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The rushes in his hall squished under him and even in the dim lighting the grease-splattered walls and thrown bones from previous meals were visible. He breathed in the smell of damp wood and rotting meat and couldn’t wait to get outside. But his three youngest were crawling on the ground and prodding the rushes with sticks.
‘What do you three do inside on a fine day as this? You should be outside.’
Delight widened their eyes before they rushed to their feet and surrounded his arms and legs. Wiping away his impatience for the delay, he roared, ‘What do we have here?’ They giggled and gripped him even tighter.
Familiar with this game, he crouched down and they immediately climbed on top of him. He lifted all three and clumsily walked outside, where he shook them off.
‘What were you doing on your hands and knees?’ he asked.
The oldest of the three stepped forward eagerly. His heart swelled as he realised it was his daughter Fyfa. She was a brave lass.
‘Papa, we’re removing vermin, just like you wanted!’ she exclaimed.
‘Vermin?’
‘Aye, we heard you wanted to remove the vermin from Scotland, so we thought we’d help you.’
Busby snorted and blinked his eyes. ‘You’re good children, you are, and do your papa proud, but I doona want you crawling. ’Tis not becoming of your station.’
‘But, Papa—’
‘I’ll be obeyed in this. Where is Lioslath? She is to be taking care of you.’
Fyfa pulled a face. ‘She’s cleaning the stables.’
‘Hmmm,’ he growled. His wilful oldest daughter had run the keep since his second wife had died. But she never took care of the softer things, like clean rushes or good food. Always with the horses or in the fields, she was unfit for any marriage although she was of marriageable age.
If only he had a wife!
‘Get along now. I doona want to see you cleaning again.’ He shoved them all towards the fields and waited until they were away before he headed to the stables.
He kicked the rocks at his feet. Blast his betrothed for running! She acted as if she didn’t want to be wed. But wed her he must. He had made a deal with her no-good lying brothers and he would make sure she kept it.
When he had received the invitation from the Colquhouns to meet their sister for a possible betrothal, he had thought they were joking. Everyone in the region knew his second wife had died years ago and had left him with children and a poor keep. No one had ever approached him as a suitor and he had long ago stopped his own fruitless pursuits.
It all should have made him suspicious, but when he had seen their clean profitable castle, tasted well-spiced fare and had been offered twenty sheep, he was eager to get the deal done. Fool that he was.
When his intended had finally been presented to him, her face was puffy and splotched red. Despite this, he assured himself he had made a fine deal and had packed her up along with her belongings.
Now she had run away and before he could even show her the keep or his children!
His keep needed order and a wife could do it. Aye, a wife could order clean rushes and have bread made without stones.
And his children needed a mother. His children had good Scottish blood on the inside, but even to him their outsides needed some polishing. It was too late for his eldest daughter, Lioslath, to be made into a lady. Yet Fyfa, only seven, still had a chance.
And what of his clan? They expected him to return with a rich bride and twenty sheep. He had the sheep, but without the bride, he’d have to return them.
There were only two places she could be. She was only a woman, after all. Weak-hearted and a Colquhoun at that. She wouldn’t last on her own, which meant she was either on her way north and his snivelling messenger had missed her, or on her way south as her brothers had suggested.
He was confident if she returned to her brothers, they would bring her to heel. In these turbulent times, they would not want a feud between their clans.
But if she was south it would be he alone who would capture her. He allowed the pleasure of revenge to course through him.
Aye, he would catch her. At the least, the ride south would give him time to think of the punishment that would not hamper her use to him.
Chapter Six (#ulink_8094f06a-df8a-5037-9525-09c1ca683226)
‘Paddocks and spiders!’ Gaira exclaimed. ‘Not again!’
She grabbed at her loosening hair, but the swirling wind wreaked havoc with her attempts to replait it and she tugged at the strays until her head hurt.
‘Alec!’ she called high and sharp, her agitation growing with the pain in her head. ‘Alec! Where are you?’
She heard no reply and she could see no movement. The hills around her dipped and rose as they saw fit. All she saw were the sparse, thin trees to her right and the wide steep valley that dipped to a small lake on her left. She turned her back on the valley.
She limped towards the trees and away from the camp. It was a sparse affair meant for her lone survival. It wasn’t enough for her and four children. Especially since one of the children included a five-year-old with a penchant for stealing.
‘Alec!’ she shouted. ‘So help me, dearest God, if you doona return that leather skein, you won’t get a drop of water for a week!’
Giggles.
Gaira whirled around on her right foot and spotted a blur deeper in the trees. She limped, trying to catch the boy who ran as fast as his legs could run. She admired his spirit, even though she had to lunge to tackle him as gently as she could. The boy struggled in her arms before becoming still and looking at her solemnly.
Laughing, she grabbed the skein. ‘You’ve got to stop stealing, ’tis taking me too long to get the chores done and I still have to find food.’
The boy’s eyes widened. ‘Will that man return, Auntie Gaira?’
Frowns. Arrogance. English. But they were all still alive. She hoped she was right to trust the man. He hadn’t returned and it was already late morning.
‘I think not,’ she answered. Knowing her concerns could be read in her eyes, she poked him in the belly. ‘Now get, so I can prepare food for your fat belly.’
The boy stood. ‘Won’t there be food where we’re going?’
There should be food, but whether her back-stabbing brothers would give him any, she didn’t know. ‘Aye, child. There’s food a-plenty back at my home. Why, my brother is the biggest, strongest laird in all of Scotland, and his larder is so full he’ll be grateful for you just showing up to help him empty it.’
‘But if there’s so much food for you there, why were you fleeing down here?’
Her heart flipped. ‘Who says I was fleeing?’
‘When we were in the trees, we could see you flying up the hill on your horse. Flora said you were running away from something bad.’
‘Oh, Flora said that, did she?’
‘Aye, we figured you couldn’t be running from Doonhill because you hadn’t seen...’ He stopped. His eyes started to tear. ‘Hadna seen...’ he started to say again.
Gaira knelt down and gave him a fierce hug. ‘Aye, Flora’s right. I hadn’t seen what had happened to your home yet. But I was anxious to get to Doonhill all the same. Nae reason to think I was fleeing.’
The boy leaned into her. ‘Are we going to be safe again?’
Dear God, she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure of anything since her brother had forcefully handfasted her to the cruellest laird in all Scotland. But her brother’s land was the only safe place she knew where to take the children.
Gaira tightened her embrace. ‘Nae matter what it takes, I swear I will keep you safe.’
Quickly, she grabbed and tickled him. ‘Except from me!’ Alec squirmed and giggled again, all worry leaving his face.
‘Now get your fat belly back to the camp and doona let me be catching you stealing again.’
Laughing, he ran towards the camp.
She walked after him. His belly wasn’t as fat as it was just a few days ago. Still, if they didn’t leave Doonhill soon, they’d be in a worse predicament than starving to death.
When she reached the camp, Robert sat hunched over the fire pit. He was poking several large pieces of meat that sizzled and flared over the open flame. Her stomach growled in response.
But it wasn’t Robert’s returning or the fact he was cooking that surprised her. It was the children peaceably nibbling on oatcakes. Each sat, perfect as could be, in a semicircle around the campfire and Robert.
Except for Creighton, who sat the furthest away, his eyes never leaving the Englishman’s back. She so wanted to soothe Creighton, to help him release his anger, but despite wishing otherwise, he still would not speak.
Creighton and Flora were the ones she had most been worried about with Robert’s presence. They were the oldest and the most aware of who had killed their parents.
Robert suddenly met her gaze and she stumbled.
‘The meat will be ready soon.’
The timbre of his voice, rather than his words, broke her thoughts. She breathed air into her starved lungs and straightened herself. What was wrong with her? She felt as if nothing would be normal again and all he was doing was making them breakfast.
‘You’re here,’ she said, not hiding her confusion from her voice.
‘Aye, the food is far into the wood line. No wonder your traps weren’t working.’
She wanted to ask him why he’d returned. Why bother, when he so clearly did not belong here? But she was all too aware of the children watching her and all too worried about his answer.
And now he had brought them food, shared his own oatcakes.
‘Do you have any more oatcakes?’ she asked. Maisie would need them.
‘Plenty.’ He glanced at Flora. ‘But I’ve already promised I’d save the remainder for Maisie.’
Flora’s cheeks were rosy. No doubt, it was protective Flora who had braved asking Robert for the cakes.
‘I dinna know men cooked,’ she said.
He shrugged and poked at the meat. ‘I like to eat.’
So did her brothers, but that did not mean they had bothered to learn. She wondered what other skills he was hiding behind his appearance.
It was too much thought this early in the morning and too much thought when she had troubles of her own. She didn’t need to be wondering about the workings of one lone Englishman. She lifted Maisie from Flora’s lap.
‘She’ll be needing changing again,’ she said to no one in particular.
She went to her satchel hanging in a small tree and grabbed the squares of cloth she’d cut.
How many days had she been here now? Two? Three? Alec thought she had been fleeing when she had raced up the hill towards Doonhill. She’d never tell him how close to the truth he spoke.
They were too close to the borderlands and too close to the skirmishes beginning there. That alone would be bad enough since she had nothing to protect herself and four very dependent children.
She laid Maisie down, unwrapped her dirty linens and quickly wrapped her in the clean ones.
No, her proximity to the borderlands and one confusing Englishman were not her trouble. Her trouble was an angry Scotsman, who thought she was his wife. And worse, far, far worse, was that she’d have to return to and beg for protection from her brother. A brother who had tricked her into marriage and leaving Colquhoun land.
If she had just herself, she’d never return to her land again, but she had the children now. She had to return to keep them safe.
Her entire plan for escape, to find sanctuary within her sister’s village, was gone. Scorched. Her only means of survival now was nothing more than burnt timbers, dead bodies and conflicting vows. All of which she meant to keep.
But her vow to bury the dead had slowed her down. And if Busby caught up with them, she’d never get the children to the safety of her clan.
Squealing, Maisie grabbed the tall grass around her and Gaira stood to scrape the dirty linen against a trunk. It would have to be washed later.
She quickly pivoted and stumbled. Gingerly, she lifted her left ankle and tried to flex it within the splint she’d made. Her ankle was still swollen and she could barely wear her boot. She sighed. There was no hope for things to be different, no chance that things weren’t worse than they were just days ago and no use wishing otherwise.
But, she reminded herself, she still had some supplies, a strong horse and she was smart enough to get them out of this mess. What she didn’t have was time. She scooped Maisie back to her hip. She wouldn’t worry over something she couldn’t control. There was simply no one to come and help her.
She gripped Maisie tight against her.
What of Robert? No. He wouldn’t want to help them.
But she couldn’t help her sudden thought. Somewhere between her clobbering him on the head and his cooking breakfast, something had changed.
He hadn’t killed them, had even cooked them breakfast.
Maybe he was the answer to her prayers. He was an English soldier, but he was here. He was here. And that’s what counted.
Sending this Englishman appeared to be God’s will or His joke. Either way, this Robert of Dent would help her bury the dead.
Shifting Maisie to her other hip, she cleared the trees. If her ankle wasn’t hurting, she’d be skipping.
‘Aye, you’re getting to be a big girl, you are.’ She snuggled her closer and snorted loudly into her neck.
‘Big!’ Maisie grabbed one of her plaits and yanked.
‘Oh, it’s going to be like that, is it?’ Gaira, limping, swung her around.
Alec bounded over. ‘Can I play?’
Alec’s face was covered in oat crumbs and charred meat. Just as it should be. She feigned resignation. ‘Ach, I suppose so.’
She dislodged Maisie and picked up Alec, who squirmed until he was safely on her back. Bracing her weight on her good foot, she swung Alec back and forth, making sure her plaits whipped along so he’d squeal louder.
Dizzy and stumbling, she dropped Alec and sprawled on the grass to look at the spinning sky.
