Seduced by a Rogue (46 page)

Mairi realized then that her stepmother had found their living arrangement as much of a strain as she had.

“I expect you are very surprised at this, though,” she said.

“Well, I knew something odd was in the offing when first that Gibby lad came in looking like he had a secret and then Johnstone’s
chaplain arrived. I see no reason for you to delay, my dearling, but you
must
tidy yourself first. That will give everyone time to see to supper. They all want to see you wed, of course.”

Instead of taking herself immediately to her bedchamber, Mairi paused in the doorway to say, “Shall you be content to remain
at Annan House by yourself?”

“I expect I have any number of female cousins who would leap at the chance to live with me,” Phaeline said. “My family has
a house in Glasgow, too, so I will doubtless spend time there each year. But you must go now, dearling. I doubt your intended
husband will be patient forever.”

“You are right about that,” Mairi said. “We can discuss everything more comfortably after the ceremony, at supper.”

But the ceremony was brief. And, at supper, Phaeline showed little disposition to linger and Rob even less. The servants had
scarcely taken away the meat platters before he made it clear that he was impatient to be alone with his bride.

His brother, who had helped himself generously to the whisky, raised a goblet to him and said, “Here’s to a good future for
the two of you, Rob. I’m thinking you’ll enjoy being called ‘my lord,’ but how will ye like submitting to her ladyship’s every
wish and decree, eh?”

Mairi felt her breath stop in her throat, but Rob laughed and said, “Sakes, Alex, I thought you of all people would see that
I have done the wisest thing a man can do. I’ve found a wife who will control all and leave me to do as I please.”

Hugh hooted with laughter. When Alex joined him, Mairi relaxed.

Her husband stood and took her arm, and she went willingly with him to the stairs. He had exerted himself to be charming to
Phaeline, who had reacted as most women seemed to react to him. So, Mairi teased him with tolerant amusement.

“She was as wax in your hands, sir,” she said as they reached the landing near her chamber. “Faith, but I fear your skill
with women will cause me—”

“Hush, lass,” he said, bending swiftly to silence her with a kiss.

Releasing her a short time later to open her door, he added quietly, “Fear nowt of such matters, sweetheart. Having won you,
I am yours now and for all time… and, by the Rood,
you
are mine.”

Inside, they wasted no time. Someone had thoughtfully left enough hot water for two, and the bed was freshly made. On the
small hearth, a cheerful fire blazed, and the shutters were still ajar. A soft breeze stirred the bed curtains.

Going to the window to adjust the shutter, Mairi saw that darkness had fallen and the moon in its last quarter was rising.

Rob came up behind her and put an arm across her shoulders. “I have missed your conversation, sweetheart.”

She hid a smile. “Do you want to
talk
, sir?”

“Nay, my bonnie vixen, I do not,” he answered with a chuckle. “I have missed other things even more. This, for example,” he
added as he slipped a hand behind her neck, raised the silky hair there, and placed a warm kiss on her nape.

A thrill shot through her to her toes, and she turned to him eagerly, her fingers reaching for her bodice lacing.

His hand gently caught hers. “I want to do that,” he said. “’Tis my right on this night of nights to see what I have won.
Put your hands behind your back and leave your undressing to me.”

With an involuntary gasp, she obeyed.

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed
Seduced by a Rogue.
The bones of this story come from an unpublished sixteenth-century manuscript about a fourteenth-century incident in Galloway
and Dumfriesshire. A sixteenth-century Lady Maxwell wrote it about her husband’s Maxwell ancestors. So her version was a trifle
biased.

It left out pertinent details such as what the exact conflict was between Alexander Maxwell and Lord Dunwythie that resulted
in Alex’s trying to take the Dunwythies’ land. However, research and help from many folks here and in Scotland resulted in
discovery of the odd differences in how the three dales composing Dumfriesshire were administered then. When I discovered
that the office of Sheriff of Dumfries was hereditary and belonged to the Maxwells, the rest fell fairly logically into place.
However, for the sake of this story, I took liberties with the timeline and some of the details.

The names of the following characters were real: Mairi, Robert, Alexander, Phaeline, Thomas Dunwythie (now Dinwiddie, Dunwoodie,
etc.), and Fiona. Also, Archie the Grim and John, Lord Maxwell. The others are fictitious, and much about the main characters
is the product of the author’s imagination.

The Scottish office of sheriff in the fourteenth century was not only hereditary but included vast powers. However, to avoid
complicating things, it is also one with which I took great license. The actual hereditary sheriff then would have been John,
Lord Maxwell of Caerlaverock. Hereditary sheriffs nearly always left everything to their sheriff-substitutes or sheriff-deputes
(think deputy, today). We know Alexander Maxwell was not a lord but clearly wielded great power, so he was likely the sheriff-substitute
for Lord Maxwell. To simplify things, I just let Alex
be
the sheriff.

Descriptions of problems regarding taxes and the administration of the dales are true, as well. Annandale was a stewartry,
Nithsdale a sheriffdom, and Eskdale was a regality. That just meant the barons there paid their taxes directly to the King.

Those of you who have visited Galloway and seen its barren hills may wonder about the forestlands with which I endowed Borgue
and much of the landscape west of Kirkcudbright. I refer you to the
Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland
, p. 423: “In early times [the area] appears to have been covered with woods, and at a comparatively recent period it had
several extensive forests.”

Details of geography, towns, and dales come from many sources but primarily from
Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland
, edited by Francis H. Groome (Scotland, 1892).

My primary sources for Douglas history include
A History of the House of Douglas,
Vol. I, by the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell (London, 1902), and
The Black Douglases
by Michael Brown (Scotland, 1998).

I must thank, first and yet again, the one and only Donald MacRae, who introduced me to this story by asking me if I’d be
interested in a tale about a woman who nearly started a clan war. Little did he know it would result in three books. I hope
he enjoys it and doesn’t think I tampered too much with the facts.

If I explain that the real Robert Maxwell supposedly kept the real Mairi Dunwythie locked up in one room for two years without
anyone else in the area ever suspecting she was there, you will perhaps understand why I changed a few details of Lady Maxwell’s
account.

The truly odd discovery was that the Maxwell-Dinwiddie (or Dunwythie) connection occurred twice, the second time in the sixteenth
century with Lady Jane Dinwiddie marrying another Robert Maxwell. That time, however, the title did change to Maxwell-Dinwiddie—after
Lady Jane’s death.

As always, I’d like to thank my wonderful agents, Lucy Childs and Aaron Priest, my terrific editor Frances Jalet-Miller, master
copyeditor Sean Devlin, Production Manager Anna Maria Piluso, Art Director Diane Luger, Senior Editor and Editorial Director
Amy Pierpont, Vice President and Editor in Chief Beth de Guzman, and everyone else at Hachette Book Group’s Grand Central
Publishing who contributed to making this book what it is.

If you enjoyed
Seduced by a Rogue
, please look for the third book in the trilogy,
Tempted by a Warrior
, at your favorite bookstore in July 2010.

In the meantime,
Suas Alba!

Sincerely,

http://home.att.net/~amandascott

Applegarth, Annandale, Scotland, 1377

T
he traveler approaching the open kitchen doorway along the path that ran behind Spedlins Tower paused at hearing a soft feminine
voice inside:

“‘I expect I should be spinning, too, aye,’ the maiden said sadly. ‘But it would be to nae purpose. I could never finish so
great a task in time.’”

The traveler took a step closer as the voice went on, creaking now with age, “‘Och, but I could spin it all for ye, aye,’
the old woman said.”

“Gey good o’ the auld crone!” cried several childish voices, as if they had many times heard the story and exclaimed always
at the same place.

The traveler smiled, recognizing the tale from his own childhood. He moved nearer, trying to muffle the sounds his feet made
on the loose pebbles of the path.

He saw the speaker then, seated on the stone floor of the scullery with her back to the doorway. Five small, fascinated children
were gathered around her.

Beyond, in the darker kitchen proper, he discerned bustling movement and heard sounds indicating preparation of the midday
meal.

The storyteller went on in her own soft, clear voice, “So the maiden ran to fetch her lint and put it in her new friend’s
hand. Then she asked the old woman for her name and where she should call for the spun yarn that evening.”

One of the children, a lad of five or six, looked right at the traveler.

The tall, powerful-looking stranger put a finger to his lips.

Although the boy obediently kept silent, he continued to stare.

The storyteller continued, “But the maiden received no reply, for the old woman had vanished from where she stood. The lass
looked long for her, and at last became so tired that she lay down to rest.”

Three of the children eyed him now as a fourth, a lassie, piped up, “Aye, and when she awoke, it was gey
dark
!”

“So it was,” the storyteller said. “The evening star was shining down, and as the maiden watched the moonrise, she was startled
by an uncouth voice from—”

“Who is
he
?” the same lassie demanded, pointing at the traveler.

The storyteller, turning, saw him and scrambled awkwardly to her feet, saying as she did, “Sakes, where did you spring from?”

He noted first that she was black-haired, blue-eyed, and beautiful—and then, with unexpected disappointment, that she was
heavy with child.

“Forgive me for interrupting you, mistress,” he said. “They told me at the stable that I should come this way as it was quicker
and none would mind. But if you will bid someone take me to Old Jardine, I will leave you to finish your tale.”

“Nay, this is a good place to stop,” she said, frowning and putting a hand to the short veil she wore over her long, thick
plaits as if to be sure it was in place. “I can finish the story later.”

To the instant chorus of indignant protests, she said firmly, “Nay, then, you must all go now to Cook and ask how you can
help him. As for you,” she added, turning her lovely blue eyes on the traveler again as the children obeyed her, “someone
should have told you that Jardine of Applegarth sees no one these days.”

“He will see me,” the traveler said confidently.

“Mercy, why should he? Have you no respect for a dying man?”

“I doubt that that ill-willed old man is really dying. But he will see me because he sent for me. I am his heir.”

Instead of the hasty apology he had every right to expect from a maidservant who had spoken so rudely to him, she grimaced
and said scornfully, “You must have taken
that
notion from a tale of the same sort I’ve just been telling the bairns.”

His temper stirring, he said, “Mind your tongue, lass, lest—”

“Why should I? Do you dislike being proven a liar?” she demanded. “For so you are if you claim to be the heir to Applegarth.”

Doubt stirred. No servant of Old Jardine’s would dare speak to him so impertinently. Despite their kinship, he barely knew
Jardine. But if even half of what he had heard about the contentious old scoundrel was true, Jardine’s servants would tread
lightly and with great care.

“Who are you, lass?” he asked.

She gently touched her belly. “I am his heir’s mother, or mayhap his heir’s wife. Whichever it is, I can tell you truthfully
that
you
are
not
his heir.”

Stunned, he realized in much the same moment that the fact of Old Jardine’s lie did not surprise him. In fact, he had expected
a lie. He had just expected to learn that the old man was
not
dying. Suppressing the fury that had leaped at her words and attitude, he said, “I expect, then, that you must be Will Jardine’s
lady.”