Loe raamatut: «The Widow's Bargain»

Juliet Landon
The Widow’s Bargain

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Chapter One

Galloway, Scotland. 1319

The dry forest floor muffled any sound made by feet that for the last hour had rested on stirrups to reach Castle Kells by sunrise. Last night, Sir Alex Somers and his men had seen the castle from across the other side of the loch, glowing pink and orange on its high throne and looking down a sheer cliff into the mirrored surface below. Built on a spur, it was effectively sealed off on two sides while, at its back, mountains and forests cloaked it against the north winds. Further along the glen, the land sloped into green pastures where dark ponies grazed and blue smoke rose vertically from a cluster of thatched bothies. Now they viewed it within hailing distance, but well hidden, with a burn beside them that tumbled its way through the boulders into a deep pool some twenty feet below, roaring softly in tune with the pines.

‘We can bide here a while,’ said Sir Alex to his companion, ‘if we keep well back into the trees. I don’t suppose it’ll be long before he returns.’ His soft Lowland accent made his words sound more like an observation than a threat.

The companion, Hugh of Leyland, not quite so tall, not so broad or brawny but as agile as a polecat, brushed a crumb off his doublet of faded brown and unhitched a leather bottle from his belt. He accepted the strategy without question, but there were details that could do to be aired before the action began.

He took a swig of water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘He has a son, do you say?’

‘Had,’ said Sir Alex, cryptically. ‘Killed in a raid a few years ago. He has a wee grandson, though.’

‘Living here, with Sir Joseph?’

‘I believe so.’ The blue eyes searched as he spoke, eager for any sign of movement near the gatehouse or along the track that led to the distant woodland.

They made an impressive-looking twosome, like a pair of tawny lions who knew each other’s ways, who were not averse to a friendly scrap in an overflow of excess energy but who would have defended the other to the death, as would the men who waited silently behind them. In his prime, at thirty-one, Sir Alex Somers was physically robust, wide-shouldered, deep of chest, and possessed of a face that invaded women’s dreams in situations where neither of them had any business to be. The colour of dark hazelnuts, his thick hair bounced in uncontrollable spikes that touched his forehead and curled over the scarf around his well-muscled neck. But it was his eyes that turned female knees to water, for they were the same intense blue as a cloudless summer sky, and far less innocent.

‘That might be useful to us,’ said Hugh, his second-in-command. ‘We take the wee laddie and use him as bait, ransom, whatever. A squawking bairn will always get his grandpa’s breeks in a twist. Does the bairn have a ma?’

‘They usually do, Hugh.’

‘I’ll find out. Leave it to me.’

Sir Alex found no amusement in Hugh of Leyland’s predictable efficiency in finding a woman. They were both adept at that. But there were some, like Sir Joseph Moffat of Castle Kells in Galloway, for instance, who would think little of sacrificing their own kin, if need be. They had heard enough about the man to make them think so, a local Justice of the Peace, landowner, horse breeder, raider, rogue and thief, and those were the more honourable aspects of his character. Sir Joseph would not be kept awake at night by his conscience. ‘Best not to depend on it, though,’ he warned. ‘It’ll take a fair bit to put the scarers on a man like Moffat. He’s had more years of practice than most in these parts, Hugh.’

Hugh leaned against a tree and watched his friend saunter forward like a large cat, as at ease out of doors as in the finest halls of Europe. Hugh had been with him for nine years, as long as any other man in the hundred-strong company. He was two years younger, a paler tawny, curly-haired man, built like a wiry athlete, merry-eyed and unashamedly thankful for the women who threw themselves under his feet just as willingly as they did under Alex’s.

Sir Alex squatted down upon his haunches and peered over the steep rocky precipice ahead of him, beckoning Hugh to come and see, to keep down and be quiet.

Hugh crawled forward, intrigued. ‘What?’ he whispered.

The burn hurtled and splashed between mossy boulders and leapt over a shining brown ledge into a secluded pool, foaming inside a dark circle. A neat pile of clothes lay over on the dry rocks, and a shriek of laughter rose above the clatter of the water, drawing grins from both men.

‘A lassie!’ Alex said.

‘Two lassies. Look…see! We’re in luck.’

As he spoke, two pairs of shining pink arms came into view upon one of the flat rocks, then two dark heads with helmets of wet hair followed by glistening shoulders, backs and haunches. Heaving themselves upwards, they shed water like otters, twisting to sit upon the rock and kick at the swirling ripples around their ankles. Their hands twisted at dripping ropes of hair to wring out the water, throwing handfuls of it over their shoulders, revealing every curve of their slippery torsos now highlighted by the new sun. Gold and pink and sleek, they preened like mermaids in their sheltered lair.

‘Now that,’ said Alex, ‘is worth riding all this way to see. Are they castle lassies, d’ye think?’

‘Sure to be,’ Hugh said. ‘Hell, Alex. Do we have time for it?’

‘Silly sod. You know we haven’t. And we have to stay hidden. Will ye take a look at the black-haired one, though? She’s a stunner, Hugh. Wheew!’ He blew between his teeth softly. ‘What a body. And a face to go with it.’

‘I’m looking at the shorter one, like a little ripe berry. They’re too good to be village lassies and too happy to be laundry-maids. They’ll be seamstresses, that’s what.’ They fell into a stunned silence, noting from the cover of a convenient hart’s-tongue fern every perfect detail of the glorious scene. And when they felt a movement at their backs, they found that a small crowd of their followers had also wormed their way forward, their eyes staring out of their sockets at the sight.

The women stood to collect their clothes, moving into a position where, with one glance up at the rock-face, the silent audience would be revealed. Quickly, Alex, Hugh and every man withdrew like a collective shadow back to the horses, almost too overcome to speak.

‘Well,’ said Sir Alex at last, ‘that was an interesting start to the day. Think you’ll be able to keep your mind on the job?’

Hugh grinned. ‘Maybe we’ll be able to weed them out when we get inside the castle.’

‘There’ll not be time for that, lad. The men will likely keep the women out of the way. Still, I’d like to take another wee look at the black-haired one, dressed or undressed. We’ll see.’ He glanced at the streaks of light that had begun to filter through the trees where they hid. ‘Move the men back into the shadows now, Hugh. And keep a man posted over there to watch the track and the gatehouse. The rest of us had better mount up. We all know what’s to be done, eh?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Hugh said, placing a foot in the stirrup. ‘’Tis a lovely morning to be raiding a castle.’

From Lady Ebony Moffat’s chamber on the topmost floor of Castle Kells, the views across the loch were to the south and east through groups of windows that were little more than slits in the eight-foot-thick stone walls. The apertures widened into wedge shapes with built-in stone benches on three sides, deeply cushioned. One such space in the corner had been curtained off to create a garderobe in the thickness of the wall, and in another corner was a door that led spirally downwards to the next level.

The cushions had not, of course, been made for young Sam Moffat to jump up and down on in excitement, nor had the windows been made just that size for him to squeeze his head through to look sideways towards the woodland path. Consequently, when a man’s shout was heard from the stairway to say that Master Sam’s grandpa was coming in. Sam found that it was more difficult to reverse into the room as easily as it had been to go out of it. For a moment, there was panic in his little breast. ‘Mama!’ he yelled. ‘I’m stuck again!’

Tempted to use the next half-minute to teach him a lesson, after the hundredth time of telling, Lady Ebony lifted her faded blue wool surcoat off the bed and slipped it over her head. After seven years, it still fitted like a glove over her linen bliaud. Her sister-in-law Meg was already making her way to the door. ‘I’ll follow you when I’ve freed him,’ Ebony called. ‘You do on down.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Meg. She had seen it before. It was his ears.

Ebony smiled, adjusting the surcoat across her shoulders. ‘As Sir Joseph’s daughter, love, you must be there or he’ll want to know why. You go and show an interest. I’ll bring Sam down in a moment.’

It didn’t take as long as usual to free him, for now he had learnt how to press his ears flat and twist. Nor did he have time today for the soothing noises from his mother when his Grandpa Moffat would surely have brought something back for him from his night raid which, to Sam, was as innocent as a trip to the market. He skipped off, reddened about his six-year-old ears, his eyes as grey as granite, blond-haired, slight-framed, bursting with an unpredictable primitive energy. After three years, Sam rarely asked about the father he so closely resembled.

It did no good for his mother to protest at Sir Joseph’s frequent gifts to his only grandson, a pony that no one had taught him to ride, money that he was not allowed to spend, clothes from another child’s back, toys and trinkets salvaged from someone’s home. Her initial objections had been disregarded, and she could not bring herself to tell her child that his grandpa gleaned other people’s property by force, mostly at night, plundering across the Scottish-English border to torch houses, kill the men, lift the cattle and bring them up on to Scottish pasture. There was only so much one could expect a child to understand at six years old, and as long as they were obliged to live under Sir Joseph’s protection, Sam must be taught, first and foremost, to respect his elders.

His cries of excitement could be heard echoing down the stairway and disappearing into the maze of chambers, halls, stairs and passageways that was now his world; hers and Meg’s too. It was unsafe for them to venture out when raiders passed so frequently in both directions, perpetuating feuds that had escalated alarmingly in the five years since the Scottish victory at the Bannockburn. Now, there was not a household, large or small, that did not fear the raids, though these would be fewer now that the hours of darkness were less. Perhaps this would also be Sir Joseph’s last raid till the autumn, when they might begin to live more normally than this.

Sharing none of her son’s urgency, she sat on the window-cushion and rested her head against the wooden shutter, her eyes scanning the pattern of massive oak beams that supported the roof. Woollen tapestries clad the walls with colour and warmth. Polished stools, a table, chests, and a canopied bed provided every comfort, and a fire at one end was protected by a hooded chimney with the Moffat coat of arms carved into it. The castle was cool at all times of the year, and this chamber was one of the most private in a place where privacy was at a premium. She had no cause to bewail a lack of comfort, and her inclination was to stay up here well out of the way rather than to be seen condoning her father-in-law’s lawlessness.

Not wishing to let Sam out of her sight for too long, she relented at last, taking up a piece of damp linen and spreading it over a chest to dry before removing from it a strand of moss that had caught in its fibres. Still damp, her hair was hurriedly bundled into a caul of gold net and pinned carelessly on top of her head in a style unknown to fashion. At Castle Kells, what did it matter how one looked and, in Scotland, who except the nobility cared a damn about fashion in these uncertain times? She took a quick look round and went down, descending the steps slowly with her skirts held up. It would take her quite some time to reach the great hall.

The unusual absence of men made Ebony wonder if Sir Joseph’s return was in some way out of the ordinary. She quickened her step. He had taken about thirty men with him, this time, but still she would normally have encountered members of the household at every turn, as she had done earlier that morning. The guard who always stood in the window niche overlooking the courtyard was missing. She peeped through the arrow-slit, but it was set too high to show her more than the gatehouse on the opposite side and yet, even as she watched, an archer on top of the tower took aim at something below him. Before he could complete the draw, however, his arms went up and he fell backwards with an arrow in his throat.

‘Reivers!’ Ebony whispered. ‘It’s the reivers! God have mercy on us.’ Reivers. Border raiders. Murderers and thieves. Merciless destroyers. How had they got in? And where was Sam, her precious child? Panic rose in her breast like a sickness. Men such as this had killed her Robbie three years ago; she could not let them take Sam, too.

Picking up her skirts, she ran like a hare, flying through arches and open doorways, leaping down steps to reach the great hall on the first floor. Breathless, her heart pounding with fear at what she might find, she threw open the door at the side of the high table where covers had already been laid, silver trays, spoons and knives set, but no more than that. People were everywhere, huddled in groups guarded by men whose assortment of weaponry was fearsome, their expressions menacing.

With her mind set on only one goal, she barged her way past them. ‘Let me through!’ she yelled. ‘Let me through, damn you! Sam! Where is my child? Sam!’ Distraught, and screaming his name, her calls cut across the hall already bristling with tension and fear. Hitting out at the barriers of arms and bodies, kicking and elbowing men aside like skittles, she searched for a sign of Biddie, Sam’s young nursemaid, in a congregation of unknown and familiar faces and a terrified crowd of household servants, cooks, grooms, pages and all.

At the far end of the hall near the great chimney-piece stood another group of strangers who had turned at her noisy entrance. Biddie’s white wimple was easy to spot, her face contorted and pleading. Her loud cry held all the anguish and terror of one who has failed in her duty. ‘Mistress!’

Ebony charged towards her but, even in her panic, was no match for the man who caught her and swung her hard against him, catching at one arm and hand. Before he could capture the other, she swung it back and threw her force behind a blow to his head, the sound of the impact cracking through the hall like the snap of a whip. ‘Let go of me, you churl!’ she shrieked. ‘My child…where is he?’

Ahead of her, the group parted to let Biddie through. A large and powerfully built man followed close behind, his eyes opening wide with surprise before quickly narrowing again, concealing their bright blueness. ‘Not exactly the reception we’d hoped for, Hugh,’ he said quietly to the man with the reddening cheek, ‘but it’s an interesting start, eh?’

Ebony heard none of this exchange as she took Biddie’s plump arms and shook her. ‘Where is he?’ she said, her voice on the edge of tears. ‘What have they done with him? And Meg?’

Biddie’s mouth twisted. She was barely twenty years old, but dependable and devoted to Sam. ‘Nothing…I don’t think,’ she whispered. Her large liquid eyes glanced across at the door. ‘They took him into the courtyard. He’ll be all right, mistress.’

But the enraged lioness was not prepared to accept that, hurling herself bodily into the group of men who, by chance, stood between her and the courtyard door. No time for asking, pleading or remonstrating; her only thought was to reach Sam before he was harmed.

Intrigued, and astonished to find a clothed version of the black-haired mermaid they had carried in their minds since sunrise, the men allowed her to get as far as the door, which was guarded. She turned like a creature at bay, her eyes both tearful and blazing with fury, her hands ready to claw at the man who faced her. ‘I want my child,’ she croaked. ‘I want him. Let me go to him.’ Her voice shook, almost running out of air.

‘The fair-haired wee laddie is yours?’ the man said in surprise. ‘And you are…?’

‘I am Sir Joseph Moffat’s daughter-in-law,’ she snapped. ‘And who the devil are you, sir? Do reivers admit their names these days, and do they still terrorise women and children like the cowards they are?’

‘You’re a Sassenach!’ he said, ignoring the questions. ‘This gets more interesting by the minute. What’s an Englishwoman doing in this den of thieves?’

‘Never mind the courtesies. Get my child here to me now, if you please. What have you done with him?’

‘Nothing. Yet.’

The courtyard door opened to admit two people, one above the other, the uppermost one bending his little head to duck beneath the point of the arch, his little hands clutching at the white hair of a gaunt and elderly man clad in padded waistcoat strapped with baldric and sword-belt. Sam’s legs straddled the man’s neck and dangled on to his shoulders. He was giggling.

He caught sight of his mother at once. ‘Mama!’ he called. ‘I’m riding Josh. Look at me! I’m going to show him my pony.’

She would have flown to him and dragged him bodily into her arms, but she was caught back by the tall man and held with such force that she was unable to escape him, and such was Sam’s excitement that his attention had gone from her in the blink of an eye. While she was never able to remember exactly what the man said to her at that moment, she understood that she must not show Sam her distress. ‘Yes, love,’ she called. ‘Don’t be too long, will you?’

With a merry wave and a grin, Sam was jogged through the company and out at the other side of the hall in the direction of the stable yard, while tears of relief and dread filled Ebony’s eyes. ‘Don’t take him away,’ she gasped. ‘Let me go to him.’ She tried to shake off the restraint of the man’s hands but to no avail, and the outer door was closed with a terrifying finality as Sam’s head ducked once more.

‘Now, my lady. You’ve had one answer. It’s time I had some.’ The man had scarcely taken his eyes from her, but now he allowed her to distance herself from him, bristling like a wildcat. ‘Give me your name,’ he said, harshly.

‘My name, sir, is Lady Ebony Moffat,’ she replied, angrily brushing a tear away from her chin. ‘Reivers don’t usually—’

‘And your man? Where is he?’

‘My man was killed by the likes of you.’

‘When?’

‘Three years,’ she whispered, hanging her head. Her hair had fallen into a black silken bundle at the nape of her neck, and damp strands still clung to her throat. Her grey eyes, black-lashed and almond-shaped, were set in a perfectly oval frame, high-cheeked and fine-boned, like an elf, and now her pale full lips trembled with distress. ‘My father-in-law has had us live here since then. Where is he? Where’s Meg?’ She saw the man’s eyes link with those of the man she had struck, then return to hers, showing her a flash of blue that she could only liken to steel. The man was obviously the leader of this mob, yet his manner was soldierly, his men disciplined, their actions ruthless, but nothing like the murderous rabble who had raided her home and burned it down. They were, she supposed, all different in their methods, even if their aims were the same.

‘Sir Joseph is wounded,’ he said with a distinct lack of concern, ‘and your sister-in-law is tending him.’ Sidestepping, he barred her way as she made for the stairway. ‘You’ll not find him there. And she’s perfectly safe.’

Fiercely, she tried to push him away as if he were a youth. ‘You’ve wounded him? So who’s to be next? Damn you…take what you want and go! Leave us in peace! What is it you want…food…cattle…?’

He held her back again with infuriating ease. ‘No great hurry,’ he said. ‘No one is going to ride off to get help. No one is in a position to resist, and Sir Joseph is hardly going to defend anything for a while. We shall take the men and hostages away, and the castle is in our hands for as long as we need it. We’ll leave when we’re ready.’

‘Not my son,’ she pleaded. ‘You’ll not take him away?’

The man she had struck was not inclined to negotiate. ‘He’s the old man’s grandson,’ he said from behind her, ‘and grandsons make useful hostages. The old devil will be more inclined to co-operate when he knows we have his wee bairn, won’t he?’

She whirled round to face him as the last words left his lips, hurling herself at him in a frenzy of rage. ‘Lout!’ she screamed. ‘Murderous, thieving lout!’

But before her nails could reach their target, the man who had recently held her fast did so again, and she was pulled hard against his chest, lifted off her feet, and thrown over one broad shoulder like a sack of oats, then carried, squirming, shrieking with rage and beating at his back, towards the small door at the dais end of the hall where the white covers were still untouched on the table. One of his men, grinning, opened the door and closed it behind them and, with the sound of its slam against the frame, Ebony knew that, once again, her worst nightmares had returned.

Her strongest instinct was to give in to the blind panic that engulfed her, to scream, bite, kick and fight against the overwhelming fear of losing her child. Utterly consumed by a nameless black terror that saturated her limbs with the strength of ten, she lashed out like one demented. Even so, her efforts made very little impression upon the solid bulk of the man who held her painfully hard against the stone wall of the deserted passageway with his hands, body and legs, keeping his head out of range of her only free weapon.

He let her fury subside and gradually wind down to a standstill, and she knew at the back of her tormented mind that the time had come for something other than mere appeals to their better natures, for they were not in the business of concessions. Tears streamed down her face and neck, sticking her loosened hair to her skin, and her head dropped forward onto his padded doublet, too heavy for her to hold up. ‘My son…my son…’ was all she had breath to say. ‘I cannot lose him.’

At last, she became aware of his body pressing against hers, and perhaps it was that that helped to remind her that she had hardly looked at this man, would hardly have recognised him if she were to see him again. Now, she raised her head and saw through her tears that he was clean-shaven, that he was regarding her impassively, that his mouth was well formed and unsmiling, and that his air of healthy virility might have had something to do with his white teeth, which showed as he spoke to her.

‘Steady,’ he said. ‘Steady now. Your son’s safe enough, but I need a hostage. He need not be gone for ever.’

She shook her head wildly. ‘No, not him! He’s all I’ve got.’

‘He’s the only grandson?’

‘Yes,’ she wailed, ‘and he’s my only child, too. If you must take him, then take me with him. He cannot do without me, nor can I do without him.’

‘I don’t take women.’ His tone was brutally uncompromising.

Then what would he take? Could she bribe him? Shame him? The master-at-arms had shown her once how to use a dagger, but today she had seen no need to wear one. She would not make that mistake again. Sardonically, he had also advised her that, if ever the need arose, she should offer reivers anything she possessed to buy herself time, or life. Any currency, he had stressed. Bargain with them. Life is more important, he’d told her, not needing to explain what life was more important than. His advice at the time had seemed to be a particularly masculine way of looking at things, though now the gravity of what she knew she must offer seemed trifling in comparison to her need. ‘Please…please, you must,’ she whispered, forcing herself to look at his eyes to show him what she was saying.

‘Must?’ he said. ‘What are you saying, exactly?’

‘I’m saying,’ she said, looking away, ‘that you can…’

‘Can what?’

‘…can have me…whatever you will…if you’ll only let me go with him, or leave him here with me. I beg you not to take him from me.’ The words sounded as foreign to her as if coming from someone else’s lips, and he was silent for so long that she began to wonder if indeed she had said them. Yet it needed an effort of will, after that, to look into his eyes. ‘Unless…unless there is something else?’ she ventured, hearing the absurdity of her question. What else did she have that such a man could possible make use of?

The pressure on her wrists was suddenly released and her hands, freed of his cruel grip, fell numbed to her sides. His body arched away from her as he leaned with his hands on the wall at each side of her head, making a barrier too large and powerful to evade, though it seemed likely that her offer had now passed the stage of evasions.

She noticed how fine lines scored the corners of his mouth—made, she supposed, by commands and a life out of doors—and she had little doubt that, if he had indeed understood the nature of the bargain, he would be weighing up the implications, for there was a wealth of experience in the eyes that roamed leisurely over her face and figure. If there was triumph or greed in his expression, then he was hiding it well. Nevertheless, his hesitation mortified her.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘So we are bargaining, are we?’ His eyes rested upon hers at last, searching behind the tears.

She resolved to have strong words with the master-at-arms for initiating this charade. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, looking away. ‘It’s all I have. It’s worthless compared to my bairn’s life, but it’s yours if you want it. You see, I have lost my shame.’ Which was a lie he would hardly recognise.

‘Your bairn’s life is not at stake, lady. He’s a surety against reprisals. Quite a prize. So have you been used to offering yourself—’ his words were interrupted as her hands came up between them to rake savagely at his face, but her wrists were caught again and twisted away behind her back ‘—to reivers?’ he finished.

‘No, sir!’ she snarled, glaring up at his laughing eyes and incensed by the insult. ‘The gift I kept for my late husband will always be his, no matter who else must be paid off. You could have claimed to be the first, for all the good it would do you, but I’ll not offer it again to have its value questioned so. You are a reiver and not worth the breath it takes, nor will you ever know what it has cost me to offer my body to a common thief and murderer. Forget it! I did it for my child, not for your amusement.’

‘Yet only just now you told me it was worth little,’ he said, softly, holding her close to him. ‘Is there some confusion here, perhaps?’

‘Not to a woman. Worth and cost are not the same thing, but that’s not something a man like you would understand too easily.’

‘That’s as may be. Yet I am inclined to accept the offer. Does it still stand?’

Now it was her turn to hesitate as the enormity of the bargain began to grow and fill her with dread. She would have to go to bed with this stranger, or to allow him some appalling intimacy here in the passageway, whichever he had more time for. The consequences could well be disastrous, too awful to think about. She had been near no man except Robbie, for three years remaining completely uninterested in any man’s arms except during the darkest hours of the night when she wept into the pillow. This man would care as little for her lost experience as for her conscience, her reputation, or the long-term effects.

‘Well?’ he said.

She took a deep breath, closing her mind to everything except the need to be with her child. ‘You will allow Sam and me to stay together? Wherever you take us?’

‘The safety of your child and your access to him will depend entirely on my access to you. At all times. Do you understand me, my lady?’

Shocked, she looked up to search for a trace of the laughter that would explain his demand. But there was no laughter, only the hard blue steel. ‘At all times? Not…not just once?’

‘Not once, no. For as long as I want you. Is your son worth that to you?’

The breath left her lungs in a shudder, leaving her cold and numb. Put like that, she had little choice but to accept that, if she wanted Sam at her side, she must stay by this man’s side, literally, and without argument. ‘Yes, he is!’ she said. ‘And you, sir, are a devil!’

‘Then we have a bargain, do we?’