‘And when will you return?’
‘By the time I return, you will...know.’ He opened the door to enter her chamber. ‘Goodnight.’
She kept her head high until she closed the door behind her.
And then Bessie Brunson wept.
* * *
He left before dawn because he could not risk seeing her again. Last night, he had looked at her, strong and straight and stubborn, and wanted to say yes. To seize her. To take her and to hold her and proclaim her as his wife and keep her by his side. To say before all who had gathered that they were betrothed and she would share his life now.
Knew he could not.
And regretted everything all over again.
Calculations, plans, his attempts to save and protect her. The madness of the Daft Days he had spent in her arms. Each step, in hindsight, miscalculated. One step at a time, he had waded unknowing into the quicksands of caring. And all the reasons he conjured up, to her and to himself, were just excuses.
Because if she ever discovered the truth, she would be the one to leave him.
Chapter Nineteen
The day Thomas left, Bessie walked the sands by the sea for the first time.
She woke with swollen eyes to hear horses pounding across the drawbridge, leaving the castle. First his. Then the other guests. And afterwards, deafening, empty silence, filled only by the waves.
Thomas was no longer here to keep her out of his office and off the beach. Well, as he had made clear, he had no intention of being her husband, so she no longer had the least obligation to obey his directives.
The winds had calmed, but she pulled on boots and wrapped herself in cloak and plaid before she crept down the stairs, through the empty hall and across the courtyard. The steward and the servants were still not accustomed to having her in the castle, so she slipped across the courtyard and crossed the bridge, still down from letting the men ride out.
She would worry about getting back in later.
Finally, she was outside. Free.
The gate faced inland, so she made her way around the moat to the marsh. To get to the sea, someone had built a raised bank of earth, but it had been badly battered by the winter storms.
We shall have to mend it come spring, she thought. As if she would be here. As if there were a we.
Did thistle bloom in a marsh?
As she stepped on to the walk, a flock of birds rose, squawking in fear. Geese, swans, she was not sure what she saw, but as they rose into the sky, her heart seemed to lift with them.
At the end of the walk, the tide was low and the sand stretched large and flat as the floor of the Great Hall of Stirling, beckoning her steps. The closer she came to the water, the softer the sand. Each step was spongy beneath her feet and, if she turned, she could see her footprints behind her, deeper than those of the gulls.
A deep breath and she had the smell of the sea in her lungs. Something to clear her head of the last two months of suffocation. Of royal intrigues and awkward dancing and making love in the dark in small rooms to a man who, it seemed, did not love her after all.
Who was she now?
Not Elizabeth. Not a woman who could tread the floor with the King and carefully skirt every danger. Not a woman worthy to be Thomas Carwell’s wife.
Yet she had learned to dance.
Nor Bessie Brunson. Not the woman who had wanted nothing more from life than the walls she was born in and the work she did there. That woman would never stride across a cold, windy beach and feel at home.
That woman would never have forgotten that Brunsons had never trusted Thomas Carwell. And never would.
She turned to look at the looming castle, casting a grey shadow over the moat and the marsh.
Who indeed?
Yet more than half an hour later, she had found no answers in the sand. She turned for home and approached the path to the castle, when suddenly Hew and half-a-dozen men appeared before her.
‘My lady, what are you doing?’ The steward and the others moved her to the edge of the sand and back to the dirt embankment, the phalanx of broad shoulders a welcome shield against the wind.
‘I am walking,’ she said. So much for thinking the servants did not notice her.
‘Never come here again.’
She flashed him a look worthy of the lady of the castle. ‘It is not your place to forbid me.’
‘If I do not, the master will have my head.’
‘Why?’ She looked around. Inhaled the wind, felt the waves roll in and suddenly felt that if she was forbidden this place, she would lose the only joy left to her. ‘There is no danger here.’
‘Aye, there is, my lady. This is where Lady Annabell Carwell died. In the quicksands.’
* * *
The first words out of the English Warden’s mouth were the last Thomas had wanted to hear.
‘The Brunsons raided Storwick land last week. Buildings are burned. Cattle gone.’
It’s you I’ll hold responsible, the King had said. Yet he had delayed going back to the Brunson’s valley, wanting to solve the tangle of Bessie’s betrothal first. Now, he would be a man marked by both sides.
These were things better not shared with Lord Acre. He would be lucky if the man did not discover he was betrothed to Bessie Brunson. Then the Warden would trust him not at all.
Of course, the feeling was mutual. ‘Our first Truce Day since the treaty will be a busy one.’
‘I see no need to wait. The treaty gives me the right to ride after them.’
‘A treaty that was not what either of us had agreed. And what you suggest would be an inauspicious start to a peace agreement.’ The King would expect him to keep the English from riding across the border on a full-out invasion. Border raids, stolen cattle and sheep were one thing. The English Warden riding with a thousand men into Liddesdale was something else. ‘The treaty also mandates we hold a Truce Day by the end of next month. If you ride first, you’ll have broken a sovereign agreement between nations.’
An agreement the King had warned Thomas to keep under ‘pain of death’.
The man scowled, the match ending without a victor.
Thomas let the silence gather before he broached the new topic. ‘You wrote that Angus’s castle was again under siege.’
Acre nodded.
He leaned back, crossing his arms. ‘Why do you care?’
‘I don’t. But my King does. And so do you.’
‘Do I?’ A shiver slipped up his spine. So the man was ready to bargain. ‘And what do you care about?’
‘The Brunsons.’
Careful words now. Careful as a step around the quicksands. ‘Are you interested in the Brunsons, then?’
‘Truce Day or no, I have the right to ride after them, but in the process, I may lose more men than the sons of Lucifer are worth.’
‘All the more reason to hold Truce Day as the treaty requires.’ He said the words as if it did not matter to him, either way. As if the decision would be weighed and measured logically.
‘Unless something were to happen to them before then.’ He shrugged. ‘It would save us all the trouble of a trial and it would not be surprising. Men die every day. Why, the lord of one of the most prominent families on the Borders died in a raid just last autumn.’
Just last autumn, when the ringleader of a plot to kidnap the King had conveniently died in an otherwise ordinary raid. One that Carwell had ridden.
‘So,’ Acre concluded, ‘if that were to happen, if the Brunsons were to meet an untimely end, well, Angus might disappear once he crosses the border.’
And there it was. The revenge he had thirsted for throughout the last two years. Angus—dead as his own father. Dead as he deserved to be.
The price? Bessie’s brothers.
‘Why so silent, Carwell? We both get what we want. No one need be the wiser.’
And suddenly, there was no question, no caution, no measurement. No careful steps. No desire to leave himself an opening so that he could
shift his position later. Not about this. No matter what happened now, the King would call him a Brunson.
Well, thanks to Bessie, maybe he was.
He unfolded his arms and rose. ‘No.’
‘No?’ Surprise on Acre’s face, coupled with anger.
‘No. We’ll wait for Truce Day.’
‘That will only delay justice. The Brunsons won’t appear and I’ll have to ride into Scotland to get them.’
‘Won’t appear? You mean the way you did not appear and allowed Willie Storwick to be whisked away from the noose he deserved?’
The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘That was as we agreed.’
Yes. And he had regretted it ever since.
‘As we agreed,’ Acre continued, ‘and yet Willie Storwick is dead.’
‘Is he?’ Thomas shrugged, keeping his arms loose and his palms visible. ‘No one ever saw him dead. No one ever found his body. Perhaps God became tired of our delay and his wickedness and simply whisked him away to hell.’
Acre snorted. ‘We both know he is dead by a Brunson hand, which still goes unpunished.’ The Warden folded his arms, a frustrated frown on his face. ‘Now we can schedule a Truce Day date, as the treaty requires, and pretend the Brunsons will appear, but we both know that will not happen.’
And he did. After Storwick was allowed to escape, he knew the Brunsons would never trust the Border Laws again. He was beginning to share their scepticism.
But now he needed to stall. ‘Whether they appear or not,’ he said, ‘my King expects me to comply with the treaty.’ He kept his smile, and his tongue, smooth. ‘Now, shall we sit down again and agree on a date?’
Acre shook his head, grumbling, but he did and they negotiated a place and time, several weeks hence.
When Thomas rose to leave, Acre refused to shake his hand. ‘If the Brunsons do not appear, I’ll ride directly to Liddesdale from that spot.’
He recognised the words for the promise they were. And appreciated the warning. No, Thomas Carwell could not guarantee the Brunsons would appear for Truce Day.
In fact, he was going to tell them not to.
* * *
While Thomas was gone, Bessie took comfort on the beach.
Though it was the dark of winter and stiff winds blew from the west, she braved the cold, finding solace in the ceaseless ebb and flow of the waves.
Every day, she studied the tides, coming in, going out, different from one day to the next. She learned to time her walk so she would have the biggest expanse of sand to wander.
To placate Hew, she carried a staff when she walked and listened with half an ear when he explained how dangerous the sands could be.
The steward would tell her no more of Annabell’s death. No more of the woman at all. Once, such silence would have convinced Bessie that Thomas’s first wife was beautiful and cultured and danced like an angel.
Now, she had a different view. Otherworldly angel she might have been, but what housekeeping the woman had taught the servants, if any, had long since been forgotten. Bessie improved the mix of herbs used to make the castle ale and insisted they bleach every piece of linen, over loud complaints about collecting the urine needed to do so.
These things, at least, she could give to Thomas. Things that would make his life more comfortable when she was here no more.
When I return, you will know.
And now she did.
There would be no child.
* * *
Ten days after he left, a storm came in.
Rain poured down. Gusts of wind blew the tide into the marsh until she feared the sea would overflow into the moat, and water left in the bucket overnight was frozen come morning.
‘Is it like this where Thomas is?’ Bessie asked the steward.
Is he safe? Questions a wife would have. Ones she could not stop asking.
He shook his head. ‘The weather here is all its own. A few miles away, the sun could be shining.’
And when, the next day, the sun returned, she could hardly wait to go outside again. But duty came first. They inspected the castle for leaks and missing stones and by the time she escaped, the tide had ebbed, leaving the beach scrubbed.
Before she came to Carwell Castle, water had been little more than something to wash in. The Liddel Waters had held no draw for her. Her brothers had been the ones to splash through the stream and spray each other. But here, ah, here, the water was different.
With no one to watch, no one to expect what Bessie might do, she held out her arms and twirled, screaming at the circling gulls, not knowing whether it was with pain or glee. She had hoped for a child. Hoped against hope because then she and Thomas would be bound for ever. How had she come to love this man so strongly and so quickly? How had she come to love this place so different from her distant valley?
Where did the first Brunson come from? He came from the sea.
She stopped twirling, stumbling in the sand.
From the sea.
She had always thought being a Brunson meant that place. That valley. Always thought her roots were in those hills. Yet here, in sight of the sea, it was as if something in her blood, dormant for years, recognised that this was home. That coming to Thomas, and to the sea, was coming home.
They had sent Johnnie away and he found himself when he came home. She had never left home. Never wanted to. And yet, now, she wanted to be here always.
Could Thomas accept that? Accept her?
The tide had turned, inching up the beach, wave by wave, and she ran down to dance with it, practising her galliard kicks and flips with the ocean itself as a partner, foolishly letting the frigid waves splash her feet when she did not run out of the way fast enough.
She shivered, thinking of Thomas’s warmth, and his care for hers. And she walked back toward the marsh, well away from the rising tide.
He would be home soon. And what would happen then? She strode with wide strides, wishing she could walk faster than the worry. The rhythm of the sea had washed it away for a while, but she could not stay here all day. The sun was already past its peak. She turned her back on it, starting back to the castle.
Her next step sank deeper, and instead of being able to stride ahead, her right foot sunk up to her ankle. She jerked against the hold, expecting to break free, but the sand only clung tighter and pulled her foot deeper. She tried again. She pulled, but the sand pulled back, stronger than she.
Then she realised her other foot was sinking, too.
This is where she died. In the quicksands.
Fear soured her stomach. She fought it. Delicate, Thomas had called his wife. Too delicate to walk the beach, no doubt.
And Bessie? Well, she’d been too stubborn to listen to the warnings.
She looked around, careful to hold her staff out of the sand, then waved it high over her head. Someone from the castle would see.
But she had turned the bend. In the darkening light, the castle was no longer in sight.
And the tide was rushing in.
* * *
Thomas had wanted to be back sooner, but the storm had swept over them and the men stayed sheltered for a day longer than he had planned. Now, he was eager to get home. The castle was built to withstand storms stronger than that one. Still, Bessie had been in the storm without him. She might have been frightened...
He smiled. No. Not that. But she would have been cold without him to hold her through the night. She would be picking up after everyone else and he would not be there to take care of her. To make her sit and rest. To keep her warm.
To let her dance.
But it was still a long day’s ride back. The last few miles he urged his horse faster. Almost there.
Behind the castle, he could see the sunset sky. The clouds had cleared enough so that they only served as decorations for the sunset, pink and blue, reflected in the still moat. Noisy gulls swarmed, as if seeking shelter for the night.
He knew the feeling. He, too, was coming home to nest.
To
his wife.
Over the bridge, across the moat, inside the courtyard, finally. He looked for her before he even left his horse.
Hew took the bridle as Thomas dismounted.
‘Where is my betrothed?’ It felt good, to speak of her that way. It would be even better when he asked for his wife.
‘I don’t know, my lord.’
Calm fled. ‘What do you mean you don’t know?’
‘She probably walks the sands. She does so nearly every day.’
The past rose up, swamping his rosy dreams of the future. ‘How could you let her do that?’
The steward shrugged, less concerned than Thomas had hoped. ‘I have warned her, but how could I stop her?’
And fool he himself had been, to tell her no and expect her to listen.
Stubborn. Always too stubborn.
He wanted to throttle Hew, but it would have taken precious seconds. ‘Bring the men. We must search. Now!’
And he ran over the bridge and toward the sea.
* * *
One step at a time. One step at a time.
Both feet were trapped now. There would be no steps taken. The more she struggled and pulled, the deeper the sand sucked her in.
She tried to breathe. Tried to think. Tried to call out, but the waves and the screams of the geese and the gulls were louder than her cry for help.
You’re far away from solid dirt and rock now, Bessie. If you belong by the sea, you must prove it. You must survive this.
Now she could see why Thomas had railed against the sands. Why he’d been a man who had grown to step carefully, sensitive to changes. She had not been careful enough, or quick enough. Yes, the waves had called to her, but she had much to learn, still, if they were to live peacefully side by side, she and the sea.
She looked again to the castle. Hew would miss her soon. He would come looking.
But the beach was large and the tide was quick and she had walked further than usual after being cooped up inside the castle for the day.
She took another breath and forced her feet to still. Her sinking slowed.
The body does not lie, Thomas had said. But her mother had a saying, too. You can’t hear your head when your body is yelling. She had forgotten that one the night she gave herself to Thomas. Now, she needed to quiet her body and let her mind work.
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