Chapter 2
As soon as Dev had gone, Robina hurried up the stairs, trying to put his stern image out of her head so she could think straight.
“You would do better to recall what he said to you, Beany. You ken fine that he never makes idle threats.”
“I know,” she muttered. “But he doesn’t understand how things are here.”
“He understands enough,” Rab said. “He kens you fine, too, so you must do no more raiding.”
“Not whilst he’s anywhere near Coklaw, certainly,” she agreed. “However, he has duties elsewhere now, so he won’t be back for a while. Meantime, we have wool to shear and cows to give us milk, butter, and cheese.”
“You underestimate Dev, lass. He’ll return long before you expect him.”
“You forget that he has to go to Ormiston Mains to see his father.”
“Ormiston’s nobbut ten miles away. And I doubt he’ll stay long.”
“Don’t be daft, Rab,” she said tartly in her normal voice.
“Wheesht, lass! Do you want to wake Greenlaw or his Ada?”
Well aware that the steward and his housekeeper wife slept in a room at the top of the stairs, she murmured, “Dev said his father sent for him. Ormiston hasn’t seen him since before what you call the ‘wee skirmish at Chesters’ six weeks ago that got you killed.
I doubt that Dev’s family will let him leave again soon. ”
She had reached her landing, and Rab did not argue the point, making her wonder if her maidservant, Corinne, was in her bedchamber. Someone, thinking Robina might want her, might have wakened the maid. But the room was empty.
Deciding that Rab agreed that Dev’s family would keep him as long as they could, she undressed and got into bed. Her backside still stung, so she decided that if her twin was right and Dev returned too soon, she would find a way to get her revenge.
“I’m not wrong, Beany. I know Dev better than you do.”
“You do, aye,” she muttered grimly. “During the past few years, you spent more time with him than with me or anyone else at Coklaw.”
“And you are… or were… jealous of our friendship, lassie. You took few pains to hide it, but there was nae need of such. Wherever I am, I carry you with me, just as you carry me with you. We’ve been in each other’s thoughts since the day we were born and ’tis likely we always will be.
But be kind to Dev. He’ll make you a better friend than an enemy.
He’ll also look after you and Benjy for me. ”
“I don’t need looking after, least of all by Devil Ormiston,” she said firmly.
“ ’Tis a wee bit late to protest, I fear.”
“What do you mean?”
She heard only silence.
“Rab?”
In the torchlit yard, Jock Cranston nodded in reply to Dev’s lifted eyebrow.
“They were raiding, sir,” Jock said. “I sent two of our lads back toward the cut quiet-like, and they met three more of their party with four sheep and two cows that they’d lifted. The men wouldna tell me where they’d lifted them, but that’s what they’d done.”
“Aye, I learned as much myself,” Dev said.
“I’m going to leave you and Jem Keith here whilst I’m away, Jock.
Don’t stir coals with anyone, and don’t let Jem do so, either.
I just want you to keep an eye on things here.
Greenlaw, the steward, is a good man, as we know, but the best Gledstanes men-at-arms rode with Rab. ”
“Aye, and four o’ them was killed at Chesters when he was.”
“And then I gave leave to others to visit their families after we buried him,” Dev said. “If they have not reported back yet, send for them. Those Percys at Chesters got nowt from their ambush but the deaths of a few good men. But if they know who Rab was, they may now hope to seize Coklaw.”
“Aye, sir. Does Greenlaw know ye’re a-leaving me here?”
“No, but you need say only that I thought you might be useful to him. I shan’t be away long, but my father has as good as summoned me home, so something may be amiss. If it is aught to delay me, I’ll get word to you. Meantime, there is one other thing.”
“Her ladyship?” Jock said in a carefully even tone when Dev paused.
“Just so,” Dev replied.
“I did wonder, sir. Black Corby be gey finicky about who rides him.”
Just thinking of the danger she had flirted with on her mad raid made Dev’s blood run cold.
Grimly, he said, “You will keep such conjecture to yourself, I know, Jock, but you know her ladyship almost as well as I do. If you see her taking the bit between her teeth…” He paused, then added, “Keep a close eye on her.”
With an uneasy look, Jock said, “I’ll do me best, sir.”
“That is all I ask,” Dev said, knowing that where Robina was concerned, he could ask no more of any man, save himself. “I’m away then.”
Summoning his other men, he mounted and led them out of the yard. Heading westward to the nearest Slitrig Water ford, they wasted no time. Even so, it was two hours after midnight when they rode up the hill to Hawick’s stockade gates.
Shouting, “A Douglas!” Dev identified himself to the guards, and the town gates opened. The Douglas’s Black Tower loomed ahead on his right with only two faint lights above the ground floor. Torches lit the front entrance and the archway into the stableyard.
Dismounting in the yard, Dev turned his horse over to Pony Eckie, his equerry, and walked back around to the main entrance.
The porter admitted him, saying, “How many be wi’ ye, Sir David?”
“Seven to sleep inside,” Dev said. “I expect the Douglas is asleep by now, aye?”
“Aye, sure, sir. He doesna keep late hours. The chamber ye used when last ye was here be open for ye, if ye want it. Your men can sleep in the great hall.”
Thanking him, and telling him to send his squire up when he came in, Dev went on up to the cell-like room he had used many times before. It boasted only a cot with bedding, a washstand, and a straw pallet leaning against one wall.
The cot was uncomfortable, but he welcomed it.
He didn’t wait for his squire, Coll Stitchill, but divested himself of his weapons, boots, breeks, and jack. Then, in his shirt and netherstocks, he lay down and assumed that he would be asleep before Coll came in.
Instead, his thoughts drifted back to Robina.
She had seemed the same, as headstrong as ever and as sure of herself and her right to do as she pleased.
Now that he reviewed their meeting in his mind, something seemed awry, but he had no idea what it was.
It was not her fury. He had deserved that for several reasons.
He had seen her only briefly when he’d escorted Rab’s body home for burial, and he knew he had been a bit short with her then.
The last thing he’d wanted to do was to give her a clear picture of how Rab died.
That he had flung himself in front of Dev and two other men, engaged with opponents of their own, and had taken a blow likely meant for Dev, was something that he would tell her eventually though, because she deserved to know how heroically her twin had behaved.
At the time, she had greeted him stoically and without a tear, saying only, “This is your fault. You promised when you first took him from us that you would keep him safe.”
Her words had cut through him like so many knives, shredding him to his soul, because she was right.
He had made her that promise. He’d been a damned fool to say such a thing, but that was four years ago.
He had wielded authority over other men for only weeks then and, he knew now, had been dangerously cocksure of himself.
He would not make such a promise again to anyone. One could never predict what would happen in battle… or in life, come to that.
He heard the door open and Coll’s soft movements as he prepared for bed, but Dev kept his eyes shut.
Drifting, he was semiconscious when a stray thought brought him fully awake again.
What had struck him as awry earlier was that, except for that catch in her voice the first time she had said Rab’s name that night, she had shown none of the lingering grief that one might expect.
Nor, and even odder, had she shown much surprise, grief, or other emotion the day he’d told her that Rab was dead.
She had simply looked at him and said, “I know he is.”
That was also when she had said it was all Dev’s fault.
He had never heard that she had what Highlanders called “the Sight.” So how, he wondered, could she have known of Rab’s death before he’d told her?
He had heard of mothers knowing that their sons had died before word reached them.
He had never heard of a sister who had. However, Robby also knew that Rab had died in his arms, although he could not recall telling her so. Perhaps twins were different.
That was the last thought he had before Coll woke him soon after dawn to tell him that the Douglas would see him as soon as Dev had broken his fast.
The next thing Robina knew, the bed curtains were rattling back and Corinne was bidding her a cheery good-day. The maidservant’s irrepressibly curly black hair stuck out as usual all around the edges of the white veil she wore, and her light sky-blue eyes twinkled when her gaze met Robina’s.
“Is it morning already?” Robina muttered, sleepily blinking. “I cannot have slept more than a few hours.”
“Aye, they told me what time ye got back,” Corinne said as she took a fresh, russet-brown wool kirtle from the nearby kist and shook it out. “What happened to yon door?”
“Never mind what happened to it,” Robina said. “It was my fault. Can you get one of the lads to fix it, so that I need not tell Greenlaw?”
“Aye, sure. Will ye get up the noo, or d’ye want me to go away again?”
“No, I’ll get up,” Robina said. “Did they tell you what beasts we brought back?”
“Two coos and four sheep, and one o’ the ewes be lambing soon, Shag said. And,” Corinne added with her cheeky grin, “there be two new menfolk in the yard as weel, mistress. One o’ them’s young, and a gey handsome chappie, too.”
“What?” Robina sat up. “What new men?”