“Two nights, mistress,” the boy told her.
“Blessed Mother, you must be fair worn! Is the horse still alive?”
The boy grinned. “Aye, but as tired as I am, I fear. But I know better than to run a good animal into the ground, mistress.”
“Come into the hall, lad. The laird is just up, and having a bit of breakfast,” the woman said, leading him into a stone-and-timber chamber. “Here’s a lad wi’ a message for you from Perth, Master Ian.”
Ian Douglas waved the boy forward. “You’ll be Ranald’s son, eh?”
“Aye, my lord,” Davy said with a brief bob of his head.
“What message do you have for me then?”
“Mistress Marjory wants you to know that the item you seek will be at her shop in four . . .” He stopped. “Nay, that’s not right.” Then his brow lightened. “Two days’ time!” he said triumphantly. “ ’Twas four the day I left Perth, but ’tis two this morning.”
“Tell your father you did well, lad. You’ll travel back to Perth with me in two hours’ time. Go with Mab to the kitchens to get something to eat, and rest yourself by the hearth,” Ian Douglas instructed the boy. He turned to a serving man who loitered nearby. “Go and find my brother. Tell him we’re going to Perth this day.” Then he returned to his breakfast.
Fergus Douglas came into the hall. “Why are we going to Perth?” he demanded to know. “Marion doesn’t like my being away when her time is so near.”
“We’re going bride stealing, little brother,” the laird said with a grin. “Glengorm will very shortly have a new mistress.”
“What have you done?” Fergus asked his sibling suspiciously.
“Before we left Perth last spring I made the acquaintance of a little lass who serves in Scone Palace. We spent a very pleasant few hours together. She happened to tell me that my lady Cicely goes into town to a certain shop for the queen now and again. I made the acquaintance of the shop’s proprietor, one Mistress Marjory. She is a widow, and inherited her husband’s lace-and-ribbon establishment when he died. Her daughter was with child and without a husband. I found the young man in question and saw the couple firmly wed. And I’ve paid for a tutor so her son may learn to read, write, and do his sums in order that he can one day take over the shop.
“In return Mistress Marjory was to send to me when my lady came to visit the shop next. She would claim the items my lady sought were not available for several days, and dispatch word to me. I intend bride-napping my lady Cicely as she browses among the lace and ribbons. Then I will bring her back to Glengorm. Once she comes to know me she will be glad to be my wife. I told you that the Gordons would not have her. She is mine!”
“They’ll come after her,” Fergus said gloomily.
“First they must learn where she has been taken,” Ian said with a wicked grin. “I met her formally but once, and have been gone from Perth for months now. Why would any suspicion fall on me?”
“What of the shopkeeper?” Fergus wanted to know.
“She’ll claim we broke into her shop from a rear alley, snatched the lass, and were gone as quickly as we came.”
“But why didn’t she run screaming into the streets, calling for the watch?” Fergus asked.
“Because she was hit upon the head and rendered unconscious when she began screaming upon our entry,” the laird said. “They have to take her word for what happened. And why wouldn’t they believe her? Who else is there to say otherwise? I’ve told her to say she heard the intruders saying that the lass was an heiress. It will be thought at first that she was taken for ransom,” Ian Douglas explained to his brother.
“But when no ransom demand is made, and the girl doesn’t reappear?” Fergus queried. “What then?”
“By then we’ll be safe home and my lady and I will get to know each other better so we may wed,” the laird said. “The lass will come around. They all do eventually, Fergus. You know I have a way with the lasses. But I’ll not seduce and leave this one. I will make Lady Cicely Bowen my lawful wife.”
“What if they find her before then, Ian? What if the king decides to punish us for your temerity? What will happen to Glengorm?”
“By the time they discover where she is, Cicely will be mine, little brother,” the laird said assuredly.
“But what if the Gordons come after her?” Fergus wanted to know.
“Do you think Andrew Gordon will want my leavings?” Ian replied harshly. “Once I have her and she is here at Glengorm, no one can take her from me.”
“You would risk offending Lord Huntley and his Gordons? Not to mention the king and his wife?” Fergus said.
“I would risk offending God himself to have Cicely Bowen for my wife,” the laid said quietly. “From the moment I saw her I knew she was meant to be mine, and she will be, brother. She will be!”
Fergus Douglas shook his head. There was nothing he could say or do but help his brother in this madness. Ian was in love. Ian! He found it difficult to believe, but there it was. The laird of Glengorm was in love with a lass who didn’t really know that he even existed. “God help us all,” he said, crossing himself. “I hope we don’t get hanged for this.”
Chapter 5
Four days after her initial visit to Mistress Marjory’s shop, Lady Cicely Bowen returned to purchase the delicate French lace and the silk ribbon for the expected royal heir’s christening gown. Orva had gone off to the apothecary for more lavender oil, for the queen had slept better than in weeks after having her feet rubbed with it. Cicely fingered the beautiful lace with a sigh.
“It’s exquisite. Her Highness will be delighted. She sews wonderfully well, you know, and the gown she has fashioned for her baby is beautiful. I will take all of it, for the lace that decorates the gown of Scotland’s heir must decorate no other.”
“Indeed, my lady,” Mistress Marjory said approvingly.
“The ribbon?”
“Did I not bring it out?” the shopkeeper said. “Oh, dear! Let me go into the storage room and fetch it for you, my lady.” She arose and disappeared into the back of the shop.
Suddenly Cicely heard a scream, and she jumped up, startled, as two masked men burst into the room. “Where is Mistress Marjory? What have you done with her?” she demanded. She bolted for the door, but one of the men caught her by her arm, swinging her about and hitting her on her jaw. The girl collapsed into his arms.
“Jesu, Ian, did you have to hit her?” Fergus Douglas asked.
“She was about to shout for the watch, damn it,” he said. “Come on now, quickly, brother. We need to get her into the cart and out of the gates before she is found missing, and an alarm is raised.”
Together the two men returned through the rear of the shop, where Mistress Marjory lay unconscious upon the floor. Ian felt bad about the need to render the shopkeeper helpless, but it would certainly validate her story of what happened, and her outrage would be more convincing. Exiting the building, they carefully put the girl into a sack, its top open so she could breathe, and laid her in the bed of the small wagon. Then they covered the sack with straw to conceal it. Climbing upon the seat of the vehicle, they drove from the back alley and onto the High Street, moving with the local town traffic towards the gates. Fergus Douglas prayed silently as they went that they would not be caught.
Perth had been a town for centuries. Once it was unwalled, but Edward I had attempted to wall it; then Robert the Bruce had torn the half-built walls down. Edward III, however, had forced the Scots clergy to bear the cost of building stout stone walls with towers and fortified gates less than a hundred years before. The gates numbered four. Red Brig Port was at the end of Skinnergate in the district populated by the town’s tanning industry. While the artisans of this area made shoes and gloves, hides were also exported, along with timber and fish shipped down the River Tay, for Perth was a busy inland port.
The other gates were Turret Brig Port, at the end of the High Street past St. John’s Kirk; Spey Port, at the end of Speygate; and Southgait Por
t, at the end of South Street. There was also a small minor gate that led to Curfew Row. But it was the Southgait Port that the brothers sought now as their wagon moved along. The wagon turned from the High Street into Horner Lane, where craftsmen worked in shops and open stalls fashioning spoons, combs, and inkwells from cow and goat horns. As they got closer to the River Tay they could smell the wet wool being fulled before being beaten to thicken it, and then pounded with wooden hammers worked by water mills on the river. Finally they turned onto South Street, lumbering through the Southgait and onto the Edinburgh Road. Several miles from the town, out of sight in a grove of thick trees, their horses waited for them.
In the wagon bed Cicely began to shake off the bonds of unconsciousness. She struggled to make some sense of what had happened to her, of where she was. She could feel motion beneath her, hear the muffled drone of voices nearby. Opening her eyes, she tried to look about her, but her vision was blocked by the sack in which she realized she was now confined. She moved her limbs gingerly. With relief she realized she had not been bound. Carefully she began to stretch herself, and her head pushed from the sack.
Wiggling as quietly as she could, she freed herself of the confines of the rough pouch, realizing as she did so that she had been placed beneath a heap of straw. She stifled a sneeze, freezing momentarily to be certain her captors were not aware she was now awake and alert. Then in a flash it came back to her: She had been at Mistress Marjory’s shop choosing lace and silk ribbons for the queen when two masked men had burst into the room. One of the men had hit her on her jaw when she sought to flee.
Cicely reached up and winced as her fingers touched her face. Her jaw hurt. She would be bruised, she realized. But what on earth was this all about? And why was she in some conveyance beneath a pile of straw being driven . . . where? What could these men want of her? She felt the wagon begin to slow down and, realizing that when it stopped she would have an opportunity to flee these villains, she tensed, waiting. The vehicle had only just ceased its motion when Cicely burst up from beneath the straw covering her and, seeing that the wagon in which she had been transported had no barrier in its rear, leaped from it and began to run. Exiting the little grove of trees, she turned quickly, hiked up her gown, and sped back along the narrow track that the wagon had followed.
“Jesu and Mary!” a male voice roared, and then she heard the sound of boots pounding behind her.
Cicely’s legs pumped hard as she ran. Her throat began to burn as her lungs frantically drew in gulps of cold air in her effort to elude her captors. Her caul came loose, and her hair billowed out behind her. She screamed as a hand caught her by her long tresses, yanking her backwards. Spinning about, she flailed at the big man, feeling a small satisfaction as one of her balled fists made hard contact with his cheek, but she cried out as pain shot through her hand.
“Jesu, woman, give over!” Ian Douglas said.
“Let me go, you villain!” Cicely shouted at him as she attempted to hit him again. “I am Lady Cicely Bowen, daughter of the Earl of Leighton, friend to Queen Joan. You will hang for this affront! Take your filthy hands off of me at once!”
The laird of Glengorm ducked her blow and, tucking her beneath his arm, smacked her backside a hard blow. “Be silent, you little harridan,” he said in a fierce tone.
Cicely shrieked her outrage, for the blow stung even through her gown. “How dare you strike me! Ohhh, now you are certain to hang, striking your better!”
He set her down and, taking her hand in his, the laird said, “Now, madam, you are going to get on your horse and ride with us. I will have no more of your rebellious behavior.” The lass was spirited, Ian thought, pleased. She would give him strong sons.
In response to his words Cicely yanked his hand up and bit it as hard as she could. “Go to the devil, villain!” she shouted. “I’m going nowhere with you!” Then, as he pulled his hand from hers with a roar of pained surprise, Cicely turned once again and began to run as fast as she could.
Fergus Douglas stood, rooted in amazement at the battle raging between his brother and the lass Ian claimed to love. In spite of himself he found himself admiring the lady. But then his sibling took three long steps, catching up with Cicely, and, picking her up, threw her facedown over the horse he had brought for her. While Cicely struggled and screamed, attempting to escape him once more, the laird tied both her hands and her feet together. Then, taking a piece of silk cloth from his saddlebag, he gagged her, muffling her shrieks.
“Gently, Ian, gently,” Fergus cautioned. “She’s just a wee lass, after all.”
“She’s got a fiery spirit and will take a bit of taming,” the laird told his brother. “Mount up now, Fergus. We have a long way to go before we get home.”
“You can’t expect the lass to travel like that,” Fergus said.
“For an hour or two until she understands that I’m the master here,” Ian Douglas replied. “The vixen has sharp teeth, but at least she didn’t break the skin on my hand.” He climbed onto his stallion and, reaching down, took the lead rein of Cicely’s horse. Then he moved off, Fergus scrambling onto his own mount and following.
Cicely felt sick to her stomach. She suffered a brief bout of the dry heaves before she fainted. When she came to herself again she was being bounced about as she lay across the saddle, for they were traveling at a rapid speed now. She was dizzy, and her eyes would not focus as the horse’s hooves pounded and the ground flew by beneath her.
She could not survive traveling in this position. And she certainly couldn’t escape flung facedown over a saddle, She would have to beg for mercy, and if she got it she would have time to consider how to escape these two men. What could they want with her anyhow? “Stop! Stop! Please stop!” she called out. The gag had come loose with the motion of the horse.
Ian Douglas heard her but ignored Cicely.
“Ian, for pity’s sake, stop and let the lass up. We can tie her to the saddle so she can’t escape, but you’ll kill her if you don’t let her up.”
Ian Douglas looked back at his prisoner. Fergus was right. She was only a lass. He brought his horse and hers to a stop. “Help me then,” he called to his brother.
Together the two men lifted Cicely from her animal. The laird untied the bonds about her ankles and lifted her onto her mount again, this time tying her legs beneath the beast. Her bound hands he retied to the pommel of the saddle. “There, is that better, Fergus?”
The younger man nodded. “Aye,” he agreed.
“Then let us be on our way again,” the laird said.
The blood drained from her head, but it took at least half an hour for Cicely’s vision to finally clear. The two men were no longer masked, and while one of them was vaguely familiar, she didn’t recognize them. Who were they, and why had they taken her?
She looked about her as they rode. The land was simply gorgeous, hills now blazing with their autumn colors. She had never seen any as bright. And once again she marveled at the abundance of lakes, rivers, and streams. Scotland was a beautiful land. But as she had noted on her travels north from England, it was also very desolate. Where was she? And where were they going?
They rode for hours, and Cicely found herself dozing, for she was suddenly exhausted. Her temples were throbbing and her body ached. She was hungry and she was thirsty. She tried to make saliva in her mouth to swallow so she might soothe her parched throat. Finally, as the sun began to sink into the western skies, they stopped in a sheltered hollow near a small stream. The two men dismounted and tethered the three horses. The one who had hit her earlier untied her legs and lifted her from her horse. Cicely couldn’t stand and, to her embarrassment, collapsed to the ground. Tears sprang into her eyes.
“Scream if you want,” the big man said to her. “But there’s no one to hear you. You’ll only frighten the horses and probably hurt your throat, my ladyfaire.” He untied her hands, wondering if she would try to hit him again.
She glared up at him. “You do understa
nd that you are going to hang for this,” she repeated, rubbing her wrists, which had been chafed by her bonds.
He grinned down at her. “Nay,” was all he said before he sauntered off.
The other man came over to her. “I think you might be a bit more comfortable with your back to that big boulder over there,” he said. “May I help you, my lady? And then I’ll bring you something to drink, and an oatcake to eat.”
“Thank you,” Cicely replied. This man had done her no harm, and his handsome face actually bore a look of genuine concern.
“I am called Fergus Deuce, for I am my father’s second-born,” the younger Douglas told her. Then he helped Cicely to stand, bracing her while she regained her equilibrium. “Do you think you can walk now if I help to support you?”
“I think so,” Cicely replied, leaning against him as she gingerly moved forward.
Fergus led her a few feet across the small clearing. “Do you . . .” His face grew red with his embarrassment. “Do you need to pee, my lady? I can help you into the bushes, and I’ll turn my back,” he said.
Now it was Cicely whose cheeks grew pink, but she did need to relieve herself. “Thank you,” she told him. “Aye. I think I can stand alone now.”
Fergus brought her to a thick stand of growth and then, as he had promised, turned away so she might have a modicum of privacy.
Cicely turned her back on him and, hiking up her skirts, did what needed to be done. She considered attempting another escape, but the skies above were already swiftly darkening into night. She had no idea where she might be, and there was no dwelling nearby where she might seek help. She would be forced to bear the company of these two villains until the morrow. Mistress Marjory would have certainly sounded the alarm when she regained consciousness. One of her two apprentices would have found her by now. And the king would send a troop of his men-at-arms after her.
“My lady?” Fergus’s voice sounded anxious.
“I’m done,” Cicely said. There was no need to be unkind to this poor fellow who had had compassion upon her. She stepped from the bushes, and he led her back so she might sit down against the large dark boulder that commanded their little clearing. She looked about for the other man, but he was not to be seen, although there was a small fire burning. Fergus helped her to the ground. There was a thick coating of moss on both the earth and the rock, making it surprisingly comfortable.
The Border Lord and the Lady Page 11
