“Wrong? What can you know about it? And how the devil did you escape? By Heaven, I’ll have answers to that, and my men will rue the day that—”
Meeting his gaze at last, she said, “Do not blame your men, sir. They took their cue from you. You never told them to treat me like a prisoner, and you have rarely done so yourself. You trusted my word, and I promise, you can still do so. I am as much your hostage today as I ever was.”
“A proper hostage does not cross back into Scotland when she is pledged to remain in England, lass. I told you that you were to stay inside the castle, and you promised to do so.”
“Not really,” she said, looking down again. “You asked if I understood you, and I said that I did, but I never promised to stay inside the walls. Even so,” she added hastily, “I pledged to remain your hostage, and I have. Surely, you know that you can trust me as much as your Queen trusts the Laird of Buccleuch when she allows him to hunt and gamble with his Berwick jailers.”
His jaw tightened. “We are not discussing Buccleuch,” he said. “I want to know how the men who stole my cattle came by a note in your hand—a most impertinent note, I might add.”
She nibbled her lower lip. Speaking the truth was harder than she had thought it would be. “Well,” she said at last, exchanging a quick look with Andrew, “the truth is that I rode into Scotland once before today.”
Sir Hugh also looked at Andrew. After a momentary silence, during which Laurie noted with admiration that Andrew did not attempt to avoid that stern gaze, Hugh said, “What have you to say about this, lad?”
Andrew licked his lips nervously, but his voice was steady when he said, “I do nobbut what the mistress asks of me, master. I did think she were daft when she said she believed them what told her the reivers are no men o’ Liddesdale, but she be right about our lads no seeing ’em.”
“You go and find Ned Rowan and do as he bids you.”
“Rowan must not punish him,” Laurie interjected hastily.
“Tell him that I’ll talk to you about all this later,” Hugh added.
“And what about Sym?” Laurie demanded as Andrew turned slowly away. “You must let him go back to his people, sir. He did no more than… than what I asked him to do,” she added with a gulp.
“I see,” Hugh said, shooting a look at her from under his brows that boded no good. “Tell Ned I want him,” he told Andrew.
The boy left, and a moment later, Rowan returned. “Aye, master?”
“Send that boy Sym home to his people,” Hugh said. “It seems that he was no more than the messenger he said he was, and regardless of what
some
might think, I do
not
make war on children.”
“Aye, sir,” Rowan said. “D’ye want me to tend to young Andrew now?”
“Nay, he did only as he was commanded. I’ll deal with the true culprit myself.” Dismissing Rowan with a gesture, Hugh said nothing for a long moment, and Laurie felt her knees weaken.
When he still said nothing, she blurted, “I never did run away. You must see that much, and you cannot have any notion how hard it was for me to come to you like this today. If you had any heart at all, you would surely—”
“Be silent,” he snapped. “You behave as though you think you have done something noble in coming here. I see only a hostage who ran off without my permission, and I promise you, Scrope would see it my way.”
“But I came because you had taken Sym, because you insist on believing that the raiders are Rabbie’s Bairns or the people of Tarras Wood, and they are not!”
“I told you to be silent. You can know nothing about Rabbie Redcloak or his activities. You know only what his men tell you, and they are probably lying to protect themselves. Furthermore, you persist in refusing to see your own danger, Laura. Do you not know that I would merely be complying with Border law if I were to hang you for escaping and Andrew for assisting you? Scrope will insist on both if he learns about this.”
“But—”
He closed the distance between them and grabbed her by the shoulders, giving her a shake as he said, “Listen to me! I cannot protect you from Scrope and his like if you continue to defy me.”
She stared up at him, hardly aware of his words, conscious only of his hands grasping her, of his body so near. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she knew that she ought to be afraid, but she felt no fear. She saw the harsh look in his eyes soften and felt a tremor in the hands holding her.
Putting one hand gently against his chest, the way she might have tried to soothe a nervous horse, she was surprised to feel the rough cloth of his jacket. At some point, she had taken off her gloves, but she did not remember when or where.
He ignored her hand, tightening his grip as he said, “Do you not realize that he would blame me, too, lass? He would point out, just as you did, that I failed to make it plain to my people that you are a hostage.”
She knew that he was not concerned for himself. “If I have learned anything,” she said, “I have learned that the notion of a hostage depends on what men wish it to mean. For example, when it pleased Scrope to call me your wife, he cannot have expected you to keep me locked up. A man does not lock up his wife—at least, in Scotland, he generally does not.”
“The fact that Scrope himself insists on calling you my wife hardly helps matters, but he would not care about that. Indeed, I cannot doubt that he meant to muddy the water when he did that, hoping I would treat you differently from the way I would treat a male hostage, just so that he could accuse me of being soft.”
“Well, I do not know what you mean, exactly, inasmuch as one knows how James and Elizabeth both treated Buccleuch,” Laurie said thoughtfully. “You could hardly have kept me locked in a dungeon all this time.”
“I
couldn’t,” Hugh said with emphasis. “But if Scrope learns that you have been riding out and about the countryside, even into Scotland, he will say that I gave you a free rein, and I could not deny it. You also have put Andrew and the others in grave danger, Laura. If Scrope insists that I hang you, he will also insist that I hang Andrew. Recall that the lad had already drawn his lordship’s ire. As to Geordie and the others—”
“Now you are being nonsensical,” Laurie said. It was hard to think with him holding her, but if she had learned anything about Sir Hugh Graham it was that he would protect his own and that he was capable of doing so. He might not want her as his wife, but he had taken her under his protection when he agreed to hold her as a hostage for May. She did not believe that he would let Scrope or anyone else hang her if he could help it. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I am going to send you straight back to Brackengill and order you locked in your bedchamber,” he said. His hands tensed as he spoke, and for a moment, she thought he would shake her again.
She was a little disappointed when he didn’t. Instead, he released her, doing so slowly, as if he were concentrating on the movement, being sure that he let go.
“Who rode here with you?” he growled, taking a step back.
When she did not reply at once, his eyes narrowed.
“I thought they told you,” she said then. “I came with Andrew.”
Color surged into his face, and she saw his hands clench and knew that he wanted to grab her again. This time, she was just as glad that he did not.
“Andrew? No one else? Are you mad, Laura?”
She nearly told him that Davy Elliot had followed her, that he had shown her how to load Andrew’s pistol, and that the boy was armed, but she knew that none of those things would cool his hot temper. She did not want to land the boy in even more trouble, nor did she want Hugh to take his precious pistol away.
Forcing calm that she did not feel, she said, “I am not mad, sir. If you will but think, you must realize that alone with a lad like Andrew I was far safer than I’d have been had I somehow persuaded Geordie to send an armed escort with me.”
She saw that he did not agree with her, but before he could explain how wrong she was, she added, “I never could have persuaded Geordie, in any event. My people are important to me, sir, just as yours are important to you. Once I knew that you had Sym, I had to come. He was with me that day in the tree. I care deeply about his welfare.”
Hugh straightened, and she could tell that he had made his decision and would not easily be swayed from it. A chill touched her.
He said, “I will take you back to Brackengill myself. Henceforth, until the matter is settled before a jury, you will remain there. I should have made matters plain to my people from the outset. I will not make that error again.”
He did not look at her, but she had already seen the new expression in his eyes, and the thought that she had given him pain tore at her. She admired his sense of honor and the compassion that she had seen him display, but presently those two traits were causing his pain, and she could blame only herself for that.
The least she could do now was to conceal her distress from him. He was doing what he thought was right, and knowing that he did not want to do it troubled her, but it also gave her the strength not to fight him anymore.
He gathered what men he could spare from Corbies Nest, leaving Ned Rowan in charge of those he left behind. Andrew rode with them, just behind Hugh and Laurie, and they rode southeast toward the crossing at Kershopefoot, the safest and easiest place to cross into England. They were riding alongside Liddel Water, quite near the place where Martin Loder had gone into the Liddel, and Sir Hugh had just asked Laurie to fall behind a bit because he wanted a few private words with Andrew, when a shout from behind drew their attention.
To Laurie’s surprise, the rider was Sym, and he galloped his pony up to them as boldly as if he had not been Sir Hugh’s prisoner just a few hours before.
As Sym drew rein, Hugh frowned, saying curtly, “What do you want?”
“Please, sir, me dad said I was to tell Mistress Laurie that there be raiders on the move on the English side. Ye’d all gone from Corbies Nest, but your man Rowan said he’d heard there might be raiders after your herd. He said he’d already sent a man after ye but that I should ride after ye, too, and tell ye so, although I dinna think he believed a word I tellt him,” Sym added with a grimace.
Hugh looked from Laurie to the boy and back again, saying, “More of your tricks, lass? Because, by Heaven, if this is another of them, I’ll take a strap to that pretty backside of yours as soon as we reach Brackengill. I don’t doubt I should have done so long since.”
She shook her head. “I know naught of this, sir. Who are the raiders, Sym?”
“I dinna ken, Mistress Laurie, but Davy did say ’twas Ally the Bastard wha’ saw them, and Ally said they be English, not Scot—out o’ Tynedale, most like.”
Sardonically, Hugh said, “Just what would this Ally the Bastard be doing to see raiders on the English side? And where is the messenger Ned Rowan sent after us. Answer me that, lad.”
Sym shrugged. “I dinna ken, but Ally didna say nothing about your herd, sir. Only Rowan did. Ally said only that he’d seen raiders and that Mistress Laurie should know about ’em afore she rode back to Brackengill.”
“Why did he send you?”
“’Cause me dad said ye’d be more like to believe it were true if I was the one to tell ye. He said ye’d ken that I’d no be putting me head in the lion’s den twice in a day were I no telling the truth.”
“I do not doubt that they want me to believe you,” Hugh said. He looked around at the little party. “I dare not ignore the warning,” he said to the nearest of his men. “The lad will stay with us. Four of you can ride on ahead to see if aught is amiss at Haggbeck and to warn them to keep a sharp eye out for raiders. The rest of us will stay out of the open by riding through Kershopefoot Forest to Bewcastle. We’ll seek beds there and ride on to Brackengill in the morning.”
Accordingly, he selected the four men to ride on, told Sym to ride beside Laurie because he still wanted to have a talk with Andrew, then led what remained of his little party through the village of Kershope, across the little burn that marked the line, and into the shelter of the forest on the English side.
The attack came twenty minutes later without warning, as men dropped from trees and riders surged out of the shrubbery to surround them, lashing out with clubs and swords. Gunshots rang out, several of Sir Hugh’s men fell, and Laurie lost sight of both Hugh and Andrew when a number of attackers cut her off from them.
Finding herself still next to Sym, she quickly bent near him to say, “Get clear of this if you can, laddie. Take shelter in a tree as we did before, and then get to Davy and go with him to Sir Quinton at Broadhaugh. Tell them that I know not who these villains are but that they are none of ours, and we need help!”
Seeing him tumble from his pony moments later, she feared that he had been wounded but stifled her cry when she saw him roll into thick undergrowth and disappear. A moment later, she saw a man strike Sir Hugh from behind with a club, just as a man grabbed her reins from her hand and another wrapped a strong arm around her waist and held her. Although she kicked and fought, they held her so easily that one or the other of them even dared to fondle her breasts.
Within moments, they had tied her hands and bound a cloth sack over her head. Thus, although she was still on her own saddle, she could not see what direction they rode. Nor, although she strained her ears to hear just one familiar voice, could she hear any that she recognized. Terrified that Sir Hugh and Andrew were both dead, she did not try to stem the tears that streamed down her cheeks. After a time, exhausted, she slumped forward over her pony’s neck and slept.
The cat she came to my cage-door,
The thief I could not see…
L
AURIE’S CAPTORS SPOKE LITTLE,
their pace was leisurely, and she slept until they stopped riding. Someone lifted her from her saddle and slung her over his shoulder, still tied and blindfolded, but she could tell that he went indoors and began descending stairs. The sounds of boots on the steps told her that the steps were made of stone and that others followed them, but she knew no more than that until the man carrying her set her on her feet.