The Highlander's Virtuous Lady: A Historical Scottish Romance Novel

by Fiona Faris

  “John Ker!” Wat called in a strong, clear voice. “I have come to reclaim my property, which you lifted yesterday.”

  “I hae nae property o’ yours,” John Ker called back from the battlements above the gatehouse.

  Patrick dismounted and hurried to join Auld Wat and William.

  “Don’t do this, Wat,” he murmured pleadingly.

  “Stay out of this, Fleming,” Wat mumbled back from the corner of his mouth, without taking his eyes off of the figure of John Ker on the battlements.

  He drew his dirk, seized Anne Ker by the hair, and drew the blade across her bared throat.

  Blood gushed from the wound. The woman did not utter a sound as her life poured down onto the white of her nightdress, not did her proud look waver. After less than a minute, she dropped to her knees and fell forward into the mist.

  A collective howl of outrage and anguish arose from the Ker clan.

  Patrick turned and strode angrily back to his pony.

  “You will turn over my wife and the Fraser women, or your grandson will be next,” Wat informed them in the same unwavering loud and clear voice.”

  “You bastard, Wat,” John Ker shouted. “I dinna hae your women.”

  “You lifted them from Dryhope yesterday,” Wat called back, taking the now screaming infant from William’s arm. “Send them out now, or your laddie’s blood will water the ground with your daughter’s.”

  “I dinna hae them, I tell ye,” Ker shouted back. “I turned them owre tae Moult, in Peebles, yestre’en. That was the bargain. Moult hired me to lift the Fraser women and tak’ them tae him in Peebles.”

  Wat’s features wavered with uncertainty.

  “You’re lying!”

  Ker raised both fists and shook them at the Scotts.

  “I’m no’ lying! Your wife’s lying in the Peebles’ tollbooth waiting for the hangman, and the Fraser bitch and her mother have been ta’en to Neidpath to await the sheriff’s pleasure. You’ve spilt my daughter’s blood for nothing, and I’ll see you in Hell for that.”

  William took the bairn from Wat and laid it in the curve of its dead mother’s arm.

  “Come, Faither,” he said quietly.

  Auld Wat stood still, in stunned silence.

  “Come, Faither,” William repeated, taking his arm.

  Auld Wat shook him free and took a step towards the castle.

  “I maun be certain,” he mumbled.

  William gripped his father’s arm again.

  “It has the ring o’ truth about it,” the big man told him. “Why would Ker take the womenfolk?”

  “Ransom,” Wat said.

  “Then why has he no’ demanded any ransom. Why would he no’ send the women out to save his grandson?” William shook Wat gently by the arm as if to shake some sense into him. “He doesna hae them, Faither; they’re in Peebles like he says.”

  Wat continued to stand, gazing blank-eyed at the figure of Ker, who strode up and down the battlements of his castle, howling his grief and fury. His lips worked silently.

  After a moment, Wat turned and began walking back to his men.

  “We must off to Peebles,” he told them, swinging back onto his saddle.

  William demurred.

  “Faither, it’s forty miles to Peebles from here, and it’s a hard road beyond Selkirk. We’ve been on the ride for three days; the men and the horses are dead-done. We need to win back to Harden and re-provision and rest if we’re going to mount a raid on the sheriff in Peebles.”

  Auld Wat spurred his horse, but Patrick gripped it by the halter.

  “Listen to your son, Scott,” he insisted in a firm voice. “Listen, it’s five days before the next market. Mary won’t hang before the market day. Moult will want to make a show of it to keep the burgh-folk happy. We can take a couple of days to gather our strength before riding to Peebles. We’ll be no good to Mary nor Margaret and her mother if we turn up exhausted on half-dead horses.”

  Wat glared at Patrick for countermanding him but saw the sense in what he was saying.

  “To Harden, then,” he cried to his men. “And quick, before the Kers ride out after us.”

  Margaret tore scraps of bread from the loaf that Lizzie had brought and threw them into the cage where her mother still sat slumped in the corner. She was growing more accurate but the crusts she succeeded in throwing through the bars lay scattered, untouched, on the cage floor, sopping up the wet from the mist and drizzle. The sparrows darted in and out of the cage to snatch the morsels; the crows strutted back and forth on the parapet above the window, patiently waiting for Lady Maria to turn into carrion.

  “Come, Mother, you must eat,” Margaret pleaded with her. “You must keep your strength up. I am sure Patrick, Joan, and the Scotts will be here soon to free us. Mother?”

  But there was no response. Lady Maria remained slouched in her corner in her thin, ragged gown, her face slack and her eyes open but unseeing.

  With a final heartfelt plea, Margaret turned from the window and sat down by the hearth. A crackling fire burned in the grate and the heat of it radiated into the room. But it could not dispel the chill that had settled in the marrow of Margaret’s bones. How would they even know where she and her mother were? It was the Kers who had taken them. The Scotts and her brother-in-law were more likely to be chasing wild geese in Ker country than riding out to Peebles. And even if they did find out that the Kers were acting for Moult, would they – could they – mount a raid on Peebles where the law held sway and Moult had an army to protect him?

  Her situation seemed hopeless. She had to find a way of acting on her own; otherwise, her mother would die, and she would be raped as surely as Lizzie had been. But what could she do? She was as weak and powerless as the scullery maid, locked in the solar, helpless at the disposal and mercy of the man who was keeping her there.

  As she gazed into the fire, looking for solutions in the pictures painted by the flames, the wind got up, and her musings were distracted by the creak of the cage beyond the window and it swung and turned on the chain on which it was suspended. She rose to go to the window to look out on her mother but was interrupted by the sound of the bolts being drawn back followed by a curt knock on the door.

  “Who is it?” she called, her voice filled with trepidation.

  “It is I, madam, Sir Walter, come to visit.”

  She let out a gasp. Her head swooned, and she had to put out a hand to steady herself on the mantelshelf. Was this to be the moment of her dishonor?

  The door opened, and Moult peered around it.

  “May I come in?” He leered.

  Ignoring her silence, he entered the room and closed the door behind him.

  “I have just come to see how you have settled,” he explained. “Is everything to your satisfaction?”

  She still made no reply. She swallowed her terror and looked at him with as much haughtiness as she could muster.

  He rubbed his hands and held his palms out to the fire.

  “You are certainly nice and snug,” he observed. “It is a miserable day abroad.” He nodded at the window and gave a sinuous smile. “Not a day to be out in.”

  “You beast.” Margaret spat.

  Moult shrugged his indifference to her opinion of him.

  “You are being looked after well?” he enquired. “The food is to your liking?” He indicated to the soiled chemise in which she had arrived and was still wearing. “I take it you have not found the gowns I left you. There is a kist full of them at the foot of your bed. Or, perhaps,” he reflected aloud, “they are not to your taste. If there is anything you desire, you must just ask.”

  “The only thing I desire—” Margaret snorted. “Is to be free of this prison and to have the care of my mother.”

  Moult made a rueful frown.

  “Alas. I regret that is the one thing I cannot give you. Or is that two things.” He smiled.

  “You have no right to keep us here,” Margaret insisted.

  “O
h, I have every right,” Moult replied calmly. “You are my chattels, the spoils of war. I may use you as I like.”

  “You will pay for this,” Margaret warned, jutting her chin out in defiance.

  Moult chuckled to himself.

  “That is the one thing I do not need to do,” he pointed out. “It is you and your churl of a mother who must pay for the misdemeanors of your traitor father.”

  He lifted a collation of feathers and twine, which Joan had made as a small child, examined it, then absently dropped it into the fire.

  “But all this talk of ‘payment’…” he continued. “It could be so different, so much more pleasant than a forfeit you must ‘pay’, my lady Margaret. Our arrangement could be quite ‘snug’ if only you would welcome it.”

  “I could never consent to be your whore.” Margaret sneered. “I would rather waste away and die like my mother out there.”

  “You could be the Lady of Neidpath,” he said, dismissing her description of their relationship with a wrinkle of his nose and a slow shake of his head. “Isn’t that what you want, what you’ve always wanted? It is an arrangement that several fine women of the realm have entered with their new masters. I cannot marry you, because I already have a wife in France. Although, these are dangerous times and she might meet with a ‘misfortune’…”

  He left that possibility dangling in front of Margaret like a piece of bait.

  “But, meanwhile, we must make the best of the circumstances we presently find ourselves in, don’t you think?”

  “I would rather die,” Margaret repeated.

  But a thought began to form in her mind. Sir Walter was clearly in thrall to his lust for her. He wanted greatly to possess her. He had gone to much trouble and expense to procure her, even to the extent of dealing with the outlawed Kers and creating his lavish ‘playroom’ in anticipation of visiting his lust on her. Perhaps this was a chink in his armor, his weak spot. Perhaps she could exploit his weakness for her to exact concessions, which might weaken him further or, at least, provide her with some advantage over him and increase her opportunities to escape. Perhaps he was right; she should make the best of the circumstances she found herself in.

  She decided to put the germ of her plan immediately to the test.

  “There is one thing you could do for me,” she ventured.

  “Oh?” he replied, his interest piqued.

  “The scullery maid, who brings my food and cleans the grate… Lizzie Bryce, I believe she is called.”

  “Yes?”

  “I would have her as a companion,” Margaret told him. “It is tedious, being locked alone in these apartments. The time passes so slowly. She would provide me with company. I could raise her to be a lady’s maid.”

  “Hm…”

  Moult considered her proposition for a moment, stroking the dark shadow on his chin, calculating.

  “I don’t see why not,” he said deliberately but still somewhat dubiously. “She could also perhaps join us in our games.”

  Margaret blanched.

  “Yes, that as well.” She ventured a small smile of complicity. “I have taken a small liking to the girl.”

  Moult grinned lasciviously.

  “Then so be it. I shall inform the cook that she will have to find another scullery maid. Let’s see if you can make something of the slattern.”

  “She will need soaps and clothes and… a salve for her face,” Margaret added.

  “I shall see to it,” Moult replied with some enthusiasm, evidently pleased that Margaret’s resistance had melted some.

  “And my mother…?” Margaret began.

  “Your mother shall remain where she is,” Moult told her shortly. “But it will do you good to have a pet.”

  With that, he took his leave, promising to return the following evening to see what she had made of the girl.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Scotts rode into the courtyard at Harden Castle. They were almost dead in their saddles. They had been on the road for almost four days and traveled the best part of a hundred miles across difficult country. They were soaked to the skin, exhausted, and saddle-sore. They were hungry, not having had a proper meal since they had set out on the original raid, and the nerves of even the wiriest and battle-hardened of them were shredded from the anxiety and tension of the last twenty-four hours.

  “See to the horses,” Wat commanded the stable boys who scurried from wooden buildings that leaned against the courtyard walls. “Make sure they’re fed and watered and brushed down. William?” He turned to his son. “Go to the kitchens and tell Auld Marion to get the kettles on to feed the men. The rest of you: get cleaned up and shifted into dry clothes as best you can and meet in the hall in an hour’s time. Once we’ve eaten, you can bed down there and rest up. We ride to Peebles in two days’ time, afore the hangman gets there.”

  “Can we no’ rest up at hame?” one of the reivers asked.

  Auld Wat shook his head and dismissed the suggestion with a sweep of his hand.

  “No’ till the job’s done. If I let ye go hame, I’ll hae the devil o’ a time getting ye all back here for our jaunt to Peebles. So, you can just stay here as my house guests… aye, and at my expense.” He smiled ruefully.

  He turned and strode into the keep, mounting the stairs to the solar. Patrick and Joan hurried after him.

  His apartments were surprisingly lavish and well-appointed, given the rough-and-ready nature of the man. The paneled walls were hung with rich velvet hangings. The table and sideboard were covered in splendid embroidered cloths, and a pair of plushly upholstered wooden armchairs flanked the carved fireplace, with a small table beside each.

  Wat strode to the sideboard and poured a goblet of wine from an ornately jeweled flagon. The goblets themselves were chased silver and looked as if they had been purloined from a well-endowed church. He quickly drained the goblet in a single draught while still standing and immediately poured himself another.

  “Help yourselves,” he said to Patrick and Joan, as he threw himself down into one of the armchairs.

  Patrick poured a goblet for both himself and his wife. He pulled a stool over to the fire, leaving the other armchair for Joan. Steam began to rise from the wet clothes of all three of them.

  “I’m sorry, I have no dry clothes to offer you,” Wat said, as he noticed the steam rising from Joan’s tunic. “Mine will be owre wee for either of you and, of course, William’s a muckle brute o’ a lad.”

  Joan shook her head.

  “Don’t fash yourself, Wat,” she replied. “We’ll dry what we have as best we can by the fire and brush the worst of the mud out.”

  Wat looked her up and down.

  “Then I’d better let ye sleep in the bedchamber,” he observed. “I canna hae ye cavorting scuddie-arsed in the hall among all my men.”

  “But what about you?” Patrick asked.

  “I sleep with my men,” Wat said proudly, as if it were a matter of principle that he would share their hardships. “As I always do when we’re out on a reiving, and this reiving isn’t done yet.” He drained his cup and stood up. “I’ll just go and get some dry clothes from my kist, and then the room is yours.”

  Once Wat had changed his clothes and washed the grime from his face with water from the ewer that stood on a French washstand in the corner of the bedchamber, they went down to dine.

  The hall was loud with men. There was no dais; Wat and Mary were accustomed to dining at the common table. They took seats on the benches and serving women brought in steaming tureens and platters piled with cold mutton and baskets of bread. The food was laid on the table, and the men served themselves.

  The men ate with enthusiasm and washed the food down with copious amounts of ale. The serving women were kept busy, replenishing the ale-jugs, while the men grew merry. Only Patrick and Joan, still in their damp and besmirched clothes, remained subdued, weighed down with their concern for Margaret and Lady Maria. Auld Wat was the merriest of them all, rega
ling the company with tales of raids he had undertaken in his younger days and the mischief he had gotten up to.

  “He doesn’t seem very worried for the fate of his wife,” Joan murmured to Patrick.

  Patrick drew her close so he could confide quietly in her ear.