When we reached the second landing, Marjorie was already teetering on the verge of sleep. She peeked at me through barely parted eyelashes and yawned. Elizabeth nudged the chamber door open and placed the sputtering taper on a spiked candlestick on the bedside table. She peeled back the covers. Tenderly, I laid Marjorie in the middle of the high, goose-feather mattress. In a ritualistic manner, Elizabeth pulled off my daughter’s shoes and tucked her legs under the covers. As I reached out to push a curl from Marjorie’s forehead, Elizabeth took my arm. On tiptoe, she walked me to the door.
“You must leave now,” she whispered.
I slid her hand from my arm and turned to look upon my sleeping daughter. “God in heaven, how sweet and innocent and beyond beautiful she is lying there. Would that I could look at her every night like that.”
“Shhh.” Elizabeth pressed a slender finger to her lips. “We share this room. It keeps her from having nightmares... or at least that is what she says.”
Suddenly, I felt like an intruder. Elizabeth had become more of a mother to her than I had proven to be a father. I hung my head, rife with guilt and regret. “Your pardon, Lady Elizabeth. I should leave.”
“Until morning, my good lord.”
“Until morning.” I retreated backward, but before I reached behind me for the latch on the door, I paused to savor another glimpse of my daughter. My heart surged with thankfulness that I had not followed through on the hollow, slippery deal I had doled out at Irvine to give her up. As I stood there in speechless fondness, Elizabeth floated across the room, plucked a silver comb from the table and raked it through the ends of her long, ruddy waves.
“Until morning,” she said again to urge me out the door.
Pity the winter nights in Scotland were so long and I would have to endure it to see my Marjorie – and her – again.
Ch. 12
Robert the Bruce – Isle of Bute, 1300-1301
I buried my head beneath my pillow to muffle the pounding in my brain.
Tat-tat, tat-tat. Tat-tat, tat-tat. Boom-boom-boom.
If I could have dug myself a hole to retreat into just then, I would have. Perhaps, if I ignored the rapping for a minute... Ah, devil. It will not stop. I lifted the edge of my pillow. Shafts of weak, gray morning light crept in through the single window of my room, intensifying the ache in my head.
“We knocked. Didn’t you hear?” Elizabeth peered around the edge of the door.
Marjorie scrambled over me and bounced on the bed.
“Please, stop, dearest,” I pled. But she continued on, higher and harder, my stomach doing flips along with her. Between clenched teeth, I said more sternly, “Stop.”
Up and down, she jumped, giggling. I pulled myself over to the side of the bed and dangled there, feeling the urge to vomit up last night’s ale.
“Marjorie,” Elizabeth said to my rambunctious daughter with barely an edge to her voice.
Immediately, Marjorie stopped. A pout dragged her lower lip downward.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, barely able to lift my head.
“Would you like me to call for a servant?” Elizabeth asked. “Your fire wasn’t properly banked last night. It will need rekindling. You must be dreadfully cold without a shirt on.”
A draft stirred the hair on my chest. I yanked my blankets up to my shoulders. Not only had I neglected the fire that had been made for me, I had left my clothes in a trail on the floor from the doorway to the bed. Indeed, I must have looked a fine mess that morning – and undoubtedly green in the face. Hardly impressive. More likely repulsive.
“We brought you breakfast, Father.” Marjorie snatched a small bowl of curds and whey from Elizabeth and waved it under my nose.
I held my breath. “Later, later. Set it on that table over there. Aye, there. That’s a good lass.”
“You have to see my pup, Father.” Marjorie twirled her way from the table to my bed. “Egidia gave him to me.”
“I have a grand idea. Why don’t you sneak him up here?” That would buy me enough time to collect myself. Besides, the pup would lap up the breakfast she had brought and what harm in that? I winked at Elizabeth as my daughter raced off, howling with excitement. “Ah, I’ve missed so much of her growing up.”
Elizabeth suppressed a grin. She plucked up my shirt, snapped the wrinkles out of it and handed it to me. “Give me an hour, my lord, and I can tell you more than you care to hear.”
“I’ve nowhere to go. Tell me.”
“Very well. She rises before dawn. Stays up until the candles have burnt themselves out. It seems she never eats and yet she grows and grows and grows.” As she talked, Elizabeth plucked up my dirty clothes and tossed them in a pile. “She cherishes a doll that she calls Marjorie, after her grandmother, so she says. Despite her inability to sit in one place for more than a minute, she has already begun to teach herself letters by listening to Egidia recite them to the older girls. When she is not combing the horses’ manes or tails in the stable, she pesters the cooks for the name of every herb and dish known to mankind. Her curiosity will be the death of her. Three times I have fished her from the well’s edge and once found her climbing up the portcullis.”
“She has kept you occupied, then?”
“You could say that.” Her skirts swished as she walked toward the door. “But if I could have ten of my own just like her someday, in a breath, I would.”
An ebbing tide pulsed against the shoreline of Rothesay’s broad-mouthed bay. Elizabeth and I walked side by side, my fingers brushing her forearm, pebbles crunching beneath our feet. A pair of tracks stretched in an erratic trail before us: one set the loping paw prints of a young, long-legged dog in full stride and the other Marjorie’s small, closely spaced footprints where she scampered after him. Seagulls, picking over spilled catch, exploded in a cloud of fulmination, then dove menacingly at the exuberant hound pup. Marjorie covered her head with her arms and let out a screech of terror. At once, Coll bounded in her direction and leapt into the air, his teeth gnashing at the clap of beating wings. Rolling in laughter, Marjorie sought out another petulant flock and repeated the game.
In the distance, fishing boats cluttered the sloping shore. There, fishermen were busily unloading the workday’s yield before darkness descended over the island. The day, although sharply cold, had been unusually calm and sunny for January. Above the silver-black waters of the bay, the peaked rooflines of Rothesay crowded against a deepening blue sky. Inland, snow-topped domes contrasted with the vermilion hues of a sinking sun.
Elizabeth stumbled and I grabbed her by the arm to steady her.
“Careful of your step, Lady Elizabeth.” I tucked her hand within the fold of my left elbow, the fingers of my other hand gently clasping hers. “Perhaps you would prefer to walk on my right, away from the water... before you fall in?”
She raised her oval chin, her lips pursed tight as if feigning indignity, and drew her shoulders back. “You presume I’m clumsy, my lord.”
“No, I –”
“Well, I’m not, I assure you. I was merely watching Marjorie and her dog playing. Otherwise, I’m quite surefooted.” She winked at me. “As nimble as a cat.”
I fought a grin. “And when you tumbled to the floor last night during the dance?”
She slapped the back of my hand playfully. “Are you mocking me, Lord Robert? Perhaps I should stay closer to you, like this,” – she swung herself around to stand before me – “so you may catch me in your arms next time? Would you?”
For a moment, I forgot myself. Forgot it was past supper and we were overdue at table. Our absence would raise brows. I hardly cared. It was rare we were ever together like this without a crowd of onlookers ogling our every gesture and eavesdropping on every innocent word.
Her fingers wandered up my arms teasingly. “Would you?”
“Would I what?”
“Catch me... if I fell?”
A movement distracted me and I glanced up to see Oonagh hobbling toward Marjorie, who
stood near the boats waving her arms at the seagulls. In all likelihood, Oonagh had been sent to beckon us back to the castle for the evening meal. In time. I was neither hungry yet nor willing to join the crowd in the hall. I gazed down at Elizabeth, fascinated by the way one of her rounded brows was set higher than the other and the spattering of freckles across her slender nose. I slid my hands around her waist and drew her to me until I felt the slight pressure of her hips against my thighs.
“Like this?” With a sudden heave, I swept her off the ground, one arm snug around her back and the other cradling her legs.
I expected a shriek of protest and an upbraiding; instead, she tossed her head back, laughter bubbling from her throat, and kicked her feet in the air. She reached an arm around my neck and I swung her in a circle: sky and sea and mountains blurring into a streak of shadowy blue and steel gray around us. Not until the ground pitched beneath me did I stop. My knees wobbling, I planted my feet wide and clutched Elizabeth closer to my chest to keep from dropping her.
“Shall I put you down now?” I asked.
Breathless, she shook her head and a reddish brown tendril sprung from the plait of her hair and tumbled across her cheek. When she raised a hand to push it away, I noticed she had been laughing so hard her eyes had welled with tears. Her smile melted away as she tilted her head opposite mine. My mouth drifted closer to hers until I felt the intoxicating warmth of her breath swirling under my chin.
Her lips parted invitingly. She closed her eyes.
“Elizabeth,” I whispered. I kissed her, lightly, once, unwilling to assume too much. Her fingers wove through the hair at the nape of my neck, pulling me closer in response. Again, I kissed her, longer, my tongue parting the moist flesh of her lips, then exploring the depths of her mouth. My heart hammered against my ribs. Waves of blood pounded through every fiery vein in my body. I pulled back momentarily, even as her lips sought mine and a little moan of protest escaped her throat. There was something I yearned to tell her. “Elizabeth, I –”
“Father!” Marjorie’s cry shattered the spell Elizabeth had cast over me. Dazed, I looked up to see her running at us, flapping something in her hand. Coll galloped along at the edge of the icy water, his oversized paws sinking deep into the wet sand with each springy stride. “Fatherrr! A letter for Lady Elizabeth!”
Scowling at my daughter, I set Elizabeth down, holding her until she stood firmly on the shore. Although Oonagh was by then already at the edge of town, Elizabeth nervously tucked unruly strands of hair behind her ears and tugged at her clothes to straighten them.
Marjorie ground to a halt and gasped for air. Mud flecked the lower half of her skirt and the hem was sodden. She thrashed the sand from her clothes with her free hand and then snatched her skirt up to her ankles. “My toes are cold!”
“Ohhh, I told you to stay out of the water, Marjorie,” Elizabeth chided as she pried the crumpled letter from Marjorie’s hand. “Must I watch you even more closely? If you catch cold, you’ve no one to blame but yourself.”
Marjorie’s lower lip quavered. “But, but Coll didn’t see where I threw the stick and I went to get it and the water came, and I... I...”
“Enough now, Marjorie.” I lifted my blubbering daughter into my arms and began back toward Rothesay. “We’ll dry you out in no time.”
“But I’m going to be ill now and I’ll have to stay in my bed.” Her shoulders heaved with an exaggerated sob. “And I won’t be able to play with Coll... or Elizabeth.”
“You will, my sweet, don’t worry, you –” I glanced beside me, expecting to see Elizabeth there, but she wasn’t. I turned around to find her in the same spot, the letter pinched tightly between her fingers, her face growing long. “Elizabeth, what is it?”
She folded the letter neatly and ran her fingers along the crease. As she came toward us, her eyes cast down at the ground, she slipped the letter beneath her kirtle. “It’s from my father.”
“Not ill news, I pray?”
“Nothing bad, no.” Her frown, however, contradicted her words.
I turned to walk alongside her. Seagulls scattered before us, some puffing their breasts up and clicking their beaks at us, as if indignant of our intrusion. Still, Elizabeth would not look at me.
“Then why the morose look? It can’t be good.”
She drew a sharp breath, and then expelled a long sigh before answering. “He wants me to come home. To Ulster.”
“Nooo!” Marjorie’s wail pierced the air. A gray cloud of wings shot upward and a rush of cold air swirled around us. “You can’t go, Elizabeth. You can’t.”
Finally, Elizabeth glanced at me. Even in the growing darkness, I could see the glint of dampness in her eyes. “I can delay... for a little while, perhaps. For Marjorie’s sake.”
Lengthening shadows stretched across the crooked streets through which we strolled. A dog barked from a nearby alley. Coll perked his ears and then slunk along close to my leg, head low. We turned a corner and suddenly the smell of fish and cookfires hung thick in the air. Laughter erupted from the open window of a small house as we approached. Before we could steal a glimpse inside, a pair of grease-smeared hands grabbed the edge of the shutters and slammed them shut. Startled, Marjorie nestled her head against my neck, sniffing back tears. Our footfalls were muffled on the frozen mud; our steps grew ever slower.
When we neared the bridge spanning Rothesay’s moat, Marjorie wriggled from my hold with a grunt and ran ahead, her anger evident in the stomping of her feet over the planks.
At the foot of the bridge I halted and took Elizabeth’s cold hands in mine, my thumb stroking the ridge of her knuckles. “Your father heard I was here, did he?”
Her gaze slipped to the ground again. “Yes.”
“Then I shall have to think of a way to convince him I am not a danger to you.”
“Knowing my father,” – she shook her head, raising her eyes briefly, and slipped her hands from mine – “I don’t think that’s possible.”
Hands tucked beneath her kirtle, she went across the bridge and beneath the iron bars of the portcullis, never looking back.
For a short while, Elizabeth kept her distance from me. But she could not avoid me entirely. I was dogged, if not disarming, and two days later we again escorted Marjorie and her pup to the bay for another outing. By week’s end, however, the weather had turned wicked and not a soul would dare venture outside, unless out of direst necessity. A freezing rain turned to a driving snow and the wind howled down from the mountains like the keening of a widow. In the town, pigs and cows were brought indoors. The smell of peat smoke and manure choked the air. Boats sat on the shore, thick with a coating of ice. The letter Elizabeth had written to her father, begging to stay on, went unsent. While snow piled deep upon Bute, Elizabeth and I sat on a bench by the hearth, drinking mulled wine and talking until the hall had emptied. My fingers crept over hers. Then, she turned her hand over, so the heat of her palm touched mine. Soon, she laid her head on my shoulder and we sighed in unison – the only words left unsaid were those we dared not speak.
James Stewart wandered into the hall and glared at me in reproach. I ignored him, downing the last of my wine, and gazed into the flames of the dwindling fire. I did not care anymore who might know of us. By the time her father heard anything, we would not be together anymore. Elizabeth was as willing as I was to risk a scathing rebuke in order to be together. In truth, I would have risked much more.
I dallied at Rothesay a month more, but eventually the time came when it was I who had to leave first, not Elizabeth. The truce King Philip had made with England was due to expire and bloody too soon Longshanks would be on his angry way north again. I did not trust Comyn to leave Carrick in peace and Lamberton and Wishart had already left for their respective sees in St. Andrews and Glasgow to handle various matters.
It was the coldest of February days when Stewart, his wife, and Elizabeth gathered in the courtyard as the horses were brought out for Gerald and me. Brittle
winter air shattered our frail words of farewell. Reluctantly, I handed my Marjorie back and she clung to Egidia’s skirts. Tears glistened on her pink cheeks. Coll padded across the slick cobbles, leaned against her leg and nuzzled her fingers.
I took Elizabeth’s face in my hands and kissed her sweet and long upon the lips. My mouth trembled not from cold, but from the wave of pain pulsing with every beat of my heart. For weeks, I had denied this moment would ever arrive. Now that it had, it was as though some emptiness threatened to devour me whole. Fool that I was, I thought I would be able to endure this parting bravely, like some eager young soldier venturing off to war. Instead, I felt... desperate. Or determined. I didn’t know which.
Once, ambition had consumed me. But for all that I wanted to pursue what my grandfather had begun, it seemed meaningless without Elizabeth. What I thought I had always wanted – it had changed.
“Say you’ll be my wife, Elizabeth. Say that you will and I’ll fly back the moment I can and take you in my arms and never let go.”
She looked down, as if she sought to hide the tears brimming over her long lashes. “Please, Robert, I... I can’t promise that. You know why.”
Gently, I lifted her chin in my fingers and stared into her eyes, as green and glistening as the Lothian hills after a spring rain. “I thought surely we... Oh, damn it, Elizabeth. Do not give breath to such murderous words. Give me reason to hope.”
She brushed my whiskered cheek with smooth fingertips. “We can but hope. That is all, no more.”
The Crown in the Heather (The Bruce Trilogy) Page 11
