Border Fire (19 page)

It was time. Repressing a surge of panic, Janet obeyed the summons.

Even before entering the chapel, Janet noted the scent of rosemary that filled the stone chamber. The first thing she noticed upon entering was Sir Quinton Scott, who stood at one side near the front between two banks of wooden pews. Wearing a short black velvet cloak over a quilted white satin doublet with large pearl buttons and a narrow white ruff, and black-embroidered white trunk hose of velvet and wool, he made a fine figure. With his shaggy beard trimmed close in the fashionable style, he was even more handsome than she remembered. When his gaze met hers, he smiled, and smiling back at him, Janet felt a rush of welcome warmth.

The chamber was simple, but the window above the altar was shaped like a rose, and she had no doubt that once it had been filled with colored glass. Many Borderers, particularly on the Scottish side, still harbored connections to the Church of Rome. Knowing that the fifth Earl of Bothwell had changed his religious affiliation nearly as often as he had changed his doublet, she wondered if Buccleuch might prove as fickle. At the moment, he just looked impatient.

There was no grand ceremony about the Sunday service, for the parson had also taken note of his host’s impatience and sped through it in what Janet thought must have been record time. He called the banns at the appropriate point, then began speaking faster than ever to get to the end so he could begin the nuptial rite.

Janet made the mistake of looking at Sir Quinton just after the parson called the banns, and found him already looking at her. The amused twinkle in his eyes nearly proved too much for her composure. Quickly she looked down at the parson’s neatly shod feet, forcing herself to breathe slowly and deeply, hoping to stifle her incipient giggles in time to repeat her vows without choking on them.

The nuptial rite began at last, and she discovered that it, too, was different in Scotland. Solemn enough, it began with a prayer, just as it would have in England. After that the parson launched himself into an exhortation, calling on the two about to be joined in holy matrimony to consider their duties to each other and to think solemnly on all that their new relationship would demand of them. Since this part seemed overburdened with duties that the wife owed to the husband, Janet began to think he made marriage sound more akin to slavery than to the heaven-blessed union he kept calling it. She dared another glance at the bridegroom and found that although his head was properly bent and his eyes appropriately downcast, he was watching her from the corner of one eye, his mouth quirked in what could only be impudent amusement.

Nettled, she looked back at the floor, and when the time came for her to repeat her vows, she did so in a voice clipped with irritation, scarcely heeding her words. When Sir Quinton recited his vows, she listened more carefully, but other than his vows to protect her, to clothe her and shelter her, she did not think that his end of the bargain would overtax him much.

The parson began another prayer, but when Buccleuch cleared his throat noisily, the prayer rapidly came to an end, and the parson solemnly pronounced them husband and wife. It was done. She was a married lady.

Afterward, men clapped Sir Quinton on the back, and more than one suggested that with such a bonny bride he ought to excuse himself from the wedding feast and carry her straight home to Broadhaugh. Buccleuch put an end to the rowdiness before it gained much support, announcing that any man who wanted to prove his agility and speed could enter for the winning of the broose.

“It is to be a foot race from Branxholme to Hawick and back,” he declared, “the winner to have a shilling, the broose cup, and a kiss from the bride. He can spend the shilling and keep the cup till the next wedding. Runners will begin in half an hour and to get the kiss must be back before the bridal pair leaves, so don’t fill your stomachs with drink or you won’t be able to put one foot in front of the other.”

Laughter greeted his warning, and everyone trooped into the hall, where pipers greeted them with lively music. Janet felt renewed amazement at all that Margaret had done in such a short time. Long trestle tables accommodated the guests, and the laird’s table sat at one end on a dais. As the first of the company entered, servants were already bringing in the food.

Taking her seat at the laird’s table, Janet said to Margaret, standing nearby, “You have worked magic, madam.”

“Aye, well, I believe you’d manage as neatly in your own home,” Margaret replied, laughing. “Branxholme seems always to be crowded from cellar to keep with company. ’Twould have taxed us more sorely to provide such a feast in midwinter, out fewer would have come to it. Now that the thaw has begun, we can provide fresh lamb and beef, and I’ve had a deal of help, as you know. Many of our guests have brought food and supplies, too, to share.”

“It would be the same at home,” Janet said, realizing that she had felt amazement that a Scot could organize such events as quickly and efficiently as an Englishwoman could. She had underestimated her hosts. She wondered if she had underestimated her new husband, as well.

The thought did not sit comfortably, and she was suddenly reluctant to look at him, lest he appear to be different somehow from the man who had knelt beside her to recite his vows.

He sat at her left, and she could feel his presence in waves of energy. Her body tingled with awareness of his, and when she heard some wag shout out a ribald hope that Sir Quinton would find his bed as warm a hundred years hence as he would find it on this night of nights, she realized that she was trembling.

As everyone else found places to sit, a servant set a silver plate in front of her with a thump that attested to its weight. Other bowls and platters plunked down on the table one after the other. A carver stood beside Buccleuch, and when the laird gestured for him to begin the carving, Janet watched with an intensity that might have led onlookers to wonder if she were studying the man’s technique.

“Art tired, lassie?”

Starting at the sound of her husband’s deep voice inches from her left ear, she wrenched her gaze from the carver to meet Sir Quinton’s twinkling eyes.

“I believe that I must be,” she said, swallowing with effort.

“I, too,” he admitted. “To think that only days ago, I was enjoying the solitude of my own company, pondering such weighty matters as destiny and death. Yet here I am today, anticipating my wedding night. ’Tis likewise a weighty matter, of course, but I own that I look forward to it much more than I did to the fate your brother intended to provide me.”

She felt warmth flooding her cheeks but managed not to look away. Although she tried to fix her thoughts on Hugh, even managed briefly to wonder what he had been doing while she had been getting married, her thoughts quickly shifted back to the wedding night that lay ahead. It made her knees weak to think of it, but she was determined to show her husband that he had not married a weakling.

At that very moment, in Brackengill’s great hall, Sir Hugh Graham was thinking about his sister as he attempted to sort out his accounts. He had been thinking about her almost constantly since her departure and had been aware since waking that morning that it was her wedding day.

It had not taken him long to realize that, although Janet had certainly gone off with the reiver, the villain had not abducted her from her bedchamber. By keeping his ear to the ground, he had learned about the toddies served to the guards, and from that point he had managed to sort out much of the truth. Thus far, he had shared the fullness of his knowledge with no one.

Tempted at first to order Yaro’s Wat flogged for letting the reiver escape, he realized that he would have to order Geordie flogged as well, since he had no proof of what had occurred and had discovered the reiver’s absence during Geordie’s watch. Hugh was as certain as he could be that Janet and her reiver had fled before his return from Bewcastle, and he knew that if he interrogated everyone who had remained at the castle that night, he would soon get the whole tale. But that would mean openly admitting that his sister had released the prisoner. He believed that she had, and everything he knew about the events that had taken place that night reinforced that belief. Still, he did not think that she had gone with the villain voluntarily. He knew her well. She would have stayed to fight with him over what she had done. She would not have run away.

Despite that belief, however, he did not believe that Sir Quinton Scott had rescued her from the reiver. Had he done so, the reiver would be in custody at Hermitage, yet Buccleuch insisted that Rabbie Redcloak did not exist. Doubtless the Scotts were hand in glove with Redcloak. He was said to hail from Teviotdale, after all, and that was Scott country. For Quinton Scott to marry Janet meant that Buccleuch had commanded him to do so. Hugh could think of no other reason for any man to marry a woman who had spent a night alone with a reiver.

“What ha’ ye done wi’ Mistress Janet?”

The indignant voice startled him from his reverie. Looking up from his ledger, Hugh beheld a wiry little boy in a knitted cap over a shock of brown curls, who glowered at him with his feet apart, his hands fisted, and his chin jutted out.

“Is that how you customarily speak to your betters?”

The boy reached up and yanked the cap from his head, saying, “Me mam needs her. Where is she…if ye please, sir,” he added with obvious afterthought.

“She’s gone,” Hugh said curtly. “There are no women here.”

“Aye, so they tellt me, but I didna believe ’em. What ha’ ye done with ’em?”

“I did not do anything with them,” Hugh snapped. Then, seeing the boy blink and realizing that he was fighting back tears, he said, “You’re Jock and Meggie’s Andrew, are you not?”

“Not Jock’s no more. He’s been dead since afore Christmas.”

“Meggie’s Andrew, then. Why does your mam need someone?”

“Not someone! She said to fetch Mistress Janet. She’s having her bairn, our Nancy says, and there b’ain’t no one to help her save Nan and me.”

Pushing back his chair, Hugh got up. “We’ll find you someone to help your mam. We must all learn to shift for ourselves now that Mistress Janet has gone.”

“Ye shouldna ha’ sent her awa’! We need her.”

Goaded, Hugh said, “I did not send her away. A Scots reiver stole her.”

“Then we mun get her back,” declared Andrew fiercely.

“She’s not coming back,” Hugh said, standing over the lad and looking sternly down at him. “What’s more, my lad, the only thing that’s keeping me from giving you the skelping you deserve for the way you’ve spoken to me is that helping your mam is more important just now. Still, you keep that impudent tongue behind your teeth, or you’ll soon feel the flat o’ my hand on your skinny backside.”

Glowering back at him, Andrew had the good sense to keep silent, but his expression made it clear that he thought Hugh had served Mistress Janet poorly.

Quin had never lain with a virgin before, and although Janet had received his comments with a steady intensity, her blushes had warned him that he might have frightened her. She had not spoken to him in nearly a quarter hour—not since he had said he looked forward to their coupling—and although he hoped the constant din of the feasting accounted for her silence, he did not think it the sole reason.

What sexual experience he had came from brief liaisons with knowledgeable women, and seeing her color up like a spring rose reminded him of her innocence. He saw, too, how she reacted to the ribald remarks shouted at them from the crowd of merrymakers, and mentally rebuked himself. He had, after all, sworn not an hour since to cherish and protect her.

Her continued silence made him uneasy. “Have you lost your tongue, lass?”

“I do not know what to say to you.”

He was glad his question had not disconcerted her, for he had not meant to speak so abruptly. His glib tongue apparently had deserted him on the night of the Haggbeck raid and did not mean to return anytime soon. First he had stood before Buccleuch, feeling more like an errant schoolboy facing an irate master than the man who, if the Scott history continued as it had begun, might eventually control all that Buccleuch possessed. Now here he was, teasing his bride of less than an hour and unable to think of anything sensible to say to her.

Although her silvery blonde hair, blue eyes, and clear skin had pleased him from the moment he first laid eyes on them, he had not realized how beautiful she was. The creamy velvet gown complemented her skin, and her long, fine hair looked like silvery moonlight spilling down her back. She had not yet donned the cap of a married lady, and he wanted to reach out and stroke her hair to see if it was as smooth and silky as it looked.

“Are many of your Bairns here today?”

Her tone was matter-of-fact, taking him off guard.

“Bairns? Surely, you do not think I have a litter of them running about.”

She smiled, raising her chin. “You need not pretend with me, Sir Quinton. If you will but recall, we discussed—”

Suddenly realizing what she meant, he cut her off, saying, “We’ll not discuss such things at present, madam.” He had collected his wits, and realizing that she had not thought before speaking, he added sternly, “Jenny, lass, with regard to certain matters, you must learn when to speak and when to keep silent.”

“My name is Janet, sir.”

Her little chin jutted at him, making him want to catch and stroke it to soothe her. He had not had time to consider all that marrying her could mean, because his impatient cousin had left him no time for thinking. What time he’d had he had spent trying to organize his affairs, arranging for funds to pay the merchet, and getting his bride a dress. She had not even thanked him for it, and God knew he had worked a miracle to procure it for her. Francis Tailor had not wanted to part with it, and no wonder, for it was an exquisite creation and suited her well. Francis himself had doubtless seen that for himself, since he numbered amongst the guests. So did Lady Roxburgh, who had been tactful enough to compliment Janet’s appearance.

Just then, Buccleuch, who sat at her right, offered to serve her from a platter of sliced lamb. She turned her attention to him and then to her plate. She was dainty with her food.