by Amanda Scott
Her lips thinned as if she would debate that fact. Instead, she said with a calm that sent an eerie chill up his spine, “I did believe that, Dev. But I know Rab speaks to me. It is his voice, and it is not in my head. I do know the difference, because we always knew each other’s thoughts. Sometimes, it was as if we shared one mind. But, at such times, I did not hear his voice; I just knew what he was thinking as if my thoughts were his. He warned me that night that you were after us. That’s why I ran upstairs, because he was behind me, shouting at me to hurry. It was just bad luck that you’d recognized me in the yard.”
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “I followed the lad who ran in through the postern door because I thought he should not have done so. It was only when I heard ‘his’ footsteps running upstairs and your bedchamber door shut that I realized who the ‘lad’ must be. However, the plain fact is that, whatever you are hearing, it is not Rab talking from his grave. I suspect that your conscience is shouting at you and you’re imagining that it speaks with his voice. It may be some odd element of your grief. I cannot explain it, but I do know that the dead do not speak to us.”
“Rab does,” she said stubbornly.
“Now, look, Robby, you cannot believe that, and you certainly cannot expect me to believe it. You’re too sensible for such… such—”
“Such madness? Is that what you think, Dev? You fear that I’m daft and that others will fear that you’ve married a madwoman?”
“I never said that,” he replied, struggling to keep from shouting at her.
“Well, I’m not daft!” Tears welled in her eyes, and when one spilled down her cheek, she dashed it away.
“Robby,” he said quietly but nonetheless grimly, “I do not think you are crazy. I just think that—”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she retorted. “I don’t want to ride with you or to stand here and try to explain myself to you. I know what I hear, Dev. Nobody’s imagination could produce a voice that sounds as if the person is standing right beside her or behind her. It could much more easily be a special connection that twins have and naught to do with imagination. Imagination takes place in one’s thoughts, inside one’s head. It doesn’t float about on the air.”
Striving to keep his own flaming temper in check, well aware that shouting at her would make things worse, he said with forced calm, “Dead is dead, lass.”
“Blethers,” she snapped. “The priests all say that our souls live on, and you don’t know how they do that any more than I do. But since they do, when they do, why should they not be able to speak to those who were closest to them and are still closest to them. When I tell you that Rab does speak to me, and frequently, you might at least do me the courtesy of believing me.”
With that, she stormed past him, flinging the door open hard enough that it banged against the wall and nearly shut again behind her before he caught it.
But she had already run down the stairs.
His inclination was to go after her, give her a good shake to bring her to her senses, and force her to talk sensibly with him. However, experience with his sisters, as well as with Robby, warned him that such tactics would be unwise.
Granting her solitude to calm down would be wiser.
Since she’d gone downstairs, rather than up to the solar or to her old bedchamber, he decided he’d give her time to walk outside the wall to her tree, which seemed the likeliest place for her to go in such a temper.
Accordingly, he waited a few minutes before going downstairs, only to meet Coll coming in through the main doorway as he approached it.
“Sir,” Coll said with a wary look, “her ladyship came out to the yard, and when she saw us with the horses at the stable entrance, she requested a leg up, mounted Corby, and rode out through the gateway at a gallop, heading southwest.”
Cursing, Dev said, “Where’s Auld Nick?”
“I’ve got him at the steps, sir. I thought you might want him close by. Um… my horse is also there. Do you want me—?”
“No,” Dev snapped. “You’d be very much in my way.”
On the landing above the master bedchamber, Benjy sat hugging himself as tears streamed down his face.
“Why d’ye talk to Beany, Rab, and no to me?” he muttered.
He’d barely collected himself enough to scramble back up to his own landing after he’d heard Beany say she wouldn’t talk anymore to Dev and before she flung open the door. When he’d heard them on the stairs before then, her declaration that Rab talked to her had stunned him so much that he’d wanted only to hear more about Rab’s talking. Was he still alive, or what?
Benjy overheard most of what they’d said next through the bedchamber door.
When he realized that Beany would storm out in anger, he’d fled to his own room. Had she or Dev caught him at the door, listening… He shivered at the thought.
But now, he just wanted to know why Rab talked to Beany and not to him.
Hearing Dev go downstairs at last, he followed quietly and heard Coll tell him that she had galloped Corby outside the wall.
“Good, then,” Benjy muttered, wiping his sleeve across his wet cheeks so no one else would detect his distress. “I’ll just go talk to our Rab, m’self.”
Heading southwest to the drove road that led to Leg o’ Mutton Cut, Robina urged Corby to his fastest pace on the flat part alongside the bubbling stream. Giving the big horse his head, she felt the breeze against her face begin to ease her fury.
By the time she slowed him to a safer speed, she was able to enjoy the warmth of the sun and the beauty of the new spring growth around her. Wildflowers bloomed in profusion, and the stream chuckled merrily along, lifting her spirits with its own.
“You should not have snapped at Dev. Nor will he like your riding alone and so madly into what may now be dangerous territory. Sakes, I’d have taken a switch to you for such, myself, and so would our da.”
“I know,” she muttered. “But Dev does not believe you’re real, Rab. How can I persuade him?”
“You can’t.”
“But you said to tell him that you’ve been talking to me.”
“Even so, you should have agreed when he said that the dead can’t speak. You should have agreed, too, that you just imagine hearing me.”
“Then you should have told me to say all that,” she retorted. “You know I don’t tell lies well. Or are you saying that he’s right and I’m just imagining you?”
“I’m talking to you, lass, but being angry with me does you nae good. You’d be wiser to look back and vow to control that wicked temper of yours before Dev does just what Da or I would have done, or what Dev did before.”
Startled, she realized that the increasing, rhythmic sound she’d thought was a new note in the stream’s bubbling was really hoofbeats fast approaching behind her. Looking back, she saw Auld Nick closing the distance. She did not need to see the expression on Dev’s face. His hunched posture and Nick’s fiery pace told her that he was furious.
Panic stirred, and every fiber of her body shouted at her to spur Corby on.
Instead, knowing that even if he could outrun Auld Nick, she’d have to face Dev in the end, she reined in near the stream and waited for him, wondering if he’d punish her then and there and if Corby might try to protect her from him.
After all, Corby had once briefly attempted to defend her from Rab’s fury, when she had ridden him without asking Rab first.
That painful memory and the fury on Dev’s face, which she saw clearly now, made her sphincter muscles contract.
Having expected Robby to ride faster when she saw him in pursuit, Dev watched with grim satisfaction when she reined in at the stream’s side instead. He was glad to see that Corby had not, as he had feared, run away with her but was still under her control.
The woman could ride, no question, but he yearned to take leather to her.
Her rueful smile nearly undid him.
When he was close enough to hear her, she said ligh
tly, “Will you beat me here or wait until we get back to Coklaw?”
Suppressing a smile of his own, he realized that his anger had eased now that he knew she was safe. He was glad that she was still speaking to him, and glad to be alone with her. He’d be more pleased if she would just talk sensibly with him.
He said, “You deserve that I should make you wait and find out what I’ll do.”
“Ah, but that would go against your so-notorious nature, would it not?”
“It would, but I’d survive it. Your dignity might not.”
“If you are going to beat me, just say so,” she said testily. “If not, may we cry ‘Pax’ and be done with this, at least for now? I’m sorry that I—”
“Don’t apologize, Robby. You won’t mean it, because you were angry, and the next time you’re angry, you’ll likely speak so to me again. I told you that you can say what you like to me. I’ll admit that I’d liefer you remain civil when you do, but I think I’ll find my own head in my lap for incivility soon enough not to make a song about that.”
Her eyes twinkled then. “I think you can count on that,” she said.
“Even so,” he said, catching and holding her gaze, “I did warn you that you’d have to suffer the consequences of your actions. Don’t forget that.”
The twinkle in her eyes dimmed.
Black Corby sidestepped, and as Robina steadied him, she knew that her own unease had communicated itself to the horse. Recalling how easily Dev had dismissed what she’d said about Rab’s talking to her stirred her ire again.
Knowing that if Dev decided to punish her, she could do little to stop him, she kept silent and waited to hear what else he would say.
“You heard the threats that that Percy chap made,” he said quietly.
She nodded.
“Such threats make riding alone outside our wall more dangerous now.”
“Aye,” she said, looking at the space between Corby’s flicking ears.
“You know better than to ride madly into dangerous territory at such a time, do you not?”
“Corby is well trained,” she said. “He is better than a weapon for me.”
Dev looked silently at her until she grimaced.
“I do know better than to ride into dangerous territory,” she admitted.
“Rab told you as much, if I remember correctly.”
Since he’d used Rab’s own words, she nearly demanded to know if he had heard Rab speak, too, but realized before she did just how Dev knew. “Rab told you what he did the day I took Corby out without asking him first, didn’t he?”
“He did, and you’d be well served if I did the same today, but I don’t want that. I don’t want to fratch with you, either. I know how much you miss him, and I know you were angry with me. We’ll talk more about that but not now. We must return before Sandy or Jock sends lads out in search of us.”
She agreed, but she was glad he was content to walk the horses and chat about unrelated things such as the birds they saw and increasing Coklaw’s stock. By the time they rode through the gateway, they were in charity with each other again, and it was just as well. They had missed the midday meal, and so had Benjy.
Benjy wished he’d thought to bring an apple, some cheese, or just bread with him. He’d hurried off, thinking only of where he wanted to go. Also, he’d forgotten how long the journey had taken before and how steep the last bit of Sunnyside Hill was. The weather had been cool then, too. Now the sun was high and beating down on him.
Looking ahead, he saw that he was nearing the hilltop at last and quickened his pace. A short time later, the low fence and lych-gate came into view.
Rab’s grave still lacked a marker, but he knew where it was and made his way past the other graves, wondering if the dead in them could talk, too.
If they could, they most likely did so here, where they were nearest a person.
He had disliked coming up by himself before, which was one reason he had felt so grateful to Beany for suggesting a tree for Rab like her oak in the west woods. But if Rab could talk to her, then other souls must talk to their kin, too. The thought made them seem less scary, more like ordinary people.
Standing at the graveside, he muttered, “Rest in peace, Rab,” as Beany had taught him. Bluntly, then, he added, “Why d’ye no talk to me but only to our Beany?”
When he heard no reply, he spoke louder, saying, “I wish ye’d talk to me. I miss ye gey fierce and I ha’ questions to ask ye.”
“What would you ask, laddie?”
The startling voice was all wrong, deeper and growly. But perhaps that was just a hitherto unknown trait of dead men’s voices.
Benjy whirled hopefully toward it.
They searched unsuccessfully everywhere that Dev or Robby could imagine to search for the boy, and Dev unloaded his tamped down anger on more than one unfortunate person, including Ash Nixon and Coll, before it became evident to everyone that Benjy had gone farther than he’d ever gone alone before or something more dire had occurred.
When the boy had not returned by suppertime, Robby said decisively, “Thank the Fates that the moon is full and rose before sunset, so Benjy will be able to see where he’s going. But we must extend our search.”
“Every man we can spare has gone out,” Dev said. “They’ll collect as many more as they can amongst the cottagers to help search.”
“Did you send to the Douglas or to Scott’s Hall for help?”
“Not yet,” he said. “The laddie likely just wandered farther than usual and will return on his own. Our people know the area and are bound to find him, so to summon more men at this hour, especially Wat…”
“Aye,” she agreed with visible reluctance when he paused. “It would be just like Benjy to show up the minute Wat arrives with your father and a hundred searchers.”
He knew she exaggerated and that she was worried sick. But the situation was what it was, and they were doing all they could do.
A thought occurred to him. “Did you look in your tree?”
“Aye, sure,” she said. “I climbed farther up than I had before, too, and found a scrap I recognize from that new tan shirt he tore. So he must have been in the tree the day after our wedding, when the Scotts and your father left. The men on the wall said he went into the south woods earlier, so I thought he might have gone up to Rab’s grave again. But poor Ash and one of the other lads went up and found no sign of him in the graveyard.”
“Poor Ash?”
“He is distraught, Dev. He thinks you blame him for this.”
“I merely reminded him that his chief duty is to keep an eye on Benjy,” Dev said, wholly unrepentant.
He ordered her to bed hours later, accepting no excuse and pointing out that she’d be of no help to Benjy when they did find him if she did not sleep. He kept men out all night and dozed between reports but woke at the slightest sound that might herald news.
When there was still no sign of the boy when Robby came down to the hall in the morning, she demanded again that he summon Wat.
Patiently, he said, “When our search extends to Rankilburn, we’ll tell Wat, so he can send men into his forest. Our lads are asking everyone they see, and no one has seen Benjy or any strangers, beyond a shepherd or two, seeking lost sheep.”
“We have our own lost sheep,” she replied tartly. “We must find him.”
At midday, she asked him again to send for Wat, and Dev was about to agree when Jock and Sandy came into the hall, flanking a scraggly-looking chap that Dev recognized as Bangtail Joey, the younger of the two erstwhile Percy messengers.
His lip was bleeding, his jaw was bruised, and he walked with a limp.
“What’s this?” Dev demanded, looking at Jock.
“This chappie claims to ken summat about our laird, sir, but he refuses to talk to anyone save yourself.”
“What happened to him?” Dev asked, standing and putting what he hoped was a reassuring hand on Robby’s shoulder.
Jock kept silent, but
Sandy said mildly, “Tripped over his own feet, sir.”
“I see.” To their guest, Dev said, “Before I hang you, tell me why you’re here and what you know about the Laird of Coklaw’s absence from this castle.”
“Ye’ll no hang me, ’cause I ha’ a message for ye,” Joey said. “I’m to give it to ye alone, though. If ye want yer wee laird back alive, nae one else must hear it.”
Sandy said, “Give me more time wi’ him, sir. I’ll ha’ all he kens out o’ him.”
“Aye, ye great lummox, ye might,” the man said. “But it’ll do ye nae good. We ha’ men a-watching this place. If I dinna meet one o’ them afore sundown, your wee lairdie will be dead when ye next see ’im.”
Robina gasped, and the hall seemed suddenly fuzzy as if a fog had risen within its walls. Dev’s hand tightened on her shoulder, steadying her, but she believed that the Percy man spoke the truth as he knew it.
“We cannot take the chance,” she said to Dev. “We must do as they ask, but I want to hear what this man says. We must talk to him together.”
“Nay, then,” the man said, looking at Dev. “Ye may as well hang me, for I’ll say nowt till we be alone. I ha’ me orders, and I’ll no stray from them.”
Dev said calmly, “Then it shall be as you say. Nay, lass,” he added firmly when she eluded his hand and stood. “We must do nowt to endanger Benjy, so if you cannot sit here patiently, go upstairs and await me in our chamber.”
She nearly objected but realized when she met his steady gaze just what he was saying to her. She said less sharply than she had intended, “I’ll do as you bid, sir, but I’ll demand later to know all that you know.”
“You may demand all you like, but you will go now,” he said sternly.
Without looking at Sandy or Jock, lest one of them see something in her expression that he should not see, she strode to the privy stairs and ran up to their bedchamber. As she left, she heard Dev say, “Show this chap into the inner chamber, Jock. Then see to it that everyone leaves us alone.”
