Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy Two 02] (25 page)

When he closed and locked the anteroom door, then went to the opposite door and looked into the hall, she was sure she had guessed correctly.

“Are they there?”

“Not yet,” he said, shutting and bolting that door, as well.

A warning tickle touched the base of her spine.

“Why did you lock both doors?”

“Because I have something to say to you,” he said. “And I do not want anyone to interrupt us whilst I’m saying it.”

She opened her mouth to tell him he had no business locking himself in a room with her, but his grim expression silenced her before the words got out.

“You were a fool to slap him,” he said. “I warned you not to do that.”

“He made me angry when he spoiled my ride,” she retorted. “Then he made me angrier by insisting that he could easily make me
forget
my anger just by giving me
pleasure
. That’s what he said, ‘pleasure.’ ”

“When I told you not to slap him, I explained that a man who has already proven he is no gentleman is likely to become infuriated if a woman slaps his face. I showed you a better way, and I told you to scream. You could also have run away from him had you hit him
where
I showed you.”

“He was too close to me to do aught else,” she snapped, in no mood to listen to such strictures. “He was touching me, too, in a place he had no right to touch me. I just reacted, and I just never even
thought
about screaming.”

“Molly-lass, I—”

“
Don’t
call me that! And
don’t
say any more.”

“But I—”

“Men! You are
all
horrid. I think you should all be kept in cages!”

Turning on her heel, she stomped to the door to the corridor and reached for the bolt, but he caught her shoulder just as Sir Harald had, albeit more gently, and she reacted without thought.

Because she had reached with her right hand for the bolt, he grabbed her left shoulder, and when he turned her, her right arm still extended toward the bolt.

Something inside her snapped at the thought that he was treating her just as Boyd had, and that Garth, too, assumed he had the right to scold and command her.

Her right hand fisted tightly as she whirled, and she jabbed it forward with all her anger behind it, straight to the target, just as she had practiced and practiced.

She was too quick for him to catch her fist, but he managed to turn enough to deflect the force of her jab and to catch hold of her wrist right after she struck him.

As quick as thought, he backed two steps to the nearest bench, sat on it, and pulled her sharply facedown across his knees.

Although she struggled furiously and cried out at him, neither did her any good. He smacked her three times, hard, on the backside.

“But I just did what you told me to,” she protested angrily as he released her. Scrambling awkwardly to her feet, resisting the temptation to rub the part that hurt, she said, “You
told
me I should have clouted Simon when
he
scolded me.”

“I expected you to have better sense than to try it with me,” he retorted. “A good thump may teach a loutish brother to mend his ways, but a woman should never clout a man just for caring about her well-being and telling her the truth.”

“I told you the truth, too,” she said stubbornly.

“Aye, you did, lass,” he said. “I’m not denying that. I could tell how angry you were the minute I stepped out the front door.”

“I never even saw you.”

“I know,” he said. “When I opened the door he was passing you, and you looked at him as he stepped in front of you. Every inch of you said you were angry. I did not wait, because when he put his hands on you, I knew you’d not be strong enough to keep him from doing whatever he chose. I expected you to scream.”

“I was just too angry,” she admitted. “And when I get angry, I must do something. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I have to hit something or throw something or stomp my feet. I wanted to hurt him. By heaven, I’m
still
angry!” Tears filled her eyes, making it hard to see him.

Garth saw her tears but did not react to them. He was afraid he would laugh and really infuriate her. She was definitely not a child, but she had sounded so much like an angry one that it tickled his sense of humor.

“You’re laughing at me,” she said with a sigh, dashing a hand across her eyes. “I warrant I deserve that, too.”

“When I stopped you at the door,” he said gently, “I was going to say that I ought to have taught you a few more things before letting you think you could defend yourself. I’m sorry now that I failed to do that.”

She regarded him soberly, her eyes still glistening, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he warned. “That can have consequences, too, and you are already angry enough with me.”

“What consequences?”

“I’m afraid I’m as bad as Boyd is, lass, just as you said. When you made him angry—if I heard him properly—he wanted to punish you with kisses. I don’t want to punish you anymore, but when you look at me like that, I do want to kiss you.”

“Faith, you
are
just like him. As for your apology, if you were really sorry, you’d be sorry for more than just neglecting to teach me properly.”

“If you are asking me to apologize for putting you over my knee, you will wait a long time for it.
All
actions have consequences, which is why one should think before acting. You did not. In troth, neither did I, but I’ve trained long and hard to react swiftly when attacked, and I did. It would be disingenuous to apologize for that, because given the same circumstances, I’d do it again. So I won’t apologize.”

She continued to gaze at him, and his own words echoed in his mind.

He touched her cheek, stroking with one finger, and when she did not react, he met her accusing gaze and said, “I know it sounds as if we reacted the same way, but we did not. I did nowt but touch your shoulder. You reacted to your own anger, not to mine. I did not deserve your attack.”

She drew a breath, then reached up and took his hand from her cheek but did not let go of it. The temptation to kiss her grew stronger. He wrapped his fingers around hers, and when she did not pull away, he searched her gaze.

She licked her lips again. “I think I should—”

“Wait,” he said as she paused. He’d heard noises of arrival in the hall.

“I can’t wait, or I’ll lose my courage,” she said. “Sithee, I thought it was Simon at first, but now . . . now I don’t know—”

The hall door rattled, and they heard Sibylla’s voice on the other side.

“Faith, but some dolt has bolted this door on the inside,” she declared. “I shall have to go round to open it.”

Putting a finger to his lips, Garth reached past Amalie, opened the door, and urged her ahead of him into the corridor, shutting the door behind him.

When she would have turned toward the entry hall, doubtless to take the main stairs up to her bedchamber, he shook his head and drew her past the service stair to the door into the north wing instead.

Amalie wanted to curse Sibylla.

She did not know why she had chosen that moment to tell Garth she had thought the second man in the room with Fife at Scone had been Simon. Perhaps, she thought, she had wanted to give him something to make up for hitting him. But she had told him, however obliquely, and his mind was quick enough to grasp the gist.

She had to explain.

But as he silently closed the door between the passageway to the north wing and the corridor to the entry hall, she heard Sibylla’s quick footsteps approaching and knew she dared not say a word.

Her heart pounded, and Garth was too close to her for her own comfort. Moreover, her emotions were in a turmoil the likes of which she had not known before. First, she had been pleased with herself and with Garth for besting Sir Harald as they had. Then, instead of expected praise from Garth, she had drawn censure, surprising and angering her. And then he had humiliated her.

Remembering the consequences she had suffered made her swallow hard, but she could no longer blame him for reacting as he had. Much as she would have liked to think their actions were the same and that he had been a beast to punish her, she knew he was right. She had attacked him.

She also believed he had spoken the truth about why he had grasped her shoulder. Knowing he had been about to apologize made her feel even worse.

“Sibylla’s gone into the hall from the anteroom, lass,” he said quietly. “But you’d better let me leave here first. Wait a few moments so I can make sure no one else is likely to intercept you, and then you can use either stairway.”

“But I shouldn’t stay here,” she protested. “Besides, I want to tell you—”

“You’ll have to tell me later,” he interjected. “No one else will come into this passageway. The lads who look after Kenneth’s room and mine use the outer door, never this one, and Kenneth left for the dormer before I went outside.”

“But it wasn’t Simon I heard. I just thought it might be before I got close.”

He said quietly, “I doubt you know what you think right now, but we’ll talk it all out later. Now, we must both go.” With that, he put a hand under her chin, tilted her face up, and kissed her soundly on the lips.

“Loathsome,” she muttered as he opened the door. “
Just
like Sir Harald.”

She thought she detected a smile, but then he was gone, shutting the door behind him. Her lips still burned from the touch of his.

Opening the door to look into the corridor a minute or two later and finding it reassuringly empty, she darted out and up the stairs to her bedchamber, where Bess, the maid who attended her, was sweeping the floor.

“I were just about to go downstairs, me lady. I didna think ye’d be back from your ride so soon.”

“Prithee, fetch my gray kirtle, Bess. I can take off this skirt and tunic by myself, but I need to hurry if I’m to go down and break my fast with the others.”

“Aye, me lady,” the girl said, going quickly to the kist where the gray kirtle lived and pulling it out to give it a good shake.

When Amalie went back downstairs to find the others at the table, Sibylla gave her a look of amusement, making her wonder how much she had guessed. But Isabel looked surprised to see her and said, “Sibylla said you had gone for a ride.”

“I got hungry,” Amalie said, careful to look at neither Garth nor Sibylla.

To her relief, no one else questioned her, and conversation was desultory.

Garth left as soon as he had eaten some beef and bread and drunk a mug of ale. It seemed easier for her to breathe after that, but her emotions refused to settle.

As the day passed, whenever she remembered how abruptly he had pulled her across his knees, anger flamed again.

When she remembered his kiss, her emotions were less predictable. Anger vied with other feelings, some more physical than emotional.

During the midday meal, she ignored him as completely as she ignored Sir Harald. But when the ladies adjourned to the warm, sunny garden afterward, she seemed able to think of nothing that did not immediately lead to Garth. She even wondered if he had noticed that she was ignoring him. Did he care?

Calling herself a fool, she focused on the garment she was mending for Isabel until a gillie came to inform the princess that two riders were approaching.

“Likely, it be nobody, madam, for they carry no banner and one looks more like a lad than a full-grown man. But ye’ve said ye want warning when men come, and the other be one o’ the biggest men I ever saw, so I thought ye’d want to know.”

Amalie’s gaze met Isabel’s as the princess smiled. “I’m thinking you may know them,” she said. “Go and see if you do, and then come tell us the news. If you don’t know them, leave them to Sir Kenneth or Sir Garth and come back.”

Setting aside her mending, hoping the riders were from the Hall with news of Meg’s baby, Amalie shook out her skirt and hurried to the gate. Opening it, she looked into the yard, then snatched up her skirts and ran to meet them.

In the refectory hall of the men-at-arms’ dormer, Garth had also received word of the visitors. He paused long enough to finish issuing orders to the men with him for the afternoon training and then went to see who had come.

As he stepped into the yard, he saw Amalie on tiptoe, her arms tight around the larger man, who gazed down fondly at her, his huge hands lightly touching her shoulders. The other one was a gawky, redheaded lad nearly as tall as she was but less than half the weight of the man she hugged so fiercely.

Garth strode to meet them, saying, “Unhand her ladyship, you ruffian!”

When all three turned toward him, looking by turn guiltily amused, wary, and annoyed, he grinned, put out his hand, and said, “Welcome to Sweethope Hill, Tam. Any other women here you’d like to hug?”

The huge man known by the unlikely name of Jock’s Wee Tammy served as captain of Buccleuch’s fighting tail. He returned Garth’s firm handshake, but his expression turned as wary as the lad’s when Amalie said indignantly, “I was hugging
him
, sir.” On a challenging note, she added, “He is a
very
good friend of mine.”

“Sakes, my lady, have a care,” Tam said. “Ye’ll be havin’ ’im think—”

“You wrong me, Tam,” Garth interjected. “I know you well enough to be sure you’ve been a good friend to her ladyship. But who is this lad with you?”

“I be another o’ her good friends,” the lad said, grinning at Amalie.

As Garth opened his mouth to rebuke such cheekiness, Amalie laughed and said, “You are indeed, Sym, and always will be. This is Sym Elliot,” she added with a brief, cool look at Garth.

“Not Dod Elliot’s youngest brother! Why, the last time I saw you—”

“I grew o’ course, sir,” Sym said, straightening as if he might grow more if he stretched. “I’ll no be as big as Tam, but I mean to grow bigger than Dod.”

There was enough meaning in the words to make Garth smile again. As a bairn, the lad had been a sore burden to his much older brother, who had served as captain of the guard at Raven’s Law, Wat Scott’s beloved peel tower, and now served in the same capacity at Scott’s Hall. Garth could recall more than once when Dod Elliot’s displeasure had resulted in a few painful moments for young Sym.