She would not risk that. Not for herself, but more, not for Johnnie. He should have a wife in truth. One who could laugh and love and surrender and create those moments of happiness with him.
The ones she had cherished.
A soft knock and Bessie entered the room, carrying clean laundry. She glanced at Cate with a brief nod, then lay the stack of white on the bed, moving quietly to put the clean sarks in the chest. ‘Will you help me with the sheets, then?’
Listless, Cate rose and started stripping the bedclothes from her side of the bed.
On the other side, Bessie whipped the blanket back with brisk efficiency, then pulled the sheet loose. ‘If it’s skirts you’ll be wearing from now on, you’ll need to sew a new one.’
Startled, Cate looked up. Bessie, leaning over the bed, was not waiting for her answer. But that simple statement seemed to force a choice.
She could not hide in this room for ever.
‘I don’t know,’ she began, ‘what to do now.’
Bessie paused. ‘I could not have... I was not called on to have the courage you’ve shown since...’ She did not say since what. She did not need to.
‘Fear has haunted me every day and every night.’
And haunts me still.
‘You have awakened to face every day and lain down at night to face your dreams. You have put one foot before the other and carried on in spite of your fear. I would call that courage.’
Had she not said the same to John?
She shook her head. ‘It’s not the kind of courage I need now.’
‘What are you afraid of now?’
Failing him.
She smoothed the sheet over the bed. The bed where she and John had done what men and women do. He wanted a wife, yet she would not bind him to a woman who would freeze in fear or scream in terror beneath him.
Thoughts too intimate to be shared. ‘I am afraid to be his wife.’
Bessie, patient Bessie, tugged the sheet smooth, tucked it under her side of the bed, then straightened with a sigh. ‘We’re given the kind we need. The kind you need has nothing to do with swords or dirks or riding into Storwick lands. You need the courage to say “yes”.’
Yes.
Lying with John in the darkness. Yes.
Joining with him. Yes.
Letting his body overpower hers. Yes.
Letting him see her, fears and all. Could she say yes to that?
If she could not, then even with Scarred Willie dead, her future would be no different from her past.
‘Would you...’ Cate cleared her throat and tried again. ‘Tell John that I am ready.’
* * *
After Bessie left, Cate stood beside the newly made bed, keeping her fingers fisted so they would not tremble, reminding herself there was nothing to fear.
Nothing to fear.
It was Johnnie, she told herself, when the door opened and he stood there. Johnnie, who said he loved her.
And he looked at her, silent, giving her all the time she needed.
She swallowed. ‘You said, when I was ready, you would be here.’
‘Aye.’
Cruel man. He did not ask whether she was ready. Did not leave her with only the yes to breathe. Instead, he waited for her to say it. ‘I am ready.’
‘Are you now?’ His voice echoed with the edge of the hurt she had done him. ‘What exactly are you ready for? Are you ready for a lifetime? Are you ready for joining without that jack-of-plaites that shields your heart? Are you ready for surrendering your body to your husband in the dark? If you are not ready for those things, I’m not ready for you.’
The very litany made her tremble. What if she froze or screamed or fought him when it was time for their joining?
What if she stood here for ever afraid, never discovering the truth?
‘I am ready,’ she began again, ‘to face my fear. If you will face it with me.’
And then the light returned to his face and he pulled her into his arms, which felt strong and safe. ‘That’s all a man can ask.’
‘I’m afraid I will always be afraid.’
He smiled at the tangled words. ‘As long as you are not afraid of me.’ He pulled back a little then, as if to give her space, not wanting to rush her too soon. ‘I can be gentle.’
No. That would be worse. That would make her his burden, not his partner. ‘Willie Storwick has no place in our bedchamber. I want no special treatment.’
‘But what if—’
‘No! We can make no life if my fear becomes yours. You are Braw Johnnie and I am Bold Cate!’ She lifted her chin and opened her arms. ‘As brave in love as in battle.’
The grin flickered across his face then. ‘Then cross swords with me, my Cate. We both shall win.’
He took her lips without delicacy. Strong and urgent, his tongue explored her mouth, a sign of what was to come. She kissed him back, searching his mouth as he had teased hers, until each was inside the other, neither invading, both surrendering.
Desire surged within her, ready to devour him, as she had felt devoured, new and raw and raging out of control, refusing to accept separation.
She tugged at his tunic, pushed at his braises, unwilling to wait. This would not be the cautious joining of their past. She wanted him all at once. Beneath her greedy hands, his skin was hot, his muscles hard, the hair of his forearm soft and the skin of his belly, that never saw wind or sun, softer.
She helped him wrestle with the unfamiliar dress, her skin impatient for his. And when the clothes were shed, piled on the floor, her nakedness felt only his lips and his skin and air.
Now, he kissed her neck. Now, she kissed his shoulder. Now, he teased her breasts. Now, she stroked his thighs. Now, he moaned. Now, she gasped.
And then he took her lips again and they were on the bed.
No time for thought. No hesitation. Not until he lay with his body on top of hers, pinning her beneath him.
She stiffened.
He rolled off her, gasping for breath, for control.
She wanted to beat her stubborn, stupid body. ‘No! Do not stop.’ Tears of frustration threatened and his beloved face blurred before her eyes.
But she could still see the doubt in his.
‘I cannot...not if...’
Then she saw it in his face, that she possessed him as completely as he possessed her. Even when she had sat astride him, he was not conquered. Nor would she be now. Joined in love, there was no greater, no lesser. Only the one they became together.
‘You are Johnnie Brunson,’ she said. ‘The man I love. The man I want. The man I will allow to take me. And the man I will take in turn.’
‘Now you are truly Braw Cate, for what you do this day takes more courage than facing forty long pikes.’
‘Make me new memories, Johnnie.’
And he took her lips and took her body and swept them both into a dark, safe world that was theirs alone.
* * *
She woke with the sun, feeling the welcome weight of his leg and a new sense of strength. Perhaps her wound would heal as some of the body did, stronger in the broken places.
He opened his eyes, his wonderful, soft blue eyes, and smiled. ‘We must declare a marriage, I think.’
His wife. Her very toes were smiling.
Relief. Then reality. ‘You want to stay?’
He leaned on one elbow, grinning. ‘King James will not be in a forgiving mood. I’ll be a lucky man if our esteemed warden doesn’t decide I deserve hanging.’
She clung to his careless smile. None of them knew whether Carwell was friend or foe. ‘But if the king forgave you, then what?’
He shook his head, suddenly seeing her fears. ‘I would still stay home.’
Home.
But if Rob did not agree, they would be exiled to the same lawless lands Scarred Willie had roamed. ‘Where will we live?’
His fingers reached out to tug her hair, as if to make it grow. ‘Well, Rob and I had a little talk.’
‘Rob said to ask you if dividing the master’s bedchamber would suffice.’
And she laughed and rolled him onto his back and took his lips and they did not talk again for a long, long time.
Epilogue
He always hoped you would come home.
John stood on the parapet a week later, trying to catch an echo of his father’s voice in the wind.
‘Was Bessie right, old man? Is this what you wanted?’
There would be no going back. As word spread of Scarred Willie’s death, John would be a hunted man, one who had walked away from all the titles, wealth and power a king could offer.
And yet, as he surveyed the snowy hills, he felt himself more than a king. Soon to be husband of a woman like no other. One he would protect with more than his life.
That might be necessary. Carwell would come for the man who had killed Scarred Willie. And if they told him it was a dog instead, who would believe it?
He smiled. Let the ballad singers concoct a better story. Let them sing of Bold Cate, brave as the First Brunson.
‘Johnnie? Would you have supper?’ Bessie stood at the top of the stair, not stepping up to the windswept parapet.
‘Come look,’ he said. ‘The wind’s died down.’
Sunset had turned the sky gold over snowy hills and she leaned on the ledge beside him, watching as the sun disappeared.
‘Did he really want me to come home?’ No need to say who. He had waited a long, long time to ask, afraid of the answer.
‘Aye.’
A single word. And it brought the peace he’d searched for nearly half his life.
‘But he sent no word. Asked nothing of my life.’ The hurt rushed back, blunted only slightly by long years.
Bessie shook her head. ‘What if he had? What if we had sent you word of Rob’s tumble from his horse or my first woman’s birthday? You would only have longed for what you were missing instead of turning to meet your life.’
Did they not think he longed for his family anyway?
‘I think,’ Bessie said, ‘that he hoped you would come back, just as you did.’
‘Demanding he send men to the king?’
‘No.’ Her crooked smile was kin to Rob’s. ‘He would have greeted that news even less cordially than Rob did.’
‘Are you sure he didn’t just want to be rid of the son who didn’t fit?’
She turned away from the darkened hills to face him. ‘He knew you had to go to a place where you were not Johnnie Blunkit.’
A place where he could become himself, before he became a Brunson.
Geordie the Red was a wiser bastard than he had thought.
‘He loved this life,’ she said. ‘And Rob was born to it. But he wanted you to be free to choose something else. If you wanted.’
He drew a breath of Borders air. ‘I could want nothing more than this.’
He turned to smile at his sister and in that unguarded moment, saw something flash across her face. Longing? Envy? He wondered again what life awaited his sister.
‘Bessie—?’
‘Johnnie?’ Cate’s voice preceded her up the stairs. ‘Are you up here?’
She joined them on the parapet and the sight of her alone made him smile.
‘Now come to eat. I’ve made lamb pie and if you don’t get there quickly, Belde may eat it for us.’
Bessie raised her brows and started down the stairs to rescue dinner.
‘I’ve a taste for something else tonight,’ Cate said with a smile, glancing down.
His body responded instantly to her invitation. ‘Do you, now?’ But he tempered his smile. It was all still new to her. He did not want to rush. ‘But you can say no whenever you want.’
She lifted her eyes to meet his. ‘Yes. Yes. And a thousand times yes.’
He took her lips, thinking supper might wait. Aye, where Cate was, he was home.
And if the king’s men came to take him? Well, he and Cate and generations of Brunsons would be ready for them.
* * *
Now let me sing of Cate the Bold
Who rode the hills with her brave dog Belde
In later years, after all those who knew her were gone, they still sang of the Warrior Woman of Liddesdale and how she crept out alone when the moon was dark to track and kill her enemy. And then the song told how the king thundered into the Borders to punish the man responsible for Willie Storwick’s death.
And found a woman.
But that is a song for another day.
Afterword
This story takes place in the Borders of my imagination. Certain events are true. The King of Scotland, James V, did assume his ‘personal rule’ at age sixteen and, from then forwards, struggled to control the Borders, among other parts of his kingdom.
Borderers held themselves above kings of either country. They were driven by family loyalties in much the same way as Highlanders and as likely to feud with a family on their own side of the border as they were to ally with one on the opposite. Kings, Scottish and English, were far away and viewed with all the disdain I’ve shown here.
For at least two hundred years, the Borders operated much like a separate country, a buffer between England and Scotland. As I’ve outlined, they had their own laws which the wardens, English and Scottish, had the near-impossible job of enforcing. ‘Reiving’, the stealing of sheep and cattle and goods, was constant and, in many cases, more vicious than I described.
Modern litanies of the Reivers’ sins typically list rape among them. In actual historic accounts, however, rape is so rare as to be non-existent. An assault such as the one in Cate’s past was so unusual that I was unable to find a specific report of one in the history. Is this because they did not exist, or because women like Cate did not make them public? The answer, as so much of women’s history, is hidden.
I studied the landscape, the towers, the laws and the raiding carefully, though I did take liberties. There were three ‘Marches’, or quasi-political divisions on each side of the Border. The Brunsons lived in what would be the Scottish Middle March and their warden would have lived there, too. But the warden in the book, Carwell, lives in what would actually be the West March and would have had jurisdiction over that geography.
My Brunsons were inspired very loosely by the Armstrongs, Carwell by the Maxwell family. There was an invasion of the Debatable Lands in 1528, but it was the English Warden who led it.
‘Sleuth dogs’, forerunners of our bloodhounds, are well documented during this time. The wardens often used them to track raiders back to their hiding places.
There was no Brunson family. No legend—that I know of!—of a lost Viking. There are, however, ‘hogback stones’ scattered on both sides of the Borders, like the ones I described on my imaginary ‘Hogback Hill’. They date from five to six hundred years earlier than this story and are nearly as mysterious to us as they were to John and Cate.
Who’s to say they could not sing to us of the past?
* * * * *
Look for Bessie’s story in
CAPTIVE OF THE BORDER LORD,
coming soon.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt of Whirlwind Cowboy by Debra Cowan!
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Chapter One
West Texas
June 1886
Where was she? The ground was hard beneath her back. Her head pounded as she stared up at a gray sky and the sun hidden behind red-tinted clouds. Carefully pushing herself up on her elbows, she winced as sharp pain speared through her skull. Her shoulder ached, too. She was behind a two-story white brick building she didn’t recognize.
She touched her temple, and her fingers came away bloody. She inhaled sharply. Blood also streaked her pale blue floral bodice. What had happened?
A creaking sound had her looking over her shoulder. A saddled black horse watched her with dark eyes. Then she saw a wet stain a couple of feet away.
She eased over and touched it, startled to realize it was more blood.
Cold, savage fear ripped through her and she got unsteadily to her feet, fighting back panic. Whatever had happened here had been deadly. She couldn’t remember it, but she knew it.
Her head throbbed as she looked around wildly, trying to identify something, anything. Not the building hiding her or the store across a dusty street or the railroad tracks beyond. Nothing was familiar.
Alarmed and confused, she felt tears sting her eyes.
From the front of the building she heard the heavy thud of boots. A man muttered in a low, vicious voice. The hairs on her arms stood up and fear rushed through her.
There was no thought, only instinct. She gathered her skirts and hurriedly mounted the waiting horse, riding astride. Her skull felt as though it was being cracked open and she thought she might pass out from the pain.
Urging the animal into motion, she rode hard away from the unfamiliar buildings and headed for the open prairie. Someone yelled after her. She wasn’t sure what he said, but she didn’t stop.
Gripping the pommel with sweat-slick hands, she kept the horse at a full-out run until she was assured no one was behind her.
Then she slowed the horse to an easy pace. As far as she could see there was an endless sea of golden-brown prairie grass, dotted here and there with a few evergreen trees. The landscape looked familiar, but she didn’t know why. She didn’t know anything.
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