Seduced by a Rogue (44 page)

Rob said, “It is too late to go tonight, I’m thinking.”

“Aye, the days are getting longer, but darkness will fall in less than an hour,” the sheriff replied. “I’d liefer not approach
Applegarth after dark. In the morning they’ll be able to see clearly who approaches. What is Sir Hugh doing?”

“His men will camp outside the wall tonight,” Mairi said. “He means to take supper with us inside, though. You and your brother
are welcome to join us.”

“Thank you, my lady, but I trust you’ll forgive us if we camp with our men instead. I’m thinking you’ll agree,” he added,
looking at Rob.

Rob nodded. “Aye, you’re right, we should. I would like a private word with your ladyship, however, before we say goodnight.”

She nodded and turned to Phaeline. “Will you excuse us, madam? I am sure you would rather go inside where you can be comfortable.”

“I would, indeed,” Phaeline said. “I will also see that they know to expect others for supper… if that meets with your approval,
my dear.”

Mairi smiled at the last bit but said, “Aye, sure, madam, do as you please.” Realizing that Gibby had stood silently by, fascinated,
through all that the sheriff had said, she added, “Go along with her, Gibby. Make yourself useful.”

“Aye, sure,” he said and followed Phaeline through the gateway.

Then, bidding farewell to the sheriff and allowing Rob to draw her well away from the men milling in the clearing, Mairi said,
“Thank you for helping us today, sir. I’m sorry you won’t sup with us, though. If you are still displeased with—”

“Nay, lass, nor do I want to fratch. I must go with Alex, because the men need to see us together tonight. Some of them will
be wondering why he did not go with us earlier, and others will be thinking I usurped his power by ordering them to leave
here and go with me. So, we must show ourselves as one, and do that as soon as possible. In any event, I want to encourage
this mood in him. I don’t doubt we’ll be fratching again by midday tomorrow, if not sooner, but…”

He stopped then, gazing at her with such pain in his eyes that she wanted to say something to make it go away. But she could
think of nothing more intelligent than to ask him if that was all he had wanted to say to her.

“Nay,” he said. “I wish things were different, Mairi. I wish I had not done the things that make it impossible for you to
marry me, or even to trust me.”

Reaching out to touch his arm, she said softly, “I do trust you, Rob, but—”

“No buts,” he said, putting a hand over hers. His touch was gentle as he lifted it from his arm, and his voice was sorrowful
as he said, “Like apologies and promises, sweetheart, trust must come unconditionally. That became impossible, I suppose,
even before it all began. At times, I wish I had not been born a Maxwell. But I was, lass, and I will always be a Maxwell.”

“But, truly—”

“I must go,” he said. “We’ll camp here until dawn. Then, if Hugh agrees to ride with us, we should finish at Applegarth well
before noon. Even without Hugh’s men, it won’t take much longer. But I must take Gib back with me, or Gran will want to know
why I did not, and Fin Walters as well. Ask one of your lads to see him to the Roman road, will you, so he can meet us on
our way back to the ford.”

“It is only a step to come here for him,” she said.

“Aye, but I’d better not.”

Dismally, she watched him walk away, fearing that he was going forever.

Inside, she found all in a bustle. Phaeline had set people to dusting and sweeping out rushes, and she was informing someone
tartly that things had gone sadly awry since her departure just weeks before.

Leaving her to it when Gerrard approached, Mairi said, “Your men did well today, I’m told, whilst I nearly got the lady Phaeline
and myself captured.”

“I’ll say nowt about that, my lady. I sent word to Johnstone, Kirkpatrick, and the others, so they’ll keep a lookout. They
didna light the signal fire here today, because they believed the sheriff when he said ye did expect him. By the time our
lads knew aught were amiss,
his
men were on our wall and a-watching our gate.”

She let him tell her what he thought of it all but listened with half an ear. Her attention at supper was no better. By the
time she bade everyone goodnight and sought her bed, she was exhausted and sure she would fall asleep at once.

Hours later, she was still awake, but when she did sleep, she slept until sunlight poured into her room. Startled, remembering
that she had said naught to Gibby about meeting the men on their way back, she got up hastily and dressed herself. Neither
she nor Phaeline had brought maidservants with them, and none was at hand in the Hall unless women were in residence. She
realized as she tied her boots that Phaeline might have attended to the lack, but by then she was dressed.

She also knew exactly what she was going to do.

First, she found Gerrard and asked him to send a gillie hotfoot to Lord Johnstone with a message. Next, she went to find Gibby.

“You’re going to meet the laird and the other men on their way back from Applegarth, Gib,” she said. “He expects you to return
with him to Dumfries today.”

“Aye, I thought he might,” Gib said with a grin. “I think I’ll go, too, wi’ respect, m’lady.”

“Do you? I thought you liked staying with me.”

“Aye, I do, and ye might ha’ need o’ me again. But I like Trailinghail, too, and I’m thinking if I go to Dumfries wi’ the
laird, old Gerrard canna skelp me.”

Mairi grinned, too, then. “I won’t let him, Gib. You earned your way out of that skelping when you ran so fast for the laird.
I want you to take a message to him for me when you meet him, and you must say it to him just as I do. Can you do that?”

“Aye, sure, I can!”

Rob accompanied Alex to talk to Old Jardine but left most of the talking to Alex. The fat old man was truculent but Alex spoke
firmly. Rob had warned him that Old Jardine agreed with Dunwythie that the sheriff had no authority in Annandale, so he invoked
his authority as a chieftain of Clan Maxwell instead.

“Moreover,” Alex added when Jardine hesitated. “Sir Hugh Douglas is with us today, just outside with my men. Sithee, those
Annan House lads you took are Douglas henchmen, sent with the lady Phaeline when she married Dunwythie. I doubt you want trouble
with Douglas.”

“Or us,” Rob added when Old Jardine gave Alex a sour look.

“Nay, I want nae trouble wi’ any o’ ye,” the old man growled.

“You should know then,” Rob added quietly, “that Will threatened to kill the lady Mairi so that the lady Fiona might inherit
her estates. We have been allies in the past, sir, but I’ll tell you now to your face that if harm comes to her ladyship and
I learn that Will had aught to do with it—”

“Aye, aye, I understand ye, and I believe ye. Nowt will happen to the lass. Now, then, take your men and get hence, the both
o’ ye.”

“I have messages for the lady Fiona,” Rob said.

“She’s no here. Will took her riding afore ye got here. I expect I can pass them messages on to her for ye, though.”

Stifling a sigh, Rob said to tell her ladyship that her mother and sister would like her to visit them at Dunwythie Mains.

“Aye, sure, that’d be likely, that would,” Jardine said sarcastically.

“At least you can tell her mother you gave him the message,” Alex said as they went out to the others and waited for the two
Annan House men to join them.

When they did, the cavalcade wended its way north on the Roman road until Rob saw Gibby waiting beside it for them, alone.

Reining in by the boy, he said, “I thought one of the lads from Dunwythie Hall would bring you out here. Where’s your bundle?”

“There by yonder rock, where I were a-sitting afore I heard ye coming, laird. But I brung ye a message ye’re to hear first.”

Rob frowned at him. “What is it?”

“Put your lug down here so I can tell ye without all these louts a-listening.”

Rob dismounted and stood over the lad. “Is this close enough?”

“Aye, sure, if ye want all and sundry to hear.”

Bending nearer, he said, “This better be good, Gib, or—”

“I’m to tell ye, if ye agree that trust be a thing as must be shared, one wi’ another, ye should ha’ a second look at yon
barley field,” the boy said carefully.

When Rob looked at him in astonishment, Gib exclaimed, “Sakes, dinna look at me like that, laird. It be a daft message, I’ll
agree, but it be what it be!”

What if he did not come?

The field was empty, the barley tall, and its heads full of grain, nearly ready for harvest. The woods were in full leaf,
and yellow celandine bloomed below the trees. The sky was clear, and Mairi’s heart was full. He would come.

But what if Gib forgot her message? He had repeated it correctly more than once, but he might have got nervous or mixed the
words, or used his own.

Knowing that Rob wanted her, she told herself to be patient, but that did nothing to quell the tumult within her. Was she
doing the right thing, or was she just reacting to loneliness or her dislike of living with Phaeline?

Was she—worst thought of all—seeking to replace the father she missed so much more than she had expected she would, with a
husband?

And Fiona. What about Fiona?

The more Mairi thought about Fiona’s missing their father’s burial, the more she fretted. Fee did have a mind of her own,
but such behavior was unlike her.

A horseman appeared at the edge of the woods, where she and Fiona had been when they had first seen him with Will.

With the sun almost straight overhead and glaring down, Mairi had to squint to see more than his shape. But she needed no
more to recognize Rob. Stifling an impulse to run up the hill to him, reluctant to reveal the depth of her feelings until
she could be sure she had been right to do what she had done, she stood at the bottom of the field and watched him ride nearer.

He might not react well to all she had to say to him, but she had thought half the night about it all before she had decided
that her dilemma fell into the category of things she could not control. When that thought had struck her at last, she had
relaxed and fallen into deep sleep. And as the memory of it touched her now, she relaxed again. Trust was trust, and that
was that.

He dismounted a short distance away and dropped his reins to the ground.

The horse was young to trust so near the ripe barley. But Mairi did not care if it ate the whole field, because Rob was striding
toward her, unmindful of the crop.

Without another thought for his reaction, she smiled and went to meet him.

“I knew you would come,” she said, reaching both hands toward his.

He grabbed her wrists and pulled her close, letting go only to wrap his arms around her in a crushing hug. “I nearly didn’t,”
he admitted. “But you are right to say that, unlike an apology or a promise, trust goes two ways. I’ve missed you so much,
lass, more than I can say,” he murmured close to her ear. “I’d have come to you wherever you were. Will the workers come back
soon, or have we time to talk?”

“No one will come,” she said. “Even Phaeline is safely inside the Hall.”