by Amanda Scott
“Since you did our Benjy no harm, you are free to go.”
Benjy said casually, “Then I’ll walk out to the yard with him, sir. I must be sure that our lads let him take the pony I rode, ’cause it’s his. I willna go any farther.”
Dev nodded, put a gentle hand to Robby’s back, and said, “We’ll join the others on the dais then, lass.”
When they reached the high table, Dev quietly told Coll to keep Benjy and Jamieson in sight until the latter had gone and the gate had shut behind him. Then, taking his seat beside Robby, he rested his left hand, under the table, on her breeks-clad thigh and gave it a gentle squeeze.
Robina’s tension had eased when Dev touched her back in the inner chamber, and she relaxed more at the table when he rested his hand just above her knee. But when that hand began to stroke her and crept closer to her breeks’ codpiece, she startled.
Dev smiled without looking at her. “Easy, lass,” he murmured.
When she stuck her tongue out at him, he grinned.
“Davy, are you going to tell us why you let that villain walk out of here with Benjy?” Wat asked across Ormiston, who, having acted as host, sat between them.
Giving Robina a rueful look, Dev shifted his hand off her thigh and said, “I offered him a compromise. If he’d give me an honest explanation for his abduction of Benjy and see that his men ceased their raiding, I’d let him go.”
Wat cocked his head, and Robina detected a glint of suspicion in his eyes. “You want us to believe that that villain gave you an honest explanation?”
“Benjy supported it,” Dev said.
“I’d like to hear what it was, then,” Wat said.
“I, too,” Ormiston agreed.
Robina held her breath, but Dev said quietly, “Benjy may tell you one day, or I may. For now, I’ll say only that Jamieson did Benjy no harm and may have taught him a good lesson. Do you and your men want to spend the night here, Wat?”
“Nay, nay, we’ll leave for Scott’s Hall as soon as everyone has eaten. We’ve plenty of daylight left, and they’ll be lighting bonfires tonight in my forest. I’d liefer be there to make sure no one burns it down. You’re welcome to come to us, though.”
Robina stiffened, and Dev gave her thigh another squeeze as he said, “I think we’ll look after our bonfires here, but we’ll visit soon. Father,” he added, “I expect you’ll be returning with them, too, since Fee is still at the Hall.”
“I will,” Ormiston said. “I’ll expect to see you and Robina before we return to Ormiston Mains, though.”
Agreeing, Dev turned his attention to his food for a short time before Wat said, “Did that Jamieson chap say how many other men he had with him?”
“No more than a score,” Dev replied.
Robina saw Benjy run into the hall just as Wat said, “There were a score of them riding around this area together?”
“That’s what he said. Some of them apparently avoided notice by posing as shepherds, seeking lost sheep.”
Benjy took his seat, and Ash appeared with a platter of beef to serve him.
“You know,” Wat said musingly, “I think I’ll stop at Hawick and suggest a compromise of my own to Archie. I’ll offer to let him keep my men at Hermitage if he’ll tell all the men there to keep stray shepherds from collecting our sheep.”
Ormiston, Dev, and others laughed, but although Benjy stopped eating to look at Wat, the boy’s expression was more thoughtful than amused.
Wat sent one of his men to warn those outside that they’d soon be leaving, and when the time came, Robina, Dev, and Benjy walked to the yard with their guests to bid them farewell. Ash Nixon went with them, and when Wat and Ormiston had departed with their men, Benjy ran off with Ash, and Robina looked up at Dev.
“I expect you haven’t finished with me yet,” she said.
“We’ll talk about it more tonight,” he said. “I need to get men out into the hills again to keep watch. I don’t entirely trust Jamieson to take his lads home.”
“You said you were going to make me wish that Coll had sat on me,” she reminded him. “Are you still so angry?”
“Let’s say that I have mixed emotions about that,” he said in the even tone he took when he was controlling himself. “Especially about riding with our men again and showing yourself to so many in those damnable breeks.”
Her involuntary muscles clenched again, and Robina grimaced, certain that he’d make her rue the actions he had mentioned, at least.
Gently, he added, “I wouldn’t have you any other way, sweetheart, and I love you more than I ever thought I’d love anyone. But I did warn you about consequences. We’ll talk tonight, but you may want to sleep first.”
That night, in bed, when he took her in his arms, he exerted himself to show her how much he cared about her, although he also realized that she might believe he had forgiven her for everything she’d done.
He took his time, enjoying himself, but concentrating more on giving her pleasure, lots of pleasure. Then, when he could resist no longer…
“Dev, Dev, don’t stop!”
He stopped. “Why not?”
She wriggled under him. “Because, because I’m almost… Oh, yes, yes!”
He stopped again, although his lips and fingers toyed with her breasts.
“You devil! What are you trying to do to me?”
“I’m teaching you one of many possible penalties a husband can offer for his wife’s disobedience,” he murmured. “Do you mean to defy my orders again?”
“No, no! I promise! Finish it… please!”
He did not believe that promise for a second, but he willingly accommodated her, bringing her to her climax and then seeking his own.
When they lay back sated, and she grinned, he wondered when she would defy him again. Wild promises were nearly always false ones, and under the circumstances, he could hardly hold her to one made under such duress as this one had been.
Still, she was his now, and he knew that they loved each other. He could judge each new defiance as it occurred, on its own merits.
Epilogue
Coklaw, a fortnight later
The moon was new, and outside their bedchamber windows, the sky was black, although millions of stars blazed in it. The landscape was a sea of dark shadows, but the hawthorn bushes had bloomed. Even in the darkness, Robina could see their white blossoms by starlight as she cleansed herself after coupling with Dev.
“It occurs to me, Robby,” he said from the bed, where he lay awaiting her return, “that if Chukk Jamieson and his men took your kine at Easter, the Turnbulls were innocent of any wrongdoing.”
She winced but rallied gamely. “If they didn’t take the last lot, they likely took others,” she said. Then she added flatly, “We’re keeping the cows and sheep.”
He chuckled, and someone rapped on their door.
Snatching up her shift from the pile of their clothing on the floor, she pulled it on over her head as Benjy spoke from the landing: “I could hear ye talking. Can I come in?”
Scrambling back over Dev into bed, she said, “Aye, sure, lovey.” When he opened the door, she raised up on her elbows, adding, “What are you doing up so late?”
“I couldna sleep,” he said. “I did summat ye willna like, Dev. I ken fine that ye’ll find out, so I thought I’d best tell ye m’self.”
Sitting up straighter beside her in the bed, Dev reached back to pull pillows higher for both of them. “That was a wise decision,” he said. “What did you do?”
Benjy glanced up at the shelf that held Rab’s carved box. “I took the jar, and I buried it,” he said solemnly.
Robina’s breath caught in her throat.
Dev said, “How did you know where it was?”
“I’d wager he overheard us the day we talked about it under my tree,” Robina said. “When I thought I’d heard a squirrel and later found that scrap from his shirt.”
Benjy nodded and then kept still, attempting no explanation.
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br /> “Where did you bury it?” Dev asked sternly. When the boy didn’t answer, he added, “If Chukk tells Northumberland about it, we must be able to give it back to him.”
“Chukk willna tell him, though. He’s a-going home to his Shetland.”
Robina gasped. “Benjy, you didn’t give Jamieson that money, did you?”
“Not all of it,” Benjy said, looking at his feet. Drawing a breath, he looked up again and met her gaze. “I did give him some of it.”
“How much?” Dev asked grimly.
“Just a handful and a bit,” Benjy said. “It were a compromise, like what ye did, and what Cousin Wat’s a-going to do wi’ the Douglas. Chukk wants to go home to Shetland, because he promised his da he would when his da were dying, just like ye promised our Rab that ye’d look after us. Also, I promised I’d help him, so I told him to come back today and I met him. I didna ken how much he’d need to go so far, but I kent fine that I couldna give him more than just to set him on his way, so…” He shrugged.
“Then why did you bury the jar?” Dev asked him. “If you’d put it back, we might never have known that some of the gelt was gone.”
“I just decided to bury it. Then I told Chukk that I had, so he’d ken fine that nae one here would ken where it was if he threatened to harm me again.”
“You should never have met him alone,” Robina said flatly.
“Ash were nearby,” Benjy assured her. “He had his bow and arrows.”
“I’ll have something to say to Ash about that,” Dev said.
“Nay, ye won’t, neither,” Benjy said. “Coll told Ash that ye’d said Ash wasna to share aught that I confided to him with anyone else, so I kent fine that Ash wouldna tell ye. Ye canna tell a man he must not do summat—like ye did—and then punish him for not doing it, can he, Robby… I mean Beany?”
“No, Benjy, he can’t, and you may call me Robby if you like. I don’t mind.”
“Aye, then, I will, unless our Rab tells me I should call ye Beany like he did.”
Swallowing the sudden obstacle in her throat, Robina looked at Dev.
He was watching Benjy, and she couldn’t tell if he was angry or not. Then, in measured tones, he said, “Where did you bury that jar?”
“I think it should stay buried yet awhile,” Benjy said, meeting his gaze. “Ye did say that the jar and its contents belong to me unless Northumberland claims it. So, since it isna ours to use, I think it should stay hid unless Coklaw be in such trouble that nobbut them coins can save it.”
When Dev did not reply, and Robina dared not speak, Benjy added quietly, “I think ye should do as I say, Dev. I ken fine that ye’ll likely skelp me blue for this, and ’tis likely I deserve it, but I’ll still think the same as what I think now.”
Dev said more gently than before, “We’ll talk more in the morning, laddie. You go on to bed now, and don’t fret about what I might do. You do deserve something for sneaking into this room and taking the jar from it, but all in all, I think you have acted with more wisdom than many who are much older than you are.”
“Good, then I’ll bid ye goodnight, Dev. Goodnight, Robby.” Then, with as much dignity as he had shown throughout the discussion, Benjy went off to bed.
Robina could think of nothing to say, and Rab had not said a word.
Aware of Robby’s silence and his own sense of unease because of it, Dev shifted slightly to study her expression. “What is it, sweetheart? I’m not going to skelp him blue, if that’s what has put that worried frown on your face. Sometimes that laddie makes me feel younger than he is.”
A weak smile curved her inviting lips. He eyed her more closely, and a memory struck him of something Benjy had said. “Is it that he’s calling you Robby now?” he asked. “Do you fear that he’s still waiting for Rab to talk to him?”
Bleakly, she murmured, “Do you think you can ever bring yourself to believe that I do hear Rab speak to me?”
He nearly reminded her that Rab was dead but decided to be tactful. “I’m willing to let Rab persuade me, sweetheart. Ask him what the last thing he said to me was.”
“I know what it was. He made you promise to look after us.”
“He said one thing more, after that. If he is watching us, he’ll remember.”
Silence greeted her, and Robina realized that she’d heard only a few comments from Rab since her marriage. Closing her eyes, she willed him to answer.
Still silence. Mayhap he no longer wanted to talk to her.
Dev was silent, too, waiting.
“It’s none of your damned business what I said to the man, Beany.”
Exhaling in relief, she said, “He refuses to tell me.”
“You see,” Dev said. “I was right.”
She shook her head. “No, Rab said it’s none of my business, so I know what it is now. There is only one thing that Rab would never admit to me.”
“What, then?”
“He told you he was afraid to die.”
Stunned, Dev growled, “I can’t say that I like the thought that he may be watching us all the time. Do you think he will always be with us?”
“No, my love. I don’t need him as much as I did and never when I’m with you.”
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed Devil’s Moon, the sequel to Moonlight Raider.
Lady Robina Gledstanes and Sir David Ormiston are fictional characters, but Coklaw Castle, details of the siege of 1403, and the jar of coins are real, as are John Greenlaw, James Gledstanes, the fifth Earl of Douglas, the Earl of Northumberland, and Walter Scott of Buccleuch.
Readers who were not already acquainted with Lady Meg Scott before reading this book might also like to read Border Wedding, the story of Meg and the first Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch and Rankilburn. That book and its two sequels, Border Lass and Border Moonlight, are still in print as I write this and are available in electronic form, in most formats, from www.Amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com, as well as other sources.
My primary sources for Scott history are J. Rutherford Oliver’s Upper Teviotdale and The Scotts of Buccleuch and, by the same author, The Gledstones (sic) and the Siege of Coklaw. The jar of coins was discovered at Coklaw during the nineteenth century, along with an iron horse brooch or medallion of some sort. Mrs Oliver’s version of the likely source for those coins is the one I used, and I had Benjy rebury them so that the Victorians could find the jar. As knowledgeable readers (and I have many) will guess, the Gledstanes were ancestors of William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98), four-time Prime Minister of England.
Other Border sources include The Scotts of Buccleuch by William Fraser (Edinburgh, 1878), Steel Bonnets by George MacDonald Fraser (New York, 1972), The Border Reivers by Godfrey Watson (London, 1975), Border Raids and Reivers by Robert Borland (Dumfries, Thomas Fraser, date unknown), and others.
My primary source for Douglas history is A History of the House of Douglas, Vol. I, by the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell (London, 1902). Another excellent source is The Black Douglases by Michael Brown (Scotland, 1998).
I extend special thanks to Corinne and Jim Shrader for the generous donation Corinne made to the St. Andrews Society of Sacramento, which resulted in the character bearing her name (and that of Corinne’s flirt Jem Keith); and thanks also to Chuck Jamison for his matching donation, which resulted in the creation of Chukk Jamieson in Devil’s Moon. I hope the result pleases all three of them. The difference in the Jamison spellings is to show readers how such a name progressed, from Shetland Jamie to Jamie’s son Chukk to Chukk Jamieson to Chuck Jamison.
As always, I’d like to thank my long-suffering agents, Lucy Childs and Aaron Priest, my overworked editor Lauren Plude, master copyeditor Sean Devlin, Art Director Diane Luger and Elizabeth Turner for Devil’s Moon’s beautiful cover, Senior Managing Editor and stress-breaker Bob Castillo, Editorial Director Amy Pierpont, Vice President and Editor in Chief Beth de Guzman, and everyone else at Grand Central Publishing/Forever who contributed to this book.
Meantime, Suas Alba!
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More from Amanda Scott!
An exciting excerpt from
Moonlight Raider,
the first book in the Border Nights series, follows.
Chapter 1
The Scottish Borders, 4 November 1426
What was she thinking? God help her, why had she run? When they caught her… But that dreadful likelihood didn’t bear thought. They must not catch her.
Even so, she could not go any faster, or much farther. It felt as if she had been running forever, and she had no idea of exactly where she was.
Glancing up through the forest canopy, she could see the waxing half-moon high above her, its pale light still occluded by the mist she had blessed when leaving Henderland. Although the moon had been rising then, she had prayed that the mist would conceal her until she reached the crest of the hills southeast of her father’s tower. After she reached the southern slope in apparent safety, she had followed a little-used track that she hoped her pursuers—for they would certainly pursue her—would never imagine she had taken.
Experience had warned her even then that the mist might augur rain ahead, but the mist had been a blessing nevertheless. In any event, with luck, she would find shelter before the rain found her, or the light of day, come to that.
Long before then she had to decide what to do. But how? What could she do? Who would dare to help her? Certainly, no one living anywhere near St. Mary’s Loch would. Her father was too powerful, her brothers too brutal and too greedy, and Tuedy—
