Chapter 20 #2
Ruark withdrew a packet from inside his waistcoat and tossed it onto the table. “Consider all debts justly paid. The ship is yours, Hereford.”
Colum followed Ruark as he turned abruptly on his boot heel.
The slight warmth of the day had fled quickly in the darkness.
Ruark could not see the moon as he strode past the stable, the clang and jangle of sword and spurs at rhythm with his stride.
At the edge of town, they met twenty of their men and mounted horses.
The others had scattered. Some would be returning with Ruark to Stonehaven, perhaps to begin new lives.
Others would go on to Workington, find new ships belonging to Roxburghe Shipping on which to serve.
All of them reined in their horses three miles outside the village and turned to look toward the water.
He could already smell burning pitch on the breeze. Loki pranced in a circle as Ruark held tight to the reins. The ship was already full ablaze. The inferno lit up the sky. Flames climbed high, choking the heavens.
Aye, his heart and his life had once been there.
But no more.
“Bloody hell,” Colum murmured, his eyes narrowing on the slow-growing orange glow in the distance. “He will kill you for what you have done this day. Hell, he will kill me. I owned the Black Dragon.”
“You still do. The papers I gave him were worthless.”
Without comment, Ruark reined his horse around. He had already said good-bye to his crew and no one wasted breath on sentimentality now. It was best they all got across the border.
His thoughts were already turning to the more pressing matter of the weather moving in. And home.
Six days later, Ruark and Colum crossed into Scotland, and two days after that he reached Stonehaven’s border, weary, disheveled, and saddle worn.
A full moon sat just above the tree line as they rode past the gatehouse and up the long, winding drive toward the cobbled courtyard at the back of the house. He’d been gone almost three weeks.
Now as he slowed Loki to a lope, he felt his pulse accelerate.
Until now, he hadn’t let himself think. He’d been driven by the powerful need to get home.
The need to know Rose was safe. The thought sank in now and set its claws deep as he looked up at the ivy-encased stone house.
Every window was alight and blazing. “At least no one is abed,” Colum observed from beside him, his mind clearly set on a hot meal after Ruark had bypassed the last inn in favor of continuing onward.
The men who had traveled on with him had veered off hours ago to the village.
Ruark nudged Loki with his heels. They reached the cobbled courtyard and Ruark dismounted as Mary burst from the doorway to greet him. Two groomsmen rushed past her and down the stone stairs to take the horses.
“Heavens, Ruark,” Mary said, coming forward to greet him, her round face warmed by a smile. “We did no’ expect ye back so soon.”
Amused, Ruark removed his gloves. “So soon?” His gaze touched the windows. “Is there a sound reason you are burning every candle at Stonehaven then, if ’tis not a beacon to guide me home from England to your lovely self?”
“Och, Ruark.” She giggled and turned in a crackle of petticoats, clearly expecting Ruark and Colum to follow. “Today is Jamie’s birthday. Or have ye forgotten ye used to send him a gift every year?”
He had forgotten.
“Our Julia and Lady Roxburghe have been entertainin’ the local gentry and their families for most of the day—”
“Julia and Rose? Together?”
Mary stood against the door to hold it open as Ruark and Colum passed ahead of her into the entry hall.
“ ’Twas silly that her ladyship was not allowed to see the boy.
” Mary shut the door and waddled ahead of them.
“Duncan told Julia ’twas time to accept the new lady Roxburghe as Stonehaven’s mistress if she wanted to continue living beneath the same roof.
Now, I dare say, they are at least speaking to one another.
Julia helped her ladyship and Kathleen plan the celebration for Jamie. ”
She glanced sideways at Ruark. “Ye remember Kathleen. The fiscal’s wife. Rose saved her son’s foot from rot. Though, he did lose part of a toe, poor lad . . . Last week, McBain had to remove—”
Ruark set both his hands on Mary’s shoulders and forced her to stop talking. “What the bloody hell are ye talking about?”
“Our own Lady Roxburghe labored the night to save Rufus and his foot. He had a wretched infection and McBain was not yet back from Hawick. Duncan took her to Kathleen. McBain said she saved the boy. ’Tis simple as that.”
“You allowed Duncan to take my wife from Stonehaven?”
Mary jabbed a finger at his chest. “Do no’ use that tone with me, Ruark Kerr. You’ve been away a long time. Things are different. Ye may be laird here, but she is Stonehaven’s mistress.”
He laughed. “Hell, I have been gone all of twenty days.”
Mary sniffed. “She accompanies McBain every other morning when he visits the tenants. There is no’ a person who would harm her. Ye can thank Duncan for that as well. He would skin alive the man who dared touch her.”
She stepped past Ruark, leaving him to follow as she continued down the corridor. Colum brought Ruark out of his fog with a nudge.
“Kathleen came to live here last week,” Mary tossed over her shoulder as they turned a corner into another corridor dimly lit by sconce light.
“We were in need of a cook. Bessie can no’ hardly walk anymore.
Gout ye know. Always comes on when the weather starts to grow cold.
” She hesitated mid-stride to allow Ruark to catch up to her.
“Now Kathleen lives at Stonehaven with her family, so her children can be properly schooled with the other local children. Duncan found an unused structure and everyone turned out this week to make the thing into a school. ’Tis that old hunting lodge between here and the village.
Ye remember the place. No one has used it in years. ”
Aye, Ruark knew the place. He and Rose had spent a blissful night in that lodge.
Mary continued walking. “Everyone is there now. Our mistress wanted to include the tenants’ families in the final hours of the celebration, and so Duncan and Angus and some of the other lads hunted a boar in the western woods and brought it back this morn.
They’ve set up a bonfire from the wood they cleared around the new school. ”
Mary turned at the bottom of the stairs and placed her hand on the newel post. Ruark stopped in front of her. “Is there anything else I should know before I go in search of my wife?”
“A week ago, Mrs. Simpson arrived toting with her a lad named Jack. She heard of our ladyship’s marriage and wished personally to meet her Scot’s husband.”
Ruark turned on his heel but Mary snatched his sleeve. “But no’ lookin’ like an heathen Pict from the North Country.”
Colum’s chuckle ended in a throaty cough as Mary turned her fierce look on him. “Ye look worse, Bryce Colum. Now upstairs with ye both. You’ve been gone three weeks. Another hour will no’ matter.”
But to Ruark another five minutes was longer than he was willing to wait to see Rose.
He’d bathed yesterday in an ice-cold river, and at least the clothes he wore had been washed three days ago at the last inn where he and Colum had stayed.
Last night, he’d even removed the silver hoop from his earlobe.
Leaving Colum to deal with the horses, Ruark walked through the crowd, aware that as he passed, people stopped what they were doing and stared.
He vaguely recognized Stonehaven’s blacksmith and nodded.
Rushlights dotted the fields where jugglers and ropedancers, probably left over from the Lammas celebration in a neighboring shire, entertained the children.
A dozen tents filled with what remained of someone’s apple or peach harvests, pies and other goods were closing as most had clearly been here all afternoon.
He could smell Duncan’s roast pig on the breeze and hear the faint strands of the fiddle coming from farther away.
A shimmering orange glow from the bonfire brightened the nighttime sky.
As he drew closer, he could hear the strains of laughter and cheer.
“Lord Roxburghe!” someone called.
He turned on his heel. His first glance fell on Duncan, but it was the woman dressed in bright yellow beside him who was smiling. The fiscal’s wife. He had not seen her since he had been a lad in short pants. “We did not expect you for another few days,” she said. “You remember me?”
“Kathleen,” he said. She was six years older than he was. “Who can forget the prettiest girl in the shire?”
Then he straightened and acknowledged Duncan with a curt nod. Both Duncan and Kathleen carried an armful of wooden trenchers.
“Do you know where I can find my wife?” he asked Kathleen.
She shifted her load and pointed to the lodge. “She was with Julia in our new soon-to-be school, but that was an hour ago. You might try the bonfire, where dancing has started. Have ye seen the school?”
“Perhaps later,” he said politely.
Through a narrow break in the crowd, he glimpsed the high-stepping dancers.
People clapped to the fiddler as they watched a spirited reel.
He did not see her at first among the dancers.
He had been looking at the spectators. Ruark shouldered through the onlookers encircling the line of the brightly lit dancers and stopped at the circle’s edge.
She had told him once she did not know how to dance. And he wondered when she’d learned. Jason danced across from her. Gavin stood at her side. He didn’t know the names of the other dancers young and old alike.
She wore nothing more elegant than a simple blue muslin sloping from the wide neckline to a point at her narrow waist, yet the front-laced bodice clung to high curves of her breast and her skirts flowed around her slender form.
With each sprightly step, she revealed a pair of shapely ankles.
Giving her right hand to Jason, she changed places with the female on his right, then the male on her left.
The steps went on until Jason grabbed her hands and, laughing brightly, she and Jason danced up the middle of the line toward him.
Heat emanating from the bonfire seemed to burn through Ruark’s clothes and into his blood.
He had ridden days to get back to her, worried as hell, only to find she had not only survived perfectly without him but that she had thrived.
He stepped forward just as a hand clapped on his shoulder. He thought Duncan had come up on him. Already in a killing state of mind, his first instinct was to grab the arm and turn with just enough pressure to break the contact. But the owner of that firm grip belonged to Angus.
“She’s no’ done anything wrong, lad,” he said, his voice mild. “We’ve been with her the night. All of us.”
On the other end of the circle, he glimpsed Duncan’s hard gaze. He saw Jamie and the boy next to him Ruark remembered as Jack.
The fiddlers stopped playing abruptly. The dancers groaned.
Confused by the sudden halt of music, shouts of encouragement to continue playing rose among the crowd.
Breathless, Rose turned. She was hot and flushed, her nape damp beneath her hair.
She shoved aside a wayward lock of hair, her laughter dying as she met Ruark’s gaze.
He stood at the circle’s edge. His name went over the crowd like a whisper of wind as his presence began to draw more attention. He felt the tension leave his muscles. His sanity returned. Maybe ’twas the way she looked at him. But he felt that touch to his soul.
Her gaze dropped in confusion to Angus’s hand on his shoulder. By her expression, she must have guessed what he had been about to do. “My lord,” she said, and left him to close the short distance between them, which he did, but not without seeking a reward for the effort.
The dust of the road still clinging to his clothes, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. The crowd exploded in cheers. Their laird was back, business settled. Now he wanted his wife to himself. Her hands closed into fists against his shoulders.
Against her lips, he said, “ ’Tis time to leave.”
“I will not,” she said between her teeth. “Kathleen and Julia went to a great deal of trouble tonight. ’Tis rude merely to leave because you . . . I . . . have not even eaten supper.”
“I will feed you upon our return.”
“This is your brother’s birthday, have you taken the time to wish him well? Since you have returned from your twelve-year-and-nine-month hiatus on the sea, have you spent any time with your tenants? Visited the village?”
“I have been a bit occupied, love. As you well know.”
“Aye, so occupied you could not wait to leave Stonehaven after Jedburgh. I know these people better than you do. Your people. Your family.”
“I am glad, Rose.” He touched his lips to her ear. “But as much as I enjoy these moments together, I have not changed my clothes in days, and I have slept little these past weeks. All I want is to bathe and take you to bed.” He turned her in his arms so that they both faced the crowd.
Angus raised a mug in toast. “To our laird and his bonny bride.”
More bantering went around. “We’ll not be mindin’ if ye wish to take the lass from us tonight,” someone shouted over the laughter.
Ruark waited for the drinking to finish. “Aye, lads, we were just discussing our possibilities. She’s missed me.”
More laughter. Rose squirmed from him. “You cannot be gone for weeks, then return and with the snap of your fingers think I will jump.”
“Looks to me like she’s already forgotten ye, my lord,” another barked from the back of the crowd, and laughter followed as other men and women alike joined in the good-natured ribbing. “Maybe ye just have to remind her a bit harder.”
Rose looked shocked and he almost felt sorry for her.
But the Scots were an earthy bunch and less inclined to a civilized fight when it came to their patriotism, their home, and their women.
What she did not understand was if they did not truly love and care for her, none would have raised their cups in toast.
Everyone expected him to take her from here, and never one to disappoint, Ruark picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, to the eruption of applause. “Now if you will all excuse me, it has been a long time and I would like to take my bonny bride home to bed.”