The Captive Heart (52 page)

“Your horse?”

“Probably wandered off. I didn’t want to waste the time searching for it. While all in the house were sleeping when I broke free, I feared discovery. I was fortunate the dog did not hear me and set up barking as I went through the window. There is a chance they have the horse though,” Beinn admitted honestly. “I was already up the hill to fetch it when I found it gone. I thought it better I not go back, my lord. It was more important I reach you. I think
she
meant to kill me.”

The laird nodded. “Aye, she is not afraid to murder, as we know. You’ve done well, Beinn.”

“What will you do, my lord?” he asked the laird.

“I am not certain I will do anything,” Malcolm Scott said. “Sir Udolf is dead and so Alix will not be harassed again by him. As for Robena, let her wonder what I will do. But why did she kill him? And did he tell her of Alix and our bairns? I am curious as to what she will do, but then there is little she dare outside of her own cottage.”

“I do not know if she knows of your wife and bairns, my lord,” Beinn said honestly. “But I believe she may be waylaying those who stumble upon her cottage and robbing them of whatever they have.”

“And probably taking the hapless men who fall into her web as lovers,” the laird said dryly. “I hate the thought of imprisoning her in the old tower by Dunglais Water, but I suppose I must think on it. It would not do for either Alix or Fiona to stumble upon Robena’s dwelling one day. I know I have been lenient with her. Another man would have slain her where he caught her that day, Beinn.”

“Aye, my lord, they would have. But this new murder cannot go unpunished. It is true that Sir Udolf Watteson has no family to come seeking his fate. But if there have been others in the past, if there are others in the future, the bitch may not have such good fortune. You have done your best to protect her from herself, my lord, but now I fear you must protect others from her. Fyfa and Rafe are good souls, and they do their best by her, but you know that she dominates them by virtue of her position as their mistress. They can do so much. She is dangerous, and grows more so, I fear.”

The laird nodded. “I do not disagree with you, Beinn,” he said. “But autumn and winter are upon us. My lady will birth another bairn soon. I would not have her learn of Robena and her situation, for it will certainly distress her. And I most surely do not want Fiona ever knowing that the mother who birthed her is yet alive. The pain that woman caused my daughter has been wiped away by Alix’s love for her.”

“You cannot wait, my lord,” Beinn pressed the laird as gently as he dared.

“I know, I know. Before the winter we will settle the matter. I would speak with Father Donald before I make any decisions about Robena. The secret must remain only with the three of us, old friend.”

“Agreed, my lord,” Beinn said.

“You look weary, as well you should,” Malcolm Scott noted. “I know it is almost dawn, but go and find your bed for a few hours.”

“Aye,” Beinn responded. “I am weary, my lord.”
Wearier than you can imagine,
he thought to himself as he left his master’s privy chamber and went to his own space. As captain of the laird’s men he had a little chamber of his own. His buttocks were sore with the beating he had received, but at least she had been careful and not drawn blood. He washed in the cold water from his pitcher as best he could, trying to rid the stench of the woman’s sex from his body.

God’s bones! Had the laird smelled it on him? He prayed not. But then his long walk in the night air should have helped to dissipate the stink of her. The priest had not come. He would see him later though, and tell him all that had happened. Then he would make his confession to Father Donald. The priest would agree with him. Robena Ramsay needed to be caged like the wild beast she was. Malcolm Scott’s heart was much too good, but if he did not act soon his indecision could very easily lead to a tragedy.

I
n the half-light of an early dawn Fyfa shook her mistress roughly awake.

Opening her eyes, Robena Ramsay snarled, “What is it? The sun is not even up yet, and you waken me?”

“He’s gone!” Fyfa said.

“Gone? Who is gone?” And then Robena’s blue eyes snapped fully open. “What the hell do you mean? How could he be gone? He was chained to the bedstead. He cannot be gone.”

“Well, he is,” Fyfa said bluntly.

Robena’s eyes narrowed speculatively. “Did you or your brother . . .” she began.

“Of course not!” Fyfa snapped.

“Then how?” Robena demanded to know.
“How?”

“The bedposts were not as sturdy as you might have supposed,” Fyfa said. “He snapped them in two, took his clothing and boots from the chest, and fled.”

“You put his garments in the same room where I had him imprisoned?” Robena jumped up from her bed and hit Fyfa a blow.

“ ’Twas not me,” Fyfa said, rubbing her cheek. “ ’Twas you, mistress. You had my brother disrobe Beinn when he had dragged him into the house. I was not there. I suspect in your eagerness to see him naked you stuffed his clothing in the nearest chest, giving no thought to the possibility he might escape.”

“None have ever escaped me before,” Robena said, sitting heavily upon her bed.

“The laird will know now,” Fyfa said, and her voice shook.

“Perhaps,” Robena mused. “Or perhaps not.”

“Beinn is loyal to his master,” Fyfa reminded her mistress.

“But he is also a proud man,” Robena replied. “I wonder if he will be willing to admit that I beat him and forced him to my will. Ahh, and I had such fine plans for him for today,” she sighed.

“But why was he here in the first place?” Fyfa wondered aloud. “It was not his time to come with supplies. And Rafe found him at the new grave.”

“I don’t know why he was here,” Robena said. “It doesn’t matter to me. He knows nothing of Sir Udolf. Why would he? It is not his concern.”

“Perhaps the laird’s men found Sir Udolf’s horse,” Fyfa suggested.

“More likely some traveler on foot found it and claimed it for himself,” Robena said cynically. “You fret too much, Fyfa. Aye, Beinn has probably returned to Dunglais, and he will have found a way to explain the manacles and chains, but I doubt he has told my husband the truth. How could he, and keep his position? Everyone knows that Colm was always very jealous of me, of the men who admired me. Do you really think he would believe the truth if Beinn had the courage to tell him? Nay. My husband’s captain will want to keep his position at Dunglais. Do not men always wish to keep what is theirs, Fyfa? We are still safe, for my husband would not want known what he has done to me. I am not pleased, however, by a dreary, lonely winter.”

“It is only September, mistress,” Fyfa said dryly. “Time enough yet to catch some unsuspecting traveler in your web.”

Robena brightened. “Aye,” she said. “And I have other plans to execute as well. I have decided that I want my daughter. Sir Udolf told me that my husband’s whore is raising Fiona and that the brat even addresses her as her mother. I will not have another woman mothering
my
child, nor will I reason with him in this matter. If he does not wish his bigamy revealed, nor his bastard rendered publicly illegitimate, he will give me
my
child. I shall take her, and he will keep his mouth shut or I will expose him, expose his bastards to the world. He will have no legitimate heir then.”

“Mistress,” Fyfa said, “this is no place for a little maid gently reared.”

“She will be a help to you,” Robena said carelessly. “And if she is pretty she will help me to lure travelers to our cottage. There are men in this world, Fyfa, who prefer very young lovers.” And Robena laughed.

Fyfa shuddered at the cruel sound. While she did not wish to find herself and her helpless brother once again without a home, she almost wished that the laird would come and put an end to her mistress’s cruel debauchery. “I’ll get your meal,” she said, and hurried from the bedchamber.

The autumn came to the borders. It was now October, and the weather had been beautiful and unusual for so late in the year. Her instincts had been right. No one came from Dunglais. She had set Rafe to watching the keep. Certainly at this age her daughter rode out regularly. Once she learned Fiona’s habits, she would ride out on Beinn’s horse, which Rafe had found the day he had brought Beinn to her, and she would take the child herself. Robena smiled. Aye, it was a far better plan. She would gain Fiona almost immediately, and Fyfa would then have someone to help her with the chores.

The brat would quickly learn that she was no longer her father’s pet. Robena wondered if her daughter had ever been whipped. Well, let her disobey her mother’s wishes and Fiona’s bottom would soon be introduced to the hazel switch. A good beating never hurt a child. He own father had whipped her with great regularity until she had grown breasts, and then her mother would not permit it. Robena arose from her bed and began to prepare for the day ahead. She had lost a lover, but there would be another eventually, and in the meantime there would be Fiona to amuse her.

Fyfa, of course, did not think her mistress’s plan a sound one. “You are safe and comfortable here,” she said. “You have the opportunity to enjoy a lover now and again. Even if you manage to take your daughter from your husband, he will certainly come after her. And this time he will kill you. When he hired my brother and me he was quite honest about you and what you had done. He did not kill you then because he wanted to be able to say with complete truth to your family that he had not slain you even though it was his right to do so. He identified the body of that poor beggar woman you killed out on the moor and exchanged clothing with as your body. He let her lay there for months in the open so that she would be unrecognizable but for the clothing she wore, in order to give truth to the lie that you were dead, mistress. He protected you and kept your father’s family from further embarrassment, thereby preventing a feud.”

“I would have liked a feud between the Ramsays and the Scotts,” Robena said. “Perhaps I shall cause one by letting my da know I am alive and how ill treated I have been by Colm.” She giggled. “Imagine all those clansmen fighting and dying over me!”

“If you keep on like this, mistress,” Fyfa warned, “the laird will indeed kill you, and he has every right to do so. And if he kills you then he can in truth wed his mistress. Do you want that? Isn’t is better for you to have this hold over him that you now have?”

“But he doesn’t know I have a hold over him,” Robena said irritably.

“He will when you take his daughter,” Fyfa said. “Even if he comes and takes her back he will know that you know his secrets. You are fortunate that he does not know yours. Do not bait him. You would be wise to leave the child with him and not be bothered. Then you can live your life as you will, and he will never be the wiser. Knowing what you know, there is always time to expose his bigamy. Wouldn’t you gain more satisfaction exposing his bastards after his death? Then your child should inherit.”

“I want my daughter now!” Robena said. “I do not want her calling another woman her mother. I am her mother. She belongs to
me
and not to this Englishwoman. He can have his whore, but I will have my bairn.”

“You haven’t seen her since she was two years old,” Fyfa reminded her mistress. “And the laird told me you rejected her from birth.”

“But she is
mine,
” Robena responded, “and I want what is mine.”

Fyfa shook her head. There was no reasoning with her mistress when she got into a mood like this. Robena Ramsay was a woman who always needed something to do and now, bereft of her recent lover, she was looking about for that something.
She will bring trouble down on us all,
Fyfa thought unhappily, but there was nothing she could do. She was a servant. A favored servant to be sure, but a servant nonetheless. “Sit down at the table,” she said. “You need to eat.” And when she had finished cooking and serving Robena, Fyfa stepped outside of her kitchen to work in her little garden.

The day was fair and the air still held a hint of warmth. The trees and the hills were now bright with color. Fyfa watched with trepidation as her brother Rafe set off on Beinn’s horse towards Dunglais. She had a very dark premonition about what was to come, but short of going to the laird herself there was nothing to be done. She couldn’t risk losing their place. While Fyfa knew that she could always fend for herself, there was her poor lack-witted brother to consider. She saw how people treated folk like Rafe. Their own elder half brother had been cruel to him. Fyfa sighed. What was going to happen was going to happen.

At Dunglais the beautiful autumn weather and the knowledge that the church had lifted the threat of Sir Udolf from the laird and his wife brought about a happy change. Alix could no longer ride, but now that she was free to move outside of the keep’s walls she would sometimes take her son in the pony cart while Fiona rode by her side. On other days Alix would walk with Fiona on the moors. They treasured these days, as winter was certain to set in sooner than later. One early November afternoon Alix and her stepdaughter walked out of sight of the keep picking late flowers that had escaped a recent frost and gathering small plants that had medicinal value, which they carefully put in a willow basket.

“I have to stop a moment,” Alix said. She was breathing hard, and her belly was very big. “I shall be glad to have his child born. I so dislike being encumbered.”

“Will you sit, Mam?” Fiona asked her.

Alix laughed wryly. “Oh, Fi, if I sit I shall not be able to get up again unless someone comes to winch me onto my feet.”

Fiona giggled. “He’s going to be a big lad, Mam,” she said.

“You keep saying
he,
” her stepmother noted.

“ ’Tis a lad, Mam. I just know it. And James will have a play-mate,” Fiona said.