by Amanda Scott
“Sit there, Benjy,” Dev said, gesturing to the stool that Robina had rejected.
Benjy sat gingerly and watched him so warily that Dev wondered what Rab might have done in such an instance.
Dismissing the thought, he reminded himself that he had taken responsibility for the boy’s upbringing. “I want to know exactly what happened this morning, laddie,” he said. “Why did Gyb punish you?”
Benjy swallowed visibly, making Dev recall how his own, then much larger and more physically powerful, brother Kenneth had made him feel when Ken towered over him with strap in hand, demanding answers to unanswerable questions. Unanswerable, that was, if one were usually honest but cherished one’s skin.
Accordingly, he drew out another stool and sat facing Benjy, who straightened on his own stool and looked right at him to say, “I been a-thinking on it like ye said, sir. But I dinna… do not know why he skelped me.”
“Just tell me what happened.”
“I do ken that. He came out o’ the stable and yelled at me to start mucking out stalls. I said I wasna one o’ the lads as did such and I were a-waiting for me sister. Then he cursed and said I’d best get me backside inside or he’d make me sorry. I said he shouldna speak so to me, and that’s when…” He paused, swallowing again. “Did I do wrong, sir?”
Dev hesitated. This was harder than he’d expected. Benjy was, in fact, Laird of Coklaw, and the sooner the men all understood that, the better. Even so…
“I cannot say that you did wrong,” he said at last. “But I’d like you to think about what Gyb saw in the yard this morning.”
When Benjy frowned, Dev added, “I’m not saying Gyb was right. He was dead wrong to lay a hand on you. But he saw a lad wandering in the yard who looked able to help with the chores. Sithee, he mistook you for a stable lad, so he yelled at you.”
“He didna need to shout,” Benjy said, raising his chin in much the same way that Robby did when she gathered her dignity. “We dinna… do not shout at our people here at Coklaw. Me da didna like it, nor did our Rab.”
“I’m glad to know that,” Dev said. “I will explain that to Gyb and to any other of my men who need telling.”
Benjy looked more cheerful. “Then ye’re no still vexed wi’ me?”
Dev shook his head. “However,” he said, “I will tell you something that I learned when I was your age. My father is Ormiston of Ormiston, a gey powerful man. So, I thought his name and title would protect me whatever I did. When something similar to what happened this morning happened to me, I had no sister at hand to aid me. I could not sit for a sennight, and when I bleated about it to my father, he said that if I wanted our people to treat me with respect, I should avoid telling them that they must do so. Instead, I should behave respectfully to them and show them the behavior I expected from them.”
Benjy was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then he said, “Beany said summat o’ the sort to me t’other day. I thought I understood her then, but today was different. In troth, sir, it’s hard to ken what a laird should do, time to time. I’m thinking our Rab should ha’ stayed alive till I were more grown up.”
It took Dev a moment to swallow the lump in his throat before he said, “I think I can help you learn the things you should know.”
“Aye, I’m glad ye’ve come to us. I ken fine that ye’ll ken what to do.”
“Then shall we go and see if Beany has come down yet? I’m starving.”
“Me, too, but ye’d better no call her Beany, ’less ye want your eyes scratched out.”
“I’ll try to remember,” Dev said with a smile. “Meantime, you need not call me ‘sir’ all the time. You may still call me Dev if you like.”
“Good, then let’s go find Beany, Dev.”
Robina reached the hall just as Dev and Benjy stepped onto the dais. Dev had his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and as they took their places at the table, Benjy looked up at him with a reverent expression that she had seen before only when he’d looked at Rab.
The sight jolted her, but she hastily scolded herself. Her little brother needed masculine guidance, and he could do much worse than to choose Dev as his hero.
“That’s right, Beany. Moreover, you’d be a fool to be as jealous of Dev where Benjy is concerned as you were of Dev and me.”
“I was not jealous but lonely, even when you deigned to take me with you,” she muttered, surprising herself with that sudden awareness but silencing Rab.
Hurrying, she took her place just as Corinne approached from the service stairs.
“Beg pardon, m’lady,” the maidservant said with a wary smile. “Mistress Greenlaw said I were to sit by ye the noo. She said it’d look better to them in the lower hall to see ye with a female by ye, now that Sir David be taking the laird’s place.”
“Thank you, Corinne, but I shan’t—”
“Thank you, Corinne,” Dev echoed. “Mistress Greenlaw is right. You will attend her ladyship until the lady Rosalie Percy arrives.”
“Lady Rosalie Percy?” Corinne looked agape at Robina.
“Cousin Rosalie has visited us before,” Robina said, stifling annoyance. “I doubt you have met her, since she has not stayed overnight, Corinne. She is Lady Meg’s sister, who married a Percy cousin of their mam’s. She will be staying with us for a time.”
Robina could see that Corinne was bursting to demand more details. But then the maid looked past her, likely at Dev, and silently took her place beside Robina.
Sensing that Corinne was uneasy in the unfamiliar role, she murmured. “Just do as I do.”
Dev said the grace, and as soon as they sat down, Benjy began pelting him with questions about his boyhood.
Robina took the opportunity to say, “Corinne, you may accompany me to table until Rosalie arrives. However, you need not expect to become my shadow.”
Corinne’s eyes widened. “Nay, m’lady, I’d never expect that.”
Aware of silence on her right, Robina turned to see that a platter now sat beside her, and Dev was waiting to serve her. She wondered if he’d heard their exchange.
His eyes began to glint, then to twinkle.
“Shadow?” he murmured.
“You know I’d never tolerate that,” she muttered back.
“I do, and I won’t burden you with a keeper unless you prove that you need one.”
“Except for Rosalie,” she said with a sigh.
“Sakes, lass, you said you like her. Don’t judge the end before the event.”
“Is that an ancient Roman maxim?” she demanded. “My father could spout one for nearly any occasion, but I do not recall that one.”
“That maxim was according to David Ormiston,” he said. “Come to that, though, my father is also fond of them, so I may have heard its like before.”
To avoid talking more about Rosalie, she encouraged him to tell her about his father. She soon learned that Ormiston and James Gledstanes had had much in common.
When they finished eating, Dev suggested that they plant Rab’s hawthorn tree.
She said, “It will be muddy out there. I should change back into my old kirtle.”
“You don’t need to,” he said lightly. “Benjy and I will do the work. You need only direct the proceedings.”
“Aye, that’s a good notion,” Benjy said. “Dev loved Rab, too, Beany, and you already did most o’ the work, a-digging yon hole.”
She opened her mouth to argue but saw the expectant gleam in Dev’s eyes in time to lift her chin and say, “You are both too kind. I just hope the work doesn’t wear you out.”
She also hoped that Dev would slip and cover himself in muck.
Dev watched the play of emotions on Robby’s face and realized he could almost read her thoughts. He had annoyed her again. That was plain, but she had thought better of challenging him, which augured well for the half-truce they had agreed to. Something in the way she eyed him now, though, warned him that he’d better watch his step.
Outside the gate, Benjy ran to the
rise and skidded in the mud, waving wildly as he fought to keep his balance. Succeeding, he turned and grinned at them.
Dev muttered, “I’ll wager you hoped I’d be the one to slip, and more calamitously.”
Looking startled, she said with a saucy grin, “It would serve you right!”
“Would it?” he said softly, holding her gaze.
Color rose in her cheeks. Her chin jutted upward. “Aye, it would,” she said and strode away to join her little brother on the rise.
Noting that she neared Benjy warily and raised her skirts, Dev smiled.
Honoring their decision that, although he could help them, no one else should, Dev carried their tools. Handing the spade to Benjy and assessing the hole, half-filled with mud and debris from the rain, he said, “Perhaps you will clear away those new weeds, Benjy, whilst I dig the muck out of this hole. Beware of flying mud, though.”
“The sapling he chose stands yonder, Dev,” Robina said, pointing. “I dug a trench around it, so you need only dig underneath to move it.”
“Good,” he said. “You seem to know what you’re doing here, too, lass.”
“I watched my mother and helped her when I was small. Few things grow well here, but the hawthorns flourish.”
“Was it your lady mother who circled the clearing with them?”
“I think so, although my granddame may have begun it. Mam thought the hawthorns would keep the forest from creeping nearer, but my father doubted her and called them a damned nuisance. They do need much trimming and pruning to deter them from creeping closer. I think they have kept the forest at bay, though.”
He nodded, thinking her mother was right, that the dense hawthorn thicket did keep sapling oaks and beeches from rapidly multiplying. But the clearing kept enemies from creeping too close, so the hawthorn itself would frequently need pruning back.
He began digging out the mud and soon hit a layer of pebbles and small rocks. “This must be where you stopped digging,” he said to Robina.
“Beany said the rocks would mark that spot,” Benjy said. “She dug a grand hole, but the clouds burst on us, and we had to run, so she put the pebbles in.”
“A good notion,” Dev replied, noting that Robina looked oddly relieved. Catching her eye, he raised his eyebrows.
She shrugged, watched him for a few moments, and said, “Your leathers and boots are covered in that mud, sir. I know that you travel as light as Rab did, if not lighter, and most of his clothing will be too small for you.”
“I thank you for your concern, my lady, but I sent one of my lads back to Ormiston from Hawick to tell my father that Archie had appointed me warden here. My lad will gather what I’ll need and return by week’s end.”
“Then I hope your squire can keep you tidy until then. Greenlaw can help, too. You must know that he served as my father’s squire for years before becoming steward here.”
Their conversation continued on such harmless lines until Benjy’s tree was firmly in the ground, and the boy expressed his approval of the result.
Agreeing that the sapling looked splendid, Robina ruffled his hair as she added, “But you, my lad, must rest. I heard you coughing, and we don’t want you sick again.”
“Och, Beany, I’m no a bairn. A wee cold in the head willna kill me.”
“That’s true,” Dev said. “But, if you want to grow as tall and strong as Rab, you’ll need lots of rest. So go now and tell them to open the gate. We’ll bring the tools.”
When Benjy had obeyed, Dev said, “I’d like to see more of the area, Robby, the nearby woods and such. If you think they’ll be dry enough, we might take a walk. You can tell me aught that you think I should know.”
“I must see Benjy settled first,” Robina said. “If I don’t put him to bed, he’ll engage in some activity that he means to do for just a moment and not sleep at all.”
“Could not Corinne—?”
“He has declared himself too old to be coddled by a maidservant.”
“I see,” Dev said thoughtfully. “You know, I think Ken had a lad to look after him when he was about Benjy’s age. Did not Rab?”
“Not until he turned thirteen. But Ada did suggest one for Benjy, and I have been thinking about it.”
“It’s a good notion,” Dev said. He told her what Benjy had said about how hard he found it to know how a laird should behave.
“Poor laddie,” she said. “I remember Rab’s reaction when our father died and he suddenly found himself the laird. We were just seventeen.”
“Aye, and Wat Scott was but four-and-twenty,” Dev said. “He told me the sudden burden terrified him. He was sure he’d never do as well as his father or grandfather had.”
“I’ll meet you in the hall as soon as Benjy’s asleep,” Robina said.
Chapter 9
Robina took Benjy upstairs and tucked him into his cot. Telling him that the sooner he slept the sooner he would wake up, she went quietly out of the room.
Crossing the landing, she entered her own chamber, relieved to find it empty.
Experience assured her that, without orders to the contrary, Corinne would keep busy elsewhere until it was time to help prepare her mistress for bed. Robina did not change clothes for supper at Coklaw unless special company arrived or some mishap occurred that precluded wearing the clothes she had worn all afternoon.
Shutting her door and bolting it, she went to the blanket kist and took out the jar. Having found a small iron crow such as men used to pry bent nails out of wood, she wrapped the lower part of the jar in a towel from the washstand, put the crow’s claw foot under the stiff wire, and pried carefully to avoid breaking the jar.
The wire moved more easily than she had expected, since it had easily withstood her efforts to pry it up with her fingers.
Certain that she had found the right tool but unwilling to linger lest Dev come in search of her, she returned the jar, along with the crow, to the kist. Then, taking her pink and moss-green shawl from its hook, she flung it over her shoulders and hurried downstairs to find Dev on the hall landing, waiting for her.
“You were faster than I’d expected,” he said.
“Where do you want to go?” she asked. “The Ormiston estate?”
“Not today. I’ve been up Sunnyside Hill only once, but it must have some fine views of the surrounding area. Have we time to go and return before supper?”
“Aye, sure. Benjy and I went up and back in a morning without hurrying.”
They set out at once, and Robina easily kept up with Dev’s long stride, although she knew she was taking at least a stride and a half for each one of his.
They walked mostly in silence, and she enjoyed the calls of the birds and squirrels.
Grinning when Dev pointed to a tiny rabbit just before it hopped out of sight behind a bush, she recalled how much she had missed Rab when he was away. No one else at Coklaw had delighted in such simple sights as she did.
They neared the summit much faster than she and Benjy had. By then, most of the clouds had drifted eastward, so the sky was blue with just a few scattered white ones in it.
She felt warm with the sun still well above the horizon. But, knowing that a chilly breeze would greet them at the top, she was glad she had her shawl.
Cresting the hill, they paused and stood silently, looking at the graveyard ahead with its low fence around it. The ends of it met at the lych-gate, in the shelter of which the men had set Rab’s shrouded body before burying him.
Memories and images swooped over Robina, catching her off her guard.
Dev saw the sadness engulfing her. “Do you want to go back?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. Then, straightening her shoulders, she went to the lych-gate, opened it, and walked into the graveyard.
Dev followed her, noting that the rain had settled the earth mound atop Rab’s grave. Grass was even beginning to grow there. It came to him then that, having told Corinne to keep close to Robina, he ought to have brought her with them.
Perhaps, though, it was only his eerie sense of Rab’s presence that had stirred the unwelcome thought.
Some guardian he was proving to be, but they were there now, and that was that. With a mental shrug, he returned his attention to Robina, who had stopped with her back to him at the edge of Rab’s grave.
Hearing an odd squeak from her, something akin to the distant scream of a rabbit in a hawk’s talons, he looked more closely. Her shoulders were shaking.
Moving swiftly to her, abandoning all thought of propriety, he put his hands gently on her shoulders and drew her unresisting body close against his. Noting that the top of her head was a few inches below his chin, he murmured, “There’s no harm in grieving, Robby. I’ll wager you haven’t shed a tear since he died.”
She shook her head and, through her sobs, said in a gasping tumble of words, “I was too angry with him for dying and with you for letting him die.”
He had known that, because she had flung similar words at him when he’d brought Rab’s body home. Hearing her say so again now brought a new stab of pain, though.
Then she turned abruptly and, when his hands came to rest on her shoulders again, she looked up at him with tears streaming down her face. “Oh, Dev, I vowed never to say that to you again! I know it was not your fault, but I couldn’t help thinking, over and over, that if only you’d not taken him with you. If only…”
She gave way to her tears then, her body heaving against his, and he held her close, damning propriety and all who would say he must not hold her.
Helpless in the flood of tears, Robina feared she must have lost her senses to have said such things to him, let alone to succumb to her increasingly selfish emotions right before him as she was now. Despite what she had said, Dev did not deserve her anger; yet she had no one else to whom she could freely express her feelings, let alone do so in such a humiliatingly undignified way.
He remained quiet, unmoving, and he held her close. With her cheek against his warm jack, she could hear his slow, steady heartbeat. She felt as if he’d enfolded her with his body, taking her into a safer place than any she had known since her father died and Rab had ridden off to serve the Douglas.
