by Amanda Scott
“Aye, sure, that would excuse all, would it not?”
Spreading his feet, he folded his arms across his chest and looked sternly at her. “Do you provoke me a-purpose, my lady?”
Looking rueful, she bit her lower lip, then attended to tying a boot before she met his gaze to say, “I think a demon possesses me at times, with you. I seem to say whatever comes into my head, and that—like hurling objects at people—is not my usual behavior.”
“I used to think the same thing about myself at times,” he said.
“That you were possessed?”
He chuckled. “Aye, perhaps. When my temper was up, I’d too often say whatever impertinence jumped to my tongue, as much as daring my brother to do whatever he would in response.”
“Your brother would punish you?”
“Aye,” he said more soberly, remembering. “Sithee, back-chatting Alex was always a mistake, because he was much older and bigger. But I’d do it anyway.”
“Did you also dare to flout your parents’ authority so?” she asked without looking up as she tied the second boot.
“They both died before I was seven, but I did try it on my grandparents the first time I visited them. That was a mistake. Are you ready now?” he asked, reaching to take her cloak from the hook by the door.
“Aye,” she said. Turning to let him drape the cloak over her shoulders, she added, “How great a mistake was it, with your grandparents?”
“Great enough that my grandfather skelped me blue and my grandmother vowed to do worse if she ever heard me speak so insolently again to anyone.”
“Mercy, what could she have done that was worse?”
He chuckled. “I never had the courage to find out.”
She laughed then, and he felt an unexpected sense of accomplishment in having provoked her laughter. Her beautiful eyes were alight with it. As she threw back her head, the delicate skin of her slender throat seemed to invite a kiss.
Turning abruptly from that dangerous thought, he put a hand gently to her shoulder and urged her out of the room, nearly stepping into the wooden box of dirt he had set down there before opening the door.
“Oh, what a good notion!” she exclaimed when she saw the box. “I feared he might use the floor or even the bed. I meant to ask you what we should do.”
“I hope he’ll use the box,” he said. “Cook set one out in the kitchen, and I think the wee devil has used it. But we can leave this door open for him now. I’ll just set one of the kists by it to hold it open against the draft from yon window.”
He did so, noting that the kitten had leaped onto the bed and looked as if it meant to stay there.
“That way,” Rob said then, gesturing up the stairway.
Catching up her skirts—her own skirts, he noticed—she hurried ahead of him to the top, where she waited by the door to let him open it.
He held it for her to step out onto the flat roof of the tower. The parapet surrounding it was low enough that the wind off the Firth caught her skirts and blew them tight against her body, outlining its curves.
Rob shut his eyes to ease the effect the sight stirred in him, and wished he could relieve his body’s less controllable reactions as simply.
The wind felt bracing and Mairi could, with relative ease, control her skirts’ inclination to fly up around her. But she was glad she had decided to arrange her hair in a single plait and had not bothered to wear her veil. Silk cloth whipping at one’s cheeks could be most annoying.
The view from Trailinghail’s ramparts was spectacular enough to delight anyone’s soul, she thought. Although she had seen that one side of her chamber overlooked the bay and another the Firth, she was glad to have a clearer idea of the tower’s position and layout.
From the uppermost floor of Annan House, she could often see the English coast. She could not see it now. To the south lay only open sea.
Looking north, she saw the kirk steeple she had seen from the galley and the whole coastline of the bay. She also saw the towers of Castle Mains near Kirkcudbright and the kirk spire in the town, northeast of the castle.
A man-at-arms stood at the southeast corner of the ramparts. When he turned to look at them, Maxwell gave him a wave, then drew Mairi to the southwest corner. The wind still blew from that direction. She loved facing into it. It felt good, and she no longer had the morning sun in her eyes.
Looking down over the south parapet to a small inlet, she saw that the tide was still flowing in, crashing against immense boulders and shooting spray high.
Strongly aware of the man beside her, she remembered why he had said he was taking her outside. “What did you want to talk about?” she asked.
He was quiet long enough to make her wonder if he feared that what he wanted to say would make her angry again, or upset her in some other way.
Then, with a look of rueful amusement, he said, “The truth is that, although I do have a wee surprise for you, I knew you were chafing to get out of that room. My brother often accuses me of failing to consider details when I make plans, and I fear that this time, that is just what I did. I thought only of how your father would react, and of providing for your physical comfort. It did not cross my mind to wonder how you might occupy yourself as a prisoner here.”
“In other words,” she said, “my feelings did not concern you.”
He met her gaze more easily than she had thought he would. “I did not know you then… my lady, and I did not expect to abduct you when I did. I cannot claim to know you much better now, but I do owe you truth when we talk. Your feelings did not affect my plan then. Now they do.”
“Why?”
“Because I cannot keep your presence here a secret,” he said bluntly. “Nor will I ask you to lie about why you are here when you talk to my people.”
“I have talked only to Gibby.”
“Aye, but you should have female company—someone to look after you. So I’ve arranged for my steward’s good-sister to attend you. However, there is a rub.”
“Mercy, I should think there would be more than one,” Mairi said.
“My steward, Fin Walters, dislikes the idea that she might stay overnight and would be going about her tasks in a tower filled with men. He will be at ease with the notion only if she comes in just by day, or sleeps with you at night.”
“But you assured me that I am safe in this tower full of men.”
“I did, aye, and ’tis true. It would be true for Annie, as well, especially with her good-brother as my steward. No man here would harm either of you. But Walters fears that tongues may wag in Annie’s case, and I agree they may.”
“Will they not wag about me, too?”
“None so much,” he said. “Everyone for miles knows Annie, so if she were to begin spending nights in the tower, people would talk. They don’t know you, so although word may begin to spread of an unknown female staying here, as long as no one knows exactly who you are, your reputation will be safe. ’Tis why I mean to call you Mairi when others are about and would like you to call me Rob.”
“Gibby knows he is to call me ‘my lady,’” Mairi reminded him.
“As will others know that they should,” he agreed. “Annie will know you as Lady Mairi, so others will know that, too. But Annie will be discreet. ’Tis the Dunwythie name that would undo us, so I want to keep that quiet.”
“I thought you wanted my father to know I am your captive.”
“Nay, only that he is more likely to get you back if he behaves sensibly. I’d be unwise to tell you just what I mean to do. But I will keep you safe. In fact, the greatest danger to your safety arises if he does learn you are here and tries to bring an army into Galloway to fetch you.”
“If you are thinking that Archie Douglas would try to stop him—”
“Nay, lass, I ken as fine as you do that Archie would join him. But the sheriff will do all he can to keep a Dunwythie army out of Nithsdale, let alone allow it to cross into Galloway and raise Archie’s ire. Sithee, in that event,
the clan war I hope to avoid would start in Dumfries. We’d learn of it only after many had died.”
Mairi knew the Maxwells might not have things all their own way if that clash did occur. Her good-brother, Sir Hugh Douglas, lived in Nithsdale, and he felt no loyalty to the Maxwells. Before marrying her cousin Jenny, Hugh had served Archie Douglas. The Lord of Galloway was as much his kinsman as his sister Phaeline’s.
Mairi did not share these thoughts with her companion. Instead, she said, “I don’t want anyone to die, sir. But neither do I believe my father will submit… for any reason. I wish I could make you understand that.”
He gave her shoulder a pat as he said, “You don’t know your own power, my lady. But I do. All will be well in good time, I promise. Now, about Annie.”
“I’ll welcome her help and her companionship,” Mairi admitted, accepting the change of subject. “Most of the gowns in those kists fasten up the back, and there is not nearly enough thread in the wee sewing basket to hem them all.”
“I’ll get more then,” he said.
“But about your Annie,” she went on. “I must say I’d prefer not to share that chamber day and night with a stranger, however kind or helpful she may be.”
“That must be as you wish,” he said. “If you change your mind, you need only tell me. Shall we walk now and drink in this splendid view? I promise you, the weather is rarely so kind this time of year. We should enjoy it.”
She agreed, and she did enjoy the grand panorama before them. From the eastern parapet, she could see across the bay. The incoming tide made the cliffs look lower than they had looked the day before.
“How high does the water come?” she asked him.
“The difference between high and low tide most of the time is about eighteen feet here,” he said. “During spring tides, it can be as much as twenty-six.”
“Then you cannot use that sea entrance at high tide,” she said.
“Nay, nor keep a boat inside the cavern, come to that. I beach my boats below Senwick village when the tide is out. The spire of Senwick’s kirk is the near one you see from here. The water there often gets too rough for safety, though, so I generally keep the boats in Senwick Bay, farther north, where they can anchor more securely to ride with the tides. If the weather gets too bad, my lads move them to Kirkcudbright harbor, near Castle Mains. That would be the two towers—”
“I know that castle,” she said. “We stayed there overnight last year before we went on to Threave.”
“Aye, sure, you would, for you’d likely have arrived in the evening if you traveled with the morning ebb as we did.”
She supposed they had traveled with the tide, although she had not thought about it at the time. Drawing her cloak more tightly around her, she leaned on the parapet to gaze at the opposite shore and the softly undulating hills beyond its cliffs.
“Beautiful, is it not?” he said. “Or are you getting too cold up here?”
“Nay, but you must have other things you must do.”
“I do have duties,” he admitted. “Moreover, I told Fin Walters to send Annie along up as soon as she could come, so I expect we should go back downstairs.”
Nodding, Mairi followed him to the door and through to the stairway. Holding her skirts, and glad she had worn boots and not the shoes that were too big, she quickly made her way down to the landing outside her door.
The door stood open, as they had left it, and from the landing, she saw Gibby inside. He was staring toward the window overlooking the bay, but he turned with a wide-eyed look and hastily put a finger to his lips.
Wondering what was amiss, she went quietly in. Breath and feet stopped dead at the sight of the kitten on the windowsill—at the outer edge, looking down.
Rob saw the lass stop and tense, and the lad beyond her looking scared.
Crossing the threshold, he saw the kitten.
Gibby’s presence and the stool beneath the window told their own tale.
“I didna ken he’d jump up there, I swear!” Gib said wretchedly. “I’d no want the tiggie wee terror to kill hisself, even an he does bite ye as quick as look at ye.”
“Of course, you did not mean any harm to him,” Mairi said quietly.
“I’ll get him, lass,” Rob said, taking another step.
“Nay, sir, stay where you are,” she said in the same quiet tone. “He will heed me, I think. Won’t you, my wee cushiedoo?”
The kitten glanced at her, then looked back and dipped a paw over the edge.
Rob’s stomach clenched, but Mairi remained calm.
As she murmured and cooed to the kitten, she stepped quietly nearer until it turned toward her. Its hind legs remained so perilously near the outer edge that Rob felt his innards churn and saw that the lad had lost his remaining color.
Mairi hesitated briefly, then continued toward the window. “Such a bonnie laddie,” she cooed. “Such a dearling towdy-mowdy. Come now, come to Mairi.”
The kitten chirped, stepped closer to her, and she gently scooped it off the sill.
Rob did not know he had been holding his breath until he let it out.
“What did you call him before, Gibby?” Mairi asked the lad.
“D’ye mean when I said he were a wee terror? I didna mean nowt—”
“Nay, the other word you used… tiggie? Might that be a good name for him, since he does not seem to have one?”
“Aye, well, ’tis nobbut much the same as t’other,” Gibby said, turning pink. “Sithee, ’tis what Herself calls me when she thinks I ha’ been a mite fashious.”
“Oh,” she said.
“It means cross-like, and carnaptious, like what that wee biter is,” Gibby said, nodding. “In troth, Tiggie would be a good name for him.”
“Oh, but I don’t—”
“Sakes,” the lad retorted, “it be gey better than calling him ‘cushie-doo’ or ‘towdy-mowdy’!”
Rob chuckled. “The lad’s right,” he said to her. “People don’t call someone cat-witted to denote a sweet temper or, come to think on it, sharp wits.”
She held the kitten up to look into its small face. “Tiggie?”
It patted her cheek with a white forepaw.
Smiling, she said, “Prithee, Gibby, move that stool away from the window. We don’t want our wee Tiggie Whiskers to make use of it again.”
“I put it there so I could look out,” the lad said. “But then I saw that the place could use a tidying up. I didna think it were bad to leave it there a spell.”
“What were you doing here, Gib?” Rob asked him.
“I come to tell ye Annie were here, laird. In the hall wi’ Fin Walters,” Gibby said. “She didna ken should she come up here or wait for ye, so I came to ask ye.”
“Then you may go down and bring her to us, Gib,” Rob said. “I’m sure her good-brother will entrust her to your care.”
“Aye, sure,” Gibby said. “I’ll see to it then.”
He ran off, full of importance, and Rob said with a smile, “I wanted another word with you before Annie comes. She’s a kind lass, and competent, but do not think you must put up with her if you do not get on well together.”
“I’m sure we will get on fine,” she said. “But I hope you don’t think having a female companion will reconcile me to staying in this room all the time.”
“Nay, I do see that you’ll want time outside, lass. I had thought mayhap you would like to see some of the countryside of Borgue, which is what folks call this district. We can ride along the cliffs tomorrow morning if the weather stays fine.”
She agreed that she would enjoy such a ride, but he received the distinct impression that she would have agreed to ride to the gates of hell if it would have taken her out of the tower for a while.
Mairi was delighted and relieved. That she would be able to leave the tower even for an hour or so was a heady thought, especially as he had admitted that his original intent had been to keep her locked in her room until her father submitted. That, she though
t, would most likely have meant until she died of old age.
Annie’s arrival with Gibby added to her relief. Younger than Mairi had expected, she was a cheerful lass with carroty hair parted in the middle and ruthlessly contained in two sleek plaits coiled behind her ears. She had an infectious grin, her blue eyes sparkled, and she seemed to bring more sunshine into the room with her.
Gibby strutted as if he had produced Annie by some feat of legerdemain. “She can sleep wi’ ye or no, as ye please, Fin Walters did say. Did he no, Annie?”
“Aye, he did that,” Annie said. “Fin be like an old hen, m’lady. That be right, to call you so, I hope. Gibby did say I ought.”
Mairi nodded, saying, “I am pleased to meet you, Annie. I have two kists yonder with clothing the laird provided, but nearly all of it is too long. I found a mending basket with needles, some threads, and a pair of thimbles—oh, and a wee pair of scissors fit only for cutting thread. I hope you are handy with a needle.”
“Aye, m’lady, I can do plain mending and white stitching, sheets and smocks and such, and simple embroidery.”
“I’d liefer sleep alone,” Mairi told her at once. “But if you live far—”
“Nay, mistress, nobbut a step, and me da doesna feel the same as Fin does about me staying in the tower. Fin says he can look after me, but me da and me mam would rather I be home afore dark—unless the laird bids me stay wi’ ye.”
Mairi assured her that the laird would issue no such order and then introduced her to Tiggie. They settled quickly to work, enjoying the kitten’s antics as it displayed intense interest in the mending basket, and their threads.
Gibby left but returned an hour later with their midday meal, explaining that the laird and Fin Walters thought it would be best if the women ate privately.
The next morning, the laird kept his word, appearing shortly after Mairi had broken her fast. She had found a gown suitable for riding the afternoon before, and Annie had helped her shorten it, so she was eager to be off.
A gillie waited in the yard with their horses and a third for himself.
