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

by Fiona Faris

  Joan turned away, weeping.

  “I have suffered so much pain and humiliation here in these last few days that Neidpath is lost to me too. This is no longer Neidpath. I could never live here. I wish it destroyed.”

  “But Gilbert will be returned to you… soon,” Patrick urged.

  “God willing,” Margaret acknowledged. “But if he is returned safe, I would still not have our life together tainted by the memories of this place. I want it destroyed.”

  “What of you, Joan?” Patrick appealed. “Do you want Neidpath burned?”

  Joan shrugged.

  “Margaret is right,” she said. “It is no longer the place where we were so happy. It has been soiled by Moult. Have you seen what he has done to our father’s hall? Margaret is right; it should burn.”

  “And what of your mother?” Auld Wat asked.

  Margaret and Joan exchanged a look.

  “Take her and bury her in the woods opposite the Boat Pool,” Joan replied for the both of them. “I will show you the spot. Neidpath is still sweet there.”

  The band left Neidpath by the path along the banks of the Tweed. Behind them, a thick plume of acrid black smoke rose from the tower as from a tall chimney. Flames licked from every small window. Wat had the reivers set a fire in the undercroft before they left. They had filled it with all the wood from the outbuildings they had torn down, along with the bodies of Moult and his men.

  Just as they rounded the bend in the river that would take them out of sight of the castle, a tremendous crack, like a crack of lightning, rent the air. When they looked back, a huge crack opened up in the wall that faced them, and a corner of the castle collapsed in a cloud of smoke and dust.

  Neidpath was no more.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Gilbert would return in July of the following year. News had reached Dryhope of a large battle at Bannockburn, far to the north, near Stirling, at which Edward II’s army had been vanquished, and with it, the English occupation. Robert the Bruce had consolidated his kingship of the Scots and brought peace to his realm.

  There had been great celebration at the news. At Dryhope, Patrick organized a great feast, to which both the Scotts and his own family, the Flemings of Boghall, were invited. No expense was spared. The modest hall was bedecked in bright buntings and its floor strewn with fresh rushes and herbs. A bullock had been slaughtered and cooked on a spit over a fire pit outside the keep, the fire in the kitchen being too small, and its plucks turned by Bridget and Jean into a variety of delicacies. Fish and fowl supplemented the beef, while casks of ale and wine to wash it all down with were plugged and trestled along the length of the wall beneath the staircase leading up to the family’s private apartments.

  As had been the custom at Dryhope during their stay there, Patrick and Joan did not stand on ceremony but dined with the lave in the body of the hall instead of on the more usual raised dais. The atmosphere was festive and grew increasingly more raucous and boisterous and the afternoon wore on, and the beer and wine flowed. One of Wat’s men played reels on a bellows-pipe, accompanied by Patrick’s father on a tabor, which none of his family had ever suspected he could play. The rafters rang with shouting and laughter.

  Margaret, alone, remained pensive and subdued, sitting quietly beside her Lizzie, smiling politely at all who spoke to her, but maintained a distance and detachment from the unrestrained joy that was dirling all around her.

  “I’m worried for my sister,” Joan confided to Patrick, half-shouting to make herself heard over the noise.

  Patrick drew in his lips and frowned.

  “Aye, I know,” he observed. “She has not been the same since her abduction. It is as if the spark has gone out of her.”

  Joan contemplated her sister, who was sitting silently at the far end of the table with a fixed smile on her lips. She was still as beautiful as she had ever been, with her long silver-blonde hair, her gray-blue eyes, and her tall, willowy figure; only, she no longer had the innocent girlish air that Joan remembered from before. Her eyes looked more strained; a tracing of small, almost imperceptible lines lay on her brow. She had the permanent look of someone who had been crying, though Joan knew that she had never cried since the night they rescued her from the tower.

  “She is bereft,” she said. “She has never recovered from her loss.”

  “We have all grieved, my love,” Patrick returned. “Both your father and your mother were a sore loss, especially in the manner of it. But life must go on. She should be over it by now.”

  Joan made a face.

  “Aye, but Margaret had it harder than the rest of us. And we have had the bairn and…” She patted her swollen tummy, “… another on the way to occupy us. Besides, Neidpath was everything to her. Her whole existence had been dedicated to becoming the Lady of Neidpath, and Neidpath too was taken from her by that bastard Moult. Neidpath was her purpose, the meaning of her life. The loss of Neidpath is not something she will easily get over.”

  Patrick was staring into his wine goblet, swirling the liquid and gazing at its surface as if trying to discern some answer there.

  “And who knows what that beast subjected her to when he had her in his clutches.” He looked up into Joan’s eyes and a shiver of understanding passed between them. “You saw what he had transformed the hall into.”

  Joan shuddered.

  “Does she never speak of it?” Patrick added.

  “Never,” Joan replied. “And she has forbidden anyone to allude to it. It is a dark secret that she wants to keep hidden.”

  “It may be a secret that will eat away at her like a cancer.”

  Joan cast a glance at her sister once more.

  “Perhaps we worry too much,” she suggested. “She finds occasions like this a trial; it is almost as if she cannot permit herself pleasure without feeling it improper and disrespectful to those who have suffered, our father and mother, and all the innocents who have lost their lives in consequence of what she has suffered.”

  “But she has nothing to reproach herself with or feel guilty about,” Patrick insisted. “It was not she who raped and tortured all those young girls at Neidpath, but Moult. It was not she who caused the deaths of your father and mother, the Scotts and the Kers, but the times we live in.”

  “I know, I know,” Joan assured him. “But the times weigh heavily upon her. What right does she have to treat life with levity when the times have brought others so much misery and death? That is what she is thinking.”

  Patrick took a long draught of his wine and placed the goblet down on the table.

  “Never mind,” he said. “She shall soon have Gilbert home; that will cheer her, and she will be able to begin building a new life as his wife and mate.”

  Joan linked her arm through Patrick’s and drew him close.

  “And she has her Lizzie,” she added. “Lizzie is good for her. She has taken her under her wing and would turn her into a lady too. Lizzie has become like a daughter to her.”

  “Or a new younger sister,” Patrick observed, nuzzling her hair. “Remember, in all this, she has lost her sister too, with her little tomboy Joan married and bairned – and a bold reiver to add to the bargain…”

  Joan playfully skelped the back of his head.

  “And good knights like yourself wondering whether they’re safe in their beds,” she added with a purr.

  Two days later, Margaret sat on the edge of her bed, trembling and close to tears.

  “I cannot see him.” She fretted. “I am not yet ready.”

  Joan stood over her. Lizzie hovered by the door, wringing a kerchief anxiously in her fingers.

  “But Margaret,” Joan coaxed. “It has been eight years since you saw him, eight long years you have been waiting for this moment.”

  “But it is so sudden.”

  “Eight years is hardly sudden,” Joan reminded her.

  “But I must compose myself,” she insisted. “What will he think of me? What if he no longer finds me ple
asing? What if I no longer like him? After eight years, we will be like strangers to another.”

  Joan sighed; she was fast losing patience.

  “Look, it was I who received him in the hall. He is the same Gilbert, believe me. His beard may be a bit longer, and he has lost a tooth…”

  “But I have changed,” Margaret pleaded, her eyes beseeching. “I am not the same Margaret to whom he was betrothed. Look at me. My eyes are not so bright, my hair is lank, my brow is furrowed… I no longer have Neidpath…”

  Joan stared at her in disbelief.

  “I am also… spoiled,” Margaret added in a small voice. “I am not the innocent maiden he fell in love with.”

  Joan’s face contorted and turned bright pink, then exploded with laughter.

  “Forgive me,” she said, struggling to bring her amusement under control. “But your trouble is that you spend far too much time staring at yourself in the looking-glass.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Margaret replied, affronted.

  “But you always were a vain madam,” Joan added. “Look, we are all changed. God knows the past eight years have changed me, but he did not look at me as if I had grown a pair of horns and a tail or turned into an old withered beldame. And, aye, he will have changed too, no doubt. But you are still the vain madam you’ve always been, and he is still Gilbert Hay. And to believe he will love you less because you will no longer bring him Neidpath… well, that is just ridiculous! He’s a favorite of King Robert, who fought by his side when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb. He will be rewarded handsomely, in comparison to which Neidpath would be a pawkie wee byre, and he is still here. Does that not tell you something?”

  “I cannot!” Margaret said weakly.

  Joan grabbed hold of her wrist and dragged Margaret to her feet.

  “Come,” she said firmly. “If he sees you as any less than you are, I’ll scratch his eyes out.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Margaret came down the staircase and into the hall, trailing at the end of Joan’s arm, her eyes downcast. She could not bring herself to look at Gilbert. Either she would awake and discover that his homecoming had all been a dream, or else his features would contort in disgust at the sight of her.

  She heard him stand.

  “Margaret.” He gasped.

  She heard his feet on the wooden floor, then she was enveloped by his arms.

  “Oh, my love, my sweet!”

  She burrowed her face into his shoulder, her cheeks awash with tears. She felt weak, but not with apprehension or fright; the tension had drained from her body, and she felt weak with relief. For the first time in eight long years, she felt safe. She could smell it in his still familiar odor, feel it in the strong arms that held her up as her legs betrayed her, hear it in the reassuring burr of his voice as he crooned fond greetings into her ear.

  “We shall withdraw and give you some privacy,” Joan said. “Come, Lizzie, we must let Bridget know we will have Sir Gilbert and his companions to dine this evening.”

  They disappeared through the stair-hatch to the ground floor.

  Gilbert held Margaret at arm’s length and surveyed her.

  “You are even more beautiful than I remember,” he told her, “and I have remembered you often. In fact, you have been seldom far from my mind.”

  “Nor you mine,” Margaret replied, her voice trembling.

  “Come and sit,” Gilbert said, leading her to the top end of the table.

  They sat, and Gilbert leaned forward, taking both her hands in his. Her eyes fell to her lap, but not demurely; rather, her demeanor suggested to Gilbert awkwardness and shame. She sniffled back her tears but found that she could not stop crying. She looked like a contrite little girl who had been caught in some dreadful misdeed.

  “What is the matter, my love?” Gilbert smiled. “Are you not glad to see me?”

  Margaret made no reply. She was glad, of course, but seeing him also filled her with dread. She tried to speak, to make at least a courteous formulaic reply, but words failed her, and all that came out was another torrent of tears.

  Gilbert squeezed her hands.

  “I understand,” he said reassuringly. “It is all too overwhelming. I was quivering, too, as I rode these last miles. ‘Will she still love me?’, ‘Will I have changed too much?’, ‘Will I still be worthy?’… These were the questions that kept plaguing my mind.” He laughed. “I tell you, I was more afraid of facing you today than I was of facing the English’s heavy cavalry at Bannockburn.”

  Margaret raised her eyes in astonishment.

  “But,” she stammered, “those are the very same questions that have been haunting me. The prospect of seeing you again has been making my life miserable for the past year almost.” She looked down again. “That and all the other miseries I have had to suffer.”

  He looked at her in mock affront.

  “Well, I must say, I am distraught to learn that the thought of my homecoming has made you miserable.”

  She laughed, despite herself.

  “That is not what I meant.” She pulled a square of linen from the sleeve of her gown and dabbed away her tears. “Heavens, I must look a sight,” she remarked.

  He leaned back and surveyed her again.

  “A vision!” he assured her. “You are still the most beautiful creature I have ever set eyes on.”

  She blushed and smiled and brushed a wayward tress of her long fair hair back over her shoulder with her hand.

  “And now,” he said, sitting up straight and preening himself like a peacock, “enough of you and other trivial matters; how do you find me? Just as handsome as ever. Even more handsome, perhaps?”

  She laughed and rocked forward in amusement.

  “Just as vainglorious as ever,” she said. “Do you still have that eagle’s feather in your cap?”

  He slapped his thighs, and his eyes went wide.

  “I have two!” he jested. “I was given the second by King Robert himself, though I think it may have been to dust the cobwebs from the corner of a cave we were hiding in.”

  Margaret clapped her hands in glee as her laughter tinkled like a bell.

  “Ah,” he said softly, leaning forward and holding her fingers again. “How I have missed that sound! I do love you, Margaret.”

  Margaret looked at him properly for the first time. She saw the same Gilbert to whom she had been betrothed eight years previously. His beard was indeed a little longer, and he had indeed lost a tooth; he also had a little gray in his hair at his temples. But he had the same chiseled features, the same nobility of manner, and the same ardor in his eyes.

  “And I love you, my lord,” Margaret replied. “Only…”

  Gilbert forestalled the condition to her love by placing a finger to her lips.

  “Stay, Margaret,” he said. “Leave it at that. We love one another. Let us begin there, make it the foundation on which we build a life together. There is much building to be done after all that has happened over the past years. King Robert has a kingdom to build. We have a marriage.”

  Margaret looked into her lap.

  “It may take time,” she said.

  “It will take time,” he assured her. “But it shall be done. Let us make a start.”

  That evening was a leave-taking. Wat, Mary, and William rode over from Harden to dine at Dryhope. The next morn, Patrick was to take his wife home to Boghall, over the hills in the west, while Gilbert was to take his betrothed north to his family’s home at Lochorwart in the Lothians.

  “So,” Auld Wat remarked, “Dryhope is to become once more a home for the doos and the crows.”

  “It has served us well, Wat,” Patrick observed, “and we owe you a great debt for the asylum it has given us over these past long years of hardship, as well as your friendship.”

  Wat dismissed all talk of debt with a sweep of his hand.

  “You have given me fine adventures,” he said, “and a daughter to give away in marriage. That is a joy I nev
er imagined for myself, having only this great lump of a son.”

  William rose indignantly to his full height.

  “This great lump of a son has got you out of many a scrape,” he reminded his father with a lop-sided grin. “He might not be as obliging in the future – since he is so little appreciated.”

  Margaret smiled at him fondly.

  “Well, I appreciate all that you have done for us – for me – William. You have been my staunch champion.”