Eleanor pushed the door open and strode in. Excitement made her eyes sparkle. “Bartie is going to battle!”
“What?” Mairi whispered. Light-headed again, she sat on a chair and put her head down before she could faint.
“The Armstrong took our livestock, and now Bartie is gathering his men and going to Braemar Keep!”
“How do you know this, Eleanor?” Mairi asked.
“From Hal!” she cried. “He went out to the practice field as he always does, but the men are all at the armorer’s—sharpening their swords and repairing their armor.”
“Where is Henry now?” she asked. Mayhap she could question him.
“Bartie will not let him go to Braemar, so he is getting ready to join the garrison that will stay here.”
Mairi swallowed and raised her head slowly.
“Are you all right?” Eleanor asked, stopping for a moment to look at her. “You have no color, Marguerite.”
“I—I’m just…This talk of battle shocked me, Eleanor,” Mairi said. “That’s all.”
“Oh, aye.” Eleanor resumed wandering about the chamber. She stopped at the bed and looked at it curiously.
Mairi had not bothered to straighten it yet, but Eleanor did not attach any significance to its tangled linens and blankets. “I don’t like it when Bartie goes away.”
“Your other brothers are still here,” Mairi said, as much to reassure herself as Eleanor. “And I imagine Sir Walter, too.”
Eleanor nodded. “Will you come and break your fast with Kate and me?”
The last thing Mairi wanted was food, but she agreed to meet the girls in the great hall after she washed and dressed.
Everyone was on edge all day, awaiting word from Bartholomew. Little information was available, only that Bart and two large companies of knights had gone to Braemar Keep.
Mairi knew this was what he and his men trained for every day, but when she thought of all the gruesome tales of battle she had ever heard, she worried even more. The hours passed slowly, and by supper-time, everyone was thoroughly disagreeable. Eleanor and Kathryn were the worst, arguing and bickering over everything.
“I do not want cod!” Eleanor cried as she shoved aside the trencher that held her supper.
“You do not have to eat, Ellie,” Mairi said, reminding herself to stay calm. There was no point in forcing the child to eat, especially if she felt as Mairi did. “Come. If John and Kate will excuse us, we’ll go to the chapel for a while.”
As they left the great hall, Mairi felt little gratification for having circumvented another tantrum. She was too anxious. If her father and Carmag had truly joined forces, they might be able to overcome Bartholomew and his knights.
And she might have warned him.
They entered the chapel and lit a few candles, then knelt before the altar. Mairi bowed her head, oblivious to Eleanor. She prayed for forgiveness for her lie, and begged God to return Bart safely to her.
When she finally looked up, she saw that Kathryn had joined them. “When I am a wife,” the girl said pensively, “do you suppose ’twill be any easier to await my husband’s return from battle than it is now, waiting for Bart?”
“Nay, Kathryn,” Mairi replied, “I doubt it.” She got up off her knees and took a step toward her.
Kathryn stepped back.
“What is it?” Mairi asked.
The girl said naught, but continued to look curiously at her. ’Twas an expression Mairi had oft seen upon Kathryn’s face in recent days, but the girl had become prickly of late, and Mairi did not attribute any special significance to it.
“Mayhap music will take our minds off your brother and all that is happening at Braemar,” she said. She led the girls to Bartholomew’s study, where Kathryn made a halfhearted attempt to play the gittern, while Eleanor whined.
When Mairi could stand no more, she ushered the girls upstairs to make ready for bed.
An argument ensued when Kathryn refused to allow Eleanor to spend another night in her new chamber. Mairi tried to stay out of the argument, but ’twas impossible. Their shouting jangled her irritable nerves, and for once, Mairi wished that Nurse Ada would come to see what the disturbance was.
“Please, Kathryn,” Mairi said. “If you allow your sister to stay, I’ll tell you another tale.”
“I don’t want another tale!” Kathryn cried. “I am old enough that I should not to have to sleep with that bairn!”
“’Tis true enough, Kathryn, but—”
“And I am old enough that you should have told me you’re the Armstrong’s daughter!” she shrieked.
“Bartie!”
Bartholomew’s youngest sister shot into his arms like a red-haired arrow. He did not feel the impact of her body, since he was still reeling from the shock of Kathryn’s words. Armstrong’s daughter?
One look at Marguerite’s guilty face and he knew. ’Twas true.
“Do you return victorious, Bartie?” Eleanor demanded. “Have you brought the Armstrong’s head on a pike?”
He peeled the child from his legs even as he pierced Marguerite with his eyes. “Go to bed, girls,” he said without changing his gaze. “No battle was fought or won today.”
“Oh, but, Bartie—”
“Do as I say. Now,” he said, his voice steady, even as a part of his very soul shriveled.
His sisters sensed his mood and climbed into the bed without another word. Bart took hold of Marguerite’s arm and pulled her into the solar.
“Explain.”
With hands twisting in the cloth of her skirt, Mairi spun around, presenting her back to him.
Every muscle in his body tensed. Every drop of blood ran cold, just as it had the day he’d learned of Felicia’s betrayal.
With measured calm, he spoke again, but his words came from behind clenched teeth. “I told you to explain.”
“M-my lord,” she said. “I did n-not recover my memory right away….”
That was doubtful. “But you have recovered it now?”
He watched the back of her head as she nodded.
“And what Kathryn said…You are Lachann Armstrong’s daughter?”
She turned and faced him. “Aye. I am Mairi Armstrong,” she said.
He hardened his heart against the moisture in her eyes, the look of anguish upon her face. She had played him so easily, just as she coaxed pleasing music from the strings of her instruments. She’d nearly gotten him to ignore his instincts and admit to developing tender feelings for her.
He had come to believe she could not be deceitful, but now he knew better.
“I have lived in France with my cousin since I was a young girl,” she continued. “My father recently sent for me. My cousin’s husband—still a young man—was on board the ship when it…” She swallowed and seemed to struggle to keep her composure. “When it s-sank. He…he drowned.”
When a single tear escaped her eye, Bart thought his lungs might burst. But he strode purposefully to the window to keep himself from going to her and taking her into his arms. She may have made a fool of him, but he would not make one of himself.
“I did not remember Alain until…well, ’twas some time after my wounds had healed.”
“And your own identity? When did you remember that?”
“At the same time, my lord,” she whispered.
Tension knotted in his back. Anger welled in his chest. She had lied to him! He had known better than to trust her, yet he’d carelessly let down his guard. Before he said or did something imprudent, he strode out of the solar. He did not stop until he’d stormed out of the keep and stalked across the courtyard to the stable.
He dismissed the grooms and went to Pegasus’s stall, where the mighty beast pawed the ground and whinnied a greeting.
“Easy,” Bart said to the warhorse, though the command could have been for himself. Peg sensed Bart’s tension and reared up. “Settle down,” he said. He picked up some clean straw and began to rub the animal down.
He t
ried to think what Mairi Armstrong had been able to accomplish at Norwyck, what information she would be able to give her sire. There was naught that she could have learned about the Norwyck knights, besides their number. He had never told her of his war plans, so that was not in danger, either.
She might have learned that he had no ships with which to attack by sea. Or ’twas possible she’d learned what stores they had in order to withstand a siege.
Mayhap she’d seduced him just as her brother had seduced Felicia, for the simple purpose of finishing the task Lachann and Dùghlas started. To destroy him.
Bart threw down the straw and stared into the darkness of the stable. He had allowed himself to trust her, when it had been against his instincts to do so. He had known better.
“There you are, lad,” Sir Walter said.
Bart turned his back and began to rub Pegasus again, with his bare hands.
“You’ll be thinking she betrayed you, just like Felicia, eh?” Walter said.
What else was he supposed to think?
“She’s not like Felicia, and well you should know it, my lord,” Walter said quietly.
“Nay?” Bart said with sarcasm. “And what would you know of it?”
“I know that the lass loves you, Bart.”
Bart let out a sound that was half groan, half sigh. “You’ll forgive me if I do not believe you, old man. You know naught of it.”
“But I do,” he said. “Lady Mairi told me who she was some time ago, and explained why she could not tell you.”
Bart sighed impatiently. More lies.
“She is betrothed to Carmag MacEwen,” Walter said. “If she returns to Braemar Keep, her father will force her to wed the man—”
“Enough!” Bart barked. “You’ve betrayed me every bit as much as the Armstrong wench! Never bothering to tell me what you knew of her!” He turned sharply and strode out of the stall. He continued across the bailey until he reached a low, timbered building that housed all the visiting knights. He would sleep there tonight, and every night until he rid Norwyck of the Scot.
Silently, he took up a blanket from a pile near the door, wrapped himself in it and found a space to lie down. It had been a long, hard day, and he should have no trouble finding sleep.
Yet it eluded him. He forced his thoughts from Marguer—Nay, from Mairi Armstrong and her deception, and considered his offensive against Braemar. The men were ready. The animals killed by Armstrong men had been loaded onto wains and returned to the village for butchering. Though his people hadn’t planned on slaughtering those animals, at least they would use them. There would be meat and leather, along with plenty of wool for spinning this winter.
War supplies would be loaded onto wains in the morn. Considering the possibility that Mairi may have gotten information to her father at Braemar, Bart knew he would have to act quickly. He thought about how many men he would leave at the castle for its defense, and decided what companies he would lead into the dense woods at Braemar.
He had a sufficient number of men, even if MacEwen had joined the Armstrong forces….
Bart suddenly recalled a recent conversation with Sir Walter, when the old knight had recommended sending someone to the earl of Bitterlee, and other nearby Northumberland lords with requests for additional men. ’Twas obvious now that the old knight had known with a certainty that Armstrong had joined forces with MacEwen.
Bart wondered how many men MacEwen would bring. He had already seen more men at Braemar than he would have anticipated. Clan MacEwen was huge, and Carmag controlled a large portion of land east of Armstrong, all the way to the sea. If Bart could put his plan in place on the morrow—or the day after at the very latest—then ’twould not be so easy for Armstrong to rally any more MacEwen men.
MacEwen. Bart recalled the man from Falkirk. He was a hulking Scotsman with hands the size of anvils. Wearing primitive skins and a bit of wool, the giant had fought like a bloody Norse berserker, and seemed crueler and more crude than the other Scots Bart had fought.
The man’s nose was bulbous and purple, and his eyes tiny, almost colorless orbs close-set in an altogether unpleasing face. He was a veritable troll, mean and repulsive.
And he was to be Mairi Armstrong’s husband?
Bart felt his gorge rise at the thought. If Laird MacEwen was truly her betrothed, then Bart could not blame her for trying to avoid the marriage. But to lie to him?
’Twas unforgivable.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mairi forced herself out of bed the following morn, after a night of very little sleep. She had tossed and turned, then gotten up to pace, only to return to her bed once again to pitch about restlessly.
She could not resent Bart for his antipathy toward her. She had deceived him, and done so intentionally for her own purposes. ’Twould have been better to have told him who she was, and accept the consequences.
He had not returned to the keep all day, and Mairi spent half the time watching as supplies were carried out and loaded onto wains in the bailey.
Eleanor did not venture too far from her, but Kathryn remained distant and cool. Mairi could not understand how the girl had discovered her secret, unless she’d overheard Mairi divulge her identity to Sir Walter. ’Twas entirely possible.
“Why did you not tell us your true name, Lady Mairi?” Eleanor asked.
Mairi wrung her hands together. “’Twas wrong of me, Eleanor,” she said. “I should have told Bartholomew everything as soon as I regained my memory. But I was afraid he would send me to my father.”
“Do you not care for him, then, your father?”
Mairi shut her eyes and shook her head. “Surely God will punish me for feeling so, but my father has not laid eyes upon me in more than ten years. He cares only for making alliances…and war.”
“’Tis what fathers ought to do,” Kathryn said. “Make good alliances with their daughters’ marriages.”
Mairi could not argue, for Kathryn was correct. ’Twas exactly what fathers did, and daughters happily complied. Most daughters. Mairi believed she would have acquiesced, too, had her chosen bridegroom been anyone but Carmag MacEwen.
But now that she had known Bartholomew Holton, and carried his child, marriage to the MacEwen brute was impossible. She would never submit, though she did not yet know how she would avoid it. Surely Bartholomew intended to send her to Braemar Keep, and just as surely, Mairi would refuse to go. Mayhap there was a convent where she could hide until her child was born.
Or ’twas possible she could manage somehow to return to Caitir in France. Her father would never have to know.
Kathryn and Eleanor were too young to understand Mairi’s aversion to the marriage arranged by her father, and they’d spent every day of their lives preparing to be the wives of men chosen for them. Mairi’s feelings on the matter were utterly beyond them.
Henry came to them after supper. He would say naught about Bartholomew’s plans, or why they carried so many supplies. He said only that Bart had given orders that his sisters—and Mairi—were to remain in the keep, or very close by, until his return.
Henry was no more unfriendly than usual, but it seemed to Mairi that he looked at her with more interest than he’d done before. John had not spoken to her since her identity had become known, and Mairi surmised that he felt as betrayed as Bartholomew.
At bedtime, Kathryn refused to allow Eleanor in her bed. This time, she was adamant. In tears, Eleanor went to the nursery, where Mairi sang sweet, quiet lullabies until the exhausted child fell asleep.
As weary as the children, as well as sick at heart, Mairi climbed up to her chamber in the tower and went to bed.
“Mairi! Mairi! She’s gone!”
Mairi came awake abruptly. The fire had died down, but a candle in a small lamp on the table next to the bed illuminated Kathryn’s distraught face.
“Ellie is gone!”
Mairi sat up, swung her feet over the side of the bed and stood, ignoring a wave of dizziness. “Gone? Ka
thryn, tell me what you mean,” she said.
“I…I woke up and felt afraid to be all alone,” she said, as Mairi pulled a gown over her head and began to lace it. “So I went to the nursery to sleep with Ellie, but she was not there.”
“Did you look—”
“Nay! She is gone!” Kathryn cried, grabbing Mairi’s hand. “You must come and see!”
Mairi snatched up the lamp and followed the girl down the steps, then through the gallery to the nursery. She pushed open the door and found Eleanor’s bed empty, just as Kathryn had said.
But in the center of the bedclothes was a jeweled dirk, driven ruthlessly through the mattress.
Kathryn cried out again, pressing her hand to her mouth. “They’ve taken her! The Armstrong laird has stolen her!”
Shaken, Mairi wrapped her arms around Kathryn and tried to soothe her. She had to find Bartholomew. Though she knew he had no interest in seeing her, he would have no choice but to deal with this latest disaster.
“Come,” Mairi said, leading Kathryn out of the room. “We must find your brother.”
They roused the servants, and sent a footman out to find Lord Norwyck while they waited in the nursery. Mairi did what she could to comfort Kathryn, but she felt no better. She blamed herself. Somehow, she should have protected Eleanor. Bartholomew had relied upon her to do so, and she had let him down. Again.
’Twas not long before they heard voices and footsteps in the gallery, and soon Bart was there.
He smelled of cold air, wood fire and horse, and Mairi could feel the heat radiating from his body. Of all the times she had needed him to hold her, she felt it most keenly now. He did not look at her, but went directly to the bed. He reached down and felt the linen, then pulled the dirk from the mattress.
Sir Walter came in then.
“The Armstrong has taken Eleanor,” Bart said to him. He showed the older man the dirk.
Walter shook his head. He looked at Mairi. “What happened here, lass?”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Bart roared. “A Scots bastard sneaked into my keep and took my sister!” He shoved the dirk into his belt. “And I will have her back!”
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