas sudden," his mother said. "I do fret about Malise Hamilton's intentions. Your marriage will weaken his cause against you. At the least, I feared that you might wed one of his choices for you."

  "My wife is my own choice, and none of Malise Hamilton's matter," he said.

  "Promise me, William," she said. "Promise me that he willna take our wee Katharine." He heard a tremor in her voice.

  He stared at the last drop of sherry in his cup. "So long as I have breath in my body," he murmured, "she is safe."

  Emma sighed in relief, and went back to her needlework. William stared into the flames in the hearth. Moments later, he turned, as Emma did, when the door of the chamber creaked open.

  A shoe appeared first, skittering over the threshold to slide and halt by William's chair. A little soft curse followed, and then Tamsin entered the room, stumbling slightly.

  Emma gasped, a faint sound of surprise. William simply stared.

  He had seen Tamsin in the black brocade gown already, but now she looked different, changed somehow. Perhaps it was the subtle, flickering firelight that warmed her skin, or perhaps it was the gleaming touches of gold embroidery on the black fabric. He was not certain what was different.

  He only knew that she seemed to glow. The sight of her drew the breath from him for an instant, and filled him with a rare, comforting, wondrous sense of joy.

  He smiled, a small, private lift of his lips, and watched her with hungry fascination. He could hardly take his gaze from her. The shimmering black and gold heightened the dark honey and rose tones of her skin, complemented her dark hair, and enhanced the luminous green of her eyes. She looked slim and graceful, but the gown and accoutrements were not the sum of her beauty. Indeed, when he began to notice the imperfect touches that revealed her recent efforts with the gear, her charm increased a hundredfold.

  She stepped toward him with a small limp, missing the shoe that she had inadvertently kicked off. He bent down and picked it up, a tiny, impractical black and beaded thing, and held it out to her silently.

  Her cheeks flushed pink in embarrassment. He noticed that her black hood, a pearl-edged crescent that framed her face like wings, was askew, with curls slipping loose at one side, the velvet back veil crooked. Her false undersleeves were uneven, her silken cord belt sagged, and one pale stockinged foot peeked out at the hem of the gown. Amber beads further warmed her skin and brightened her eyes, and she had kept her own golden hoops in her earlobes.

  "Pray pardon," she murmured, taking the shoe from him. She dropped it on the floor to slip her foot into it, and wobbled, losing balance slightly as she did so.

  "Sit down, Tamsin," he said quietly, indicating the empty chair beside him. "Never mind the slipper. 'Tis a silly thing, and will only trip you again."

  She looked at him in relief, sat down in a shush of skirts, and kicked off her other shoe.

  "Tamsin," Emma said, rising from her seat to come forward. "You are more beautiful than I could have imagined." She reached out, and Tamsin offered her right hand, which Emma clasped. "I am so pleased that William brought you home as his wife."

  Tamsin stammered her thanks. "Pray your pardon, Lady Emma," she went on, "for the shock of our marriage. And also for my rude misbehavior earlier."

  "I will happily recover from such a shock. And you were refreshing at dinner, never rude," Emma said. "But now you have missed supper, and must be hungry."

  She shook her head. "I just ate. Helen saw me in the corridor, and took me to the kitchen and gave me something from the stave-off cupboard. Bread and cheese, and some ale. Watered ale," she added.

  Emma nodded. "Good. Now, I know you are both tired, and... ready to take to your bed for the evening."

  William glanced at Tamsin. She lowered her eyes, her blush darkening her cheeks.

  "Before you go," Emma went on, "I want to give you a wedding gift. I hoped I would have this chance to speak to you privately." She went to a cupboard and took out a wooden box. Holding it in both hands, she sat and placed it in her lap.

  William straightened, uncertain what to expect. He had never seen the carved wooden box before. Beside him, Tamsin had joined her hands together nervously under the cover of her long, ruffled cuffs. She flicked a glance at him and looked away, biting at her lower lip. He understood her apprehension and her guilt. Their marriage might not be one of the heart, but his mother believed it, and had given them her enthusiastic approval.

  He cursed himself for a fool. If he had thought this whole matter of marriage and false marriage out—which he had not adequately done—he would have realized that his mother and sister, too, would be enchanted by Tamsin. As he had been.

  This marriage of convenience might not be so simple to dissolve after all, with so many hearts charmed by a gypsy lass. He frowned, beginning to suspect that his own heart had not only been charmed, but taken outright.

  Emma opened the carved lid of the box and gazed at its contents, which William could not see. She furrowed her brow and seemed unable to speak for a moment. Then she took a velvet pouch out of the box, closed the lid, and looked at William.

  "My son," she said, a little formally. "I have kept this coffret for years, wanting to give it to you someday, yet never certain when to do so. Now I think the day has come. You have brought me so much joy this day, more than you can know, by wedding the daughter of Archie Armstrong. 'Tis fitting to give you this now, as a wedding token from me, and from your father." She handed him the box.

  "My father?" he asked, stunned. He smoothed his fingers over the lid, hesitant to open it.

  "That coffret holds some things that belonged to your father, which I know he would want you to have. I put them in there myself, in the days following his death and your capture. I have not looked in there until now."

  William opened the lid with trembling fingers, feeling almost as if he did not want to look inside. He glanced at the items, touching them reluctantly, briefly: a pair of leather gauntleted gloves, a flat, dark blue woolen bonnet, a plain leather coin purse; some folded parchments, a small dagger in a tooled leather sheath, a few coins. A faint scent wafted up, of leather and spice, and something intangible and achingly familiar. Memories began to pour through his heart and his mind, and he shut the lid quickly, as if to seal the images inside with his father's belongings.

  "I thank you, Mother," he said, keeping his hand on the lid of the box. His throat felt tight. "I will look at them carefully later. I appreciate it, very much," he added.

  Tamsin touched his sleeve with her fingers, warm and brief, and full of a quiet, reassuring strength. She did not speak.

  "I took some of the things from his pockets, and from his body, myself, when... when they brought him to me, afterward," Emma said. "I wanted you to have them, now that you are wed, and already a father, so that you will remember what a good father he was, what a good husband. I didna want you to forget him."

  "I could never forget him," William said, soft and fierce. He pressed his lips together, fisted a hand. He glanced at Tamsin, then looked away from the sympathy in her eyes, feeling his cheeks heat, his jaw tighten.

  Emma handed him the velvet pouch. "He would have wanted you to have these too. As I do."

  He held out his hand, and she spilled the contents into his palm. A few pewter buttons, a round silver pin set with a garnet, which he recalled seeing on his father's cloak, and two gold rings rolled into his hand: one large, set with an emerald, the other small and delicate, with an emerald and tiny pearls.

  "I cut the buttons from his jack the day I dressed his body for burial," Emma said. Her voice was like fine steel, thin and strong. "I took his cloak pin, which has been worn by the lairds of Rookhope for generations, and I took his marriage ring, and mine, and put them away." She paused, drew a long breath, went on. "Now I want you and Tamsin to wear the rings that we wore."

  William looked away, his heart thudding hard within him. He heard Tamsin's soft gasp, and he too
k her hand briefly, a quick grip, released it. He knew that she felt the remorse, the hesitancy, that he felt. And he knew that neither of them would speak now, for fear of hurting Emma irrevocably.

  "I know your father would have been pleased that you chose the daughter of his best comrade for your wife," Emma said. She leaned forward and picked up the rings in her slim fingers.

  William saw tears shining in Emma's eyes, saw her lip quiver. She stood before them while they sat and stared at her in silence. Tamsin tipped up her head to watch Emma, a stunned look on her face. William felt like Tamsin's twin in that moment, equally stunned, wondering, as she must, just what they had done.

  Emma held out her hand. The rings, small and larger, gleamed in the palm of her hand. "Here, my dearlings," she whispered. "May they reflect the unending love that exists between you, as they once did for Allan and me." A single tear slid down her cheek. She placed the rings in William's hand.

  William hesitated, staring down at the swirled bits of gold and jewels. "Mother..." But he did not have the words he needed. He did not have the courage, or the cruelty, to tell her the truth.

  He held out his hand to Tamsin. She looked at him with wide, almost frightened eyes. Then she stretched out her right hand, letting the left lay uncovered, palm up, in her lap.

  If Emma was startled, if she had any reaction at all to the sight of Tamsin's hand, she did not show it. William blessed her silently for her grace and compassion. She smiled down at them and stood by, hands folded, tears gleaming, while William slid the little gold ring on Tamsin's third finger.

  With trembling hands, Tamsin then slipped the larger ring on his finger. She looked at him, her eyes filled with tears. And he wondered at the powerful force that swept him along on a course that he might never have taken on his own.

  Emma smiled. "Och, Will," she murmured. "Kiss your lass. You've wed her by gypsy means, and you will of course wed her before a priest, as soon as we can summon one."

  Tamsin's eyes widened. William leaned forward and touched his lips to hers, closing his eyes, lost for an instant in the sweet, warm pressure of her mouth against his.

  "I wish you joy of each other," Emma said, her voice thick with tears. "And I bid you good night." She turned and fairly fled from the room.

  William looked at Tamsin. She still held his hand in both of hers, as if she had frozen in astonishment.

  "I think, my lass," he murmured, "that fate isna yet done with us. We are caught fast, once again."

  She let his hand go, and stood. "Aye," she said. "Caught in a wicked falsehood!" With a little smothered sob, she too picked up her skirts and ran.

  William sighed and rubbed his brow, and looked down at the floor, where Tamsin's small beaded shoes glimmered in the firelight. He scooped them up, then stood and picked up the wooden box, heavy with memories more than belongings, and left the room.

  Chapter 21

  "But had I wist, before I kissed,

  That love had been sae ill to win,

  I had lockt my heart in a case of gowd,

  And pinnd it with a siller pin."

  —"Waly, Waly, Love Be Bonny"

  Tamsin was pacing furiously when she heard the iron door latch give way. The door to the bedchamber swung open and William entered, the wooden box under one arm, her shoes dangling from his fingers.

  "I should have locked the door," she muttered, and swung away, skirts swirling, to continue her frenetic circular course.

  "I have a key," he said mildly, and shut the door. "Tamsin, I didna know my mother would do that."

  "I feel like a sneakbait thief," she said, without a pause in her pacing. "As naughty a rascal as you."

  He did not reply, and walked to a table to set the wooden box on the walnut surface. Turning, he offered the shoes to her.

  "I canna wear them," she said. "My feet are too large." He dropped them to the floor, letting them thunk, the action revealing his irritation. Tamsin scowled at him, heart pounding, temper surging. He turned an impassive face away, went toward the hearth, where a low fire smoldered, and began to unbutton his doublet.

  "Dinna think to sleep in here," she said. Her gown swept the corner of the bed as she turned again in her circuit.

  "I'll sleep in the antechamber," he said. "No one need know but us." He stripped off the doublet and slung it over the back of a chair beside the hearth, and sat, in shirt and breeches. He leaned his elbows on his knees and stared into the fire.

  "So you want your mother to believe we are not only wed, but are fallen in love," Tamsin muttered as she walked.

  "She has concluded that on her own," he said.

  "And what are we to do about it?" Tamsin asked. "She is devoted to the idea that we are wed, now—that we belong together, Merton and Rookhope! And you have done naught to dissuade her! What will she do when we announce our intention to divorce according to Romany custom?"

  "She willna like that much," he murmured, and leaned back in the chair, resting his jaw pensively against his fist.

  "I didna want to let my father know about this," she said, fisting her own hands, "because I know he wants this too. I didna want him to be sad when we dissolve the marriage, as we agreed. But I didna think about your mother, or your sister, for I didna know them! You never told me you planned to tell them about this marriage. You just did it, and surprised me as much as them."

  "I had to tell them," he said quietly.

  "Did you never think that they too might be upset by what will come later, between us?"

  He sighed. "I was a fool, and you may berate me for it. But hey, lass, remember this," he said softly, his calm voice a counter to her own anxious tone, "they are deeply upset about Malise Hamilton's efforts to take my daughter from us. And that is precisely why I told them. This marriage is a comfort to them. I just didna think how much of a comfort it might be," he added, shoving a hand through his hair.

  She began to speak, but subsided, understanding why he had agreed to their impulsive marriage. The thought of anyone taking Katharine out of this loving home was unbearable to Tamsin too. Had the child been her own daughter, she would have snatched at any hope of protecting her. She huffed out a breath and resumed circling in the middle of the room.

  "This is foolish," she muttered. "So foolish!" Her cap and veil slid sideways, and she tore them off, flinging them on top of the clothing piled on the bed as she went past. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in curls and waves, and she shoved its thickness back ineffectively. "What could we have been thinking, to agree to such a lackbrain scheme?" She knew why, rationally, but her temper needed to emit steam.

  "As I recall," he drawled, "we thought about helping one another. The solution suited us both. You needed to avoid a gypsy husband, and I needed a wife quickly."

  "Aye," she said angrily. "A false wife in a fine gown, to fool a fancy lord of the royal court!"

  "I will do what I have to do to protect my daughter." Quiet words, but she heard the anger flare beneath.

  "Aye, even take a troll to wife," she snapped, turning. One of her full undersleeves slid down, and she yanked at the ribbons that attached it to the gown. Inadequately knotted by her earlier, the pieces came loose easily, and she threw them on the floor.

  "Tamsin, you are hardly a troll," he said. He slouched, relaxed, in the chair, but she saw the tension hardening in him. It matched her own. "You are as beautiful as any court lady," he said. "More so."

  She huffed doubtfully, her mouth tight with anger, her back turned to him. Her heart pounded as she realized how much she wanted him to mean those words. But she could not accept that he did. "I know you need a wife for the nonce," she said. "But such ready compliments willna gain peace between us. I didna mean for this arrangement to hurt anyone!"

  "Nor did I." He sighed and ran his fingers over his brow.

  She pulled at the silken belt and the amber beads, and pooled them on the coverlet. The exquisite emerald and gold ring glittered on her finger. She examined it for a moment. Sh
e had never owned a ring before, and loved this one not only for its beautiful design, but for the meaning that it held for Lady Emma. She slid it off and turned toward William.

  "Take it." She held it out to him. "I feel like a thief."

  "Keep it for now, lass," he said. "For my mother's sake."

  She hesitated, and slid the ring back on. "Only for her sake," she said stubbornly. "Not for yours." Her heart beat oddly as she said that.

  "As you will." He stared into the fire again. His composure in the face of her ruffled temper had a calming power, but she would not give up her anger. She wanted to shout at him. She wanted to release the heat of her embarrassment. And she wanted to, and could not, satisfy the sultry, steady fire that his glances stoked in her.

  She whirled away and folded her arms. "Lady Emma said she wanted us to wed before a priest," she said. "What will you tell her? That you have a mock Romany marriage, and will keep to that so long as it suits—but a fortnight or so?"

  He turned the larger gold circlet on his own finger. "Marriages have been made on less," he said thoughtfully.

  "Marriage!" She looked at him. Her heart pounded hard now. She had misheard him, she told herself. He did not mean to offer her true marriage. Surely he meant only to sustain the ruse for his benefit and convenience. "You would have me stand before a priest, now, to make marriage out of this mockery? I willna enter into a church-made marriage to avoid an embarrassment!"

  "Tamsin..." He sighed. "I willna brangle with you. When you calm your temper, we will discuss this."

  "Then I bid you good night, for I only wish to brangle," she said stiffly. Her breathing felt tight, constricted by the flat, hard busk. She began to pull at the tiny laces that fastened the side pieces of her bodice.

  She knew he stood, and thought he would go into the antechamber to sleep on the narrow cot there. Ignoring him, she pulled at the small knots he had made, biting her lip over the difficulty. She was very tired. Her head was foggy and ached from the wine she had overdone earlier. Her hands fumbled, and she finally yanked at a knot with a yelp of frustration.