Table of Contents
THISTLES AND THIEVES
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Table of Contents
THISTLES AND THIEVES
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
THISTLES AND THIEVES
Troublesome Sister Series
ELIZABETH PRESTON
SOUL MATE PUBLISHING
New York
THISTLES AND THIEVES
Copyright©2017
ELIZABETH PRESTON
Cover Design by Anna Lena-Spies
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Published in the United States of America by
Soul Mate Publishing
P.O. Box 24
Macedon, New York, 14502
ISBN: 978-1-68291-577-6
www.SoulMatePublishing.com
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
To my wonderful husband, David.
Thank you for encouraging me to write.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to acknowledge my editor Debby Gilbert. Thank you for your unending support and encouragement.
Chapter 1
England, near the Scottish Border
The Year of Our Lord: 1245
Springtime
I was right! Tis possible to get along with a Scotsman.
Lord Godwin Huntingdale waved the pages of parchment above his head and showed off a wide smile glowing like a harvest moon. As far as he was concerned, this letter was as good as a victory flag. It was high time his doubting daughters and troublesome wife realized he was a man of substance, and he could be right sometimes too.
His youngest daughters, Juliette and Vienna, stared at him without blinking. Those girls were born suspicious, and they had a nose for trouble. Many moons ago, God had gifted him with three beautiful baby girls, each of them a cherub. But within a fistful of years, those cherubs were gone. Now, he had three young ladies. Oh aye, they were still heavenly to gaze upon, but in every other way his daughters were most uncherubic-like.
He blinked and tried to see his two youngest daughters through fresh eyes. Strangers were drawn to his girls in the same way every fox in England was lured to his hen house. He’d heard it whispered that when men first sighted his daughters, their jaws fell and they gasped in awe, quite unable to look away. He’d found his daughters that appealing-once. He’d even heard men call them fragile and fresh and compare his daughters to the first daffodils after a long winter’s freeze. Fragile, my eye! Those three were as delicate as the jagged rocks off the Shetland coast.
“Listen up, Juliette and Vienna,” he said, hushing their chatter. “This letter is from your eldest sister, Sybilla, and it is proof! Proof I say! Mayhap now you will take notice of your kind, wise, old Pa.”
“Kind?” Juliette turned her head and repeated the word as if it was strange and new to her. “Pa, clearly your meaning of kind differs from mine.”
So as not to be outdone, and because she always had to do as Juliette did, Vienna also piped up. “Wasn’t it you, Father, who said we’d never hear from our dear Sybilla again? Yes, it was. And you also said that Sybilla’s new husband would never let her write a letter home, ever.”
At that moment, the solid door to his chamber burst open, and his wife scurried in. Why did she always dart about like a rat fleeing from a hungry cat? Her quickened steps made him uneasy. They spelled trouble. From experience, he knew that the more she darted to and fro, the more trouble he was in. But it was her voice he feared the most.
Her words rang out sharp and strong. “Yes, ‘twas your Pa that said we’d never hear from our first-born daughter again.” Mayhap his wife hid behind the doors and eavesdropped because her timing was always impeccable. “It was also your Pa who said women had no business knowing how to write, and women could do almost nothing well. Isn’t that so, Husband?”
Godwin rolled his eyes. He really should have stayed unwed. Why had God given him daughters instead of sons? A son would honour his father and question nothing. If a son had anything to say at all, it would be supportive and be just the thing a father needed to hear. A son would offer kindnesses. He’d say, Pa, you mustn’t call yourself old.
Girls were too clever and conniving. A father didn’t stand a chance against them, and when their mother’s nature was as righteous and proud as a rooster, then the poor husband was sunk. Drawing in deeply and bracing himself for the next onslaught, Godwin waved Sybilla’s letter again and pressed his point.
“I have tried to reassure you two girls afore and you also, Wife. But with no success. So, I will repeat myself this one last time: Tis possible to get along with a Scotsman.” He nodded at his letter as if those pages proved he’d been right all along.
He really shouldn’t gloat, but he, so rarely, got the chance to say I-told-you-so in front of his delicate daughters and his all-knowing wife. Godwin cleared his throat. “I’ll read Sybilla’s letter again, aloud this time just to make sure we all get the facts straight.”
In truth, he’d read his eldest daughter’s letter a hundred times, and by now he could recite it by heart, not that he’d own up to that, of course.
He began reading:
“Dear Mama, Pa, Juliette, and Vienna,
Please rest easy knowing that all is well with me. I am indeed wedded to Fergus now, or Gus as I like to call him. Gus is, of course, the Laird of Caithness Castle. We live a long way from you, far up north in the Highlands at the top of icy Scotland. Although I am freezing most of the time, I am also happy. In truth, I cannot tell you how happy I am. But, it does snow here rather a lot. So, if you are thinking of sending a generous wedding gift, please make it one of the latest woollen cloaks, in a colour they wear in London town.
Pa, you must give Juliette and Vienna free rein to choose this present and do not spare the purse strings.”
Godwin had not meant to read out that last bit about the cold and the cloak, but in his excitement and his need to be right just once, he’d gone and read a tad too much.
Juliette stared at the back of the parchment, doubt etched deep into her brow. “Pa, let me read her letter myself.”
“You think I’m lying?” Godwin puffed out his chest and managed to sound angry and hurt all at once. He really was learning a thing or two from his clever daughters.
In truth, though, he wasn’t surprised by his daughters’ reaction to the letter. Both girls challenged him at every turn. He blamed his wife, of course. She was the queen of trouble, that one. A nest of vipers would be easier to deal with than his beloved. And now, his daughters had inherited her ways.
Juliette slowly shook her head, and her message was clear: none of this makes sense. “How could Sybilla possibly be happy? She’s married to a barbarian Scot.” She paced across her father’s handstitched silk rug with her hands clasped into a knot.
“Be still, my love,” he said, “or you will prematurely wear out those satin slippers. After all, they cost your poor father dearly.” Then he muttered, just loud enough for them both to hear. “I could have gone to France on the money those slippers cost me.”
Juliette ignored him, as was her habit. “Sybilla is writing lies so that Mama, Vienna, and I won’t worry. It’s like I always say, Sybilla is more of a saint than an older sister.”
Godwin felt his eyebrows shoot upward. The Sybilla he remembered fell a long way short of being saintly. He tapped his thumb against his lips, debating whether to list some of Sybilla’s numerable faults or whether he would better serve his cause by remaining quiet.
Vienna thrust her hands on her hips and marched toward him. She tried to snatch the letter from his grasp, but he pulled away. His men-at-arms would never have tried to seize something from their Lord’s regal grip.
Godwin stood and then climbed up onto his fancy chair, so that he was far too tall for any of them to reach. He would never have stood on a chair in front of his men either, but warrior knights were so much easier to deal with than daughters.
“Father, do you recall what you oft say about Scotsmen, Highlanders in particular?”
He shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
“One of the things you say is that in really dire times, when there is nothing left to eat in all of the north, a Scottish husband is perfectly within his rights to eat his wife.”
His own beloved wife snorted. “I’ve heard you claim that Husband, with my own ears.”
Godwin slid back into his seat. “A joke, my loves.”
“Nay, it was not,” Vienna bit back as her nose tilted skyward.
They were all looking his way, nodding and scowling as if he was the enemy, instead of the Scotsmen. “Of course, it was a jest, brainless girls. Would I give another daughter to a Scot if I truly believed she would end up on his dinner trencher?”
“What?” the three of them yelped in unison, making as much noise as a thunder clap.
Godwin found he was forced to cover his ears to block out their voices.
Quick as a ferret, his wife was there in his face. “Give another daughter? Is that what you just said, Husband?”
Juliette charged forward too, and then he was surrounded on all sides. “I’m marrying Vincent, Lord Ashworth. You need to remember that, Pa.”
Vienna, the youngest of the three, inched ever closer. He could feel their heated breaths on his delicate bald pate.
“Me too,” Vienna blurted, all in a bluster. “I’m marrying a noble Englishman, just like Juliette. I won’t marry a barbar Scot. Not now and not ever.”
Godwin raised his palms. “Too much fuss. Simmer down and listen you lot, for once.”
He waited till they were all quiet and looking less likely to hiss and spit. “Now, I’ve already talked this through with our king. I said, ‘Your Highness, my youngest daughters are marrying fine, upstanding Englishmen, and nay monsters from the north.’”
Godwin peeked up at their stormy faces. Three sets of beady eyes were fixed like arrows and pointed his way. No matter. He was determined to push on with what he had to say. It was half out now, so best he got the whole of it said. Heaven knows when he’d find the nerve again.
With his face cast to the floor, he pushed on. “So, that’s why I agreed to our King’s solution. I had no choice. It was the only way to get you both what you want, the marriages you picky girls pester me for.” He rushed on, trying not to let them get one thorny word in.
“Both you girls have one small thing to do first, and then our kind and grateful king will allow you both to marry the upstanding English noblemen of your choice.”
“One small thing?” they barked together.
Who needed attack hounds!
Godwin pushed on, determined to have his say. He would keep talking until he managed to paint himself in a better light. “I stood my ground with our king, don’t you worry about that. I said, ‘King, I’m honoured you’d think of my family in a time like this, but I simply cannot give the Scottish Border Reiver clans another daughter.’”
Vienna’s scream was shrill. Honestly, anyone would think she’d trodden on an adder in her bare feet.
Godwin waved her protests aside and carried on. “I said, ‘I won’t hand over another one of my daughters to those thieving, raiding border Scots. After all, they lost the last daughter I gave them.’”
“Sybilla was kidnapped, Pa, remember? That’s not really lost.”
Godwin glossed over Juliette’s correction. “So, I said to the king, ‘Those raiding mongrels are not getting another daughter of mine. I stood firm and even thumped my fist into my palm to show him I meant business.’”
At long last his daughters, and surprisingly even his wife, were spellbound and hanging on his every word. He would savour this moment because many moons would pass before it happened again.
Unfortunately for Godwin, the moment was over quicker than he thought possible.
“Hurry up, Pa, I must know what our king said next.”
Godwin nodded. “That was when our king came up with his solution.”
“Solution?” they chorused like a flock of crows.
“Yes, there is a solution to this matter. You see, our king is a wise and noble man. He’s noticed how well Sybilla has settled into married life with a Scottish Laird. And now, he believes that another of my daughters should wed another Laird. It’s only logical that either you, Juliette, or maybe you, Vienna, would like a barbarian all of your very own.”
Juliette shook her head so violently that her curls danced.
“Don’t worry. I told our king neither of you wanted a raiding thief for a husband, especially not if he’s Scottish born. And to my surprise, our king agreed. He even said, ‘No Border Reiver then.’”
Vienna elbowed her sister out of her prime position. “Just like that, our King agreed?”
Godwin had to avert his eyes lest his youngest see through him. But Vienna was like a vulture over a carcass—pick, pick, pick.
“Our king has agreed that we’re both goi
ng to marry English noblemen? Is that right, Pa? Truly?”
Godwin drew in a deep breath. “In a way.”
“And in a way, not?” Juliette, too, had an irksome habit of getting to the heart of the matter.
“Questions, questions, questions. When will they all cease?”
“When you answer them all, Pa.”
He rolled his eyes again. “The king has given you one little job to do first, and after that job is done, both of you will be free to marry any man of your choosing. Satisfied now?”
He looked up hopefully, but it was not satisfaction he saw on their faces.
“What sort of job?”
“Tis nothing much. Never fear, you will both be back at home pestering your old Pa in no time.”
Juliette shoved her finger into his chest, and for the hundredth time, he was pleased his daughters did not own swords.
“What job?”
“Tis nothing really. You are both to journey up to the Highlands, somewhere near where Sybilla lives. You are to pay a visit to a dear man. This chap is a personal friend of the Scottish king, no less.”
All went quiet in his chamber. But Godwin knew his wife and daughters too well. Peace would not hold for long.
“Visit the king’s friend, you say? But this does not make sense.” Juliette sniffed the air as if something smelled malodorous. “Why are we to visit a male friend of the Scottish king?”
Huntingdale snapped. “Who knows what lurks inside the heads of our kings? I guess noble King Henry wishes to keep in sweet with the Scottish King Alexander. He’ll be praying for peace and doing all he can to avoid war.”
Huntingdale pushed himself out of his chair and trotted off, his hands clenched behind his back.
“Think on it, girls. If we, as a family, do this one favour for both kings, then just imagine the position it puts us in. Why, both kings will favour us. Think of our social standing.” Godwin could not stop the triumphant grin from seeping across his face.
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