Claimed by a Scottish Lord (13 page)

Holding the reins loosely in one hand and steadying her with his other arm, he nudged the horse through a stream and down a gradual incline. Even before he urged the horse into a lope, he was aware of the soft warm bounce of her bottom on his thighs and of her breasts snug against his forearm. The only thing he knew for certain, as he beat down an unseemly arousal, was that he was in danger of embarrassing himself.

Ruark kept the horse off the main road. For three long hours, they saw nothing but open meadows broken intermittently by wooded thickets. The once bright afternoon sky dimmed to gold. Neither he nor Rose broke the silence.

S
unlight warmed the scent of pine and moss and had burned away the mist from the woodland floor by the time the black gelding crested a woodsy hill in late afternoon. Ruark reined in the horse and, with his arm around Rose as she slept with her head against his shoulder, he stopped atop the knoll overlooking the last part of his journey. A number of rabbits looked up from the grass and scattered, along with a pair of speckled does. A chill afternoon breeze washed over him. He felt Rose shiver. Even asleep, she resisted him when he pulled her cloak tighter around her body. He adjusted her on his lap and nudged the horse with his heels.

The last hour had put him in an open meadow where the early summer grass was green and brown cattle grazed. Near a crossroads marked with three weathered stone crosses beneath the branches of a Rowan tree, he turned east and took a little-used road overgrown with oak and scrubby pine. He was familiar with the roads, vales, and hills between the border and Stonehaven. He had traveled this area often as a younger man. He passed the crumbling stone walls of what had once been an old Roman fort. It was a world of contrasts, sitting between splendor and ruin. Death and rebirth. Past and present.

A parallel to his existence. And probably hers, he thought as he glanced at the sleeping woman in his arms.

For his entire life, events or people had tried to dictate or shape the way he lived. Only when he‘d been at sea had he truly felt free. He could understand only too well Rose‘s yearning to be free of society‘s restraints, for he recognized himself. He was back now in Scotland in a world he‘d not known since he was seventeen. For thirteen years, he had lived life like a current of wind caught in the vortex of a storm, as if his next breath would be his last, taunting fate, only to run into headwind now. Here, he was as ruled by the consequences of his station as Rose was by hers.

Again, he pondered how Friar Tucker had kept her hidden all these years, and what he held over Hereford to see it done. It was true Hereford had been away from England for most of Rose‘s life, but a man like Hereford did nothing that did not first benefit him.

At last, the familiar rush of water sounded from a distance and Ruark shifted his thoughts. Another two miles and he was following the Teviot tributary that would eventually take him home.

They had been riding on the southern edge of Kerr land since earlier that afternoon. He hadn‘t been back from sea long enough to feel anything but a vague sense of responsibility that this all now belonged to him. Everything that was before him.

His attention on the horizon, Ruark suddenly reined in the horse.

Rose stirred in his arms, drawing his gaze from the distant copse to her face as she opened her eyes. A pheasant suddenly started in the air from the long grass across the vale that edged the thicket below. ―What is it?‖ she whispered, alarmed.

His every sense alert, he walked the horse three paces and stopped. ―This part of our journey together has come to an end.‖

She turned back to him. A corner of his mouth tipped. ―Close your cloak. We are about to have company.‖

As if on cue, the distant sound of approaching riders carried to them on the late-afternoon breeze, growing more ominous as the first group came into sight over the hill. ―Should we not hide?‖

―Not from this bunch. You are about to meet the rest of the infamous Kerr clan.‖

A moment later, a horde of riders thundered over the incline—he couldn‘t count them all, they were so many—fanning out as they neared. Rose gasped at the fierce sight of them and pressed her back against his chest as if one man could stand against so many. Most were wild-looking, wearing leather trews, or were tartan-clad with their saddles and baldrics dangling with all manner of weaponry and muskets, and looking like the violent revier clans of old. They reined in their mounts and the air filled with the din and dust of their arrival.

Duncan broke rank. His shirt, damp from the mist that clung to the summer air, shaped the weight and height of the man as tall as Ruark himself.

―Did I no‘ tell ye he would come this way?‖ someone in the group called. ―And with our prize in hand, too.‖

A ripple of bawdry laughter ran through the ranks as Duncan guided his gray horse through the long grass and scrub and stopped a few feet in front of Ruark. ―Our spotters saw the pair of ye come across the glen hours ago.‖

Duncan shifted his gaze to Rose, who was pressing against Ruark as if that would shield her from the man‘s perusal. Duncan leaned into the saddle and grinned. ―Lady Roselyn. You‘re a comely lass for a bluidy Lancaster.‖

―I need a second horse, Duncan,‖ Ruark said. He
needed
Rose off his lap. He needed his hands free.

Duncan motioned to someone behind him. Jason had been with Ruark and his men at the abbey. Jason must have ridden through the night to get here before him.

―You were no‘ at the rendezvous point last night, nephew. Jason and the others returned this afternoon with your red stallion and some concern that ye went missing over yonder falls.‖

―As you can see, I did not.‖

A moment later, Ruark dismounted and put Rose on the back of a bay gelding behind the younger man.

Ruark lowered his voice and asked the lad, ―Where is Colum?‖

―He sent us back with the stallion yesterday.‖ Jason also lowered his voice as his gaze found Duncan some paces away speaking to another. ―Duncan intended to ride across the border tonight. If we had not seen you . ‖ Jason‘s voice trailed but he didn‘t have to tell Ruark anything more.

For a moment, he felt fury, but then boxed the anger as his gaze found Rose. Though her green eyes were bright and her shoulders held high, she looked weary and frightened, surrounded as she was by men who would need little provocation to harm Hereford‘s daughter.

Ruark mounted and reined the horse around until they were thigh to thigh, his fingers fisting around the reins as if that would keep him from touching her, for he recognized only too well the warring faction separating her future from his.

He also recognized that though they might still be adversaries, they had never been enemies.

―We will reach Stonehaven after nightfall,‖ he told her.

His impassive glance took in Jason. Then with a nudge of his heels, he lunged past Rose to take his place at the head of his men, leaving her horse to fall into place in the middle of the group.

Whatever else he may have thought, leaving her with Jason, he took no chance she would escape him again.

S
tonehaven appeared in the mist-shrouded horizon as the amber-rippled clouds faded to crimson in the western sky. With two tower houses that flanked a baronial hall of gray stone and blue slates, the magnificent house commanded a view of the countryside.

That the place was vast was Rose‘s first astounded impression. From a dozen chimneys, white wood smoke unfurled into the chilled air. Mullioned casements embellished the structure, the sinking sun touching the myriad of windows and turning the panes amber. A circular carriage sweep joined the road near the front hall, a breathtaking parkland and pine forest at the back. The house was grand and as ostentatious as the oldest baronial estates, an unexpected contrast to the borderland chieftain himself.

She found herself looking for Roxburghe. They had not spoken since he left to ride at the head of his men. One of his men had given him a cloak and with the exception of his height, he looked much like the unshaven bedraggled dozens who surrounded him. She had glimpsed him once as he laughed over something his uncle said, but she had looked away when he glanced over to find her watching him.

Duncan rode beside him now. She had not liked the way his uncle had looked at her in the glade. There had been no gentleness or kindness in his hazel eyes, and the humor briefly glimpsed in his manner had been rooted in something dark and angry. She would not want to be alone in the same room with him, a born-and-bred Scotsman and inherently dangerous to the English.

The troop soon divided and Roxburghe rode with a dozen others into an embellished stone courtyard away from the main entrance of the estate. Within minutes retainers poured outside to meet the heavily armed men. Roxburghe dismounted as two grooms rushed to take the reins of his horse, and after that, she lost him among the confusion and noise as a dozen barking dogs joined in the chorus of male voices.

The man with whom she‘d ridden helped her dismount. Barely able to stand, she clasped the edges of the cloak tightly against her as she looked around and awaited instruction. Men were still mounted, armed with swords in their belts, all laughing and in high spirits, and casting her an occasional glance that caused a stab of apprehension in her chest.

―I am to bring you inside, Lady Roselyn,‖ the young man she had ridden with said after speaking to a servant. ―If ye can no‘ walk . ‖

The thought that anyone would put his hands on her brought her up. ―I can walk. You are Jason, correct?‖ she asked, remembering the name Roxburghe had called him.

―Aye, mum. Lord Roxburghe‘s third cousin on our grandfather‘s side.‖ He executed a brief bow. ―This way if ye will, my lady. We are to go through another less-used entrance.‖

She might be a guest, but she was an unwelcome one.

Once inside, Rose felt the warmth of the entrance hall. She swept her gaze over the tall archway and wood beams that braced the weight of the ceiling and saw it magnificently decorated with flags and the Roxburghe coat of arms, which, ironically, was the mythical beast Chimera, a fire-breathing dragon with the head of a lioness and the tail of a serpent. The room was a three-story half-timbered hall with lead windows. Flemish tapestries covered the stone walls. A stairway carved from heavy oak led to a second level where a forest of horns, antlers, and stuffed boars‘ heads glared back at her from amid the aged weaponry on the walls.

Someone came up to Jason and told her he was to take her to the dining hall. ―But his lordship told me to take her to her quarters . ‖

―Duncan said to bring her . ‖

She was taken from Jason and escorted through doors down a corridor. The curious unnatural silence that preceded her was worse than the noise in the courtyard. Her breeches were damp where the injury had opened, but she couldn‘t think of that right now. Her gaze took in the walls and doors as she desperately sought to memorize her surroundings.

The man delivered her into the dining hall. Tall windows reflected back the torchlight flickering on the walls. Dozens of men were there sitting at planked tables as if waiting—for what she didn‘t know, and she was more frightened because it seemed they awaited her. Hounds lounged around the great hearth and, as if sensing the sudden tension in the room, came to their feet. She took a startled step backward. One command would send them loping across the room and at her throat. But the men, though fierce-looking, did not seem brutal to her as their eyes fell on her—merely hardened. Their voices rose around her.

She tightened her clammy hands in her cloak. She did not see their laird among the men, but she knew he must have come up behind her, for the men‘s gazes went to the door and a terrible quiet came over the hall.

She stopped her knees from buckling. She stopped herself from stepping near him as if he had the power to protect her. Indeed the only thing that stopped her from turning into his arms was the contemplation of that thought and the realization that she would not be at Stonehaven at all if not for him.

―You had better have a bloody good reason for bringing her in here, Duncan.‖ She heard the quiet fury in Lord Roxburghe‘s voice.

His uncle stepped forward. He still wore his leather trews and plaid that she had seen him in. Mud caked his boots and woolen hose. He looked even larger in the room that seemed more filled with shadows and ice than warmth from so many bodies. ―If this is Hereford‘s daughter, then we will know it tonight. If no‘ then some of us are finished with negotiations.‖ His eyes pierced hers. ―If ye are innocent, we‘re no‘ here to hurt ye, lass.‖

―Innocent?‖ she heard herself whisper in panic.

What were her crimes, she wanted to shout at them.

An older woman was brought to stand before Rose. ―Do you know who this is?‖ Duncan asked the woman, and his voice was surprisingly kind, as if he spoke to a child.

A black shawl covered the woman‘s head and shoulders. She wore black muslin. But her eyes were a kindly blue and did not look as if she meant her harm. Rose did not know the woman. She had never seen her before.

―My name is Anaya Fortier, mum,‖ she said, tears in her eyes. ―I was the Countess Hereford‘s handmaiden.‖

Rose didn‘t understand. ―My mother? You knew my mother?‖

―Aye, mum.‖ Mrs. Fortier looked first at Ruark, then Duncan. ―She is the image of her mam. The very image. There is no mistakin‘. Beautifil like her, she is. No mistakin‘.‖

Behind the woman, the murmurs grew to a low din. ―And her holdin‘ the Lancaster wealth.‖ Someone shouted something about riding to Alnwick Castle tonight with new terms of trade. ―She will no‘ be any good to Hereford dead. Aye, I swear he‘ll trade now.‖

Roxburghe moved behind her. ―Are you finished?‖

His words effectively shocked the men to silence.

His hands dropped on her shoulders. ―You‘ll swear that Lady Roselyn should pay for her father‘s sins? With what? Her life?‖ He moved her behind him. ―Aye, we have cause to celebrate tonight. We also have much work to be done.‖

Roxburghe turned and placed a hand at her arm. ―Now, if you don‘t mind, we can save the questions for later tonight, I need to get our guest to her room.‖