Authors: Bertrice Small
Elsbeth’s sister crept from the shadows. She was gaunt to the point of starvation. Her hair was a dirty white, and she was clothed in rags. But there was still a fire in her eyes. “And where is home, my lord?” she demanded to know.
“Cleit, where your sister rules my kitchens, and the lady Adair is my wife,” Conal Bruce said with a small grin.
“You might have come sooner, my lord,” Margery told him bluntly. “Well, let’s go. I am more than ready to leave this place.”
“Get your things then,” he said.
“Things?” Margery said dryly. “I am wearing them, my lord.”
“God’s teeth, woman!” the laird swore softly. “You cannot ride as you are. If I miss my guess those ragged bits you are wearing are the same garments you were taken in from Stanton.”
“They are,” Margery said. “You didn’t expect the old miser upstairs to expend a ha’penny on a servant, did you? His wife, God assoil the poor soul, was about my size, but when she died he took her gowns and sold them all in the market. He might have given me one, for it would have cost him naught, and they were old and well-worn, but he could only think of what he might gain. I’d ride naked to your Cleit just to escape that man and this cold stone house of his.”
“You can have my cloak for modesty’s sake,” the laird said, taking it off and putting it about the woman’s shoulders. “Come along now. No need for good-byes.”
Margery followed him up the stairs and out into the sunshine, where Duncan sat upon his mount, holding two horses. The laird helped the older woman to mount, and then climbed into his own saddle. It wasn’t until they were several minutes past Willie Douglas’s house that he told his brother of what had transpired. Duncan was shocked.
“And the bastard says he’s going to remarry,” the laird noted. He looked to Margery. “Who is the unfortunate bride?” he asked her.
“The lass is the daughter of a farmer who owes Willie Douglas money,” Margery said. “She ran away once, but her father sent Douglas after the poor little wench. When he caught her he bedded her, with her da’s permission. To make certain, he said, that she didn’t run again, and understood she would be his wife whether she wished it or not. I can still hear her weeping after he had taken her virginity. And later he bragged to me that when he brought her home he and the lass’s father took turns beating her until she fainted. They are only waiting for her to heal enough so they can go to the priest. Between that devil’s rough lovemaking and the beating the girl received, she cannot yet walk.”
“Why did you remain?” Duncan asked curiously.
“When my service was up his wife still lived. She was
a good soul, and so happy to have another woman in the house to keep her company and look after her. And then she died six months ago, and where was I to go, my lord? I would not even know how to return to my cottage at Stanton.” She looked to the laird. “Tell me of my sister and the lady Adair. They are well?”
“They are,” he assured her. “Adair is now my wife, and we have recently had a son. She said if I were pleased with her, would I go and fetch you to come to Cleit.”
Margery cackled. “And so you have, my lord, and I thank you. I do not think I could have lived in that house much longer, and I probably would have taken a knife to Willie Douglas once he was wed and mistreat-ing that poor lass again.”
The two men chuckled at her pithy comment.
“You will need time to recover your health, Mistress Margery,” the laird said. “But then I know it would please us all if you would enter my service. I am no great lord, and Cleit is not a grand place, but you will have a warm home, good food, new garments when you need them, and the companionship of your sister.”
“I would like to return to Stanton, to my own little cottage if I might, for they did not destroy the village that day we were taken,” Margery said.
“Regain your health first, and then decide,” the laird suggested to her. He would let his wife and Elsbeth tell Margery of Stanton.
They reached Cleit just after sunset. And seeing each other for the first time in almost three years Elsbeth and Margery burst into fulsome tears, weeping upon each other’s neck in their joy at the reunion. The laird found his wife in the hall nursing their son.
“Should you be here?” he asked her. “You have just had a bairn, my honey love.”
“I had Murdoc carry me down,” Adair said. “I woke up, you were gone, and it was lonely in our bedchamber.
Where have you been all day?”
“Duncan and I sought out Willie Douglas and
brought Margery back with us. She is in the kitchens now with Elsbeth, and they are both weeping at being together again,” Conal Bruce told Adair. “Thank God you thought of her. Douglas is remarrying and planned to throw her out. He’s a mean brute. The poor woman was still in the clothes he took her in that day, and they are beyond rags. I gave her my cloak so she might ride without embarrassment.”
Adair’s eyes filled with tears. “I should have thought of her sooner,” she replied.
“She said the same thing,” the laird answered his wife with a grin.
An hour later the two sisters came up from the kitchens. Conal Bruce was pleased to see that Margery had been able to bathe, and was wearing one of Elsbeth’s linen skirts and a clean blouse. She was much thinner than her sister, but the laird suspected that in time, with enough to eat, Margery would regain herself again.
Margery went right to Adair and curtsied. “Thank you, my lady, for rescuing me and reuniting me with Elsbeth. I do not know what would have happened to me if you had not. I had no idea where you both were, and if I had I would not have known how to find you. I am grateful you remembered me.”
“I am ashamed I did not bring you to Cleit sooner,”
Adair said.
“Elsbeth has told me of Stanton,” Margery replied.
“Will you remain with us then?” Adair asked her.
“Your sister could use your help, as I have taken Flora from her household duties to be my bairn’s nurse.”
“I will stay, and I am glad for the home you offer me,”
Margery said. Then she looked at the infant at Adair’s breast.
“He’s a big laddie”—she nodded—“and bound to get bigger with his great appetite.”
Adair laughed and brushed the top of her son’s dark
head with an indulgent finger. “Aye, he’ll be a big lad,”
she agreed.
The summer passed, slipping into autumn. Cleit Keep stood vigilant on its hilltop. His household was running smoothly, and Adair was up and about again. Conal Bruce began to consider that perhaps her concern over Stanton was now forgotten. But then one evening as they concluded a game of chess before the hall fire she spoke of it.
“Ramsay is still raiding,” Adair said. “We need to rid the border of this scourge, and I need to close the book on Stanton, Conal. We must send to the Hepburns at Hailes, and to Lord Home, and your brother, the laird of Duffdour, so we may decide how best to accomplish this.”
“Why are you so determined?” he wanted to know. “I thought with Robbie’s birth you had decided to put the past behind you.”
“I cannot do that until I have destroyed every vestige of what was once Stanton,” Adair replied quietly. “Have you learned nothing about me but that I am a pleasing bed partner, Conal? I had thought better of you than that.”
The rebuke both stung and annoyed him. “I do not see why you must go gallivanting over the border into England. If you need this thing done then we will do it for you. Why must you go? There could be fighting.
There will be fighting. I cannot put you in that danger, my honey love,” the laird told her.
Adair sighed deeply. “Before I was your
honey love
, Conal, I was Adair Radcliffe, the Countess of Stanton.
And that is why I must be involved. If I were a man you would understand this reasoning.”
He laughed ruefully. “Perhaps it is because I cannot see you as a man,” he said.
Now it was Adair who laughed, and then she grew
serious. “My honor is as important as any man’s, Conal.
The Welsh usurper now lording it over England has tar-nished that honor, my family’s honor, Stanton’s honor, by allowing a traitor to find shelter on my lands while he causes havoc and destruction on the other side of the border. Henry Tudor does it more to irritate King James, who has much responsibility in his quest to bring a just peace to Scotland and to make it a prosperous place for all its people. James Stewart cannot be dis-tracted by this border nonsense, yet he cannot ignore it and be called fair. And if Ramsay of Balmain is this eager to get his revenge, then just raiding is not all he has in mind. I will wager he is in contact with other malcontents like himself who have as yet said little, but will strike out at King James given the opportunity.”
“What of our son? You cannot take him with you if you do this thing, but neither can you leave him to starve,” the laird said. “Your place is with Robbie.”
“Do not presume to tell me my place,” Adair said in a tone that bordered on the dangerous. “And if you were so concerned with our son you would know that I brought a wet nurse in from the village over the hill a month ago. Grizel knew of her. A young widow who lost both her child and her man recently.”
“Is it safe to let our son nurse from the teat of a woman who lost a bairn she was nursing?” Conal demanded.
“The bairn was almost two. He strayed from his mam into a meadow, and was trampled by a heifer fleeing a randy bull. When his father ran to rescue the lad the bull caught him up on his horns, and the poor man had his neck broken when he fell back to the ground,”
Adair said icily. “The wet nurse’s milk is healthy, as was her son until this terrible tragedy. The lass was desolate until Grizel thought to bring her to the keep. Our son is thriving at her breast. And my milk is now almost all dried up.”
He was amazed by this news. How could he have not
noticed this change in his household? But he hadn’t. He had come to rely upon Adair’s judgment. The house and the servants were her responsibility. More than ever he was coming to realize that she was a stubborn woman determined to have her own way in certain matters. She was not going to rest, nor would she give him any peace, until she had done what she must. “I will send messengers out tomorrow to the Hepburns, the Homes, and the Armstrongs,” he said. “We’ll need a large force. The king will undoubtedly pay a goodly reward for Ramsay of Balmain,” the laird decided.
“We should do the king a greater service and save his treasury if we saw that Ramsay of Balmain died in the fighting,” Adair said dryly.
Conal Bruce looked sharply at his wife. “I had no idea you could be so fierce, my honey love,” he told her.
“Did you not, my lord?” Adair arose from her chair and settled herself onto his lap, kissing his mouth softly as she did. Her fingers unlaced his shirt, and her hand slipped beneath the linen to caress his warm flesh. She pushed the shirt open as wide as she could and, bending her head, began to lick provocatively at his nipples.
Sliding a hand beneath her skirt he trailed it slowly up her leg to the junction where her thighs met. He played across the warm, silky flesh, finally pushing a single finger between her nether lips to tease her sensitive little love jewel. He yelped softly as her teeth nipped at him. His lance was at the ready. “Ride me, you wicked witch,” he murmured into her ear, licking it for emphasis. Moving his hand from under her gown, he enclosed her waist with his hand, and positioned her so that she sat facing him. Pushing her skirts up, he waited eagerly for her to free his manhood, and when she had she mounted him. He groaned as he felt himself slowly entering her hot, wet sheath.
Her palms flat upon his shoulders for balance, Adair encased him within her fevered body. She had kept him at arm’s length since Robbie’s birth some three months
ago, but now she was ready once again for passion. She felt him unlacing her gown to pull it down to her waist.
He fondled her full breasts eagerly, and she leaned back with the pleasure beginning to flow through her. He bent his head and took a nipple in his mouth. The jolt that tore through her surprised her. Her nipples were so incredibly sensitive. She moaned and began to ride him slowly, slowly, until he released her nipple and found her mouth with his, his lips possessing hers in a heated debate. Their wet tongues entwined themselves about each other as she continued to ride him. She could feel him within her, swollen, throbbing, and oh, so hot! Her eyes closed. She leaned back to let him go deeper, little mewling noises coming from her throat as she approached the apex of her pleasure. And then she felt that almost imperceptible quiver as his manhood stiffened a final time. They both cried out as they met at the pinnacle. Then Adair fell forward onto his neck and, his own head pressed against her shoulder, he enclosed her in his arms.
Finally, after some moments, he said, “Will you always do this when I give you your own way, my honey love?”
“Always,” Adair promised him, laughing weakly.
“God’s blood, I have missed our couplings!” She arose from his lap on weak legs, falling back into his arms.
“Lace my gown,” she said. “We are fortunate not to have been caught at our pleasure by anyone.”
He complied with her request, saying, “It is not too late to retire to our bedchamber, my honey love.”
“You wish to continue this interlude?” she said with a small smile.
“Aye,” he replied.
“I will tell Annie to take our bairn and his cradle in with her tonight,” Adair said.
“Who the hell is Annie?” he asked.
“The wet nurse,” Adair answered him.
“Then most certainly tell Annie to take the lad and his cradle with her. I’ll even move it myself. Where does she sleep?”
“There is a small chamber upstairs at the end of our hall,” Adair told him. “It is cool in summer, and warm and cozy now that the autumn is on us.” She held out her hand. “Let us go and tell Annie,” she said.
The passion between them had returned stronger than it had ever been. And true to his word, the laird sent messengers out the following morning to his allies; Hercules Hepburn, Andrew Home—one of Lord Home’s sons
and Duncan Armstrong arrived the day afterward.