by Amanda Scott
Stumbling, slipping, he crashed onto the walk, where they left him.
He heard the gate swing shut, but the snow swirled so heavily around him that he could not see the castle wall or the edges of the walkway.
He could see nothing, anywhere, but thickly swirling snow.
Fear crept in then and grabbed him by the throat.
Chapter 1
Annandale, Scotland, March 1374
Seventeen-year-old Janet, Baroness Easdale of that Ilk— but Jenny Easdale to her friends and family—tried to ignore the hamlike hand on her right thigh belonging to the man to whom, hours earlier, she had pledged her troth. To that end, she intently studied the five jugglers performing in the space before the dais in Annan House’s great hall, trying to decide which might be her maidservant’s older brother.
Since Jenny’s betrothed was drunk and she had no information about Peg’s brother other than that he was a juggler in the company of minstrels and players entertaining the guests at her betrothal feast, her efforts so far had proven futile.
All five jugglers wore the short cote-hardies and vari-colored hose favored by minstrels of many sorts and not one had a mop of red curls like Peg’s. Jenny could find little to choose between them.
Reid Douglas squeezed her thigh, making it harder to ignore him.
Two fools in whiteface—one tall, one as short as a child and bearded—chased each other, creating havoc among the jugglers, who nonetheless deftly kept their colored balls in the air.
“Give me a kiss,” Reid muttered much too close to Jenny’s right ear, slurring his words. “ ’Tis my right now, lass, and I’ve had none o’ ye yet.”
She glanced at him, fighting to hide her revulsion and disdain. He was four years older than she was and handsome, she supposed, with his strong-looking body, softly curling brown hair, and chiseled Douglas features. And doubtless all men got drunk occasionally. But she had not chosen Reid and did not want him.
However, Lord Dunwythie and his lady wife, Phaeline, had made it plain that Jenny’s opinion did not matter in the selection of her husband. Dunwythie, her uncle by marriage, was also her guardian. Had her father still been alive…
“Come now, Jenny, kiss me,” Reid said more forcefully, leaning so near that she feared he might topple over and knock her right off her back-stool. His breath stank of ale and the spicy foods he had eaten.
She stiffened, bracing herself.
“What’s this?” he demanded, frowning. “Now ye’re too good for me, are ye? Faith, but I’ll welcome the schooling of ye after we’ve wed.”
Meeting his gaze, she put her hand atop the one on her thigh, wrapped her fingers around his middle one, and bent it sharply upward. “Pray, sir,” she said politely as he winced and snatched his hand away, “have the goodness to wait until after the wedding to make yourself so free of my person. I like it not.”
“By my faith, ye’ll pay for such behavior then,” he snapped, putting his face too close to hers again. “Just a month, Jenny lass, three Sundays for the banns, then six days more, and I become Baron Easdale of Easdale. Think well on that.”
“You are mistaken,” she said. “Although others may address you then as ‘my lord,’ I will remain Easdale of Easdale. My father explained long ago that once I became Baroness Easdale in my own right, my husband would take but a pretender’s styling until he and I produced an heir to the barony. You will not become Easdale of Easdale unless I will it so. And I’ve seen naught in you to suggest that that is likely.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said. “But a betrothed man has rights, too, and ye’ll soon be finding out what they are, I promise ye.”
“Here now, lad,” Lord Dunwythie said from Reid’s other side as he put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder and visibly exerted pressure there.
Dunwythie was a quarter of a century older than Reid was, with dark hair beginning to show gray. His forbears had been seneschals of Annandale in the days of the Bruce overlords, so his lordship commanded great respect in any company.
“Lower your voice, Reid,” he said sternly. “Ye’ve had too much to drink, lad, which can surprise nae one, but—”
“A man’s entitled to drink to his own betrothal, is he not?” Reid interjected, shrugging his shoulder free and shifting his heavy frown toward Dunwythie.
“Aye, sure,” the older man replied. “But he should not treat his intended wife unkindly. Nor should his actions distract his guests from the entertainment—which, I’d remind ye, I have provided at great expense.”
Realizing that their discussion had drawn the attention of the powerfully built, dark-haired man on Dunwythie’s right, and unexpectedly meeting that gentleman’s enigmatic gaze, Jenny raised her chin and returned her attention to the jugglers.
Sir Hugh Douglas had sharp ears. Despite a desultory conversation with his host that now and again required dutiful attention, his younger brother Reid’s gruff muttering to his betrothed had drawn Hugh’s notice before drawing Dunwythie’s.
Hugh was observant enough to note a spark in Janet Easdale’s eyes that he easily identified as anger. Having seen Reid snatch his hand out from under the table, he guessed that the lad had taken an unwanted liberty.
Reid was inebriated, but it looked as if her ladyship could manage him. Hugh had noticed little else about her other than a pair of speaking eyes and deep dimples that appeared now on either side of her mouth as she hastily looked away. In any event, Reid’s behavior was of small concern to him.
He liked the lad well enough, although he had seen little of him for years. Reid had been their sister Phaeline’s favorite brother from his birth, some seven years before her marriage. He was ten when their mother died, and Phaeline had insisted then that he would do better to move in with her at Annan House than to remain with their father at Thornhill, the family’s estate in nearby Nithsdale.
Their father had not objected, nor had Hugh. At the time of their mother’s death, he was serving as squire to his cousin Sir Archibald Douglas. After winning his spurs on the field of battle two years later, he had continued to follow Archie.
He had done so, in fact, until his father died. Hugh had married six months before then, and he and his beloved Ella had been expecting their first child.
Ella and their newborn daughter died three months after Hugh’s father did, and the grief-stricken Hugh had left Reid with Phaeline so he could devote his own energy to his Thornhill estates. Having had the chance to observe Reid for the past two days, he could see that Phaeline’s up-bringing had done his brother little good, but Hugh found it hard to care. In truth, he had found it hard since the deaths of his wife and tiny daughter to care much about anyone or anything except Thornhill.
He noticed a gillie heading their way with a jug of claret. Dunwythie saw the lad, too, and motioned him away. Then he turned to Hugh and said quietly, “Mayhap if ye were to invite the lad to stroll about some with ye, sir, his head might—”
“Sakes, don’t talk about me as if I were not here,” Reid said in a tone more suited to a sulky child than to a man soon to marry. “I see a chap I want to talk to, and I don’t need Hugh to look after me.” Turning to his betrothed, he said curtly, “Don’t wander off before I return, lass. I’ll escort you to your chamber myself.”
Her dimples had vanished, and Hugh saw that the curt command annoyed her. But she said calmly, “I never wander. Prithee, take time to enjoy your talk.”
As Reid ambled off, she glanced again at Hugh.
He noted that her beautifully shaped, heavily lashed eyes were an unusual shade of soft golden-brown, almost the color of walnut shells. Her caul and veil covered her hair, so he could not tell what color it was, but her rosy cheeks glowed.
She wore a green silk gown with a snug-fitting bodice under a surcoat of pale gold silk. As his gaze drifted over her softly shaped breasts, she shifted position slightly. A glance upward revealed that her dimples were showing again.
Dunwythie’s voice jarred hi
m as the older man said, “I’ve been meaning to ask if ye ken the reason for this new tax that Sheriff Maxwell of Dumfries has demanded, Hugh. He is trying to impose it even on us here in Annandale, although the man must know that we have never recognized his authority over us.”
“As you know, Thornhill lies well within his jurisdiction, so I must recognize his authority,” Hugh said. “But his demands have increased notably, so I suspect the Maxwells need money to rebuild Caerlaverock.”
“Aye, sure, and with Archie Douglas now building his new castle, we’ll likely have them both trying to snatch gelt from our purses. I’m willing to support the Douglases because they can keep the English at bay. But the Maxwells have twice lost Caerlaverock to England, so I’ve told the sheriff I’ll pay nowt…”
He went on, but Hugh listened only enough to respond suitably. He could scarcely advise Dunwythie. Maxwells or no Maxwells, Hugh’s loyalty remained with Archie Douglas—now known to all as Archibald “the Grim,” Lord of Galloway—the most powerful man in southwestern Scotland.
In the clearing below the dais, a tall juggler in a long scarlet robe joined the others, juggling six balls and manipulating them with deft skill. In whiteface like the fools but with a turned-down mouth and tears drawn below each eye, he looked older than the others, Jenny thought, too old to be Peg’s brother.
Plucking a long dirk apparently from thin air, the man flung it high to join the balls. As his audience emitted a collective gasp, a second dirk joined the first. A red ball and a yellow one flew from his agile hands toward the high table, the red one to the ladies’ end, the yellow to the men’s.
The younger of Jenny’s two Dunwythie cousins, fourteen-year-old Lady Fiona, leapt up and captured the red ball with a triumphant cry that on any other occasion would surely have drawn censure from her lady mother. At the other end of the table, a nobleman put up a hand almost casually to catch the yellow one.
By the time Jenny looked again at the jugglers, the older one was alone with six daggers in the air. She had no idea where they had come from or what had become of the four balls he’d still had when she looked away. Others had performed sleight of hand, making a pin or feather plume disappear from clothing of an audience member only to have it reappear on someone else. But this man was much more skillful.
Musicians had played from the minstrels’ gallery throughout the afternoon and into the evening. But now, as the dirks flew ever higher, each one threatening to slice the juggler’s hands when it descended, the music slowly faded. Soon the hall was so quiet that one could hear the great fire crackling on the hooded hearth.
Clearly oblivious of the juggler and the increasing tension his skill produced in his audience, Phaeline, Lady Dunwythie, fingered the long rope of pearls she wore as she said, “Our Reid is much taken with you, is he not, Janet, dear?”
Concealing irritation as she turned to her uncle’s round-faced, eyebrowless, richly attired second wife, Jenny said bluntly, “Reid is ape-drunk, madam.”
“He is, aye,” Phaeline agreed.
“Such coarse behavior does naught to improve my opinion of him.”
“You are young, my dear. So is he. But he will soon teach you how to please him, and I cannot doubt that you two will ultimately deal quite well together.”
“I fear the only thing about me that pleases Reid, madam, is my inheritance.”
“Doubtless that is true, although clearly he is not blind to your attractions,” Phaeline said without a blink. “One must be practical, however, and although my lord husband would have preferred that my brother Hugh marry you, because ’tis he who is Laird of Thornhill and thus equal to you in rank—”
“Sir Hugh may be more suitable, but I’d not want him, either.”
“Nor he you,” Phaeline retorted.
“Faith, did you ask him?”
“I had no need to ask,” Phaeline said. “Hugh declared two years ago, when his wife, Ella, and their bairn died, that he would not marry again. And when Hugh makes a decision, let me tell you, no one can turn him from it.”
Resisting an impulse to look again at the dark-eyed gentleman at Dunwythie’s right, Jenny said, “Surely, you can be most persuasive.”
“Not persuasive enough to compel Hugh to do aught he has decided he will not do. However, you must not think that Reid is wholly unsuitable for you, my dear. Thanks to our inheritance laws, if Hugh dies without a son of his own, as he is likely to do, Reid will inherit Thornhill.”
“In faith, madam, I should think Sir Hugh may well outlive Reid. He cannot be much older than Reid is.”
“Just five years, and that was the difficulty until I realized that Reid should marry you. You see, Hugh refuses even to provide an adequate allowance for him. He is ever impatient with poor Reid, saying he would do better to win his spurs and perhaps even an estate of his own. But Reid has no great opinion of taking up arms unless a man must, and one cannot blame him for that—certainly not now, when we enjoy a truce of sorts with England. But had Hugh fallen in battle—”
“Surely, you did not hope for such a thing!”
“I am not heartless, Janet,” Phaeline said stiffly. “But knights often do fall in battle, and our Reid must have an income. However,” she added with a sigh, “devising a way to provide him with a proper one did vex me until—”
“Until eight months ago when your lord husband assumed guardianship of me and my estates,” Jenny said.
“Aye,” Phaeline admitted. “Easdale being such a fine and wealthy barony, one might say that Reid’s betrothal to you simply arranged itself.”
“You are very frank, madam!”
“ ’Twas providential, though, as even your uncle was quick to see.”
Jenny did not bother to point out that it had proven other than providential for her. She knew she would be wasting her breath, just as she had wasted it in trying to avoid having her eyebrows and forehead plucked as bare as Phaeline’s.
Phaeline had said that one must follow fashion, so Jenny’s face was now a hairless oval framed by the expensive beaded white caul that concealed her tresses.
Applying to her uncle to support her against Phaeline would likewise prove useless. Lord Dunwythie exerted himself to please his wife, because he still hoped for an heir. At three-and-thirty, Phaeline was thirteen years younger than he was, but although they had been married for fifteen years and she had several times been with child, she had produced only their daughter Fiona.
Dunwythie’s first wife, Elsbeth, had been Jenny’s maternal aunt and had died in childbed just as Jenny’s mother had. Elsbeth’s daughter, eighteen-year-old lady Mairi Dunwythie, sat at Phaeline’s left with Fiona just beyond her.
Should Phaeline fail to produce a son, Mairi would eventually inherit the ancient Dunwythie estates. Such occurrences were not rare at a time when men went frequently to battle, but most men hoped nonetheless for a son to inherit. And Phaeline had declared just the previous month that she was pregnant again.
Leaning nearer, Phaeline said, “Reid was wrong, you know.”
Jenny looked at her. “Wrong?”
“Aye, for today is Friday, so your first banns will be read just two days from now, on Sunday. Thus, your wedding is but three weeks hence…”
“… and two days,” Jenny said, stifling a sigh of frustration.
But Phaeline was no longer listening. Looking past Jenny, she said to her husband, “Prithee, my lord, I would take leave of you now. In my condition, I need much rest. You need not escort me, though,” she added graciously as she stood. “Pray, continue to enjoy this fine entertainment with our guests.”
Dunwythie stood then, too, as did everyone else at the table. Those below the dais were watching a troupe of players run into the central space and paid no heed.
Summoning a gillie, Dunwythie told him to see his lady to her chamber. When they had gone, everyone sat and his lordship resumed his conversation with Sir Hugh.
Mairi immediately changed her seat to the one beside Je
nny; whereupon, Fiona—doubtless fearing as usual that she might miss something—moved to Mairi’s.
“Art reconciled yet to this marriage they’ve arranged for you?” Mairi asked Jenny as the players took their places to begin the play.
“Resigned, I expect, but scarcely reconciled,” Jenny said. “ ’Tis of no use to repine, though. The betrothal is done, and Phaeline is most determined.”
“I think Uncle Reid is handsome,” Fiona said, her light blue eyes gleaming. She had inherited her father’s eyes, but she looked more like Phaeline. Her pink gown plunged lower at the bosom than was proper for her age, and her flimsy veil failed to conceal the pair of thick, dark plaits looped beneath it. “You are lucky, Jenny,” she added. “I just hope I can find someone like him one day.”
“You are welcome to him if you want him,” Jenny said.
“Sakes, I cannot marry my own uncle,” Fiona said with a giggle. “But I do think you will come to like him in time, don’t you?”
Mairi said, “Don’t tease her, Fee. You know how much she dislikes him.”
“But I don’t understand why she does,” Fiona said.
“We can talk about that later,” Mairi said. “For now, if you wish to stay with us, you must keep silent. Otherwise, I shall tell Father it is time you were in bed.”
“You would not be so mean,” Fiona said.
When Mairi only looked at her, she grimaced but subsided.
Jenny had returned her attention to the players and was wondering what sort of lives they led when Mairi said, “That tall juggler was astonishing, was he not?”
“Aye, he was,” Jenny agreed. “You know, my maid-servant Peg’s brother is a juggler in this company. Don’t you wonder what it must be like to travel about as they do and see all the fine places and important people they must see?”
