Authors: Patricia McAllister
Merry impatiently rapped her jeweled fan upon the windowsill of the coach, and Jem’s fleeting muse passed under his lady’s summons. He almost laughed. A comparison of the two redheads’ volatile natures was bound to be accurate, as well.
“How much extra time will a detour cost us, Jem?”
Jem looked to the peasant he had waylaid for directions. The other man provided a hedging estimate that only increased Mistress Tanner’s anxiety.
“’Twill never serve,” Merry fretted aloud. “We cannot risk so great a delay. A missive came from Father before I left Falcon’s Lair, and my betrothed is at Whitehall. He may head home any day. I cannot risk the chance of missing him.”
“Surely he would linger long enough to make your acquaintance, miss.” Jem knew she had never met her intended. Tanner curiosity being a natural trait, he knew the prospect of not meeting her future lord husband until the day of the wedding did not rest easy with Mistress Merry.
“Aye, I am sure he would if he could, but the borders are so dangerous nowadays, and he daren’t leave Braidwood unattended err long.”
As she spoke, Merry absently toyed with a flaming curl which had escaped her coiffure. Jem saw the peasant lad’s cautious if somewhat dazed admiration. Mistress Tanner was no beauty by Tudor standards, red hair accounted unfashionable and her features a trifle sharp for a woman’s, but there was no denying her sheer force of presence.
She did not blend into the background, but rather dominated it. Her traveling gown of cream-and-green silk velvet suited her fair complexion, as did her fawn-colored cloak, though her coloring was presently heightened in proportion to her distress.
“It simply cannot be endured,” Merry said firmly. “Jem, we must press on. Proceed cautiously if need be, but I remind you we must needs make haste once the road has cleared.”
Jem frowned at this order. “There is great risk the coach might become bogged, miss.”
“Far greater risk of Her Grace’s wrath should I fail to appear by the appointed hour. You should know by now our queen’s moods flux with the wind, Jem.”
He nodded. “Yet Her Majesty has always been most benevolent with you, miss.”
Merry smiled at Jem’s words. It was true she stood high in Elizabeth Tudor’s favor. She had followed in her paternal grandmother’s footsteps, carving out a cozy niche for herself among the ranks of the chosen few. Only Essex and perhaps her uncle occupied greater favor at present, merely because they were men and so could lavish Her Grace with jewels and romantic sonnets.
But she had also heard rumor before leaving Whitehall that Elizabeth was annoyed with Robert Devereux. Something to do with Ireland. A tiresome topic in itself in Merry’s opinion, who, although half-Irish herself, was never desirous of being reminded of it.
Reluctantly, Jem bowed to her demand. He had learned long ago never to argue with a Tanner. By virtue of blood or by sheer tenacity, somehow they always won.
* * *
AS THE COACH SET off with a bone-jarring lurch through the thick spring mud, Merry settled back into the plush velvet cushions with a sigh.
Bad enough she had darted hither and yon upon her sister’s whims over the past months, finally coming to Wales to effect a truce between Lord Trelane and her dear, proud, stubborn little Kat, but now her own future was at stake because she had lingered overlong.
Merry shuddered. The miserable, wet weather did not aid her mood nor her outlook on life in general. Despite her happiness for her twin, something in her nature prompted a twinge of envy for Kat’s position. Not just the title she had claimed by the act of wedding Morgan Trelane, but the love itself. It shone so clearly in Kat’s beautiful green eyes whenever she spoke about her dark Welsh lord.
Merry was cut of far different cloth from her twin sister, however. She would never risk life and limb to sail upon the high seas like some feckless pirate wench, nor brazenly go into a house of God disguised as another woman so she might wed the man she loved. Part of her had always envied Kat that fearless stance. It was the Irish showing through, Merry reasoned, for all their maternal kin were as feisty and daring, their mother Bryony no exception.
Merry had never felt she belonged among the boisterous clans folk. Despite her flaming hair, and her birth name, Erin, she was like a delicate English rose among the brooding, brawling lot at Raven Hall. Her practical nature longed for manners and order and a good, stiff dose of cleanliness. On her first visit to England she felt she had come home.
Hence Merry, a misfit among the brash Irish clan of relatives, seized upon her sensible English relations with relief. Caution, practicality, and common sense were something she understood. So were wit and the ability to entertain, for if she had inherited nothing else from her Irish ancestors she was quick with a line and clever to a fault. In this respect she resembled her beloved uncle Kit, long one of Elizabeth’s favorites.
Sir Christopher Tanner wielded influence at Court, and was able to win his niece audience with the queen upon her very first visit.
The two redheads in tandem had charmed Her Grace so thoroughly that Merry was offered a position as maid-of-honor right then and there. A rare honor for one so young and untried. Merry prettily begged her doting sire to let her remain at Whitehall and serve the queen, and since Slade Tanner could refuse his daughters nothing, Merry had entered the dazzling world of the Tudor Court at the tender age of fourteen.
Like her paternal grandmother before her, she quickly became one of the few trusted females surrounding the proud, vainglorious Elizabeth Tudor.
Merry’s practical nature had long ago accepted the fact she was no beauty; hence Her Grace did not feel threatened, either, though Bess was known to make a pert comment or two about Merry’s youthful inexperience.
A trusting nature did not equate with naďveté, however. Merry was used to courtly intrigue and the ofttimes cruel little plots which simmered beneath the lively, colorful Tudor arena. Surely Rome herself had never seen the like of so many bishops, knights, and petty pawns always jockeying for position and influence and wealth. Merry found it all thrilling and terrifying and so very suited to her curious and extroverted nature.
How Lady Fortune had smiled on her the day she set foot on precious English soil! She gazed out the coach window at the dreary Welsh countryside, wishing the coach might somehow magically sprout wings and rush her home. The dark hinterlands of Her Grace’s realm had never appealed to Merry, and she detested the annual sojourn through humble villages and squalid country shires.
She longed to be back at Whitehall, surrounded by adoring courtiers and her fellow maidens in service to the queen … to dance and laugh and while away the hours in the company of a wicked-tongued knave or an overbold swain.
How she had missed such revelries when shut up in her brother-in-law’s dour Falcon’s Lair. Establishing some sort of order amid the chaos reigning in the dreary Welsh keep had kept her mind occupied for a few days, but Merry was easily bored, and challenges, once met, failed to keep her interest any longer.
She sighed and impatiently drummed her fingertips upon the padded armrest. She disliked travel in general, finding it tiresome and tedious, but there would be much required by way of travel as the wife of a border baron.
The disadvantage, of course, was she would be far removed from her beloved Court, but mayhap after providing her lord husband with an heir and a spare, he would permit her to travel as a matron lady with Her Majesty’s retinue. Failing that, Merry was determined to make Braidwood as famous as Whitehall in its own neck of the woods, and hence bring the gaiety and laughter she so loved home to roost in her own hall.
Her head gradually fell back against the cushioned seat, a dreamy half-smile touching her lips despite the coach subjecting her to numerous jolts along the rutted road. She felt the weariness of travel descending over her like a tattered cloak, and closed her eyes for but a moment dreaming of Braidwood, her future home, and the eloquent and fashionable lord she would soon call her own.
Chapter Three
“HO!”
A hoarse shout and excited whinny of horses roused Merry from her slumber with a start. With a cross exclamation she leaned forward to peer out the window but reeled backward as the coach suddenly lurched into a pell-mell pace. Her right shoulder impacted the elegantly scrolled wood frame on the door. As she gasped with pain and outrage, she heard more voices above the furious rattling of the coach’s wheels and the thundering, splashing hooves.
Gripping the edge of the window, she braced herself long enough to push aside the swaying velvet curtains and take in the scene. What she saw made her pale. Four men rode low over their horses’ necks, easily pacing the coach as it rumbled and shuddered over the rutted country road. They did not appear deterred by Jem’s angry shouts, nor did their intent waver when the coach suddenly veered off onto a narrow path as Jem attempted to elude the pursuers.
Merry’s wide-eyed gaze took in their pursuers. She was accustomed to sizing others up with a court-trained glance, and this motley bunch boded no good.
Two appeared ordinary footpads, unwashed and unkempt, lean and hungry as wolves. Another was a veritable giant, roughly dressed out in woolen braies and dirty shirt, his shaggy yellow hair no cleaner than the rest of him. He dwarfed the stout pony he rode, great thighs clamped against his heaving mount’s sides, a broad and roguish grin splitting his coarse features.
Merry shuddered and glanced to the last man. The fourth ruffian appeared a mere boy on closer inspection, a comely youth clad in black breeches that outlined somewhat gangly legs, and a cloak of matching black wool. A froth of white lace at his throat cast an incongruous light upon what otherwise appeared to be a simple highwayman, and Merry frowned. For a moment fear was supplanted by curiosity, and a burning desire to seize yon grinning knave and throttle him till his brain rattled in his skull.
Then she heard Jem swear emphatically, over the din and confusion.
“Milady, brace yourself—”
His warning barely reached her before Merry pitched violently forward, her momentum stopped only by the opposing seat. She slammed into the cushions and slid in a heap to the floor. Suddenly there came a terrible scream, a horse’s shrill bugle of pain. The coach buckled on its wheels, spinning sideways down a small embankment, hurling Merry and the rest of its contents to one side, the same side it came to rest upon after it struck the muddied earth.
After the crash, there was a long spell of silence. Merry stirred, conscious throughout the events but too crumpled and filled with pain to care. She heard a murmur of male voices and decided she only imagined the concern in their tones.
Her hand scrabbled weakly, desperately, around the upended coach, searching the door that had now become her resting place, looking for something, anything which she might raise in faint defense against the brigands who had set upon them. If only she had listened to her mother. Bryony Tanner had tried, time and again, to persuade her daughter to carry a little dagger in the Celtic fashion of self-defense, but Merry abhorred weapons and had refused.
For it was certain she was part of the men’s motives now. Waylaying and robbing fine coaches was but a pleasant pastime in some of the rougher outlying districts, and Merry knew how foolish she had been to venture forth with no more escort than her uncle’s driver. Not only was it highly improper she was alone with Jem, but one retainer was scarcely adequate defense against footpads, scoundrels, and the like.
Her fumbling fingers found the overturned satin box housing her jewelry collection, which she had not allowed Jem to pack atop the coach with the other baggage. The silken cord tying the box shut had broken loose, and Merry saw the glitter of semiprecious stones and gold strands flung about the coach from the corner of her eye. Mayhap the baubles could buy her and Jem a precious moment more of life, if not spare them altogether. Or … did she not have a brooch or two among the hoards? A brooch with a sharp pin …
“Christ’s wounds!”
Someone swore roundly, the voice very near, and Merry’s heart quickened its pace. She was afraid to move, lest the coach rock and betray the fact she was alive and relatively unhurt.
The male voice continued, sounding young, agitated. “I never expected the idiot to drive off the main road, Hugo.”
Merry heard a rather distant grunt in response, and surmised it must be the blond giant whose evil delight in their mischief-making pursuit had been apparent.
“By all the bloody hounds of hell, what do we do now?”
Merry might have laughed had her stays not dug painfully in her ribs with each breath and was she not so outraged and pensive. The uncertainty in the youth’s voice gave her pause, however, and faint cause for hope.
She thought she heard a nearby splash of horses’ hooves through the thick mud. She heard a panicked shout as a pair of horses galloped off. She heard the younger man groan with what seemed either dread or resignation. For some reason she imagined him sitting forlornly on a tree stump, face buried in his hands.
“Of all the cutty luck!”
“Yet you do not seem surprised, Gil.”
The second voice that spoke was deeper, and resonated with authority and a faint trace of wry humor. “Did you suppose I could not follow the wide swath of destruction and rampant rumor you and stout Hugo left throughout hill and dale?”
“Nay.” Merry pictured the youth’s head hanging low. Certainly he sounded humble and contrite enough in the presence of … could it be his overlord?
“Fortunately your ill-chosen friends decided not to toy with my temper today. We’ll talk later.” The one in charge switched to a brusque tone that suggested he was not used to being gainsaid. Immediately orders were given. “Hugo, see to the driver. Check for broken bones before you move him, and for God’s sake don’t forget your own brutish strength.”
Expecting a bellow or sneer of rage at the crisply worded command, Merry was surprised to hear a respectful chorus of mutters instead from the two remaining men.