Border Fire (50 page)

She felt her overskirt snag as she dropped but was too intent on landing without hurting herself to pay much heed to it. Flexing her knees, she landed inelegantly on all fours but stood upright at once, feeling pleased with herself.

“You next,” she said.

“Aye,” he muttered, looking down at her with a doubtful grimace. “’Tis a wee bit farther for me t’ fall, ye ken.”

“You’ll make it,” Laurie told him confidently. “I’ll help you as much as I can, but you’re too big for me to catch, you know, so be sure you land lightly.”

“Aye, sure, like a wee feather,” Sym growled.

He did not hesitate, though, swinging himself over in the same way that she had. Then, as if he dared not give himself a moment longer to think about the danger, he dropped at once.

Laurie caught him by his slim waist, intending only to slow him, but when his weight hit her, the pair of them tumbled together to the ground with Sym landing on top of her.

Chuckling, she pushed him off and stood, holding out a hand to him.

Sym lay on the ground, looking up at her, grinning. “Ye’re a sight, Laurie.”

“I’ll warrant I am,” she agreed, wrinkling her nose at a stench she had noted when they fell and realizing now what it must be. “I’m afraid that first arrow had a purgative affect on the boar’s bowels and I landed in the result,” she said. “Are you getting up, or are you hurt?”

“I’m up,” he said, suiting action to words, then stepping hastily away from her and from the mess between them on the ground. “Och, aye, ’tis nasty,” he agreed. “We’d best not linger, anyhow. We should find me dad and the others.”

“You should find them,” she said. “I should go home. I’m sure I’ll find trouble awaiting me when I get there, as it is.”

“Aye, ye will that,” he said as his critical gaze moved from her head to her dirty bare feet. “But ye canna go till ye’ve got your pony back, and I think ye’d best clean your skirt some afore her ladyship sees ye—or smells ye.”

She could not deny the worth of that advice. Not only did she reek of boar scat but also her feet were filthy, and neither the rain nor the trip up the tree had done her overskirt any good before she landed in the mess. Even the front was mud stained and torn.

“I’ll do what I can, but I do not think that I can repair things to Lady Halliot’s satisfaction,” she said as she gathered a handful of moss and wet leaves and tried to remove the worst of the feculent mess on the back of her skirt. “At least this time I can throw a portion of the blame onto the English.”

“Aye, tell her ye had to hide from ’em under a privy,” Sym recommended.

By the time that Laurie and Sym had met the rest of his family at the cave in which they were hiding, persuaded them that the forest was safe again, returned with them to the cottages in the clearing, and Laurie was able at last to return home, more than two more hours had flown by.

The rain had stopped, but although she assured Davy Elliot that she did not need an escort, he and his brother Dougald insisted upon seeing her safely home, and Sym begged to accompany them, as well. By the time the four approached the foot of Aylewood Fell on the west bank of upper Tarras Burn, the gloom of the morning’s rain had given way to a sunny noontime sky dotted with scudding white clouds and a rainbow arced behind the square tower dominating the crest of the hill.

“Ye’ll be safe enough riding alone from here, mistress,” Davy said. “I’ll warrant they’ve seen us, any road.”

“You need not have come this far,” Laurie said. “We saw no English, after all. Doubtless, they had no interest in coming this far up Tarras Burn. Mayhap they have even gone back where they came from.”

“I doubt they’ve left Liddesdale yet, but they’ll leave muckle destruction and misery in their wake when they do,” he said curtly. “Aye, well, Himself will mak’ them pay dearly enough for their devilry when he comes home from Blackness.”

“Who knows when that may be?” Laurie said with a sigh, knowing that Davy was talking about Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, Keeper of Liddesdale and of its great royal stronghold, Hermitage Castle.

“They say he’s enjoying himself, for all he’s in ward,” Dougald muttered. “He’s been out hunting wi’ our Jamie, they say, and dicing and playing chess, too.”

“Aye,” Davy agreed, “and they’ve had a good laugh till now over Scroop’s fury, the pair o’ them. What’s more, Himself wields as much power from Edinburgh as he does when he’s right here in Liddesdale. We all ken that. I’ll wager his captain at Hermitage be raising an army even now to ride after them villains.”

“Rabbie Redcloak will make them pay, too,” Laurie said. “Surely he and his Bairns will not let Lord Scrope get away with what he and his army did today.”

“The less said o’ Rab the better,” Davy said, hastily looking around as if he expected to see ears popping out of the shrubbery. “He’s no shown his face abroad since the raid on Carlisle, ye ken.”

“He will show it now,” Laurie said confidently. “You’ll see.

“Mayhap, he will, but ye’d best go now, Mistress Laurie. Sir William’s like t’ be displeased with ye as it is.”

Laurie shrugged, concealing the apprehension Davy’s words stirred. “My father is rarely pleased with me, Davy. You know that as well as I do.”

“Aye, but shaking straw at a boar will no ease his temper much,” Davy said. “Off ye go now.”

Thanking the three Elliots again for their escort, Laurie obeyed him, urging her pony to a trot and not looking back. She held her head high, knowing that guardsmen were watching her from the eight-foot-high wall of the barmekin that surrounded Aylewood Tower.

In the course of telling Davy and the others about the two men who had nearly caught them in the tree, Laurie had also told them about the boar—not that she had had to, since despite her efforts, they could still smell its leavings. Her pony had not liked the smell either. But although Davy’s parting words had stirred a mental vision of the red-haired man’s handsome enemy face beneath his steel bonnet, that vision soon vanished, replaced by that of her father. Davy had not overstated the matter. Sir William would not be pleased.

The gates swung open at her approach. Nodding at the two men-at-arms holding them, she rode through into the cobbled forecourt, which revealed no sign of disturbance. As she and the others had deduced on their way to Aylewood, the English had not penetrated so far up Tarras Burn. Liddesdale proper—the wide part of it that actually bordered Liddel Water—had suffered the brunt of the attack.

A lackey came running to help her dismount. “Your father would see you straightaway, Mistress Laura,” he said, his countenance carefully wooden.

“Thank you, Willie. Must I truly go to him at once, or have I time to make myself tidy? There was a raid, you see, and—”

“Aye, we ken well about the raid, mistress. Were ye… That is—”

“I barely saw them,” Laurie said, cutting in to allay his embarrassment. “One of the shepherd lads brought warning, and we hid. That’s why I look such a fright.”

“Well, he did say ye should come to him straightaway, but I wager he’ll no mind if ye brush your hair and… and mayhap change your gown first.”

“Where is he?”

“In the hall, I expect. That’s where he said to send ye.”

“Then I shall go in through the kitchen,” Laurie said.

Hurrying across the forecourt, away from the main entrance in the tall, square tower that housed the great hall and two floors of bedchambers, she approached the newer section, housing the kitchens and a ladies’ parlor above them.

The door into the kitchen and bakehouse stood ajar, but she slipped silently along the stone passageway between them to the narrow, circular service stair that led to the upper floors.

Her bedchamber and the one that her two younger sisters shared were two floors above the great hall, but to reach them, she had to pass by the southeast corner of the ladies’ parlor. Although she knew that she could rely on the servants not to tell her father she had returned unless he asked them, she hurried, her bare feet nearly silent on the stone steps.

As she approached the servants’ entrance to the ladies’ parlor, she slowed, straining her ears to hear the slightest sound from within.

She could not see directly into the parlor, for an angled wall blocked her view. That wall separated the parlor from the ladies’ closet and the servants’ stair.

On tiptoe now, holding up her skirts with one hand, she used the thick, oiled-rope banister with the other as she went up. She had taken but three steps beyond the parlor entry, however, when an all-too-familiar voice stopped her in her tracks.

“So, you come sneaking in like a thief in the night, do you? You’ve been up to mischief again, I’ll warrant. Turn around and show yourself properly, girl.”

Obeying reluctantly, Laurie faced her stepmother.

Blanche, Lady Halliot, stood with her hands primly folded at her waist, looking, as always, precise to a pin. Taller than Laurie by a head, she bore herself with natural elegance.

She wore a simple, crescent-shaped French hood tilted away from her face, with a semicircular white veil sewn at the back. Her dove-gray, pearl-trimmed bodice fit her trim figure flatly and smoothly without bulge or wrinkle, and her corset was laced so tightly above her wide farthingale that when she moved, she seemed to do so only from the waist down.

Like most Border women of rank, Lady Halliot wore a great deal of jewelry—several gold chains and bracelets, a long string of pearls, two brooches, rings on every finger, earrings, and gold tips to her lace points.

From gold chains attached to the girdle at her waist hung a jeweled black pomander ball, a black feather fan, and her gilded hand mirror, scissors, and needle case. Thanks to the pomander, a veritable cloud of ambergris and cloves accompanied her everywhere she went.

Laurie had often wondered how Blanche moved under so much weight, but Blanche seemed supremely oblivious of it.

Certainly, Blanche was not thinking of baubles now.

“Just look at you,” she said scornfully. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Laura. Up to your pranks again, and on such a day as this one! Here,” she added, stepping back, “come into the light where I can see you properly.”

Laurie obeyed, dismally conscious of her unkempt hair, filthy skirts, and an odor that even Blanche’s pomander would not hide. To her relief, except for themselves, the ladies’ parlor was empty.

Since her stepmother clearly meant to berate her, she took some small comfort in the fact that her sisters would not be present to hear what she said.

“Disgusting,” Blanche said. Raising her chin sharply and wrinkling her nose as Laurie stepped into the sunlit room, she said, “Whatever is that dreadful smell?”

“We had to hide from the raiders,” Laurie said quietly. “There was a boar, and when someone shot it—”

“One does not wish to hear the sordid details,” Blanche said. “Nonetheless, why did you have to hide? One would presume that even murderous English invaders would not dare lay a hand on a daughter of Sir William Halliot.”

“I do not know if they would have dared or not,” Laurie said. “I did not think I would be wise to test them.”

“Wise? You think yourself wise, Laura? Such a notion is utterly laughable.”

But Blanche did not laugh. Instead, she regarded Laurie with much the same expression of distaste as she might have assumed upon discovering a toad in her wardrobe.

The silence lengthened until Laurie shivered.

“If you are cold, you have only yourself to blame,” Blanche said unsympathetically. “You deserve beating.”

Laurie did not reply.

“If your father is sensible, this time he will take a good stout switch or a strap to you. He certainly will have much to say to you.”

“Yes, madam. He is awaiting me even now in the hall.”

“Then you must go to him at once.”

“I… I would prefer to change my dress first and tidy my hair.”

“One should be gratified to learn that for once you care about your appearance, I expect, but it is more important that your father see exactly how his daughter comports herself. I shall take you to him myself, as you are.”

Swallowing hard, Laurie followed Blanche to the far end of the parlor, where a gallery led to the great hall and the main stairway. Determined to behave as though nothing were out of the ordinary, she strove to keep her head high.

Ahead of her, Blanche passed gracefully through the arched entry to the hall. Ignoring members of the household and men-at-arms who attended to various duties there, she approached burly, richly attired Sir William Halliot, who sat in a carved wooden armchair, hunched over the high table.

Surrounded by ledgers and numerous, important looking documents, he was carefully reading one of them and did not look up. A slender scribe perched on a stool beside him dipped his quill into the inkpot and wrote steadily on, clearly oblivious, as his master was, of Blanche’s approach.

“Sir William,” she said in a clear, sharp voice that brought both men’s heads up, “you will be gratified to learn that your daughter has returned at last from her illicit morning ramble. Although she attempted to disobey your command that she present herself at once, I soon put a stop to that.”

“So I see,” Sir William said gruffly, frowning at Laurie. “What the devil have you done to yourself, daughter? You look as if you’d been dragged through a swamp and half-drowned.”

“I was caught in the rain, sir.”

“Did you not have a cloak?”

She had forgotten about her cloak. “I did have one, but I left it in Davy’s cottage when the raiders came. I don’t know what became of it after that.”

“And your shoes?”

Laurie looked down at the dirty bare toes peeping out from beneath her skirts. “I forgot them, too,” she said.

“At Davy Elliot’s?”

“No, sir, here,” she admitted with a sigh. “I do not like wearing shoes.”

The hall had become uncommonly quiet—and extraordinarily so, considering the number of people there.

Imperiously indifferent to the fascinated audience, Blanche said, “Such behavior must cease, Sir William. This unnatural girl has grown as wild as a gypsy and is a sad disgrace to the Halliot name.”